The Price of An Extra Month by Buzzcut and Baldy Archive

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I’ve never quite found the words to describe my childhood. The day I arrived at college, my head shaved to the skin and my eyebrows clipped very obviously lower than they could potentially grow, my roommate, Connor, started the series of inquiries that would lead me to reflect upon that question.

"Woah," was the first word he ever said to me, interrupting the brief silence that had flooded the room as I shut the door of our shared door. He’d glanced over from his laptop, hair swooshing as his neck turned, and taken me in as if I was some sort of alien. I suppose compared to him, I did sort of look like an alien. His hair, the color of which demarcated the fine line between blonde and brunette, hung lazily over his ears, a severe side-part leaving most of his left eye obscured. I couldn’t tell if he was a late-game scene kid or a burgeoning hipster.

Before I had the chance to introduce myself, he interrupted, "Did you get in a fight with a lawn mower on your way over?" His eyes didn’t know whether to show amusement or pity.

All I could do was chuckle, rubbing my smooth scalp embarrassedly. "My father insisted on giving me a haircut before I left."

"That’s just ‘a haircut?’" Connor asked incredulously. "That man purged your head of all its hair. Barely spared your eyebrows." He was holding back laughter, probably because he pitied me.

"Yeah," I muttered, letting both my hands fall to my bare neck. "That’s just how we do things at my house."

Looking back, it seems that last statement encapsulates how I grew up better than I ever had before. Growing up, "things" - routines, activities, haircuts and the like - always just seemed to happen. I could ask when, I could ask why, but only the first question was ever answered.

For the most part, I grew up in the poorer neighborhoods of South Carolina. We moved around occasionally, driving our belongings to a new neighborhood that seemed essentially indistinguishable to me, but never moved more than half an hour away from my mother. My parents divorced amicably when I was around three years old, and had shared custody of me and my sister, Ariel, who was three years my senior. Dad got weekdays; Mom got weekends.

My hair had always been a point of contention. Having grown up and remained staunchly Catholic, my mother had a very specific vision of how her children would appear and how positively it would reflect upon her. Her daughter was to be adorned in a beautifully ironed dress and have well-kept, braided long hair, while her son must be neat, complete with suit and tie and hair that was short, and if long enough, gelled back. Although my sister complied from day one, I was more of a struggle.

I absolutely despised haircuts. My hair grew thick and dirty brown, frizzing out or sticking up or just refusing to decide on a texture, and it was a pain to tame it, let alone cut it. At first, my mother tried to bring me to a kid’s salon, but it was never a pleasant experience for either of us. I would cry and scream as the stylist pulled through my knotted curls with a comb, and duck as the clippers were aimed in my direction, even just to clean-up my neckline.

By age five, my mother was sick of the whole ordeal. I recall the day she handed the reins to my father, that brisk autumn afternoon when a new routine entered into my life - one that wouldn’t leave until my first day of college. She’d just dropped me and my sister off at our father’s house, and while my sister had scrambled up to her room, I’d fallen behind, ducking behind a corner upon hearing my name.

"We need to talk about Landon," my mother had begun, assuming I was out of earshot. "We need to talk about his hair." I shuddered, hearing my father grunt affirmatively.

"What about it?" He asked, voice low and thick. "Looks like you just got it cut." After taking a drag of his cigarette, he added, "Looks fine."

"Yeah, and you know what a pain it was to get it cut?" She retorted, letting out an annoyed exhale. "That boy’s a pain in the ass. Always squirming and screaming. Gives me a migraine."

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" My father asked, exhaling a smoky breath.

"A son’s hair is the father’s domain," my mother asserted, shifting loudly enough for me to pick up on. "You don’t want him crying in prissy kid’s hair salons any more than I do." Before my father could respond, she added, "Just keep his hair short and neat. I don’t care what it takes, as long as I’m not involved."

Usually, I would have expected my father to fight back, to insist that if my mother was dealing with my sister’s hair, she should deal with mine as well. However, it seemed her description of the hair salon ignited something in him. "I’ll get it dealt with when it’s too long," he agreed after a brief moment.

I spent every day after that in fear of what my father would do to my hair. Sure, kid’s salon haircuts were painful, but my father was rough enough to begin with. He’d tackle me down when I refused to do my chores and was more than a fan of corporal punishment. A haircut from him sounded worse than a haircut from Satan.

A few months later, a seemingly unremarkable Tuesday after my sister and I had returned from school, the day finally came. I’d dropped my backpack off in the entryway, and I was just about to head up the stairs when my dad yelled for me. When I asked him what for, he replied, underlying amusement in his voice, "It’s haircut time." A shiver ran down my spine, but I came down. I knew this was inevitable.

Turning into the kitchen, I looked for the scissors, the comb, anything to indicate that there would be some familiarity in this ritual; I was met by nothing but my father, a towel, and my dad’s beard clippers. "Take your shirt off and sit down in the chair over there," my father directed gruffly, pointing at a chair he’d segregated into an empty corner of the kitchen. I did as I was instructed, tossing my shirt onto the kitchen table, and sat down to await my doom.

Thumping over to me, my father swung the towel around my body, wrapping my frail, tiny body in a few layers, and finally clipped the towel with a bag clip. It felt as if I was trapped in a straight-jacket. Faced away from the clippers, I couldn’t see what was happening. I only heard the clip of the guard and the sound of the clippers being plugged into the wall. Instinctively, I tried to squirm, but only my neck could move, albeit barely.

Then, I heard the buzzing of the clippers as they were flicked on. I couldn’t move away from the sound as they inched closer to my head. I expected to feel the vibration on my neck, but instead, the noise grew closer to my ear. The clippers were plunged into my sideburn, and began to travel up, leaving a trail of my hair to fall to the ground.

"Not too short!" I begged, hoping that this wouldn’t be any shorter than that summer cut my mother had tried on me last summer. Instead of replying, my dad just laughed and began to play with the hair on the top of my head.

"You expect me to keep this mess on your head?" He laughed, plunging the clippers straight down the middle of my head, exposing my scalp to the frigid, winter kitchen air. I heard the clumps of hair as they tumbled to the ground behind him. At this point, my sister had made her way downstairs, likely curious about the buzzing. She leaned in front of me, taking in the damage. She seemed horrified, at first.

As my father continued to buzz me down, however, she took to it in a way I wouldn’t have expected. Maybe it was my father egging her on: "Look! You can finally see your brother’s forehead,""Guess he’s a boy afterall," and the like. Maybe it was her own curiosity - she’d never seen anybody buzzed down before. My father kept his hair in long, black viking braids, and in hindsight, his refusal to get rid of them may have instigated the divorce. Whatever the case was, she began adding her own digs.

"Hey Landon! Looks like you’re becoming an egg," she announced, trying to match my father’s humiliating tone. As she continued, my father began to run the clippers along the sides of my head, the vibrations sending shivers down my spine as the blades snagged against my hair. Whenever he was done with a section, he’d run the clippers over again, pressing the increasingly hot blades against the already sensitive, shorn skin, as if he was taking a victory lap over every section. I couldn’t tell how short it was, but by my sister’s snickers, I could tell it was shorter than it had ever been before. And, whatever length it was, my entire head was ending up that length.

Using one of his muscular hands, my father grabbed my neck and pushed me forward, shoving my head against the strands of hair that had attached themselves to the front of the towel. My sister chuckled and my father muttered something about how he was making a man out of me now. As he began the upwards strokes of the clipper, first allowing the clipper to vibrate against my neck, just for the hell of it, he made sure that they extended to the top of my head, leaving the clumps of hair to fall straight onto my face, catching onto my eyebrows and piling in my lap. It was as if my father was purposely trying to cover me in as much hair as possible.

I wasn’t sure exactly when the last strand of hair had fallen from my head, for my father continued to shave me long, long after. He made pass after pass over my head, traveling up and down my neck, burning blades turning my skin an inflamed red, as I would soon find out. Eventually, satisfied with his handiwork, my father stepped forward to look me in the eye. My sister joined him, her ginger braid swaying as she moved. Looking at each other, they continued to mock me, fully aware that I was essentially strapped to the chair, unable to brush myself off or shower.

"Since he’s already here, you should just shave him fully bald!" My sister joked, rubbing my head and creating so much friction against my already red skin that all I could do was moan, leaving my father and sister to laugh harder.

"Maybe someday," my dad taunted, making buzzing noises as he finally freed me from my straight-jacket towel. Running to the bathroom, I was horrified, but not surprised, by what I saw. My father had used a guard, but not a very thick one. My head was covered with brown, prickly stubble, and underneath said stubble, completely read. Sighing, I turned on the shower and rinsed away any remaining hair.

This ritual continued every three months like clockwork. My mother was delighted by my, as she deemed, "very clean and neat" haircut, and complimented my father on taking charge of the man he was raising. So, that meant that the buzzcut was staying. Usually, my father would buzz me on his own volitional, but occasionally, it took a call from my mother to remind him, or she’d mention it as she dropped me off. Any mentions of "shaggy" or "messy" from either one of them, and I knew I would be buzzed down soon.

During the summer months, he’d drag me to the backyard and strip me down to my underwear as he buzzed me down. He’d keep me standing, shoving my head back and forth, side to side, as he shaved every bit of growth off my head. Around the first summer, I began to fight back again, as I’d once done in the hair salon. I’d scream, beg for him to keep the hair longer on top, to let me grow some of it out.

Occasionally, he’d trick me into believing he would. "Sure," he’d mutter, faking agreeability as the clippers began to buzz. He’d shave the sides gently, as if he was giving me a masterful short back and sides, and then, suddenly, grab my neck. Strangling me as he prevented any movement, he’d plow the clippers across my forehead, diminishing any and all hope of making it past the buzzcut stage.

Winter was more of a wildcard. Sometimes, he’d strip me down and shave me on the kitchen floor, telling my sister that the price of admission was to sweep up the clumps. Sometimes, when company was coming soon, or maybe, he was just feeling more sadistic than usual, he’d use the trashbag method. The trashbag method consisted of him shoving my head into a trashbag and torquing my head to ensure that the shavings ended up falling exclusively in the bag. Uncomfortable for me; convenient for him. Other times, if there wasn’t much to shave off, he’d just buzz me down in the tub and let the stubble that came off flow down the drain as he rinsed me off.

My sister found each and every session hilarious. I envied her, my father, and my mother, and their long, well-kept, silky hair. Say, how come my dad got to have long hair and I didn’t. Wasn’t he supposed to be a man? I inquired once, and ended up getting buzzed down early.

I must have been nine when he first started shaving me bald. Frankly, in the opinion of my childhood self, it was all my sister’s fault, and I still believe that. If only she hadn’t put the idea into his head.

It began during a bathroom buzzcut. At most, a month had passed since my last buzzcut, but my mother had insisted that my head be shaved very close for school pictures. In her words, she didn’t want any "distracting hair" messing with how I appeared.

When my sister and I returned home from school, my dad was waiting by the front door, anticipation in his eyes. I knew that look, knew that he enjoyed buzzing me down, watching the dread fill my eyes and showering me with insults, reminding me that a buzzcut would make me more of a man than I already was.

He essentially pulled me to the bathroom, which had already been prepped, clippers plugged into the wall and the bathtub dried. Sighing, I pulled my shirt over my head and climbed into the tub, awaiting my fate. My sister waited with anticipation - all these years and she still hadn’t gotten bored of watching the hair fall from my head.

The buzzcut began in a fairly normal fashion. I leaned towards the faucet, and my father pushed my head forward, clicking the clippers on and running them up the back of my head. Over the years, my father’s beard clippers had worn down, and he’d decided to invest in genuine Oyster clippers. In hindsight, this was an indication that he was planning on keeping me buzzed for a long, long time.

The clumps of wavy, curling, and frizzy brown hair tickled my nose as he allowed them to fall onto my face. I tried not to flinch, for when I did, he handled me more roughly. Often, however, that was hard to avoid. When he was in a mood, he’d shave as roughly as he desired. In the standard pattern, the buzzing would be followed by the vibrations and the pulling of the hair as it left my head and tumbled somewhere along my body or to the bottom of the tub. Left side, buzzed clean to a nice stubble. Right side, buzzed clean to a nice stubble. He repeated the motion a few times more than usual, as if he wanted to make sure that I knew how short I’d been buzzed. I’d learned the blade number: one.

As he was finishing up, my sister, adding a new insult to her repertoire, decided to call me a baldy. Then, however, something hit her. "There’s still hair on your head, though," she muttered, looking me over. "He’s not a real baldy yet." That yet made my heart sink. There’s no way my hair was ever getting any shorter than this.

I waited anxiously for my dad to reply, to turn off the clippers and announce that I could shower. Instead, however, he simply waited in contemplation. I hoped so desperately that he wasn’t contemplating what I thought he was. Turning off the clippers, I let out a sigh of relief as my father left the bathroom. However, when I heard him dialing on the landline, my heart sank again.

I didn’t hear much of the conversation, only murmurs and key words like "clean," "lower maintenance," and "He’d suit it." It didn’t take a genius to know where this was going.

My dad returned to the bathroom grinning, almost gloating as he announced, joyfully, "Guess who’s getting a baldy today?"

No. No way. This was not happening. I wasn’t going to allow myself to become the laughing stock of the school, of the district, of the entire county. How could mom possibly agree to this?

I tried to pull myself up, out of the tub so I could run for freedom, but it seemed that my sister saw this coming. She grabbed my wrists and pushed my back against the tub, forcing the stream of cut hair against my bare back. "Come on," she taunted, adding more force as I tried to wiggle free. "Can’t take a baldy? Guess you’re more of a pussy than we thought." My dad ducked away and returned with a long, thick blanket and clip. Together, the two of them wrapped me tightly, reminding me of that first straight jacket, and clipped their cocoon taut in the back, leaving me little room to wiggle. Sure, I could kick, I could scream, but what good would that do? I began to accept my fate as my father propped me against the wall of the bathtub, and clicked the guard off the Oyster clippers. All I could do was pray that it was just these clippers that constituted a "baldy."

He ran the clippers over skin that was already irritated, allowing a mere stubble to fall against the towel as he twisted me every which way. I can’t say it hurt as much as it was humiliating. My sister laughed hysterically, comparing me to Mr. Clean and Kojack, telling me that she was going to rub my head raw if it wasn’t already when my father finished. I said goodbye to my sideburns, every inch of stubble as the vibrations that drifted over my head took down stubble so short I didn’t know how much shorter it could get.

Halfway through this process, I heard my father instruct my sister to grab something. I didn’t hear what, but when I saw what, my worst fears were confirmed. She returned from the bathroom cabinet with a straight razor and a bottle of shaving cream.

The clippers had barely been off for a moment before I felt the cold, lathery shaving scream cover my head. It was my sister’s doing, and she was thorough, making sure that no part of my head would remain with any stubble. The straight-razer, on the other hand, was my father’s job, a meticulous job that humiliated me as he concentrated. "You’re going to be bald!" my sister kept yelling, jumping around, and the worst part was that she was right. Stroke after stroke of the cool blade against the warm skin, the prickly sound of the razor sweeping stubble away from my head, and it continued to set it that I was about to truly be bald.

As my father finished, rubbing a towel against my head without friction, I heard my sister begin to chuckle. Before I knew it, there was a glob of shaving cream on my eyebrows, rubbed in by my sister’s delicate hands. I prayed that my father would simply rub the cream off with the towel, but it seemed that my sister had actually had a stroke of genius.

"Hold his head still," my father ordered, retrieving the straight-razor, and before I knew it, with two fell swoops, my eyebrows were gone too. Looking me down, laughing at me, my father finally undid the towel and allowed me to see in the mirror what they’d done to me.

They’d truly shaved me bald. Not an inch of hair remained on either my head or face. My ears stuck out more than usual, so did my dullish brown eyes, and all I could think was that I looked like a freak, or pray that it grew back soon.
"You know what this means, son?" My father asked, rubbing my clean, frictionless head. "You can have an extra month between haircuts." I never agreed to this plan, but it seemed it was settled: one baldy for me every four months. And that’s how it remained, including the day I left for college, the day I met my shaggy roommate.

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