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THE MAKING OF SARGE by Sarge
In the genre of "haircut journeys," there’s often a first significant or transformative haircut in a young man’s life. As a college student in the early 1980s, I didn’t have particularly long hair, but it was dark, wavy, shapeless and overgrown, and it tended to look unkempt. It would curl up in the back, and I could extend it down to my shirt collar with my thumb and forefinger. I would have liked to have a businessman’s haircut, which in those days was on the short end of the spectrum and wasn’t common on college campuses, not even with faculty and administrators, but that seemed out of the question at the time, and I would never have had the courage to ask for such a haircut. I wasn’t a businessman, after all.
One Saturday in my senior year — October 1983 in western Pennsylvania — I found a barbershop that was an easy walk from campus. Turned out to be a father-son business, and both men were named Antonio. After a brief wait, the father, who looked to be in his mid-60s, indicated that he was ready for me. I took my place in the chair. He caped me up and asked what I wanted. He seemed a kindly man, one who would put customers at ease. I don’t remember how I answered him — probably something like, "Just trim up the back and sides, please," or something equally mundane. He combed my hair and said I would have a full head of hair throughout my life. I don’t know on what basis he predicated that statement, but he spoke with authority. I just smiled and nodded. My hair grew loosely around my ears and at the nape.
I don’t remember much about that haircut. It wasn’t transformative at all, and I wasn’t looking for it to be. In those days there were no fades, no high ‘n’ tight cuts, no flattops, and virtually no barbers skilled in skintight haircuts. It wasn’t part of 1980s American culture, with the exception of the military cuts administered to the ROTC community, and even those cuts were not as precise as what we are accustomed to today. By 1980s standards, though, they stood out as entirely outside the mainstream. The average college guy would never even think to ask for such a haircut — certain terms, including "crew cut," were taboo. In any case, when I walked out of Antonio’s, my hair was a little easier to comb than when I walked in, but not significantly shorter.
The holidays came and went.
It was January 1984, and a new semester was about to start. Although there was no snow on the ground that day, and the sun was shining, winter was firmly in the air. It was a Monday, and classes would start the next morning. It seemed a good day to get a haircut for the new semester, but would any barbershops be open on a Monday? I’ve got time, I thought … so I walked into town from campus to check out the scene. Sure enough, Antonio’s was open. I walked in. THE FATHER WASN’T THERE; only the younger Antonio was working — he was just finishing up on a man in the chair — a mature man in his fifties, maybe. There was another fellow waiting for his turn — he was in his later twenties, I’d say — and then I would be next. There was nobody else in the shop on that crisp January day. With Antonio the Father away, it looked as though I would be cut by the younger Antonio, and it wouldn’t be a long wait. Cool.
The twenty-something guy was about six feet tall with a slender build and wispy, sandy-blonde hair that hung loosely to his shoulders. He had it tied back with some sort of fastener, but it wasn’t a flowing mane. It looked as though he had been intentionally growing it out, though. Antonio caped him up and asked, "Okay, what are we doing today?" Antonio was not unfriendly, but there was a curt, businesslike quality in his demeanor. He emitted a vibe that conveyed intensity. Clearly he was very devoted to his craft. I felt his energy from several feet away. The guy in the chair replied that he had a job interview that afternoon and wanted something more professional. "I got you," said Antonio, and he started snipping away at the job hunter’s locks, not wildly or mercilessly, but with a decidedly rhythmic manipulation of scissor blades, like a concerto for barber shears. There was no buzzing involved, just sharp and decisive scissor action. The loose locks cascaded to the floor, and while I tried not to watch too avidly, a neatly tapered neckline started to appear. The sides and top followed suit, not a massacre at all, but ending up in a short-back-and-sides business taper worthy of Darrin Stephens. (Don Draper hadn’t yet arrived on the scene.) The customer thanked Antonio, paid the fee, and left. He looked good.
Nobody else had entered the barbershop in the meantime.
Antonio dusted off the chair and then turned to me and said, "You’re next, pal." Then he continued: "Have you been here before?" The question caught me off guard. Did he remember me from last October, when I sat in his dad’s barber chair? He hadn’t seemed to notice me then.
"Once, yes. I think your dad was here then," I replied. An expression crossed over Antonio’s face. Repeat customer, he thought. "Good, good. Have a seat." Again, I felt the energy. The cape and the neck strips came out, and then the question: "Okay, what are we doing today?" He started to comb my hair. I hesitated, and he noticed. "Want me to clean this up a little? Trim it up nice and neat?"
"Um … sure. Little shorter on the sides and back." I held my voice steady, but inside I felt nervous. There was definitely an energy here that I hadn’t felt with Antonio’s father, and I was eager to see what he would do. Nice and neat? Okay.
The scissors concerto began. Lots of combing and snipping was going on — it started in the back. Suddenly I knew that those scissors were clearing a path from my neckline and were heading higher and higher, to the crown. Those curly hairs that extended to my shirt collar? Gone. Antonio was working quickly. I could feel the blades of the scissors getting closer to my skin. Neither one of us said a word.
Then it was on to the sides. The scissors migrated toward my right ear. More rhythmic snipping, as though they were on a mission, getting ever closer and higher up. And then came the defining moment of the haircut. The rhythm of the shears slowed down a bit, then stopped for a second before the blades caught a tuft of hair, lifted it out over my right ear, and crunched down emphatically and without apology. That was the moment I knew that this was a transformative haircut, unlike any I could remember from my past. This is what Antonio meant by "nice and neat." I wasn’t sure whether I would take on the businessman image that I had so secretly admired, or if this new cut would go even further, such as … dare I think it? … into the realm of ROTC training? While I tried to imagine what I would end up seeing in the mirror when it was over, Antonio followed suit on the left side of my head. My ears were now fully exposed — not a common trait in early-1980s men’s hairstyles. I still couldn’t quite believe what was happening to me.
Antonio finished up on top and left me with enough to comb over in front — I was glad of that. He must have sensed that I was a little nervous. It occurred to me that this was his trademark, his brand — the art of transformation. Finally, he spoke. "I think it looks good. I’m gonna just sharpen up the neckline a little more." That’s when the electric trimmers came to life. There was some light buzzing on my neck and around my ears. Primarily, though, that haircut was all about scissor action as manifested by a very intense barber who definitely had pride in his craft.
Antonio swung the chair around so that I could see myself in the mirror. It was as I expected: we had gone beyond "businessman" and were in the realm of "military." I looked not like a recruit, but like an Army officer. I felt like a new man, although I was only twenty-one at the time. I didn’t say anything, but then I cracked a smile. Antonio smiled, too. He had read me like a book. Could he have known that I secretly wanted a short haircut like this? My whole appearance was altered. I had cheekbones and a forehead. Ears, too. I knew then that the change would be permanent. I thanked Antonio and paid him his fee. "You come back, now," he said. "Let’s keep it trimmed up." "I will," I replied, and I did.
I went back to Antonio for the better part of the next two years, but of course no subsequent visit would match the intensity of that first time. It was more about maintaining the new look, which, by the way, had met with surprised (and surprising) acceptance by my campus community. There was no teasing, per se, but there were questions. I couldn’t revert to the hackneyed excuse of warm weather, since it was wintertime. One of my close female friends — more than a week later — expressed that she loved my new haircut. That was reassuring. And one of my college professors, who was close to seventy at the time, exclaimed, "You got a crew cut! Looks sharp." "Yeah, it’s something I haven’t tried before," I replied. This was a man who was a young adult in the 1940s and ‘50s. He had dared to say "crew cut" out loud, a term that the younger generation at the time assiduously avoided.
Eventually I left that college town for graduate studies and job opportunities in another state, but the memory of Antonio and that transformational haircut remained with me. Never again would I let my hair grow out loosely. I learned to make barbershop visits a monthly routine, and I went more often as time passed. I liked the discipline of it all, and people came to recognize me with a nice, neat haircut year-round.
I didn’t think I would ever see Antonio again (and I never did see his father again), but many decades later — in 2018, to be exact — while on my way back home to see family, I had occasion to pass through the old college town, and — unbelievably — Antonio was still there. No kidding. He had relocated to a larger building on the same street, but he was still plying his trade. The temptation to pay him a visit was strong, and so I walked in. It was a Friday. (This was before Covid, when many barbershops still accepted walk-ins.) More than thirty years had passed. Of course I did not expect him to remember me, but that did not matter. When it came to be my turn, I got into the chair, and for me it was as if no time had passed, except that my hair was grayer. This man had no idea of the impact he had had on me.
"All right, sir. What can I do for you? Maybe a high fade?" That was Antonio for you — he was answering his own question again under the guise of informed suggestion. He was a pro, and I knew he could read a guy like a book. It was also clear that he had been keeping up with the times. Nobody talked about fades in the 1980s.
"Yes sir, just leave me enough on top to comb." And with that, Antonio went to work again, this time with clippers and attachments. In the course of our conversation, it came up that I had been a college student back in the day and that I used to visit his shop when I — as Billy Joel would say — wore a younger man’s clothes. He did not particularly remember me, and I refrained from waxing eloquent about his impact on my lifetime haircut journey — he didn’t need to know. But when I walked out of that barbershop that day, I was sporting a nice fade with my salt-and-pepper beard. Antonio didn’t disappoint. I liked that he hadn’t grown stale or complacent and was still a total pro. Made me think that he was on a lifetime journey, too, of sorts.
