A Gum Cut by EvertonCable

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TRUE STORY

Serra Talhada City, Pernambuco, Brazil

This is one of the oldest memories I have. It was 1998. I was 4 years old and my younger brother, Emerson, was 3. We were not in school at the time. Like all the brothers, we liked to do things together, but we also fought a lot. My mother always defended my brother while my father used to stay by my side. I was the most compliant and obedient of the two, which made me very close to my father.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and I had woken up early to watch TV. My brother and I liked watching different things, so my dad said we'd take turns choosing who to watch on Saturdays. That day I was sitting on the floor watching The Care Bears Family when my brother came into the room saying he wanted to watch something else. He tried to switch the channel, but I didn’t leave him. He started to scream. Our parents came and asked what was going on. I explained that it was my turn to watch TV and that it had been my brother's turn last week. "It's my turn this week," I said. My mother almost forced me to give my brother the turn when my father stepped in and said, "It is Everton’s turn to watch TV. If you want, Emerson, you can watch whatever he chooses or you can do something else." My brother went to the bedroom and I stayed watching TV.

Five minutes later, my brother returned to the room and stood behind me. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand and pushed his hand hard into the top of my head. I felt that he had put something there. Immediately I put my hand in that place and felt something wet and sticky in my hair. There was a large piece of chewing gum stuck in my hair. I called my father and he came in after asking what had happened. He saw the chewing gum in my head and asked "What happened here?", to which I replied "It was him", pointing to my brother. I have to say that here in Brazil, we had never heard of peanut butter, and the only way to take the chewing gum out of the hair we knew was to cut it.

My father explained the situation to my mother, who tried to defend my brother by saying that it was my fault. "You don’t even believe that," he said. He took me to the bathroom, picked up a pair of scissors and cut a good piece of my hair. He took a look at the hole in my hair, said that my brother would get beat, and drove me to the local barbershop. He explained the situation to the barber and sat next to me in the waiting area. I was upset about it and my dad could see the frustration on my face. 15 minutes later, it was my turn in the barber's chair. He picked up the clippers and putted a large piece of plastic on the blade. He ran the clippers on the top of my head. My hair was falling down and I could not hold the tears.

I remember I usually didn’t bother cutting short hair, but that time it was different. When the barber finished the top, he took a look at the gum hole and made a not very friendly face. He said "It looks like the #4 isn’t enough to hide it. It has to be shorter." My father said that the barber could cut my hair as short as he needed. The barber tried to pass another guard in my hair (#3), then switched to another (#2) and said "Well, Rick, you shouldn’t have cut his hair at home. You should have brought him here to get the gum out. You cut so deep into your son's hair that #2 is not enough to hide the hole."

With my back to the mirror, I could see that my father was not well with what the barber said. My father got up, approached the chair, said "Sorry, son" and gave me a hug. "What can you do to fix it?" He said looking at the barber. "I can try the # 1, but if it doesn’t work, just left the #0".

"Do it", my father said.

The barber shaved the whole of my head at # 1 and smiled saying, "The good news is that #1 was enough to disguise the hole. We don’t need to shave the boy's head at #0."

As far as I knew, it meant I still had some hair left, which was a relief in a way. The barber finished buzzing my head at # 1 and turned me to the mirror. I didn’t know what I felt at the moment. I had liked the cut, but the situation didn’t please me. I was sad that I had been forced to cut my hair. The barber called my father to talk and I sat in the waiting area. They talked about something I couldn’t hear. My father looked at me and asked the barber "Are you sure?"

The barber said, "I am."

My dad looked at me again, smiled and said, "OK, do it."

To my surprise, my father sat down in the barber's chair. He was facing the mirror. He looked hesitantly at me and gave a big smile, taking the hesitation off his face.

"Ready?" asked the barber.

"Ready" my father answered confidently. The same clipper with guard # 1 was carried to the top of my father's head. His blond strands were joining to my black strands. In a short time he had the same cut as me. Without knowing why I was smiling with my father.

"How do I look, son?"

I didn’t answer, I just ran to hug him. My father paid for my cut (the barber didn’t charge for his cut) and we went home. My brother took some good spankings and was punished without TV. The next week I was able to watch my shows again without my brother teasing me. I heard my father say that if that happened again, my brother would have his head fully shaved as punishment. Unfortunately for me, this never happened again. Too bad, I wanted to see how my brother would look bald.

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