He’s walked in and settled himself in a brown plastic chair against the wall, way behind the one I’m sitting in. He acts like it’s his personal chair.
He’s snortling and saying things about Alaska, trying to get my attention but I’m not giving it. I am not in the mood to amuse a strange man.
My granddaughter, 9-year-old Lexi, is getting her first Beauty Shop haircut.
She’s sitting transfixed in a high booster chair in the regular salon chair in front of a large mirror. The stylist, a sixty-something woman with slicked back long, long, long dragging reddish/gray hair, is snipping and snapping around Lexi with a sharp pair of silver scissors.
I’m thinking the stylist needs a haircut really badly.
The man in the back chair keeps nattering on. Lexi’s beautician, and the other one in the shop, largely ignore him.
Both ladies are methodically cutting, whacking, and curling their client’s tresses.
I’m yawning.
Three young boys walk in. The oldest asks if anyone can cut his and his brother’s hair.
“Just have a seat,” they’re told. “We’ll be with you shortly.”
The two youngest boys look like they are in early grade school. These two boys grab seats and the older one, about fifteen, sits next to me.
He looks part Asian. The other two don’t.
I’m wondering how this family got mixed and what might be their interesting story.
Lexi ignores the boys. She is too involved in her first real haircut and maybe too young to feel embarrassed by her wet straggly head of hair and her butt on a little’s kids booster seat.
Everybody’s quiet. Everybody except The Man In The Back Chair Against The Wall.
“My name’s Skeeter,” he says. “You sure have nice weather here. I’m from Alaska.”
The boys are very polite. They nod toward the man and acknowledge him.
The boy next to me says, “My name is Ronnie and my little brother’s are Ace and Cash.”
The client who is getting her hair curled is finished now. She’s about eighty and she leaves happily with a tall pile of red curls standing straight up off the top of her boney head.
Ace, who looks about six-years-old, is called by the other stylist to get in the vacant chair for his cut.
The woman asks if the boys are having a nice Christmas holiday.
They are.
Skeeter speaks up. “I wrote a book,” he says. “I got it right here.”
The boys turn towards him to look but I don’t. (more…)
