Clip or Clippers by Deke Cutter

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Ted's week had been going well. He managed one of England's successful football clubs and he was generally liked and respected. He woke up, splashed some water on his face, changed into his running gear and went downstairs. Meg, his wife was already up and having her first cup of tea. She looked at Ted as he moved toward the backdoor of their house. "Forgetting something," she asked, playfully. He walked over and bent to give her a ‘peck' on the cheek, but she reached up and removed a hairclip from the front of his hair, allowing his long forelock to fall into his face. Ted, subconsciously pushed the hair back up.

"Good catch. That could have been embarassing," Ted said. He had a full head of thick soft brown hair that he wore brushed to the side. His fringe, however, had always refused to stay put. The hairclip was his latest attempt to train them. He rarely forgot to remove it in the morning. The ‘floppy front' as he called it, had been a feature his whole life. It used tto drive his mother, Eleanor, to distraction, even though she kept him in a typical boys haircut with the forelock never reaching below his eyebrows. She tried pomades, hairspray, even Brylcreem, but nothing seemed to work.

When he was 8, Eleanor said, quite desperately, to his barber, "is there anything we can use on this," she said, grabbing a handful of hair that hung below his hairline.

"Well," Tony the barber replied, "if you don't mind going a bit shorter on the sides and back, too, we can trim that fringe down to aabout two inches, and use some good old butch wax to keep it off his forehead." Eleanor agreed and Tony set to work. Ted was young enough to accept that this was simply the way things happened. He liked the way the hair clippers vibrated against his head and he really couldn't tell that they were climbing an inch or so higher than normal. The funny looking scissors that looked like they were half comb and half shears, were something new. The sensation of them gently hitting his head as they ploughed through his hair was new, but not unpleasant. Then, Tony took his regular scissors and started shortening the hair on top, finally trimming the fringe. He went around Ted's ears, carving the classing half moons. Next he combed a neat, straight part in the left side of his hair. Tony turned to the counter, opened a jar of something sweet smelling and took some into his fingers. He rubbed it into the front of Ted's hair and then brushed the front up and over, so that it too had the appearance of a half-moon, rising above his forehead. "This ought to do the trick, Mrs. L. I'll thrown in a tube that you can just push into his hair each morning. It will keep it just as it is."

And, it did. For the next six years, with the exception of a few summer buzz cuts, this was the solution to Eleanor's obsession. But, as Ted entered his teen years, he began to complain that his hair was too short and not like the other guys. Ted's dad, Richard, understanding teenaged boys' angst, intervened. "Eleanor, the boy is growing up. We have to give him some chances to express himself and develop his own personality. He is a good kid, great on the football pitch, and getting good grades." Eleanor accepted all that Richard told her and so began Ted's journey to long hair and an unruly thatch.

Among his colleagues and many club supporters, the floppy front was seen as an affectation or a bit of vanity, but nobody took it too seriously. Then came the beginning of training for the new season during the hottest summer anyone could recall. Several of his players had foregone their stylish longer styles for various clipper cuts. Ted took to wearing baseball-style caps with the team's logo on them to practices in the hot sun. On two or three occasions, when he had removed the cap, either to mop his brow or simply because he went into the changing rooms, photographers for some of the more sensationalist news outlets snapped very unbecoming photos or short videos of him looking like a drowned rat with his hair soaked through and sticking out at odd angles, or with the fringe matted down and covering his eyes and part of his nose. Because tthere was not too much news to cover during the summer months, with the Royals on holiday and Parliament not in session. Ted's hair got too much coverage and was becoming a distraction.

The club's owner, a jovial old time football man told Ted that he found the situation amusing but to be careful that it did not cause any issues with respect of him or the club. Ted was in something of a quandry. At 34, he had a long career ahead of him, but his assistants and the trainers had all gently teased him about the publicity…."hair hype" one had called it.

Meg knew that the situation was troubling her husband. When he got home from work one day, she was just changing out of her business suit and gave him a hug as they passed in the upstairs hallway. "Your mother and dad stopped by and took the kids for the night. I'll have a nice cool glass of Pinot Grigio waiting for you downstairs." When Ted came down in a pair of cargo shorts and a team tee shirt, Meg was sitting in the lounge with a glass in one hand and one for him on a table. She also had some photos she appeared to be perusing. Your mother left these for you."

Ted picked up the glass of wine and took a long swig. Then he looked at the pictures. They included his annual school pictures from ages 8-14 and some others of family holidays and special occasions. In every one, young Ted's short hair was perfectly groomed, with the half-moon of hair motionless on top of his head. "Tou have to love my mum," Ted said, "subtle as a brick through a picture window."

"Actually, it was Richard's idea (Meg had a great relationship with Ted's parents, but she always called them by their names, rather than ‘mum and dad). He said something about intervening on this topic when you were 14 and thinking it might be time to intervene again."

"I have to admit, I have started thinking that a shorter haircut, at least until this weather breaks, might be a way to change the subject, or, at least, the optics, but I wanted to discuss it with you."

"Sweetheart, you know I will support you whatever you choose. Frankly, I think it would be fun and I also think you would look as cute as you do in these old pictures. And, by the way, your 8-year-old son saw the pictures and wants his hair cut just like the pictures."
Ted stood and looked into the mirror that hung on one wall of the lounge. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, You know, Tony, the barber that gave me the haircuts in the pictures, still cuts dad's hair. Why don't we pick the kids up from mum and dad's tomorrow morning. Richie and I can get our haircuts."

"Lindsey has a play date with Gemma tomorrow, so, we can just drop her off there on the way," said Meg. "She would be too antsy in the shop anyway."

The next morning, Ted, Meg and their son Richie arrived at Tony's shop. The décor had been updated, but the large comfortable barber chairs remained, as did Tony. He was older, but still stood ramrod straight, his hair, perfectly groomed. "Ted, I was so glad to hear from you yesterday and I am happy to accommodate you and your son. You must be Meg and Richie," he said, turning to them. "Ted's dad has told me so many good things about you both. So, who is going first?"



Ted moved to the chair, directly in front of the window that had it's shade discreetly drawn. The door had a "late opening" sign on it. Ted appreciated Tony's discretion, but his stomach tightened as he tried to relax in the comfortable old chair. He handed Tony a couple of the pictures and said "Richie and I both want this cut that you used to give me."

"Ah yes, a classic crewcut with a nicely defined bumper. I remember how much your mother loved that cut on you." With no more discussion, he caped Ted up, ran a comb through his hair and combed the fringe down. "Let's start as we intend to go on," said ony who proceeded to lop off all but a few inches of the fringe that hung down to Ted's lips." At this point, Ted was very glad he had only drunk one cup of tea and had peed before leaving his parents' home. Otherwise, he was quite certain he would have peed his pants right then.

"Oh crikey, what have I unleashed," he said to himself.

Meanwhile, Tony had picked up his clippers, put a rather small guard on them and said to Ted, "chin to chest, you remember the drill." And, suddenly, some weird muscle memory took over.

Ted felt the comb move the hair from his collar, then the cold metal of the clippers began their rise up his neck, over the occipital bone, nearly all the way to the top. His soft hair fell silently to the floor. After Tony's third foray up his neck, Ted could feel the cool air conditioning on an area that had been covered for almost 20 years. "Mistake, mistake," his inner voice was screaming, but with his wife and son looking on, he tried to maintain a smile and even managed too say, "wow, I forgot how nice the clippers feel against my skin."
Soon the assault on the sides began. Tony, being a master at his craft and determined to give Ted exactly the cut in the picture, did not even ask before removing Ted's sideburns and clearing both sides down to stubble. Perhaps it was acceptance of the inevitable or maybe it was a memory of how carefree he had been, when it came to hair styling in his youth, but Ted began to relax. As the thinning shears began their removal of the bulk and thickness of his hair, Ted did feel about of despair as he recalled how long it took his teenage self to get the thickness back in his hair. But that thought was dashed from his mind as Tony began scissoring off the remaining length on top of his now diminished hair that was lying much closer to his head. Next came something new, for Ted, the warm shaving cream and straight razor around the ears and neckline. Tony removed any trace of sideburns and carved the half moons, just as Ted remembered them.

The finishing touches began with Tony wetting Ted's hair with a spray bottle, then combing in the arrow straight part. Tony then trimmed the fringe shorter and shaped it. He ran the scissors and comb over the sides and back where the hair met the stubble, blending it in neatly. Finally came the coup de gras, a thick waxy product rubbed into the hair and a stiff brushing of the front into that classic half moon. Tony powdered a soft brush and knocked any stray hairs off of Ted. Meg went over to the chair, before the cape was removed and ran her hands up and down the shorn sides and back. "Oh babe, this feels amazing. As she did so, Ted could feel his ‘little striker’ coming to attention.

Twenty five minutes later, a shorn husband and son left Tony's with Meg. "Well babe, Meg said, looks like you exchanged that hair clip for hair clippers." The three laughed. The next day's tabloids showed pictures of the shorn manager and his son who he had brought to practice with him. Ted was happy to see that the haircut was accepted by nearly everyone as a practical idea. He liked the ease of getting ready after a shower. He returned to Tony several times to keep the crewcut neat, until the end of September when discretion led him to begin the long journey of growing his hair for the colder months of the season. His son Richie decided he liked short hair and became his granddad's haircut buddy when Ted returned to his high end hair dresser for his trims. One of Ted's younger assistants who had taken the plunge and got his own shaggy mop cut into a tight ivy, asked Ted whether he would be cutting his hair short again next summer. Ted replied, "whether I do, depends on the weather."

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