still consider safety pins to be a fashion accessory. The people who live around here tend to favor black leather, studs, and Mohawks. While people from Omaha may come to Astor Place and think,
Gosh, now these must be what you call the ‘hip’ people
, Manhattanites view the residents of this area more correctly as heroin addicts who have aged poorly and are stuck in the past. The Astor Place barbershop itself was here long before Astor Place was cool, in any decade. And Daphnia was probably herefor opening day. Jacob Astor himself likely pinched her ass after she trimmed his mustache.
Daphnia looks like Sophia Loren after some decades of terrible luck. The same raven-colored hair, teased high into a dome. But Daphnia’s hair is dented at the top, as though she banged her head on the shelf where she keeps her combs and clippers. Daphnia has a similar beauty but ignores it. Although this time her eyeliner wasn’t smeared, so maybe she was having an okay day. I sat down in her chair and took off my baseball cap, and she said, “Same thing?” and I said, “Yeah, same thing.”
Same thing
being short on the sides, flat on top, natural in the back. I hate that line they give you in the back, the one that goes straight across, dumbing down the haircut. It’s so technical college.
She zooms the clippers over my hair as usual. But then she does something she’s never done before: she buzzes all over my ears, even the lobes, and way,
way
down my neck.
And I’m thinking,
This is really bad. It’s starting. The hair where you don’t want it
. That’s when I noticed how shiny my head looked, like a baby crowning. My balding skull saying
“Here I come
” through the ever-thinning hairs on top.
And this, despite the fact that I drench my scalp with Rogaine every time I stand in front of a mirror (about two dozen times a day). The Rogaine makes my scalp itch madly, which is probably my genetic material mutating. So when I’m forty-six, I’ll have to have my cancerous scalp removed and replaced with hip tissue.
Women just smirk at baldness, as if it’s cute. How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both tits just shrunk up—unevenly I might add—and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs. Then it would be a different story. Then men would get the pity they deserve from women, as opposed to the smirks. There would be little ribbons you could wear on your jacket for Baldness Awareness Month. There would be marathons where people wept openly as bald men crossed the finish line, smiling and wiping sweat from their fleshy heads.
As far as I’m concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer, only much worse because almost everyone gets it. True, it’s not lifethreatening. Just social-life threatening. But in New York City, there is no difference.
Now if I had thick Italian hair, as opposed to this crappy, vague Nordic hair, I would probably just buzz it off like the rest of the fags. And I wouldn’t care, because then it would be by choice. So I’m thinking maybe I should just get my head tattooed to look like very short stubble. Nobody would know unless they got very close to me. And my intimacy issues prevent that.
“You okay?” Daphnia asked while she was brushing my neck and ears with her whisk broom.
“Yeah, I’m just annoyed by how fast I’m losing my hair.”
She laughed. “Is fact of life for the man.”
I scowled and looked at her breasts.
Then I went home to write terrible ad scripts for an awful new product. I was recently teamed up with an art director whom I privately refer to as Dim, as in “Look, Dim forgot to wear shoes today!” He’s the sweetest guy, and he has absolutely no annoying attitude. On the other hand, he’s difficult to work with because things like space distract him. The other day I caught him sitting in his chair looking up, then all around, as though for a fly. Then he fixed his gaze on the wall, cocking his head
Gosh, now these must be what you call the ‘hip’ people
, Manhattanites view the residents of this area more correctly as heroin addicts who have aged poorly and are stuck in the past. The Astor Place barbershop itself was here long before Astor Place was cool, in any decade. And Daphnia was probably herefor opening day. Jacob Astor himself likely pinched her ass after she trimmed his mustache.
Daphnia looks like Sophia Loren after some decades of terrible luck. The same raven-colored hair, teased high into a dome. But Daphnia’s hair is dented at the top, as though she banged her head on the shelf where she keeps her combs and clippers. Daphnia has a similar beauty but ignores it. Although this time her eyeliner wasn’t smeared, so maybe she was having an okay day. I sat down in her chair and took off my baseball cap, and she said, “Same thing?” and I said, “Yeah, same thing.”
Same thing
being short on the sides, flat on top, natural in the back. I hate that line they give you in the back, the one that goes straight across, dumbing down the haircut. It’s so technical college.
She zooms the clippers over my hair as usual. But then she does something she’s never done before: she buzzes all over my ears, even the lobes, and way,
way
down my neck.
And I’m thinking,
This is really bad. It’s starting. The hair where you don’t want it
. That’s when I noticed how shiny my head looked, like a baby crowning. My balding skull saying
“Here I come
” through the ever-thinning hairs on top.
And this, despite the fact that I drench my scalp with Rogaine every time I stand in front of a mirror (about two dozen times a day). The Rogaine makes my scalp itch madly, which is probably my genetic material mutating. So when I’m forty-six, I’ll have to have my cancerous scalp removed and replaced with hip tissue.
Women just smirk at baldness, as if it’s cute. How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both tits just shrunk up—unevenly I might add—and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs. Then it would be a different story. Then men would get the pity they deserve from women, as opposed to the smirks. There would be little ribbons you could wear on your jacket for Baldness Awareness Month. There would be marathons where people wept openly as bald men crossed the finish line, smiling and wiping sweat from their fleshy heads.
As far as I’m concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer, only much worse because almost everyone gets it. True, it’s not lifethreatening. Just social-life threatening. But in New York City, there is no difference.
Now if I had thick Italian hair, as opposed to this crappy, vague Nordic hair, I would probably just buzz it off like the rest of the fags. And I wouldn’t care, because then it would be by choice. So I’m thinking maybe I should just get my head tattooed to look like very short stubble. Nobody would know unless they got very close to me. And my intimacy issues prevent that.
“You okay?” Daphnia asked while she was brushing my neck and ears with her whisk broom.
“Yeah, I’m just annoyed by how fast I’m losing my hair.”
She laughed. “Is fact of life for the man.”
I scowled and looked at her breasts.
Then I went home to write terrible ad scripts for an awful new product. I was recently teamed up with an art director whom I privately refer to as Dim, as in “Look, Dim forgot to wear shoes today!” He’s the sweetest guy, and he has absolutely no annoying attitude. On the other hand, he’s difficult to work with because things like space distract him. The other day I caught him sitting in his chair looking up, then all around, as though for a fly. Then he fixed his gaze on the wall, cocking his head
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