Of Porches and Pirates by Deke Cutter

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I apologize to those of you who find my stories a bit to banal for your liking, but I write what I write. I saw a revenge story about a porch pirate steeling packages and I got this idea.

Grace had been pleased to receive a delivery notice letting her know a fancy flashlight had arrived. It was hurricane season, and the new flashlight would be great if the power went out. When she got home from work, her pleasure turned to dismay. There was no package! The company had sent her a picture of the package on her doorstep. She contacted the delivery company and the local police, but neither could really help her without proof. She bought a doorbell camera and set it up. She then ordered a set of noise cancelling headphones and waited for its arrival. It arrived and BAM it was gone before she got home. She looked at the video footage and was disappointed to see that it was her neighbor Chad. Chad worked from home and seemed like a pleasant enough guy when they exchanged greetings on the street. Grace thought of taking the footage to the police, but thought better of it and decided to get a bit of revenge in.

She got one of those glitter boxes that shoot out the glitter and fart spray when opened. They come with multiple cameras that you can hook up to send you the feed. The box looked completely realistic, so Grace parked her car in the garage and pulled the door down and then slipped the box out onto her front porch. The motion sensor on the doorbell camera alerted her when Chad approached, and Grace watched on the camera as he spirited the box away. Grace waited until Chad was back in his house and turned on the feed from the cameras in the box. It came to life, and Grace saw the glitter bomb explode all over Chad then saw him start to gag as the fart spray took hold. A few minutes later, she saw Chad come out of his house, still covered in glitter, and gulping in large breaths of fresh air.

The next evening, Chad arrived at Grace’s door with a big box of chocolates. Before Grace opened the door, she clicked on the recorder function on her phone "Grace, I want to apologize for ‘taking’ your packages and I would like to make it up to you. You really got me with your wake-up call. I had to keep the windows open all night to get the smell out."

"Smell aside," Grace retorted, "I expect full restitution for the items you took. And you need to apologize to everyone in the neighborhood who you porch-pirated." Grace could tell by Chad’s reaction that she had been correct in her assumption that there were more victims.

"OK, anything else?" Chad asked this with just a hint of his usual insouciance, with a shake of his head, causing his perfectly coiffed hair to bounce. This caused an idea to pop into Grace’s head.
Grace looked at Chad and saw that mass of wavy brown hair spilling over the collar of his shirt and covering his ears and most of his forehead. "I think you can show me your remorse by getting yourself a nice short old fashioned crewcut and keeping it short for the next six months."

"My hair? But that is my identity."

"Yes, and I’m sure it will help the police identify you when I show them the doorbell cam footage, I have of your last two heists. People worked hard to save the money to buy things they wanted or needed, and you stole a little piece of each of them, their security and tranquility. You deserve to feel some sense of discomfort.

"OK, OK, calm down. I mean, I’m sorry. Of course."

"Good. Take your phone and record the haircut and send the footage to me tomorrow."

Chad left Grace’s house feeling almost worse than when he arrived. He awoke the next morning, took a shower, and styled his signature long locks one last time, for the foreseeable future. He then looked at all the hair products and the blow dryer. He took them all and moved them to an underused cabinet below the sink. Chad then looked at his hair in the big bathroom mirror one last time and headed out the door.

Chad had normally had his hair styled at the most expensive place in the city. Reselling the stuff he stole was how he afforded little luxuries like that. Today would be different. Like most men in the town, he was familiar with the choices available to them for haircare. He knew some guys he played with in the adult recreation leagues got their haircuts at Mario’s Barbers. It had been a family business for generations. It was right next door to the best café/coffee bar in town and he had seen guys there right after haircuts. Those cuts were the kind of brutal look he knew Grace expected him to get. He had a pretty good idea that Grace wanted him to feel punished by the cut.

He found himself at Mario’s door just after it opened. It was a three chair shop the first two barbers were busy with customer. Chad knew enough of the protocol at barber shops to know that unless you had a preferred barber, you took the available one. He exchanged greetings with the third barber and made his way to the chair. The barber said, "I’m Marco, that’s Jimmy in the middle and my dad, Mario up front."

"I’m Chad. So, your dad founded the shop?"

Marco laughed. No, that was actually my great-grandfather, Mario. His son Marco, took it over, now it’s dad’s turn, and maybe I’ll be next." It’s the Italian way. The oldest son is named for the grandfather. Dad hired Jimmy when short haircuts got popular the years before the pandemic and luckily, we were able to hang on until things got better. So, Chad, I don’t think I’ve seen you in our shop before. What are we doing today, a trim, maybe a shave?"

Chad had thought about how this might go on his way over, but he found himself forgetting everything he had planned. "Um, ah, well I need a crewcut."

"Well," Marco said, "that will be a big change. Have you thought about the length you want?

Chad replied, "it needs to be an old fashioned crewcut. You see, I agreed to get this crewcut to make up for a mistake I made. Part of demonstrating that I am sorry is getting a crewcut and keeping it for six months. I’ve never had a clipper haircut. You see, my long hair has been sort of ‘my thing’ for a long time." I hope it is OK if I film it. I have to send the video to the neighbor who caught me.

"It must have been something bad to get that kind of karma come down on you man." Marco continued, "leave it to me, I know exactly how to cut your hair." As Marco spoke, the reality of his situation finally fully hit Chad and, for the first time, he felt remorse for his actions, not just for ‘getting caught.’ As Marco caped him up, Chad looked into the mirror and hoped he would like the guy that emerged from the haircut more than he liked the one staring back at him. Marco turned the chair away from the mirror and facing the wall where the waiting chairs were. So, Chad was not prepared when Marco turned the clippers on and took the first run up the back of Chad’s head. "Sorry man didn’t mean to startle you. I just thought, it might be better if I just got things moving." The feel of the clippers climbing up the back of his head, going all the way to the crown was shocking. Feeling the weight of the shorn hair on his shoulder was foreign to Chad. The relentless assault continued on the back of Chad’s head. He could feel the cool air now blowing across his scalp. Then came a bigger shock as Marco pushed the clippers above Chad’s left ear and Chad saw glorious waves that covered his ear fall into his lap.

Marco noticed the despondent look on Chad’s face as the hair continued to fall. "Are you sure you want me to continue? I haven’t touched the top yet; I could save some of that length and give you a high fade…."

"No, it has to be the crew cut." Chad looked around the shop and saw that he and the three barbers were the only ones present. "You see, I did something really stupid. I can’t even explain what caused me to do it. I work from home and that has its good points, but sometimes I get a little stir crazy. One day, I saw a package delivered to one of my neighbors who I knew was out at work. I went over and picked it up, planning to just take a look at what was inside and then take it back to them and claim it was misdelivered and I hadn’t looked at the shipping label. It turned out to be a cool kitchen gadget and I just kept it. I got obsessed with sneaking other packages off people’s porches and continued to do so, until one of my neighbors caught me. She’s making me apologize to everybody I stole a package from and make restitution. She is also making me get the haircut and keep it for six months. My hair has always been my thing and it is killing me to lose it.

Mario, Marco’s father, called Marco over and whispered something to Marco. Chad heard something about, ‘half-moons,’ ‘number 2’ and ‘short bumper,’ but being unfamiliar with clipper cut terms, he had no idea that this might apply to him. Mario then came over and stood in front of Chad and said, "when the haircut is finished, we four are going to have a little talk." He then motioned for Marco to continue the cut. It could have been Chad’s imagination, but it felt like Marco was pressing a little harder with the clippers as he cut around the sides of his head. Before Marco started on the long hair on top of Chad’s head, he took a smaller trimmer and removed Chads sideburns that had reached the bottom of his ears. He seemed to go out of his way to obliterate every hair. Marco then began carving around Chad’s ears, creating the ‘half-moon’ arch around each ear so that the starkness of the cut could not be missed. Marco then combed Chad’s long hair forward so that his eyes were completely covered. He placed a number two blade on his clipper and, stating just behind the hairline pushed the clippers all the way back until they met the stubble already there. He continued to repeat this and more of Chad’s crowning glory fell to the ground behind the chair. Finally, Marco put the clippers down and picked up his shears. Very deliberately, he cut the bangs until they just covered his eyes, a second ‘snick-snick’ and the eyes were uncovered. Marco then took the shears just barely and inch and a half from the hairline and chopped off the remaining length.

When Marco finished with the shaving cream and hot towel, he opened up a pungent smelling plastic container. "OK, old-fashioned crewcuts were always ‘styled" with this product. It is called butch wax." Marco then proceeded to brush the wax into the truncated bangs and brush them straight up. When he was satisfied, he turned the chair back toward the mirror and showed Chad his new look.

The look on Chad’s face would have been comical in other circumstances, but Chad looked completely crestfallen. "Oh my gosh, I look so different. I don’t feel like I am good looking anymore. There is so much more of my face on display. This makes me look like I am 17 instead of 27."

"OK, fellow, what’s your name?" This was asked by Mario, as he and Eddy sat in front of Chad who replied that his name was Chadwick, but people called him Chad. So, Chad, if you were Marco or one of my other kids, I would have had Eddy hold you down while I beat some sense into you with that leather strop," he said as he pointed to the one attached to the chair. "Shame on you for stealing. After I beat you, I would send you over to Saint John’s for confession and reconciliation. And you would have got out of my chair with a fully shaved head, and you would have to keep it for a year. The least of your problems is that you think you look like a boy. You acted like a selfish child, and you should be treated as such."

Chad’s eyes had been welling up as Mario spoke to him. Now the tears started to flow. "I’m sorry, I am genuinely sorry for what I did. I am so afraid that one of my neighbors will call the police and get me arrested."

Mario knew when to dial down the pressure, so he said to Chad, "most people around here are pretty nice and will give a person a second chance. Do you have the names of all the people you have to apologize to?" Chad had written the list and planned to start his apologies when he got home. Mario looked at the four names on the list and told him that he knew two of them because the men were customers. Then Mario said, go to the bathroom in the back and wash your face. Then come pay Marco and make sure he sells you some butch wax. I expect that hair to be trained to stand up straight in three weeks when you come back."

Chad nodded and headed to the bathroom before realizing he had just put himself on a three week haircut schedule. By the time he went pay, Marco had a tube of butch wax and an old fashioned butch brush that he threw in for free. "See you in three weeks," Marco said, as Chad walked out the door, fiddling with his phone to send Grace the video.

It was a diminished Chad, dressed in a short sleeve white shirt and dark blue trousers, freshly waxed bumper at attention, who knocked on the door of the Joneses a few hours later. "It’s Chad, isn’t it," asked Sam Jones. Turning and calling over his shoulder, "Myra it’s our neighbor Chad." Then turning back, he said, "what the heck did you do to your hair? All the neighbors call you ‘the guy with the hair’, or we did."

Chad’s face turned bright red. "Well, the haircut has to do with why I am here. Chad took a sealed envelope with the Jones’ name on it and handed it to Sam. "I am here to apologize for taking a package from your porch. Here is the money to pay for the things I took. Grace, at Number 27, caught me via her doorbell cam, taking a package from her. To make amends, she told me to apologize in person and to get this crewcut. Mr. Jones, I am truly sorry, and I hope you and Mrs. Jones will forgive me."

"Chad, this took courage, and the haircut really took courage. We are people of faith and believe in second chances."

"Thank you," said Chad. The feeling of relief he got from Sam Jones’ acceptance was overwhelming and he felt himself really desiring to change in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Not all the neighbors were as kind as Sam Jones had been, but they all accepted the money and eventually agreed to give him a second chance. His last apology was to Mrs. Williams and older widow. "Why Chad, don’t you look handsome with that new haircut. Come in, I was just putting the kettle on. By the time the tea was served, Mrs. Williams had taken Chad’s hands into her own and told him she was proud of him and that she would pray for him.

Grace had to admit that she had a good chuckle or two when she watched the video of Chad’s shearing. She was also pleased when he knocked on her door to report that he had apologized and repaid everyone. She didn’t expect what happened a couple weeks later when she saw Chad at her door again. "Hi Grace, I just got back from the barber shop. My new barber put me on a three week schedule. I just wanted to show you I am a man of my word. And I want to let you know, that I have learned a lot about myself. My long locks were allowing me to be vain about my appearance. I was spending a lot of time and money on my hair. I feel like a different person. I have been helping Mrs. Williams with chores around her house. She’s even got me going to church with her."

Marco and Chad became friends after a few months of Chad’s regular visits to the shop. When the Jones’s son started getting into some trouble at school, Sam sought out Chad. "Chad, I know that you mow Josie Williams’ yard and do various repair and maintenance for her. Can I ask you to have young Pat as your assistant? Once he’s proven himself with you, I will be making him available to the rest of the block. Before, I forget, where do you get your haircut? I’m taking Pat there and asking for "Chad Special."

The men at Mario’s had been warned by Chad, that they would be getting a new client. When the well-groomed man entered with a boy with an overgrown shaggy mop, Mario had the pleasure of removing Pat’s shaggy mess and sending him off with his stick of butch wax.

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