Kevin's Hard Learned Lesson by Deke Cutter

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Kevin and his father had always gone to the barbershop together. Mario’s was only a couple of blocks from their neat suburban home. They had the same brown hair, and both had received similar "regular" haircuts as long as Kevin could remember. Kevin’s two buddies, Neil and Donnie both went there too, everybody in the neighborhood did. Two years ago, when Kevin turned 14, he started to develop an interest in cars and motorcycles. At first, his parents thought that this was a harmless thing. In fact, his dad liked the idea of Kevin learning how to take care of simple repairs on an automobile. But then his mother noticed that he was starting to associate with some of the less desirable older boys who lived on the other side of the road to the beach. She called them "hoods." Some of their classmates called them "greasers," because of their longer greased back hair, sometimes with a "DA" (short for "duck’s ass") in the back, and a swooped back forelock that was usually several inches long. It was about this time that Kevin came up with excuses for not going with his dad for their monthly haircuts.

His father and he sat down and discussed it one night and they agreed that Kevin could have some more leeway over his appearance, but he needed to keep his hair neat and clean, no dirt under his fingernails. His father also reminded him that his grades could not suffer. "I don’t want you forgetting your old friends either. I better see you with Neal and Donnie sometimes. They are good guys and I want you to remember that."

"I’m still friends with them dad. It’s just that my new friends are a bit older and more mature so, it is not always convenient to see them all at the same time."

"Well, just you go up to your room and think about how ‘convenient’ it was," (his dad said with as much sarcasm as he could muster), "when those boys visited you every day when you had your appendix out and how their mom’s cooked us meals when your mother had to go to Pittsburgh for three weeks when Aunt Joanie was sick." Kevin stomped up to his room, grumbling slightly to himself.

Matters seemed to move along over the next year. Kevin grew his hair out into more of a style somewhat like Bobby Rydell or Johnny Rivers had just before the British invasion caused them to get on the longer hair ‘dry look band wagon. Kevin did make a little time for his old friends who he always felt comfortable with, even though they teased him mercilessly about his hair. Either Neal or Donnie would start singing the 77 Sunset Strip ode to Edd Byrnes’ character, "Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb" every time Kevin took out his comb to spruce up his locks. His two friends, though, were a bit concerned about Kevin. They knew that the greaser crowd smoked cigarettes, had parties where they drank beer and not just on weekends. Most of those kids cut classes and weren’t on a college track anyway.

It turned out Kevin’s buddies were right to be concerned. His new friends taught him some clever tricks of how to slick his hair and get it to look shorter when he was around his parents. Then they showed him which breath mints would disguise cigarette smoke. But what he couldn’t hide were the half-term warnings about his performance decline. He had a good story prepared for when he got home from school that day. It was all going to be his teachers’ fault. But when he got home, he saw his father’s car in the driveway an hour early. They were both sitting at the kitchen table. "We’ve had your English teacher and your math teacher on the phone today to tell us how your performance has tanked, Kevin. These are two subjects you have always had straight A’s in. Mrs. Williams says you don’t even try to complete your assignments. As if two ‘failure notices’ weren’t bad enough, Mr. Price says had your gym teacher with him. He wanted to talk to us too. He wanted us to know that he’s seen you outside smoking cigarettes with those hoodlum friends of yours and that when you do remember your gym clothes, you’re like a girl primping and combing that hair. I swear son, I have never spanked you before, but I am so close that it is taking me all my forbearance not to . Now get out in the car and I don’t want to hear a word out of you unless I tell you to speak."

Kevin was shaking in his engineer boots, part of the "look" he had adopted to look cool. His father got into the car.

"Dad…"

"What did I tell you? Keep it shut!"

Kevin had never seen his father so angry. His father drove him first past the police station and for a horrible moment, Kevin thought his father was going to take him inside and get him placed in Juvenile Hall, but his father just slowed long enough to put the fear into him. Next, he drove past their church, and said to Kevin, "you better be saying your prayers". Finally, he started heading toward home and Kevin started to relax, until he saw his father pass their street and pull up in front of Mario’s Barber Shop. "You will go in there and when it is your turn you will sit in that chair. I will tell Mario how to cut your hair. There will be no complaints, no back talk, you will take this like a man. When Mario is done, you will thank him. "The only acceptable answer to what I have said is "yes sir."

"Yes sir."
At least Kevin was spared the embarrassment of any other customers being in the shop. Even the other two barbers were gone for the day. "Here he is Mario, I’ll pay extra if you need to wash that grease out first."

"Come back here in the corner Kevin and bend your head over this sink."

Kevin had seen one or two men get their hair washed back in that corner and always wondered why they didn’t wash their hair at home. Now here he was with Mario pushing his head down further and using that hose thing to wet his hair. "Oh boy that ‘Fitch’s shampoo’ smells like Great Uncle Ivan", Kevin thought. "Boy, Mario is being rough. Dad must have told him. Whew, at least he’s rinsing that stuff out now."

"OK Kevin, I’ll just dry your hair with this towel and then we can go back to the chair." Mario vigorously dried Kevin’s hair with the towel. "So, this is why you had the other barbers cut your hair, huh?" Mario said, as he combed out Kevin’s hair and saw its full length. "My goodness, Mr. Riordan, you brought him in just in time or we would have had to send him over to Bette’s Beauty Box to have this hair put up in curlers."

"No curlers needed now Mario and no more grease. You know what to do," Kevin’s father responded." Back to the old regime. Mario then parted Kevin’s hair on the left side, as he had worn it most of his life. Then, the shears came out of the pocket of Mario’s smock,, and he began cutting the hair that covered Kevin’s ears and grew down toward his shirt collar. He continued the bulk removal on the right side, leaving only the long forelock for the time being. Then Kevin heard the sound he had been dreading, the buzzing of the clippers, as they began their journey up his left cheek, starting to obliterate his carefully sculpted sideburn and started the tapering of hair on the side of his head, leaving only an inch of hair length below the part line. Mario continued to taper around Kevin’s head. Mario then put down the clippers and picked up his shears and comb. He sprayed the long bangs hanging down into Kevin’s eyes and nearly reaching his nose. Then with three snips he had recreated the angled bangs that had been part of Kevin’s "regular" haircuts for most of his life. Next came the reduction of the length and bulk of the remaining longer hair on top of Kevin’s head.

Kevin sat in stunned silence. He was at once furious, and despondent. The anger was over the loss of the hair that was a symbol of his being able to identify with the friends he had made, but with it was the despair that he felt at knowing that his father was not finished punishing him. It was so unfair. He still had weeks to get his grades up. And anyway, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go to college anymore. None of his greaser friends were headed to college and they weren’t worried. While he was lost in his thoughts, Mario had completed cutting his hair and was speaking to him.

"O.K. Kevin, keep your head still, while I clean up the sides and your neckline, Mario repeated.

"Yes sir," Kevin answered, when he saw his father glowering at him.

Mario removed any trace of his sideburns and made sure he had nice half moons around each ear. His tapered neckline looked just like his father’s. Kevin was relieved that Mario spared him the indignity of asking if he wanted it wet or dry and simply dry combed his hair into place. Remembering his father’s words to him in the car, as Mario removed the cape, Kevin stood and said, "thank you for the haircut, Mario," as the barber brushed him down. They shook hands. His father paid Mario and they left the shop.


Driving home, his father lowered the boom. "You are, of course, grounded, until those grades improve. You may, with permission from your mother and me, see Donnie and Neal at our home or one of theirs, as long as a parent is home. We will be checking your homework and you are to show us your tests when you receive the grades for the remainder of this marking period. You will dress appropriately. Your mother will have sorted out your clothes while we were at Marios. Stay away from those hoodlums at school, is that understood?"

Silence

"IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?"

"Yes sir."

When Kevin got home, he went to his room and found that his closets and drawers had been cleared of anything but clothes that would make him look like "a square." As he was looking in the mirror on his dresser, his father walked in and told him to "take off those boots." He did and his father took them away. "It’s penny loafers or your black lace up shoes for school from now on." His father said. Come down for dinner in 10 minutes."

The next week was a miserable one for Kevin. He had to stay away from his greaser friends because his parents were "smell-testing" his clothes when he got home to see if he smelled like cigarettes. He was buckling down on his homework. They didn’t even let him watch more than an hour of TV. At least Donnie and Neal were letting him eat lunch with them at school. But other than that, things were awful. Thursday, his dad told him that he had a math tutor coming on Saturday morning so Kevin should be up and dressed at 9:00 AM. Kevin gave his father a sour look and said "FINE."

His father said, "excuse me?"

"I said, fine It’s just another thing I’ll hate, like I hate this stupid haircut and…"

"Oh, you hate your haircut, Mr. Smart Alec? Well, I hate that smart mouth, get upstairs." Kevin had never seen his father move across the room so fast. He practically carried Kevin up the stairs. Pull those trousers and underpants down and grab the seat of that chair." Swat, swat, swat swat. Kevin had never been spanked by his parents before. His dad’s belt across his bottom thus hurt and shocked him. The tears were flowing by the second swat. With the fifth and final swat, his father said, "Kevin, this attitude has to change. Do you know your mother cried herself to sleep when those teachers called us and every time you have come home this week without speaking to us? Son, it is up to you to earn your privileges back. Now pull those pants up and wash your face and meet me downstairs."

Kevin came downstairs and his father said, "we are going for a little walk son." They walked down to the corner of their street, turned left, walked another block, turned right and soon found themselves back at Mario’s Barbershop. "In you go son, we are going to take care of that haircut you hate."

"Well, I didn’t expect to see you gentlemen again so soon. Are you here for a trim, Mr. Riordan?"

"No Mario, it’s Kevin again. He is still learning the consequences of his words. He complained about his haircut in a very nasty tone, so I thought that since he didn’t like the last haircut, all we could do is get him another shorter one, so let’s get him a nice crewcut this time. He may decide that he likes a regular cut just fine after having a crewcut for a while." Kevin sat gingerly in the barber chair, his bottom still sore from his father’s belt. Mario quickly got Kevin caped up and as he did so, Kevin’s father said, "go with a Number 2, leaving about three quarters of an inch in the front and taper it down on the sides and back. And can you keep that angled look right down in the front?"

"Sure thing, Mr. Riordan, that will look nice and clean cut. A little Butch Wax for special occasions or just natural, either way a nice young fellow’s cut." Since Kevin’s hair was already quite short, the clippers were able to recut his hair into the shorter style quickly. The tapering of the sides and trimming the front took a bit longer. Of course, his father asked for the Butch Wax to be applied so that Kevin ‘could see how to do it.’ Mario made sure Kevin left with a stick of it and a round butch comb.

Walking home, his father said. "Kevin, you may hate me right now, but I am doing this for your own good. Son, you have to be ready for the future and if you get off track now, you may never get back on. So, let’s try it my way for a while."

Somewhere in Kevin’s brain, a light went on and he thought to himself that perhaps the old man was right. He never wanted to feel that belt again and he really wanted to grow some hair again someday, so maybe doing it dad’s way was worth a try. Friday, at school, he didn’t get to see Donnie and Neal until lunch period. He saw them up ahead of him and he walked up between them and said, "well boys, it’s a new version of the old me and I’m back. Thanks for waiting."

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