{"id":582,"date":"2013-02-18T21:03:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T21:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/?p=582"},"modified":"2015-03-15T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T17:02:13","slug":"seven-clues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/seven-clues\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Clues"},"content":{"rendered":"
From Widow’s Dozen, forthcoming from Turtle Point Press, Spring 2014<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n

\u201cMost heads are routine,\u201d he says. \u201cSet the attachment at one of eight lengths, then slide the clipper up the back stretch, cruising from base to crown. The trick to it is there\u2019s no trick to it. Confidence<\/i>, son! If coffee\u2019s making your hands shake, stop drinking the stuff. How can the customer trust you if your hands tremble all the time? See, one of the things you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re reassuring<\/i> him\u2026laying to rest any second thoughts he might be having about coming in, in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a week, and Ward had already had it up to here with his talkative mentor, Frank Reed aka Frank the Barber, in particular his habit of calling Ward son <\/i>whenever he wasn\u2019t using \u201cBilly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy? Who knows why? Men are complicated creatures. He figures he wants change and fears it at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, the customer was looking askance at the chair Frank had tilted back for him, the barber\u2019s prawn-shaped torso tipped over it in a white smock, his expression smoothed through years of surreptitious practice in the wall-length mirror opposite, with the disinfectant drying on his scissors\u2014fresh from the pickle jar.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything you need to know can be learned from the shape of the head, from the parts to the patterns of the hair across it. Look. Here, here, and here. These are yours. The preferences of the patron come in second\u2014a distant<\/i> second. This is where every one of you kids go wrong at first\u2026by actually listening<\/i> to their preferences. See this customer? What do you think he asked for when he first came to me, when was it? Six years ago? How can a layman judge what\u2019s right for his own head? Do you <\/i>trust what you see in a mirror? \u2018A Dreyfus?\u2019 I told Larry\u2014go ahead, tell Billy, Larry, didn\u2019t I say that? Exactly? \u2018With those ears,\u2019 I told him straight, \u2018\u2014not a chance! Try the Soviet Bachelor instead.\u2019 And you can see how well that\u2019s worked for both<\/i> of us\u2014because once I\u2019ve found the right haircut for one of these fellas\u2014once they see it grown out after, what\u2014three weeks<\/i>?\u2014they\u2019ll be back. They\u2019ll be asking for the same exact haircut their whole lives, with only minor corrections for age and balding patterns. And if they ever do leave the County\u2014ha!\u2014<\/i>they\u2019ll remember me and never feel as settled into their haircuts of the future. Never. That\u2019s the stature you could look forward to one day, son\u2014I\u2019m not saying you will, but it\u2019s something to aim for. Now this unfortunate gentleman\u2014\u201d he spread his hand out on top of the next customer\u2019s mixed-bag crown, turning the head just a hair so that the man faced Ward with a starved, sour look\u2014\u201chair\u2019s way too fine for a Newman\u2014to get a real Newman, it needs to start curling in at least three-quarters of an inch. Witch hazel should produce results in less than three months. An old barber\u2019s trick. A natural or a line? There is<\/i> no hairline on this particular neck. See? The hair from the back keeps going. Brush it back. That broad of a forehead cries out for a widow\u2019s peak. But however you choose, stick to your decision, even over objections. Talking is fine. Learn to develop a spiel. Well-crafted banter will set most men at ease. But if the customer isn\u2019t talking back, can it. And if the talking affects your judgment, or your style with these old buzz-clippers, then\u2014I think we can all agree\u2014a friendly silence is best.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll need to be careful with the small machinery of those heads. Ordinary people imagine them round, but any half-decent barber knows that the human skull consists of numerous slightly concave, scale-shaped planes touching and sometimes overlapping. The phrenologists of the nineteenth century had the right idea, only they got the names wrong. Lododox! Symbol of the short-fused. How do you like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fourth customer was a tall black man, but while Frank didn\u2019t take the same easy liberties he did with the white ones\u2014the borderline unprofessional violations and manipulations of their space\u2014he didn\u2019t allow the customer to interrupt his spiel or influence its direction either. The man was a source of ugly fascination to Ward. He was tall and very thin, and well dressed in a sense\u2014formally <\/i>dressed, but in a cheap suit-and-tie affair that looked and smelled like it had been worn days, even slept<\/i> in, right down to the damp pinkish-white shirt with the gaudy lapel\u2014to the underwear, no doubt. He stood very erect\u2014established himself in the chair as if he<\/i> were the hinged and lever-ready thing\u2014but erect in a way that was the opposite of dignified, like somebody poking his middle finger into your third eye. How could you live and let live like that?<\/p>\n

\u201cListen up, son. Potent depressives, the Jonahs of the world, reveal themselves by the circumferences of their misericordia<\/i> pumps, near the left nodule of corti. Always listen to your fingers. Begin at the back, always with the back left corner. Left side, right side, top, bangs. Break up the order if you get bored\u2026but always take the bottom left first. And make sure the bangs go last. See, it\u2019s all about putting things into proportion\u2026like the answer to whatever\u2019s eating you, you got to do the calculations first.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been a high-school superstar: in the same league as superstars, at any rate. Instead, life surprised Ward with this fuming, hapless, heavy flesh, for which nothing had worked out\u2014disappointment in duds, cowboy hat and overpressed size-45 denim.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, you\u2019re a big one,\u201d said Frank Reed, as he met his charge at the bus stop. He leaned over and opened the wagon\u2019s passenger door. \u201cSwell, swell. Just put your stuff in the back. So good to see you. Let\u2019s take a gander with that thing off you. What do you say?\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank Reed had to work to keep his smile from skipping town. Its welcome so wide he could smell his own teeth. The thing attached to the boy\u2019s head was a Red Rock West incarnation of Elton John, shaved military-short on both sides with the panel of center-flipped hair, very girlish, running down the back of Ward\u2019s thick, sweaty neck.<\/p>\n

Both of them felt constrained by the other cars on the Parkway, Frank still reeling from his encounter with a Midwest mullet in upstate\u2019s safe conservatory. But he girded himself for the mentoring role he\u2019d requested. And when Ward began to classify the different lowlifes he\u2019d encountered in the institution he\u2019d been calling home, Frank was able to reply, \u201cI can take you back right now, if you like,\u201d without skipping a beat. \u201cIf you can\u2019t learn to talk like a normal person.\u201d The boy blushed in confusion.<\/p>\n

Frank made an impromptu detour to Pat Mitchell\u2019s\u2014\u201cbest ice cream in the county!\u201d he exclaimed, feeling windy and apologetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t mind if I call you Billy?\u201d he asked, as they compared flavors in the cemetery down the street, the brown waters of the Susquehanna bending west to east to south. \u201cThere\u2019s this song by Petula Clark about a young man with that name. My wife used to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

That was how it started: Ward knew why Frank Reed had taken him on. He\u2019d go over the reasons, one by one, taking his own sweet time.<\/p>\n

First for the state money, just as Ward had suspected.<\/p>\n

Second to get good with the cops (very useful for a barber) by \u201ctaking a chance\u201d on a troubled boy who\u2019d been in the system as long as Ward.<\/p>\n

Third, he got somebody who\u2019d have to listen to him, day in, day out\u2026<\/p>\n

Fourth, as intimidating presence: an implicit threat to Frank\u2019s \u201cunruly\u201d customers, ridiculous as that sounded.<\/p>\n

More like anybody who might disagree while the barber was holding court, five.<\/p>\n

The sixth reason would retain its mystery a little while longer.<\/p>\n

Ward had no hope as a haircutter (even as a \u201cbutcher,\u201d he wasn\u2019t primitive enough), but Frank did see enormous potential related to reasons four and five.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say the word comes from the Scandinavian, banga<\/i>\u2014meaning to hammer, when in fact it\u2019s a horse\u2019s tail. Cows and horses. It\u2019s interesting how often barnyard animals and their backsides put in an appearance. Cowlicks, ducktails, pigtails, bangs, ponytails. The list goes on. Words, like hairs, can have interesting derivations. You\u2019d be surprised how many start with something womanish. Speaking of which\u2014avoid the straight-line across no matter how tempting. It\u2019s fine for young ladies, but you\u2019ll lose more regulars with that than any other\u2014find the natural part and comb it out at least six times\u2014one, two, three, up to six, in fast sweeps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shop was a modest affair, a discrete door-and-half-window storefront with no awning facing the Vestal Plaza\u2019s back lot. The only Plaza business that did face this direction, in fact. Behind the lot, the hillside created an enormous amphitheater, its upper slope scalped to an ugly scree. Club House Road circuited it, winding up to the Jewish Community Center, where the children of Harpur\u2019s professors would learn the language that unlocked the secrets of the original Testament. Many had become Frank\u2019s regular clients, he claimed. He loved kids, loved getting at people\u2019s heads, knowing their strands as early as possible. Shady colonnades alternated with square planters open to the sun\u2014ficus, fern, American Smoketree under arbitrary pockets of light. Frank had the idea of placing torpedo-sized barber poles strategically along the Plaza\u2019s pitchfork of galleries, with a pair near the pizza parlor painted with Venetian gondolas from the life, directing one to a blind alley then out to the parking lot\u2019s amphitheater. The same number of cars (more or less) huddled into the same small quadrant in the lot\u2019s wide acreage, directly in front of Frank\u2019s shop. Every seat in what Frank Reed dubbed his \u201cworker\u2019s paradise\u201d filled with impatient, unhappy men.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s keeping them long, try squirting mist on the forelocks. To do it right, you\u2019ll want to keep the part as thin as a razor blade. Look at Burt\u2019s circa Hustle <\/i>or the very early Alda\u2014the half-ear with sideburns and the long hair part company. Many people have more than one part, of course. The average is three for men. With a little bit of coaxing and a dab of grippy or holding gel, they can be set into even layers no matter how he chooses to part it as it starts growing back\u2014although there are deviations you can\u2019t fix. There was this one guy\u2014a two-monther\u2014who had eighteen separate cowlicks, wings and swirls total. Claimed he\u2019d had a great head of hair up until his mid-twenties, when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and when the hair grew back, it got messed up somehow. Remember that, Sam? Good-luck Chuck. But no matter how cockeyed things look\u2014there\u2019s always the one dominant part. Work the top layer out with a mind to the two ears. Are they level? Because most ears aren\u2019t. Typically, the left or right lifts a few milli- or even centimeters higher, corresponding to what-handed you are. Everything\u2019s connected\u2014like in that embarrassing Candy Mitchum song my wife used to listen to, a watch ticks, a man dies, the thatch, the taper, how it hangs around the ears, the bangs, the length all over.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Ward unlocked the mystery reason the one time he went up with the old man on a Ferris wheel.<\/p>\n

Fear was the key.<\/p>\n

The amusement park had been set up in Johnson City to celebrate the latest revelation in indoor shopping, the Oakdale Mall. \u201cThis year\u2019s pet rock,\u201d the barber predicted, but he took his mentee with him to check it out.<\/p>\n

The trip turned out very frightening when they got trapped at the top. The bar swung down across their laps. The gondola tipped back with the weight of the two of them. Ward, who was taking up more than his share of the seat, was squeezing the metal, his knuckles white, and as the enormous axle began to turn, his terror began to communicate itself to his hapless mentor, hair by hair, by slow but lethal osmosis. Their feet swept out into space, over the hearthstones of the valley.<\/p>\n

They were lifted and pulled backwards, above the salaaming green and the dirty dishwater of the pilot lake. There were the different colored lights of the arcades, with the lights of pit stops and parkways and various cartons of industry shoved off to the side.<\/p>\n

As his terror grew, Ward suddenly realized that Frank Reed was still talking. Over the dismay of his surprise, he realized this guy was talking because he had <\/i>to. He was afraid of what would happen when he stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one time you\u2019ll have to use the mirror,\u201d Frank Reed was advising him, \u201cbut don\u2019t let them catch you! And pray\u2014whenever you\u2019re sneaking a look\u2014you don\u2019t lock glances by accident. There\u2019s the boredom. Of course there\u2019s boredom. Years of dead time and grinding molars\u2014times when your customer\u2019s behavior or personal odor is so bad you want to clip the nub off the bottom of his ear.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about proportion, balance, cause, effect. Soon enough you\u2019ll get so the figuring is sure and automatic. See? Three snips. For thatching, use the first and middle fingers to lever out the locks, then start snipping from left to right, unless you\u2019re working with a Jew or Italian, in which case backwards is okay I guess. Italian cutters are the showiest\u2014but for true masters you\u2019ll want to watch the Poles. There was a Lou Dembrowski\u2014a magical Pole I learned from in secret, many years back. He had this talent for disrupting <\/i>the part. But even he couldn\u2019t compete with a blowfly cowlick. Now don\u2019t cut across the entire wedge. Leave about an eighth of an inch, to hold your place. Comb it out three times when you\u2019re finished\u2014forwards, backwards and forwards again. By this point, you should be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo surprises. And no more than five more strokes with your instruments. Two is okay. No strokes is best. End with a brace of tonic, tap on some powder, slap the cuff with a clean towel, hold up the hand mirror. Voila! <\/i>Sure\u2014it\u2019s okay to say it. The big moment. Watch in the wall-wide mirror as the expression changes. Delight? Disappointment? Fair shape? Or a slander? Those who cut hair for a living are lucky. On a busy day, we get dozens of defining moments. \u2018What would my father say if he could see me now?\u2019 In how many professions do you find a man handed that question on a routine basis? Truth or failure sits there in front of you, in the round.<\/p>\n

And then it walks out into the world. Appearances count\u2014first ones the most. As my old teacher used to tell me over and over again, there are seven clues to a man\u2019s character, all as plain as the nose on his face\u2014choose any stranger. His haircut. His handshake. The shiftiness of his eyes. The clothes he wears. The presence or absence of dirt under his nails. The nose on his face. His smell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMost heads are routine,\u201d he says. \u201cSet the attachment at one of eight lengths, then slide the clipper up the back stretch, cruising from base to crown. The trick to it is there\u2019s no trick to it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[56],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTraveltainted | Seven Clues - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/seven-clues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traveltainted | Seven Clues - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cMost heads are routine,\u201d he says. \u201cSet the attachment at one of eight lengths, then slide the clipper up the back stretch, cruising from base to crown. 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