My Friend the Barber (Part 1) by GermanCut

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It was a stupid idea to go for a walk on that Saturday afternoon. The sun had not appeared for a single moment yet, and it was terrible cold.
I wanted to give this town, where I had been studying for a few months, another chance. But the town wouldn't let me do so.
In the meantime, I had arrived in the area around the train station and was thinking about why the quarters around the stations are always so unattractive, when a sudden rain shower tore me out of my thoughts.

It was such heavy rain that I took to my heels. I had no idea where I was running to, but I hoped to find a place where I could take shelter.

My hair was sopping wet in no time. It hung in my eyes, and further over my nose. I pushed the wet streaks aside to see, and I noticed an illuminated shop window on the other side of the street. I ran over and opened the door without thinking twice.
There I stood, like a mermaid on dry land, clumsy, with wet hair and a soaked jacket. A large puddle immediately formed under me. I first smelled it more than I saw it I had stormed into a barbershop, but then I noticed several men who were looking at me, half surprised, half amused.
"Great performance, Philipp!" I said to myself.

I was about to apologize and leave the shop when an elderly man came up to me and spoke "Please sit down! It will take a little longer. Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Why not?" I thought to myself. "It's warm and dry here and it feels homey. I can sit down and have tea."
Strangely enough, the idea that a barbershop is not primarily for sitting down and drinking tea did not occur to me at that moment. So I nodded.

It felt good to take off the wet jacket, and now a puddle formed under the coat rack, too.
I had hardly sat in the comfortable armchair when the tea was placed in front of me with the words "Are two sugar-cubes enough for you?"

As I slowly warmed up, I realized where I had gotten into Barbershop! Haircut!
Three barbers were doing their work the elderly man who had greeted me, then a man in his early 30s, who because of the similarity was probably his son, and finally a young man who was about my age. Like the other two, he was dressed in plain clothes, but with a touch of extravagance. Together with gray pants and black and white sneakers, he wore a perfectly fitting short-sleeved black shirt with silver stripes. It harmonized well with his eyebrows, which he raised as if he was mocking when he glanced briefly in my direction. But the most obvious thing was above his eyebrows a shiny bald head.

The older man pointed to a chair in front of the mirrors, which had just become vacant, and said "Take a seat, please!" when the young guy said something to him in Turkish, whereupon the older man said to me "No, sorry! Just wait for a moment!"

I was finally asked to sit in the chair by the young guy after he took off his last customer's cape.

"Hello, I'm Cem!" he said. "Philipp!" I replied. The cape was put on me, Cem looked me in the face through the mirror.

"What kind of hairstyle was it?" he asked. "When was your last visit at the barber?"
I thought about it for a moment and remembered that the last time I had a haircut was before Christmas. In the meantime, we had mid-March.
"It's been a while", I tried to evade.
"Aha", said Cem. "Do you have any idea about your new hairstyle?" he asked. "Not exactly", I said.
"That's a good foundation on which I can work!" he said ironically and smiled. "Well, I'll wash your hair first. Maybe that will clear your head."
"The hair is already wet!" I replied.
"Yes, but rain is not the same as a head wash", he said, bent my head over the sink and let pleasantly warm water run over it. With gentle and at the same time strong fingers, he massaged the shampoo into my hair and then rinsed it out thoroughly.

He wrapped a white towel around my head, sat me up straight, so that I could see myself in the mirror again. With the towel around my head, I looked like a movie diva from the 40s.
"Joan Crawford The Women!" cried Cem, who must have thought the same thing.
"Hey, you've seen the movie? What did you think about it?" I asked him in amazement. After all, it's not often that you meet people of my age who like old films.
"I thought it was quite good. But there were just a little too many women", Cem answered, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking me straight in the eye through the mirror. I avoided his gaze.

Then he took the towel off me, grabbed a comb and ran it through my hair. It seemed aimless to me.
"You have really nice wavy hair, almost curls. That's an occasion! Have you ever thought of a mullet!"
"Jesus Christ, no!" I almost screamed. I remembered old photos of my uncle with a mullet, with wavy hair just as dark blonde as mine, but with a nasty mustache. I told Cem that I didn't want to look like my uncle in the 80s.
Cem laughed. "Retro look doesn't mean copying past fashions exactly. Today a mullet is different than it was 40 years ago. I would cut the hair at your sides short and shave it a bit. We hardly shorten your hair at the neck at all, and we don't cut off too much at the top."
I made a skeptical face.
Cem said "Let me propose You let me cut the mullet, then you'll go home, and if you haven't gotten used to it in the next three days, you come back and we'll think of something else for you. The haircut is for free then. What do you think?"
That was an offer! "That's how we do it! Thank you!" I said.

Cem began to cut the hair on the top of my head and worked his way from there towards the back of my head. It was amazing that Cem found out exactly the length at which my hair formed the most beautiful curls.
"You're lucky, do you know that? To some others I would have to give a perm and then smear all kinds of styling products in their hair. You don't need any of that!"
"Right, I just get up in the morning, shake my head, and the hairstyle is perfect again!" I replied grinning. Cem laughed and said "Well, you should brush your hair regularly!"
Cem was very careful with the haircut and seemed to have a lot of time. All the time in the world. That wasn't a haircut, that was meditation. I felt slightly pleasant tiredness.
But then Cem said unexpectedly "I noticed your dialect. You're not from here, are you? How do you like our town?"
That's when everything burst out of me that I didn't feel comfortable in this town and that there was no place at all where I felt at home. I talked about my university and that it was difficult for me to get in touch with the people there.
"Excuse me, I'm really sorry! I don't want to bore you, and I don't want to blame your town. Maybe I don't know it properly", I reassured him.
"First of all, you don't seem to know the right people", Cem replied. "But you could easily change that! And a new haircut gives you better thoughts and makes other people say Hey, what a cool guy!'"
I blushed a bit at Cem's barely concealed compliment. But he was right. I really looked cool. The hair had remained very full at the top and fell slightly into the forehead.

Now Cem began to cut the sides short with comb and scissors up to about the tips of the ears. He did the same behind the ears and on the sides of the neck. "The modern mullet has entered into a connection with the fauxhawk", he lectured, "it's more rebellious than the classic version. Concerning the clothes, you hardly must change your style. At most, you should wear a more eye-catching earring than this one you have right now. But your red track jacket is just right! It's really cool."
Cem took some hair wax from a can, rubbed it with his hands and spread it in my hair. "This way the hair looks nice and light and gets a pretty shine", he said. "Do you see?" He let me examine my new haircut from all sides with the help of the hand mirror. "Brilliant!" I just managed to say.

Cem took the cape off me. But instead of dismissing me, he began to massage my neck and shoulders. It was so pleasant, I almost moaned with comfort. "Don't stop!" I thought, and neither did he. While he massaged me extensively, several questions went through my head

Are massage and fashion tips part of the normal service at the barbershop?
Is it common to offer a free haircut if you don't like the haircut later?
Do barbers usually introduce themselves immediately by name? To be honest, Cem was the only barber of whom I knew the name.
Why didn't I end up in the chair of the other barber, but of Cem after his intervention?
What did Cem's remark "a little too many women" mean?

I had to smile at each of these questions.

"Oh, my, that felt good!" I said when he finally released his hands and smiled at me. We both looked in the mirror with the golden frame a portrait of a dark blond guy with wild mane and of an elegant bald man with raised dark eyebrows.

I put on my still unpleasantly wet jacket, went to the checkout and said goodbye to Cem with the words "See you!" and meant it exactly like that.

I liked my new haircut. Until then, I had been more of a conservative type who would never have allowed something so "daring" to be cut.
But it was even more amazing that I left the barbershop as if I had just spent a weekend by the sea. The gloomy thoughts were blown away.

But a thought had taken root without me daring to admit it to myself right away. It was the thought of this bald young guy with the beautiful smile.
It was the thought of Cem, the barber.


To be continued.

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