Only One Way Off that Stool by Doug

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I really started this mess in motion but it kind of ended up okay.

I grew up in the 1970s right after the cosmic shift from short to long hair in boys. When my three older brothers were young, they sported short butch cuts which were freshened via our barber Larry every three weeks without fail. My mother wa stickler for maintaining her clean-cut boys. I was a late surprise that arrived six years after my next oldest in 1965 and sported my first butch cut by 2. That put my arrival in kindergarten just as little boys started sprouting some thicker hair on top, and by second grade there were only two boys in my class that had visible ears. One was David Lutz, with a traditional short back and sides with a side part enforced by his strict father, and the other was me with the same short butch my brothers had sported in an earlier era, enforced by my strong-willed mother.

My parents had set a rule early on with all of their boys that they were to maintain a butch through elementary school (ending in grade 6), then they would be allowed to grow out the top in junior high school (grades 7-8), and then they could choose whatever they wanted when they reached high school in grade 9. With that house rule my two oldest brothers, Andy and Joe, had on-trend hairstyles for their entire school career. My next oldest brother, Mark, squeaked into junior high in 1971 and gained some hair on top, and by a 1973 freshman he had a full head of 70s hair. That left him slightly behind the fashion curve but in a position where he eventually caught up. In contrast, in second grade that same year I stuck out like a sore thumb and put up with a lot of harassment from the other boys. In the class photo, David and I stuck out like knobs.

By midyear I was begging my mom relentlessly to let me grow out my hair like Mark every time we were headed to see Larry, but she was hesitant to agree for two reasons—first, she said it would be unfair to my brothers for me to get a privilege they didn’t get and (more importantly), she hated long hair on boys and loved my crisp, clean-cut look and wanted to keep me in that haircut as long as she could. My dad didn’t seem to have strong feelings about it but let her call that particular shot. As the school year ended and we were driving back from Larry’s with my usual 3-week clean-up, she announced that my current cut would be my last butch and she was going to let me grow out my hair. The haircut had come a few days after the spring class play and I think even she could see that my haircut was not exactly "blending" with current boy hairstyles. Ecstatic over the change of events, I rubbed my buzzy head and tried to imagine my new long hair, having never had enough hair to comb or brush before in my life. I would start the 1974 school year and finally fit in.

My oldest brothers couldn’t care less, but Mark was really mad about this decision. He hammered my parents for weeks about how unfair this was and that they always gave into me because I was the baby. Any time a rule was enforced after that, he’d say "is that for all of us or does the baby get a pass?" I was grateful that my parents seemed to ignore his sense of injustice—I hoped they realized he just loved to tease me on the side about my lack of hair whenever he could because he knew it was an easy way to upset me.

Three months of hair growth over the summer left me with a lot more raw material but no new style yet. I have fine, straight brown hair and while it had some significant length, it still wanted to stand up by the first day of school. My mom would wet it down every morning and try to push it into place but by the end of morning recess it was starting to look like an agitated porcupine. Looking back at my 3rd grade school picture, I can see it was fairly "disorganized" at that point but long enough that I didn’t stand out in the class group photo. By early October I had enough length that my mom finally took me to the barbershop so Larry could incorporate some style. I left the shop with bangs and most of my ears covered—finally indistinguishable from the other boys in my school. That’s what I wanted after years of teasing: nothing to see here folks, just move on.

So came the first problem: by Thanksgiving, I realized I actually hated my long hair. I hated having to shampoo it and dry it and comb or brush it. I hated walking by a mirror and seeing that part of my stick-straight hair had decided to defy gravity and stand up, especially around the crown cowlick that I never knew I had when the top was buzzed tight. I hated the bangs coming into my eyes right before heading to the barbershop for a cut. I never felt that amazing "zip up the nape" feeling or super clean look that a tight clipper cut used to give me for several days after leaving Larry’s chair, and I missed that quiet confidence that no hair would ever really be out of place in spite of wind or a hat or roughhousing or swimming. I missed my little sideburns that were squared off perfectly in front of each ear. Objectively, a butch cut is a dream haircut for a boy. I realized quietly that my mom had been right all along. Then came the second problem: I lacked the self-confidence to have Larry buzz it off and stop worrying about what the other kids would think or say. There was NO WAY I could voluntarily go back to my butch cut. And so I was stuck.

As Christmas came, I developed this fantasy that my dad would decide to take me to Larry’s and have him buzz me down to a fresh butch as a present to my mom, who never made it a secret that she hated my current hair. He wasn’t going to do that—but I would lay in bed at night wishing he would. At the end of my showers I would tilt my head back in the water and press my hair tight to my scalp, then jump out and look in the mirror to remind myself of what I would look like without any hair covering my ears or forehead. And I became distracted whenever a man or especially a boy would come into view with any kind of clipper cut. They were a very rare occurrence by 1975, so when they appeared I caught myself staring and sometimes had to catch my breath as I imagined those haircuts on me.

Church was a very distracting place for me—bored with mass and surrounded by a mix of people, there were regulars with short hair I could stare at and daydream about. Like most families, we had our favorite pew about halfway back on the right. There was another family I knew, the Rables, who were a front row family. They had a large brood, mostly boys, with kids older and younger than me. Sandy was in my class and I had a quiet crush on her, so I knew who her brothers were but didn’t hang out with any of them. Her brother Rob was a casual friend of Mark’s, and her brother Matt was in the next grade higher than Sandy and me. As a fourth grader, Matt was an altar server so I’d see him either in the pew with his family or if he was serving, up on the altar. All of the Rable boys had thick, long, wavy hair and what might be described as a home haircut vibe about them. Not terrible cuts, but maybe a little uneven and blunt in places—common 70s mops, nothing to write home about.

And here’s why all that matters: jump ahead to June 1975 to the first Sunday after school was out. I was sitting in church and in shuffled the Rables. As they all sat down, I was awestruck by a gaping hole in the Rable wall of hair. Matt’s hair was GONE. I mean, he had a classic short butch cut, but compared to his brothers on either side, the back of his head looked like a knob. I was transfixed—couldn’t keep my eyes off him and his tightly buzzed whirl. He looked amazing to me; he looked like I wanted to look. I wanted to jump over and run my hands through his stubble. And he also seemed perfectly happy, not embarrassed, not self-conscious, just his usual smiley self, clowning around with his brothers before mass started. I wanted to know why—did he fail a subject and the haircut was a punishment? It wasn’t an age thing because his younger brother had his regular mop. It had to be VOLUNTARY. I was fascinated and spent the rest of the summer watching his hair gradually grow out and then return to its normal state by early fall. Why did that happen? An experiment maybe? I didn’t have an answer but I admired his confidence.

Halfway through fourth grade I reached 10 and my mom pushed me to become an altar server. I went through the training but on my first mass I was extremely nervous. Matt happened to be the other server and he couldn’t have been nicer. He took me under his wing, clowned around in the sacristy before mass, then told me not to worry and just follow his lead. My older brothers were never very nice to me so I really appreciated Matt. After serving with him multiple times, we started hanging out and became occasional friends. In elementary school it’s harder to hang out with older grades, but across various church activities we were able to get know each other and ended up spending time at each other’s houses. He never mentioned that amazing haircut from the previous summer and I never had the nerve to ask him about it. But I remembered it.

When summer 1976 started, I had a hunch. Rables seemed to be getting haircuts at home. Last year Matt showed up with a butch on the first Sunday after school was out. If he was going to get another butch this summer, it was probably his dad who would cut it. And if I were doing home haircuts as a working dad, I’d probably do them on Saturday morning. I had to play this out.

That first Saturday, I got up around 9, had a bowl of cereal, and told my mom I was riding my bike over to Rables to play. As I whizzed through the subdivision, my hair was flying in the breeze and I was dreaming of a ride home where that wouldn’t be possible. When I arrived at Rable’s, Matt’s mom greeted me at the front door wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"Hey, Doug, how are you today?"

I said, "Hi Mrs. Rable, I’m fine. Is Matt around?"

She replied, "Sure—he’s on the patio finishing up his summer haircut. Come on in—he’ll be done in a few minutes and you guys can go play."

My heart rate must have jumped about 200%. I stumbled by her and headed to the sliding doors that opened onto their back yard. As I stepped back into the light I saw exactly what I had dreamed of seeing. Matt was caped up on a stool and his dad was using a pair of clippers to buzz Matt down to a tight butch. I watched as his dad removed the final track of hair on the top of his head. Matt was smiling and seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. Rob was sitting at the picnic table pretending to ignore the whole thing. Sandy was sitting on their porch swing, and their little brother Michael was drawing on the patio surface with some sidewalk chalk. I wondered if the other boys were waiting their turn for the clippers.

Totally at ease, Matt smiled when he saw me. "Hey, Doug! Almost done here. What do you think?"

I stammered a bit but squeaked out a "It’s a pretty amazing change!"

Everybody laughed and Rob said, "I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but it’s accurate."

I sat down at the picnic table and watched Mr. Rable finish the cut while everyone chatted. He seemed to know what he was doing and was taking his time to create a very precise look. Finally he picked up a barber brush and dusted Matt’s head and face and pronounced him done. He removed the cape now covered in hair and shook it out.

"The birds are going to have some amazing nests this year!" he joked. "Hopefully this wind will blow it all into the neighbor’s yard. Okay, who’s next? Rob?"

Rob rolled his eyes and said, "Sorry dad, it’s still a hard pass."

"Michael, how about you—want to match Matt’s clean look this summer?"

Matt’s little brother giggled and said, "No thank you, dad."

Then his dad glanced my way. "Doug?"

Everyone giggled until I stood up.

"Uh, sure." (My heart was pounding all the way to my mouth and my legs were like iron as I stepped over to the stool and sat down.)

Mr. Rable was as surprised as everyone else on the patio. Matt hooted and said, "All right!"

Mr. Rable threw the cape around me loosely and then came around to face me. "Maybe I better call your mom and make sure she’d be okay with that."

I sucked in and said, "Nope, she made me have a butch until I begged her to let me grow out my hair last year. She’ll probably bake you a pie if I show up with a haircut like Matt’s."

"Well all right then!" Mr. Rable exclaimed. "Let’s get this show on the road!" He tightened the cape and then started brushing the hair off his clippers and was about to oil them up before starting.

Ever get on a wild amusement park ride that really scares you? You get in the seat, let the operator strap you in, and then accept your fate—terror mixed with the tiniest thought that you’ll probably be okay? That’s exactly how I felt sitting caped on that stool with the cape snapped tightly around my neck. I had surrendered my hair to a friend’s dad and I was going to leave that stool in a very different state than when I sat down. I had done it fast enough to stop myself from backing down. The urge to lose all that hair had finally overpowered my fear of not having the "right" look for a 1970s boy.

Matt was looking at my face (and probably noticing the cape bouncing up and down from my heart) and said to his dad, "Hurry up Dad, I think he’s losing his nerve."

Without missing a beat, Mr. Rable snapped a guard on his clippers, turned them on, leaned over and pushed them across my forehead from left to right. My entire line of bangs fell into my lap like a curtain drop as Matt hooted again.
"Now there’s only one way off that stool, Doug," chuckled Mr. Rable as he turned back to oil his clippers and straighten his tools.

I looked at the mass of hair in my lap and thought, oh God, what have I done? But Matt leaned over, picked up a straight line of my bang hair and pressed it onto his forehead. "Doug before dad!" Then he pulled them away. "Doug after dad!" and everyone including me started giggling.

At this point any pretense of doing anything else on that patio was gone. Sandy, Michael, and even Rob were settling in for the show. Rob said, "Mark’s little bro is going be Matt’s butch bro! This I gotta see!"

And with that, the clippers fired up and the total shearing began.

After cutting Matt’s thick hair, I think Mr. Rable was loving the speed at which he could move the clippers through my fine hair. He started at the left side of my forehead where the bangs were no more and without hesitation easily ran the clippers front to back. A shower of my hair hit the cape and slid down into my lap. He moved to remove the next row, and the next, and after five passes and a massive cascade of my hair sliding down the cape, I could feel the morning breeze blow across the top of my very exposed head. Now his dad ran a few passes down my front corners, turned off the clippers, and brushed off any remaining stray hairs from the top of my head.

Next he switched guards to something tighter and turned his attention to my sides. Now the hair started really slipping down and piling up as he moved from temple to back to temple. In about five minutes he had essentially removed all of my hair. The breeze was really being noticed on all surfaces at this point, but he was far from done.

"Okay, I’ve roughed things in. Now we make sure you look sharp," he explained as he snapped the higher guard on again. "I have found from the years when all these bozos of mine had good haircuts like this one that the secret to a good butch cut is making sure every hair is exactly the same length on top." And with that, he started going back over his initial cuts, but this time from different angles. A steady stream of tiny clippings floated down and away on the breeze, and I noticed that the clipper sounds were getting quieter as every pass encountered fewer hairs long enough to cut. "When the clippers are quiet, you know you’ve got the cleanest look!" he said. With that, he turned off the clippers, brushed them again, and switched to the lower guard. The clippers came back to life and he did the same thing across my sides and back, taking passes in different directions until the clippers weren’t finding any hair to cut.

At this point I thought he was probably done, but he wasn’t. I saw him take the guard off, so I was assuming he was going to complete the outline clean-up and send me on my way. Instead, he moved to my left sideburn and pushed the clippers up, not flicking away until he was higher than the top of my ear. I knew there wasn’t a guard because the steel of the clippers was pretty hot against my skin. He then started working his way back in the same manner.
Panicking inside, I narrowed my focus on Matt for a moment. The thing about a backyard haircut is that you don’t have a mirror, but in this case I was very confident Mr. Rable was going to perfectly replicate Matt’s haircut on me. I looked more carefully at Matt’s sides and realized he was essentially clean skinned up to the tip of his ears all around his head. As Mr. Rable pushed my chin down and worked his way across my nape, I now understood that I was getting the shortest haircut I had ever gotten in my life. There would be no little sideburns for me because he wasn’t going to be leaving any hair below my temples. And he was just as meticulous at this stage as he was in the previous stages—the steel clippers made repeated passes until there were no hairs getting clipped. When he turned off the clippers that final time, I was very confident I was now as clean cut as a boy could be. Part of me was appalled, wondering how long it would take to grow any visible hair on my sides…and the other part of me couldn’t get uncaped fast enough to feel that smooth skin on my nape for the rest of the day.

Mr. Rable then said, "Hold on, I’ll be right back."

He returned with two damp. cool washcloths. He threw one at Matt and then ran the other one front to back and side to side across my newly clippered head. The cool water combined with the light breeze and now unfettered sunshine on my scalp felt amazing. Mr. Rable then unsnapped the cape, flicked whatever fuzz remained off the cape, and released me to my summer. Whatever happened next I would have to deal with, but that moment was pure heaven—the resolution of a year of unmet desire.

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