I still can't believe it. by vykonavatel77

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I spent the entire summer holiday at my Uncle Andreas's place. I'm the sort of boy who usually goes to a modern unisex barbershop for a quick trim to keep my hair within school regulations. My hair had grown long enough to cover my ears and shirt collar, and my bangs were hanging over my eyes.
The summer holidays were coming to an end. Since my last haircut, my hair had grown more than 35 millimeters. It was thickthe kind of hair even girls envied. It was the longest my hair had ever been. I had wanted everyone at school to see me with it like that. I was convinced, however, that I wouldn't meet the school's standards and would end up sitting in that familiar modern barbershop on Tuesday, September 2, 1975, forced to lose as much as 40 millimeters of hair. School was starting on Monday, September 1, 1975, and I was 14 years old. Since the barbershop was closed on Mondays, the earliest I could get a haircut was Tuesday.
My parents arrived at Uncle Andreas's place by car on Friday evening. Dad said we had to head home early the next morning because we needed to buy new school clothes for Michael upon seeing my hair, he remarked that Michael would need a proper haircut, too.
My dreams of starting the school year with long hair began to crumble. Just as Dad had said, we set off for home early in the morning.
But on the way, our car broke down. Dad tried to fix it but gave up after half an hour. Then he called for help. We were towed to a repair shop. The mechanic said the repair would take a few days because he had to order a new part, so we would have to go home by train. Mom packed the essentials I'd need into one suitcase the less important things stayed in the car's trunk.
At the train station, we found out the next train to our town wasn't for another three hours. I knew right then we wouldn't make it to the modern unisex barbershop on Saturdays, it only stayed open until 100 PM. I could already picture my classmates envying my long hair and my teachers sending me off to get a haircut.
Dad was angry that we wouldn't get home on time. He told Mom he was going outside the station to have a cigarette. About a minute later, he came running back, saying, "Michael, come with me." When we stepped outside, there were small shops across the street. Above one of them hung a sign Men's and Children's Barbershop. My legs went numb when I saw it.
We walked into the barbershop. A boy sat in the barber's chair, wrapped in a large white sheet, and another boyabout fifteen years oldwas sitting on a waiting chair. The barber asked if I was a student at the local boarding school. Dad said no. Then the barber told him, "Today, I'm only cutting the hair of boys from the local boarding school who are returning for the new term after the holidays." I was relieved to think I might get to keep my long hair for the start of the school year.
My father began explaining the situation to the barberhow our car had broken down and how he wanted to bring his son, Michael, to the shop right away so he wouldn't run into trouble at school right at the start of the term. The barber finally agreed he didn't have many boarding school students in yet. My father also persuaded the barber to let me stay at the shop while he and my mother ran some necessary errands, after which they would return to pick me up and pay for the haircut. The barber agreed to everything.
The barbershop felt very old-fashionednothing like the one I usually went to.
I didn't understand why the barber's chair was turned so that the boy faced the waiting chairs instead of the mirror. The barber finished the first boy's haircut, and an older boy took his place in the chair. The boy who had just been cut sat down on one of the waiting chairs. When the older boy ended up with the same hairstyle, I realized they were brothers. I felt nervous I didn't like this place. I didn't pay attention to the boys' behavior, only to their identical haircuts.
Meanwhile, a group of four boys walked into the shop and sat on the waiting chairs. Their hair wasn't very long, considering they had been on summer break. They eyed my long hair closely, looking envious. They were all completely silent. It was clear that the barber was a figure of authority whom the boarding school students feared. The only sound in the shop was the buzzing of electric clippers. The barber invited me to sit in his old leather chair. He asked me if my school tolerated my hair. I replied, "Mr. Barber, most of the teachers don't like it." At that, the barber said, "We have to do something about that." I asked the barber for just a slight trim. Like the other two boys, I didn't look in the mirror instead, I gazed at the waiting chairs. All four boys were watching intently to see what the barber would do with my hair.
The barber combed out my hair. I couldn't see what he was doing behind my back. When he stepped up to me and tilted my head to the side, he pressed the electric clippers against my cheek. He gradually worked his way up to the crown of my head. A large clump of long hair fell onto the cape. The barber finished cutting one side of my head, then the nape of my neck, and moved on to the other side. I felt a lump in my throat I could barely swallow. I kept trying to convince myself that my haircut wouldn't be too short. The barber lifted the hair at the crown with a comb. He began thinning the hair on top using thinning shears. He continued cutting, lifting the hair with the comb and running the clippers over it more long strands fell onto the cape. I saw satisfaction on the boys' faces. The barber combed my hair again, but only at the crown, sweeping it to the right.
The barber switched clippers. He tilted my head to the side and shaved around my ear. He pressed the clippers against the skin and traced an arc around the ear only tiny clippings fell onto the cape. He did the same on the other side of my head and the nape of my neck. Afterward, he blended the cut into the hair at the crown. When he wet the sides above my ears and the back of my head, I worried my haircut would end up as short as the ones the boys before me had received.
I can feel the barber applying white foamjust like the kind the other two boys hadto the wet areas of my head. He gradually scraped off the lather. The only sound in the barbershop was the razor scraping away stubble from around the ears and the nape of the neck. Once finished, he wiped the head with a towel. He took a greasy cream from a black plastic container, massaged it into the hair on the crown, combed it through, and created a subtle part separating the longer hair on the right side from the shorter hair on the left.
As I was released from the cape, one of the boys was already standing by the barber's chair. I didn't even have a chance to look in the mirror.
I later noticed that the boy had been standing on a black mark. When the barber looked at him, the boy spoke up very loudly "Sir, seventh-grade studentI'd like a classic school haircut, please," all while looking the barber straight in the eye. The barber replied, "You little bastard, sit in the chairnow." Before I could even count to three, the boy was sitting bolt upright in the chair, his hands resting on the armrests. He sat with his back straight, well away from the backrest. The barber wrapped him in a long cape, pulled it tight around his neck, and only then did the boy lean back against the chair. I watched in silence as the boy got his haircut. When the barber finished cutting the boy's hair and released him from the white cape, the boy hopped off the chair onto the white mark, handed the barber a red slip, looked him in the eye, and said, "Sir, thank you for my precise school haircut. I am proud to be a regular client of yours." The barber replied, "You little bastard, get out of my sight." The boy quickly ran over to the waiting chair and sat down. Then he waited for his friends to get their haircuts too. By then, another boy was already standing on the black mark. I felt sorry for these boys. The barber gave them unfashionable haircuts and treated them terribly, as if they were prisoners rather than students. Yet, they were expected to show him respect. I was glad there was no school in our town that required haircuts from such an authoritarian barber.
I watched all the boys who had their hair cut. The process was identical for everyone, and they all ended up with the same hideous, short hairstyle. They all had patches of white scalp shaved bare on both sides of their heads and across a large part of the nape of the neck. None of them looked in the mirror or examined their hair after the cut. I didn't even dare to rub the shaved areas of my head for fear of provoking the barber. So, I simply waited quietly for my father to arrive.
My father was delighted with my new haircut. He praised the barber and thanked him warmly. "Michael looks like a proper boy now," my father said. The barber said, "Your son certainly won't have any trouble at school because of long hair now. At our local boarding school, that's the standard hairstyle for all grade levels." When my father asked how often the boys at the local boarding school got their hair cut, the barber replied, "Every three weekseven during the holidays." That allows their hair to grow out by nine or ten millimeters.
I left the barbershop, running my fingers through my hair to check the cut. My father stayed behind to chat with the barber. A moment later, he emerged with a smile on his face and handed me a black plastic container with a lid. Yes, it was the very same plastic container he had used to apply and massage the greasy cream into the hair on the crown of my head. My father remained silent, but I had a very bad feeling about the whole thing.
At the train station, I finally saw myself in a mirror. It was exactly as the barber had described. My hairstyle met the standard of the local boarding school the hair on the crown of my head was no more than 60 millimeters long. A greasy cream made it shiny and held it firmly in place the comb marks were clearly visible. Above my ears on both sides, pale, shaved arcs extended two-thirds of the way up my head. I couldn't see the back of my head, so I tried feeling it by running my hand upwards from my neck. Yet, I knew it was shaved exactly like the boarding school boys' hairflawlessly shaved from the neck up across four-fifths of the nape, with only the remaining fifth hiding a sharp transition to the relatively long hair above.
Ever since leaving the barbershop, I felt like everyone was staring at my headat a hairstyle worse than any I'd ever had before.
After a train ride of less than an hour, we finally arrived home, where I examined my new short haircut more closely. I didn't remember ever having the sides and nape of my neck shaved like that, not even as a small child.
I didn't leave the house until Monday so no one would see meas if hoping my hair would quickly grow back by then.
On Monday, no one admired my new haircut quite the opposite. I became a laughingstock. The pale, shaved areas contrasted sharply with my tanned face.

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