Between Old Friends

I felt the waxy goo before I saw it. Squinting, for a better look, I carefully separated the hair that grew from his temples, ordinarily bristling white, but now suspiciously black and tarry. Interrupting my cutting, I ventured, "Doug, what's all over your hair?" As I awaited his reply, I contemplated my long professional relationship with the man seated before me. I cut hair and work with hairpieces for a living. I design, install, and maintain them for fees far below those of large companies whose lavish infomercials are viewable following David Letterman's show. Doug was not typical of my clients. He favored a vanity I could not understand and fed it as cheaply as possible. His obsessive search for his lost youth was equaled only by the stinginess of his wallet. I had taken care of his hair needs for ten years since he was in his early forties, and not once had he tipped me or acknowledged his age. My patience with him ran thin, but I was about to experience something that would help my own dilemma of age and vanity regarding my life and my profession. Interrupting my reverie, I heard him mutter, "It's mascara." He kept glancing sideways at his wife who currently smelled of methane gas and sported a plastic bag on her head brimming with perm rods. "It's mascara," he repeated, "You know, for the gray..." I continued cutting, Cornish, p. 2 just shaking my head. Doug was the only client to whom I continually gave hairpieces near cost. He always looked as though the mangy matted mess upon his crown were some form of exotic roadkill. I rued the day his peers at the San Diego Courthouse might ask the name of his stylist. I practically gave him new pieces to wear so the look of my work would improve. "Doug, I have known you more than ten years." I stated the obvious and began my never ending discourse regarding his problems with growing older, his lousy self-image, as well as the horrible state of his hairpieces. I blabbed while he ignored and the cycle of ten years continued. Finally he stopped, sighed theatrically, and swallowed. "OK," he said," Order me a new one with gray in it, and I'll leave the mascara alone." My enthusiasm grew as I savored a breakthrough-and a sale. We arranged to meet the following week to pick the new color from nylon swatches I use. The night before our meeting, he called. A hushed identification left me wondering what was going on. Doug's hoarse and hurried whisper explained why we could not rendezvous as planned. His inlaws were in town, currently in the same room, hence the quiet voice he employed. He did not want them to know he wore a hairpiece. Right! A mutilated furry animal balanced precariously, for a hat and he sincerely believed nobody had a clue. The new date he suggested was not doable on my part, so he offered a solution. "Let's meet the same day and same time, 7:30 p.m., in front of the Taco Bell on Sweetwater." I glanced outside my window, it was 7:35, and the crisp winter night sky was black as Uncle Remus' Tar Baby. "It'll be dark, Doug," I protested. Not to mention potentially freezing. On second thought, even becoming a Popsicle was more appealing to me than the possibility of the local sheriff picking us up for hanging out in, Cornish, p.3 a big drug commerce area of Spring Valley. His plan of intrigue was growing less and less appealing. "C'mon," I pleaded, "Your in-laws already know!" "No!" he shout-whispered "They DON'T know. Just bring a flashlight. It'll be fine. Oh, and be sure to bring the least expensive samples you have." Looking forward to a meager sale, trying to match his hair to color swatches in the dark and making the two hour drive to a place that was Crack Central, I headed dejectedly to Spring Valley. Only the possibility that Doug had finally made a positive advance in his self-image therapy lifted my spirits. I arrived as directed and waited in the icy dark for him for 45 minutes. He never showed. A lioness on the hunt, I stalked by his vacant home ready for the kill. Finally capitulating to his unavailability, I made the long drive home and was met by his very apologetic taped message stating he had been detained in San Diego. He was contrite as Bill Clinton caught with a cigar in his mouth. I let my temper roll from a boil to a simmer while I dialed his number. I made demands regarding

payment, playing on his remorse for having inconvenienced me. He agreed to them. Then using the anonymity a phone affords, he grew bolder and told me to go ahead and order the same piece I had ordered for ten years: same color and same youthful pompadour style. Cheaply. He had decided to just dye his hair to match the pitch black thatch of his Wonder Years. Sighing in defeat, I let the phone find its way to the cradle. I later found myself staring into the bathroom mirror at the lines and folds which met at the corners of my mouth. I recalled my own struggles with the ravaging wake of age. I noted the gray starting its asymmetrical march through my hair. I thought of my life and its cruelties and Cornish, p 4 joys and lessons I had learned. I pondered a man so insecure at my same age as to want to meet in a scary parking lot at night to avoid facing Time. I decided my physical scars from age did nothing to make me less of a person. They made me more of a person. I continued reading my reflection then slipped into a silent prayer for Doug who's vanity was worse than a peacock's. I wondered at my profession, which served to enable people like him, but decided the extremity of his views would never be fueled by me. More secure in my Life lessons, I mentally filed my latest one. Reaching around with a yawn for sleep's respite, I flipped the light off and headed to bed.