You gave me the liberty to do whatever! by Chappy

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For as long as I can remember, I have always loved the flat top haircut. I consider it to be the boldest and most masculine haircuts a man can have. With that being said I had been too big of a chicken for years to get a flat top. I have pastored in several affluent churches in the Southeast and was too worried about what my congregation might think of such a radical cut (all of the men in these churches wore the standard corporate casual cuts) not to mention that fact that I was afraid that I would look really goofy with a flat top.

About ten years ago God shifted my focus from local church ministry to the Army Chaplaincy. I showed up at Fort Jackson, South Carolina for the Chaplain Officer Basic Course with the same corporate casual cut mentioned above. This military course wasn’t like the traditional Basic Combat Training or Officer Basic Course Training in that they did not march us through a barbershop en masse and zip all of our hair off. This was different in the fact that our entrance standards require a Master’s Degree and two years of post-graduate work, so we are given a little more leeway.

On the first day of the training we were instructed to rid ourselves of the shaggy heads and report the next day with a High and Tight. That afternoon I made my way out the back gate of Fort Jackson and found a small old-fashioned barber shop (no vacuum clippers here). I must have come in at a slow time because all of the barbers were relaxing in the shop reading the paper, or sleeping in their chairs.

As I entered the barbershop, the barber closest to the window guided me to his chair. As I sat in his chair, he started some small talk with me as he put the tissue and cape around my neck. “Are you new around here? I have not seen you before” he asked. I told him that I was at Jackson for the Chaplain course and he told me that they had a lot of Chaplain business from the post. “How do you want it today?” I told him that I wanted a high and tight. “How short do you want it on the sides and back?” I asked him how short he could go, so he held up his clippers with no guard in his left hand and a straight razor in his right hand. I asked him for the straight razor. Holy crap, here we go. Then he asked me how I wanted it on the top. I honestly didn’t think I had a choice with a High and Tight. I just assumed that it would be uniformly short all over. He told me that he could buzz it short or give me a flat top. This was my chance. I wasn’t as worried about having a cut like this or looking as goofy in the military. I guess I figured I would just blend in. I gave him the liberty to cut the top any way he wanted. “You are the professional and you know what work the best for me.” With that he set to work.

He fired up his clippers and in a manner of seconds that hair that had been on the sides and back of my head was in my lap. The warm clippers and the coolness of a freshly skinned head was intoxicating. But he was just getting started. He put some goop (Crew Comb) in my remaining hair and brushed my hair back with such an intensity that I thought the brush was going to pull it all out. When he got it to his liking and took his clippers and began to flatten the top progressively cutting it shorter and shorter, with more and more hair piling up in my lap (I did not know that I had so much hair). After what seemed like an eternity of cutting, he turned me toward the mirror to see the new me. Wow! It was the best flattop I had ever seen and surprisingly, really seemed to suit me well. As I was complimenting the barber, I could see on his face that something was not quite right. He asked me again, “you gave me liberty to do whatever, right?” I replied yes, sir.

So he picked up the clippers, took the blade guard off and plowed right down the middle of my head going so close with the clippers that I felt like my eyeballs were vibrating in their sockets. It looked like someone had just run a lawnmower across a yard that needed cutting. He then evened up the rest of the flat top to laser flat perfection. This was my first introduction to the horseshoe flattop. This is the cut for me. Frickin’ awesome. When he was fully satisfied with his work on the top he spun me back around for the last step. He applied hot towels (I melted in the chair), followed by shaving cream, followed by hot towels and more shaving cream and then shaved it with and against the grain to perfect smoothness. Just before he took the cape off, he splashed my head with Sea Breeze, and believe me, you know that you are alive at a moment like this.

For the rest of the course I would go back to his shop once a week and get it all tightened up. This is and has been the best flat top haircut that I have gotten anywhere. Since then I have been all across the country and around the world in the Army and have yet to find anyone who could match his skill. You would think that in a military town it would be easy to get a good flat top but it is not. Most military town barbers value quantity over quality. If you have had a jacked up and butchered flat top you will understand my frustration.

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