Barber - fiction. by Chovanec

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Barber - fiction.
In 1973, before the beginning of the school year, I went with my father to buy new things for school. I was 12 years old and I wore my hair with the fashion trend of the time, so they covered my ears and reached over my shirt collar.
As we walked the stores, my father saw a new barber shop. In the shop window was announced: Best prices in town. You also need a haircut, my father told me and led me to the barbershop. I begged my father to go with my mom to my modern hairdresser, but my father insisted on getting my haircut at this barber shop.
The barber was an older gentleman, with short hair. There was an older man in his chair who was already before the cut. The barber handed his father a photo album to browse through what he liked. I was sitting on the waiting chair like on needles. I didn't feel good about this barber shop. Photographs of soldiers with short hairstyles hung on the walls. While I looked around the barber shop, the older man paid for the haircut and the barber exclaimed: Next. My father grabbed my hand and pointed at the barber's stool. I reluctantly moved into the barber's chair. The barber tossed the canvas over me and tightened it around his neck. He asked his father how he wanted him to cut me and whether he had chosen one of the photos in the album. Father pointing at one with photo. His father asked him where he had worked until now. The barber replied that he was a military barber and opened his own barber shop after retirement. The barber turned my chair away from the mirror with words to avoid distracting him from having long years of experience with new soldiers and starting to comb my hair. He leaned my head back and placed electric scissors on my forehead, which he gradually walked across the perimeter of my head and on the tarp and the ground dropped more than 15 centimeters of hair. I was sure my hair was short and my ears would be visible after many years, but I had no idea how short it really was. The barber brushed the remnants of the cut hair caught on the sail and I thought we were at the end of my scalping. But the barber took another shear electric scissors bent my head on my side and I could feel the metal teeth gradually rising from the cheek to the top of my head. The barber rotated with my head as needed and advanced toward the back of the head. I felt a slight tingling on my head as if it was massaging my head ..... But that was already my head tilted to the next side until the scissors were completely turned off. After brushing the remnants of tiny hair from the neck, the barber applied warm foam and carefully scraped the foam with a razor blade. Finally he wiped the remaining foam out of his head and made the last scissors. When the barber turned me toward the mirror, I opened my mouth from surprise and tears burst into my eyes. About 4 centimeters above the ears, only the white skin was visible and then from the smallest stubble to the centimeter hair at the top of the head. The barber stood behind me with a mirror to show me my head from the back, which was the same as her hips.
My father was enthusiastic about the low price of my military haircut, because he paid only half the price of my original hairdresser. But the shock was to me when the barber gave my father a card for 50% off his price if I came to cut it again in 3 weeks.
After leaving the barbershop we went through a few shops. Along the way, I could not help but notice how especially the young boys looked at me, and many of them were mocking my hair. I felt very embarrassed to see my best friend and his father on the road home from a distance. He did not even recognize me at first when I greeted his father and then him. He rolled his eyes. I knew my new hairstyle was terrible. His father, on the other hand, was delighted with what he saw on my head because he couldn't tolerate the hair of his sons for longer. My friend and brother fought very much with their father so that they could have their hair covered at least partially. Our fathers got into the debate and mine was willing to explain how we happened to find a new barber shop in town with low prices and discounts.

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