Take Plenty Off by SteDJ

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I stood there transfixed, my emotions a fascinated mixture of awe and horror, as the barber dragged the clippers back across the teenage kid’s head. A massive clump of mousy brown hair quickly built up around the teeth of the clippers before tumbling down the back of his head and landing in a lifeless heap on the tiled floor. I had never seen anything like it, as pass after pass, the boy’s mop of hair was quickly reduced to a fine stubble across the top of his head. As a kid, I had only ever had the clippers on the back and sides of my head and never envisaged that they could be ever be used to annihilate the hair on top as well. I felt a stirring in my groin, and worried that anyone might notice, I did my best to hide any visible evidence of my excitement by holding my backpack in front of me.

"Are you getting this bus or not?" I was suddenly brought to my senses by the man in the queue behind me as the line began to shuffle forwards.

Romano’s Gents’ Hairdresser was directly opposite the bus stop, and I would often stand and stare at the unfolding action inside whilst waiting for my bus home after my customary Saturday morning wander round town.

Romano’s had been there for years, and was a slightly shabby no-nonsense establishment, and snobbish though it may sound to say it, the place was frequented predominantly by the more working class elements of society. It was highly fortuitous that the large plate glass window had no curtains or blinds to obstruct the view of the clientele inside losing their locks. Many of these were elderly men but there was the occasional younger customer, often dragged in by his mother against his will for a good scalping. The fact that there was a teenager of about 16 years old in there today getting his head clippered, and seemingly voluntarily at that, was quite unusual, and to be honest, quite exciting to witness. The small team of white coated barbers appeared to specialise in traditional short haircuts, and it was obviously not the place to go if you wanted a fashionable ‘cut and blow wave’ as was the norm in the posher often unisex places of the early 80s.

It was one of those sorts of fashionable unisex places that I would frequent, a place on the local shopping parade that went under the name of Aquarius Unisex Hair Design, where I would invariably leave with a medium length centre-parted cut, halfway over my ears and brushing my collar at the back â€" all in all, very typical for the 17-year-old that I was in 1981.

Years before, as a youngster, I had been dragged kicking and screaming by my dad to Alec’s Gents’ Hairdressing Saloon where I would invariably be given a brutal short back and sides. Those experiences resulted in me absolutely hating haircuts, and as a result I would do anything to try to avoid ending up in the barber’s chair. As time passed though, I started to develop a fascination for everything to do with haircuts, and even though I never admitted it to my parents, I began to look forward to my trips to the barber. The more treatments and experiences in the chair that I could have the better, which was why I started going to the salon, where I experienced indescribable feelings of intense pleasure in having my hair washed and blow dried as well as trimmed.  

Things had moved full circle though, and that night in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had seen in Romano’s, and continually fantasised about what it would be like to be in that kid’s position. The salon no longer held the same fascination; I really wanted a strict old-fashioned barber to give me a good scalping like the young lad had received in Romano’s earlier that day. There was, of course, a massive problem with fulfilling this burning desire, as coming from a respectable middle class family, a skinhead haircut would have been socially inappropriate to say the least. "Nice" kids had a haircut like mine, nothing too extreme, not too long and certainly not too short.

A couple of weeks passed. I hadn’t been able to get Romano’s out of my head, and I kept trying to work out how I could enjoy the thrill of getting a haircut there instead of at the salon, all the time whilst not drawing too much attention to myself with the finished result. Fortunately, my mum unwittingly came to the rescue.

"I’m just going to call Aquarius to make myself an appointment for a cut and blow dry on Saturday morning. You look like you could do with a trim as well, Stephen. I’ll make you an appointment as well, OK?"

"Errr, no, you’re OK, Mum. I’m going in town on Saturday. I might pop in somewhere there and have it done, so don’t worry."

"OK, it’s up to you, but it is starting to look very scruffy. I don’t mind where you have it done, but we’re not having you wandering round looking like a tramp. Your appearance reflects on us as parents, you know, and as long as you live under this roof…"   

My mum continued with her frequently repeated mantra about my often scruffy appearance, but I tuned out, satisfied and excited that my journey to Romano’s had just begun.  
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My mouth had gone dry and I felt just a little breathless as I approached the bus stop. Normally, that alone would not have been a reason for feeling the way I did, but today was different. As I got closer to the bus stop, across the road I could see the revolving red and white pole of Romano’s, and before too long, the red lettering of the signboard above the big plate glass window came into view proudly proclaiming "Romano’s Gents’ Hairdresser." I crossed over the road, slowed down, and apprehension gripping me, I began to wonder whether this mad plan was in fact that; totally mad. I got level with the shop window and paused to look in: the shop was crowded with the usual mix of clientele. Three of the four chairs were occupied and there were five people waiting, including two young teenage kids accompanied by whom I assumed to be their mothers.

"After you, young man,"

I jumped, taken by surprise. What I hadn’t noticed was one of the white-coated barbers standing outside the shop just finishing a cigarette. Putting out the cigarette with the heel of his shoe against the pavement, he held the door open for me and gestured for me to go inside.

"Errr, thank you, errr…."

It was too late to run, I was committed. I entered the shop to be met with a wall of cigarette smoke and the strong smell of some kind of sterilising fluid so typical of old barber shops. The atmosphere took me straight back to my childhood and my unwanted visits to Alec’s. This time though, for some inexplicable reason, I was here of my own accord and I found it all rather exciting. The barber followed me into the shop and closed the door behind him. He had obviously been taking a quick break between customers, but I have no idea why he felt the need to go outside to smoke; it seemed that smoking inside was perfectly acceptable if not encouraged. This was the 1980s after all, and smoking bans were the stuff of the future.

"Take a seat, lad, shouldn’t be too long," said the barber, welcoming his next elderly victim to the chair and quickly shrouding him in a red nylon haircut gown.

I gingerly sat down on the red vinyl waiting bench and took in my surroundings. The small room was dominated by four substantial metal framed barber chairs with black leather upholstery. Each chair had a round metal pedestal base, a pedal to adjust the height and a footrest at the front. The floor surrounding each chair was scattered with heaps of cut hair, which grew in size with every snip from the barbers as more and more hair slipped down the customers’ red capes and hit the ground. There was some serious cutting going on, and the noise of busily snipping scissors and loudly humming clippers dominated the shop. The cutting was concerted and determined, and the barbers appeared to be the kinds who took no prisoners. Opposite each chair was a big mirror, beneath which was a white basin and a selection of scissors, clippers and other various haircutting equipment. At least two of the four white coated barbers were Italian, and chatted away noisily to each other in their own language; heavens knows what they were talking about.

As to the other customers on the waiting bench, it would be fair to say they were the kinds of people that my middle class parents would probably have strongly disapproved of. The two scruffily dressed teenage boys were noisily chewing gum, and their mothers were engaged in conversation liberally peppered with swear words. The two remaining customers on the waiting bench were elderly men, dressed in flat caps, and smoking as if their lives depended on it. One of them had his head buried in a dog-eared copy of the Daily Mirror newspaper and was randomly quoting statistics from the horse racing pages to his disinterested mate. All in all, this place was as different from the Aquarius Salon as it was possible to be, and I soon felt very uncomfortable and totally out of place. As I flicked through the pages of an old car magazine, I seriously contemplated getting up to leave.

"Next please!"

I looked up from my magazine to see one of the two lads heading for the empty barber chair. In no time, he was shrouded in a creased red cape and elevated skywards. He stared straight ahead into the mirror, his fringe in his eyes with an air of complete boredom and indifference, clearly familiar with the routine.

"What’s he having Mama? Crew cut like-a usual?" enquired the boy’s barber in a heavy Italian accent, already brandishing a set of humming clippers.

"Yeah, blitz it all off will ya love. Might as well ‘ave me bl**dy value for money, eh?" The boy’s mother then cackled like a hen before lighting a cigarette, inhaling deeply and blowing a lungful of smoke up towards the nicotine-stained ceiling of the shop.

Wow, I couldn’t believe my luck. Another crew cut. I put the magazine down and leaned forward on the bench to take in the unfolding spectacle. As the clippers ploughed their way through the boy’s hair, massive chunks tumbled down all over his cape and the floor, and once again I felt a stirring in my groin. In what seemed no time, less than half an inch of hair remained on the lad’s head and the cut was done. The second lad was quickly dealt with in just the same way, and as they left the shop, I was one of just two people left sitting on the waiting bench. I was in a state of full arousal wondering firstly if I had the guts to go through with this, and secondly if I would be able to get to the chair without the activity in my trousers being noticed…

"Next please!"

Oh well, here goes. I stood up, hung my coat up on the coat rack and slowly and cautiously made my way across to the vacant chair, casually shielding my crotch area with my hands. It seemed I was getting one of the English barbers rather than one of his Italian colleagues.

"I haven’t got all day!!" he shouted, shaking the red nylon cape impatiently, standing with one foot on the height adjustment pedal of the chair. "Come on sunshine, in you get."

I stepped on the footrest and eased myself up onto the black leather cushion. Looking in the mirror, it was obvious to anyone that I needed a haircut, but would I have the guts to ask for a crew cut? A large piece of white tissue was roughly shoved into my neck, swiftly followed by the tatty frayed red nylon cape. I was slightly repulsed to see bits of hair from its previous wearer still sticking in the fibres of the shiny fabric. The barber wasted no time in grabbing the clippers, shoving my head forward and jacking the chair up seemingly all at once; he was clearly a great multi-tasker, but was he going to ask me what I wanted? I decided to intervene, but what I said wasn’t quite what I intended. Somehow it just slipped out.

"Can you just give it a good trim, please?"

I instantly regretted my choice of words. I had bottled out. Damn.

"A good trim?"

"Yes, take plenty off."

"Plenty off?"

"Yes please."

"Not been here before, have you?"

He obviously realised that I didn’t really fit in with the socio-economic profile of this place and presumably wondered what a "posh kid" like me was doing here.

"Err, no."

"Didn’t think so."

Take plenty off? What on earth did I mean by that? I sat there totally bemused as to what would happen next.

"Keep your head down," instructed the barber, as with one hand he gripped the top of my head while using the other hand to plunge the humming clippers into the long hair on the back of my neck. The tone of the clippers changed to a deep growl as they fought their way up through the thick blond tresses, and I could feel the hungry monsters making repeated passes high up the back of my head.

My initial reaction was one of blind panic, but it didn’t take long for me to relax and to begin to thoroughly enjoy the experience. The sides were the next to go, and I swooned with delight as the barber brutally shoved my head first to the left, then the right, folding each ear down in turn and mowing off everything the clippers could get to. I was left with little more than fuzz on the sides, and presumably the back as well, which combined with losing my sideboards was the equivalent of being skinned in the 1980s.

I marvelled at the heaps of hair that were rapidly transferred from my head to my cape as the barber put the clippers away and began a determined onslaught with the scissors. How much hair can one person lose? The clean sharp snip-snipping sound of the scissors was soon replaced by the crunching of the thinning shears as yet more hair tumbled down before my eyes and added to the massive mounds that had built up down my front and in my lap. I was just glad I was wearing a cape, not only to keep all the hair off my clothes, but also to hide what was going on in my trousers.

All too soon, the barber was into the final stages of the cut as my neck was dusted with powder, I was brushed down and the cape was slackened in readiness for my exit from the chair.

So, what had he done to me? Well, it wasn’t a crew cut, but he had certainly taken plenty off to say the least, and my head felt oddly light. Glancing in the hand mirror, I saw that I was left with no more than half an inch, severely tapered into my neck and sides, and just enough to comb on top, probably about an inch and a half. I have to say it was shocking, but thrilling at the same time and I rather liked it, especially when I got my hand out from under the cape and ran it up my neck; the feeling of millions of tiny bristles was electrifying. The only disappointment was that the whole experience was over so quickly; I must have been in and out of the chair in less than fifteen minutes. I could have sat there all day.

"Thank you, that’s fine."

The cape was whipped off me spilling a mound of my hair onto the floor to join the rest of the morning’s detritus, the chair let down and a piece of tissue thrust into my hand. I quickly grabbed my coat from the rack, paid the barber and in a state of heady delirium stepped out into the fresh air of the street to contemplate what would happen next and how my parents would react.
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It didn’t take a genius to predict what they would say. On clapping eyes on my new look, my mum especially was apoplectic,

"What on earth have you done to your hair? What on earth possessed you to get it all cut off? You used to complain about just getting the ends trimmed… but now this! You look like a convict! What on earth are the rest of the family going to say?"

"Well, I like it," I retorted. "And I’m planning on keeping it like this. I’m 18 in a couple of months, and you can’t stop me."
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Unusual though it may have been for a 17 year old at the time, I kept to my word, and became a regular client at Romano’s until I went away to university.

In the following few years, I would occasionally grow my hair long again just so that I could have another experience at the barbers like the first time at Romano’s, but the norm for me was short and that’s the way it has stayed.    

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