Three Centimetres: Another Part 2 by SteDJ

---

Following Sean Barnett’s excellent follow up to my story "Three Centimetres", here’s my alternative part 2:
____________

Months passed, and memories of the French summer holiday gradually faded. As a result of my encounter with Monsieur Laurent, the savage French barber of Bergerac (along with my father’s ineptitude with the French language) I returned to school in September with considerably less hair than I had left with six weeks earlier. The taunts and mickey taking were predictable, but with time my hair started to grow back and people no longer took any notice. At home, the subject of any further haircuts never came up, and I successfully avoided the barber’s chair for several months. By January 1980, the end of the Christmas holidays, my hair had grown considerably and was back in my eyes again, three inches over my collar and completely covering my ears. It was then that my dad dropped the bombshell.

"Stephen, you need a haircut. You’re back at school on Monday, so make sure you get it done by the end of this week. You’re old enough to go on your own, I’ll give you some money, so make sure you do so before the end of this week. Understood?"

"I suppose so…" This was not the news I wanted to hear; I think I had been put off haircuts for life after what had happened in France.

"There’s no ‘suppose’ about it," retorted my dad. "Just make sure it’s cut, and cut properly, before you go back to school. You need it out of your eyes and off your collar. Do I make myself clear?"

Friday came, and following another reminder from both my parents, I reluctantly made my way up to the shopping parade, and before long found myself sitting in the waiting area at Henri Michel Unisex Salon, the place my mum would usually take me and my sister Susan for haircuts. The place was busy with a large back-to-school clientele, and as I hadn’t made an appointment, I had quite a long wait. In a state of dejected misery, I sat there and watched as successive customers, boys and girls, lost varying amounts of hair to the salon floor, until at last I heard the words I always dreaded.

"Next please." A young lady called Debbie was standing next to the chair brandishing a striped brown nylon cape.

I was soon seated, covered and raised in the air, Debbie wet my hair down and following the predictable request for "Just a light trim", the scissors began to click away round my head and the hair began to fall. To be fair, compared to sitting in Monsieur Laurent’s chair, this was a breeze. There were no language barriers, Debbie stuck to the brief and I ended up losing very little, in fact I was hard pushed to tell I had had it cut at all. I was finished off with a blast of warm air from Debbie’s hairdryer as she performed what was known at the time as a ‘blow wave’, the chair was let down, the cape whipped off and I was done.

It was when I arrived back home that the trouble began. Dad was not happy.

"I thought I told you to get a proper haircut. I trusted you, with my money remember, to go on your own and get it done. Why have you disobeyed me?"

"I have had it cut…"

"Listen young man, when I said a proper haircut, I MEANT a PROPER HAIRCUT!!!"

"Oh come on Dad, it’s neat and tidy now, that’s more important than how long it is."

"DON’T ANSWER BACK!"

My temper now flaring, I slammed the living room door and stomped upstairs to my room, threw myself onto the bed and sulked. I had clearly upset my dad, and I started to feel fearful for what might happen next. I had a sneaky feeling that this was not the end of the story.

I was right. After about fifteen minutes, I was summoned downstairs again. This time, my Mum and my sister Susan had joined Dad in the living room.

"Right, Stephen, your mum and I have decided to give you a second chance to get a decent haircut. You can go now straight back to the hairdressers, and don’t come back until your hair is cut properly. Do you need me to write down how you’re to have it done?"

I hung my head, looked at the floor and muttered,

"No, I know you want them to make me look like a wally…"

"You look like a wally whether you have a haircut or not …" quipped Susan, using the vernacular of the day and a term of insult that was very common at the time.

"P*SS OFF SUSAN!" I yelled angrily, as I lashed out and slapped her hard across the face. Susan yelled out I think more in shock than pain, and quickly came back at me with an expertly placed and very painful kick to the shin.

"Children!!! STOP!!" shouted my Mum. "Stephen, there was no need for that. Now apologise to your sister!"

"She started it…"

"ENOUGH!!" Dad was now incandescent with rage. "First you disobey your parents, then you attack your younger sister. I think you’ve just earned yourself a bl**dy good haircut. Get your coat on and be ready to go out in two minutes. We’re off to Frank’s"

"Nooooo! Anything but Frank’s! Please Dad, Frank’s a total butcher, nobody gets their hair cut at Franks any more."

"Well you’re about to, so shut up, get your coat and stop whining."

Frank Nash’s barber’s was well known in the area for offering just the one haircut â€" a brutal short back and sides, and no self-respecting person under the age of seventy would make a habit of frequenting this battered old throwback to the 1950s.

"Oooh, is he going to the barbers?" asked Susan excitedly, suddenly appearing to forget all about just having been slapped in the face. "Can I come and watch again? Is he going to have all his hair cut off like he did in France?"

"No, you can’t and no I’m not…"

"Yes, Susan, you can. It won’t do him any harm to have an audience; it might make him think twice and realise that actions have consequences."

Once more, my mum tried to come to my defence.

"Don’t make him have it too short, love. He’s only fifteen…"

"His age has nothing to do with it, Margaret. He’ll get what he deserves, and that’s the end of it."

All too soon, we arrived at Frank’s, and my heart sank at the sight of a very old fashioned and very shabby looking red and white shop frontage. Lettering above the window almost spelled out ‘Frank’s Gentlemen’s Hairdressing’ (the ‘G’ of ‘Gentlemen’s’ was missing and the ‘D’ in ‘Hairdressing was making a bid for freedom) and a neon sign in the net curtained window proudly announced ‘Barber Open’. A display of antique haircutting implements along with some faded black and white pictures of men and boys with unfashionable haircuts completed the effect.

"Oh Dad, do we have to? Please, can’t I go back to my usual place? Please, pretty please?"

Dad said nothing, his face a picture of grim determination as he frogmarched me unceremoniously to the sound of a tinkling bell through the door and into Frank’s barber’s shop.

The inside of the shop was as shabby as the outside and appeared totally unoccupied. There were two ancient hydraulic barber chairs, one of which was stacked with towels and other paraphernalia and obviously not in regular use. The black and white chequered lino was almost worn through around the base of the chair, and there were heaps of unswept hair clippings liberally scattered all over the floor. A bewildering array of scissors, clippers and razors adorned the counter next to the basin ahead of the chair, above which was a tarnished mirror. A portable gas heater gently hissed away in the background creating a warm fuggy atmosphere that was mixed with scented aftershave and a hint of cigarette smoke so typical of old barber’s shops.

After a minute or so of us surveying the scene, a white-haired stick insect-like figure dressed in a blue nylon barber jacket with a pair of scissors in the top pocket who I assumed to be Frank emerged from the back room.

"I don’t do girls, you’ll have to go to Audrey’s over the road for a lady’s do," said Frank, eyeing Susan with distaste.

"It’s OK, it’s just him today," said my Dad, pushing me forward towards the chair.

"Yes, it’s my brother. He’s been naughty, so he needs to have all his hair cut off," smugly interjected Susan.

"Does he now? In that case, he’d better hop in the chair," replied Frank, turning the chair round to face me, its arms pointing at me in a most menacing way. "Come on, up you get, sunshine."

"So what’s he having?" asked Frank, picking up the bright blue nylon cape which was draped over the back of the chair and giving it a shake.

"Blitz it will you please. Down to the wood on the back and sides, and leave an inch or so on top, just enough to comb. Oh, and part it on the left."

I sat there dejectedly staring at my reflection in the mirror, now resigned to the inevitable, finally acknowledging that any argument would be totally futile. As the nylon sheet flew through the air, for the second time in as many hours I found myself wearing a barber cape, tightly tucked in at the neck.

Once the chair was raised up high in the air, it was clear that I was beyond the point of no return and that there was no escape.

As the barber took his scissors and comb out of his top pocket and combed my hair through, I could see Susan in the mirror following every move with morbid fascination.

"What does ‘down to the wood’ mean?" she enquired of my dad.

"Very short indeed," answered my dad with an smugly annoying tone of satisfaction in his voice.

"So like Kojak, then?"

"Only on the back and sides; we’re going to leave him a little bit on top."

"I think he should have it all down to the wood," suggested Susan, with an air of excited glee in her voice. "After all, he was very naughty." I could only sit and stare at her angrily in the mirror completely helpless as my hair begin to hit the cape in massive chunks.

I had expected the barber to attack me with the clippers first, as had happened in France, but perhaps I wasn’t having it so short this time. (Wishful thinking or what?) Frank worked quickly and the scissors, little more than a blur, snipped away noisily, making light work of reducing my hair down to little more than an inch all over. There were heaps of hair two or three inches long all over my shoulders and a huge pile in my lap between my knees as more and more of my blond locks fell victim to Frank’s sharp scissors. Finally, the snipping stopped, and seemingly satisfied with the extent of the destruction so far, Frank put the scissors back in his jacket pocket.
Thinking it was all over, I began to shuffle in the chair in anticipation of the cape being removed and I got my arms out to feel the results of the onslaught. Before I could touch my head though, I was curtly told to desist,

"Sit still and arms in, lad. We’re not done yet."

Frank then tightened the cape at the back, shoving it further into my shirt collar, making me feel like I was being strangled. It was then that I saw the machine from hell being lined up for a further cutting frenzy as the barber selected a huge pair of black and chrome hair clippers. Oh sh*t.

Frank grabbed my head and firmly thrust it forward, and chin to chest I sat there and waited…

"Down to the wood you say?" My dad nodded, and I sat there waiting for the action to resume.

I didn’t have long to wait as the humming clippers dug in and started their journey up the back of my neck. The metal felt cold and sharp and the vibration permeated my entire body and made me shiver. Smaller bundles of hair fell as Frank deftly worked the clippers through the inch long hair on the back and sides of my head. The old barber's iron grip roughly manoeuvered my head left and right and the clipper cable flailed around over my lap disturbing the piles of accumulated hair, sending them down to the floor at my feet. Eventually, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and my blood ran cold as I saw nothing but white skin round my ears; I guessed it would be safe to assume that the back had also been stripped to the same extent, but as yet I couldn’t tell for sure. It was even shorter than I had had it cut in France, if that was possible. After a couple of minutes of clipping, the barber switched off the clippers and replaced them on their hook.

Thinking this ordeal must surely be over by now, I waited for Frank to release me from the chair. But no, the torture continued as he daubed copious quantities of shaving foam around the back and sides of my head before shaving round my hairline with a cut throat razor.

"Oil or Vaseline?" I started to answer "neither", but my dad got there before me.

"Whichever you think best."

"Vaseline it is then. It’ll keep his hair in place more firmly and he won’t be able to wash it out so easily."

With that, Frank rubbed a dollop of the revolting grease between his hands before massaging it into the remains of my hair and creating a sharp side parting and perfect rows with his comb.

"Will that be OK or would you like any more off?" asked Frank.

"That will do fine, very smart, thank you very much," replied my dad.

"He’s got trois centimetres again," giggled Susan.

"Watch it, young lady or you'll be next," joked my dad.

Finally, the chair was lowered, the hair-laden cape dragged off me and I was liberated from the throne of torture. I was horrified to feel the back and sides shaved smooth, contrasting with the stiff greasy hair like a cap on top of my head.

"I recommend he comes back for a trim every three weeks to keep it in shape," helpfully suggested Frank. I just pulled a face of disapproval and exited the shop as quickly as my feet would carry me.

Out in the street, I immediately felt a cold chill around my neck, and pulled the hood of my coat up over my head. Once home, I ran straight up to my room, and staring into the mirror from every angle, I tried to persuade myself, but to no avail, that my haircut was in fact not so bad. It would take a few more years before this would be anything like my haircut of choice, but that’s a story for another day.

The end.

---