Rhinestone Tiger

I don’t get expensive hair cuts anymore. But that isn’t through lack of vanity. I once spent two-thirds of my monthly pay packet on a long coat that suited neither winter nor summer.

That evening, I left my company’s open-plan office and joined the streets of south London at 8.37 PM. By which point the nearby salon I frequented these days had long been locked up by its bald Mediterranean proprietor.

My haircut had worked its way down to the bottom of an extensive list of nothingness that day. Now, as I stood at my bus stop staring at the one-inch wrists on the tiny Japanese lady loaded with carrier bags in front of me, I tried in vain to ruffle away the ridiculous bloated ducktail at the back of my head. An image of me attempting to escort Sian through Prague on a romantic amble with my hair in this deranged state sent a jet of rage into my gut.

Perched near the back of the bendy bus as it slimed its way through the October evening, the flare of passing headlights made it tricky to avoid my reflection in the window. My head resembled that of a 7-year-old me. Patchy semi-stubble met now with untamed fluffy tufts that protruded over my temples. The rest of my hair looked placed on my head, like someone was about to come collect it. It reminded me of the photos my mother still kept in a Perspex cube by her bed – me wearing a green Lego jumper with an accidental mullet and the cracked smile of used car salesman.


Sian excited me in a way I wasn’t really used to. I should be offering her more than this. I glared at the creeping laughter lines round my mouth. Tugging on one tuft, I imagined ripping it straight out.

Outside, the cold heightened my panic. I still had to find my passport and pack. It was now gone nine, and I was standing in the glow of Golden Fried Chicken and Ribs, the only light remaining on my high street. As I passed the empty estate agents, the thought of going away looking like this made me want to boot the nearest wall, if only to hurt my toe. Then something rang in the back of my mind. I remembered another light that I’d seen on at this time, and started back down the road.

Passing the turning for my street, I arrived at another smaller glass-fronted property. The canvas hooded sign read “Barber Shop” in a 1920s-style font. Outside was a yellow and black Western Union placard that said, “Send And Receive Money Here For Free”. The window was smudged. In it were three photographs of mixed-race men with different grades of shaved head.
As I stepped through the door I noticed an ink-jet print-out of the Algerian football team stuck to the wall. It had been wrapped in Sellotape as a kind of makeshift laminate. There were four men in the room. One man at the back had a tiger made up of what looked like gold rhinestones splayed across his white t-shirt. A television on the far wall was playing a Jamaican-sounding rap song. The set was distorting.


“How much to cut this?” I asked, scrunching my hair apologetically.


“What you want?” said the tiger man, mainly in vowels.

“Just the same, but about an inch and a half shorter?” There was another pause as the man stepped forward and took me in. He looked stern.

“Yeah, I do it. Seven pound,” said the man, and cocked his chin at one of two swing chairs in the room.

There were old local papers, pamphlets, and post in piles on the shelf and empty chair by the door. The smell reminded me of my best friend’s bedroom from when I was 15: non-descript stale aerosol, and boys. I removed my jacket and laid it over a carton of juice that was resting on the piled post. Sitting down, I met a sobering image in the mirror. Fixing on my neck, and then on the way my jowl had begun creasing up to it of late. My face looked greasy and puckered in this light. I worried my nose usually looked this bulbous and shiny. Squirming, I checked my phone just for something else to look at. Then the man appeared from behind me with a blank box of tissues. He began folding them over the collar of my work shirt.

“You are cool with this kind of cut, then?” I hesitated, flicking my fringe and catching his eye in the mirror.

“Ah, yeah,” nodded the man.

“I mean, yeah. I just want the same thing all around, really. Longer at the front, shorter at the back and sides,” I said ruffling my head again.

In the mirror, I watched the other men in the room. An older man in a felt flat cap and an oversized black leather jacket sat expressionless on a plastic office chair, staring back at me. Another thin man in a grey vest hung loosely round the corner at the end of the wall of mirrors, grinning and exchanging words with a boy who’d disappeared out back. They weren’t speaking English. Looking down, I noticed no hair on the floor. In front of me on the counter was a large tub of pink gel with a fine-toothed comb sunk into it. As I felt the tiger man move closer to me, I noticed his t-shirt was tucked into high-waisted stonewash jeans. His head looked a bit like a pebble.

There was a hum, and looking up I noticed the man was holding a large stainless steel clipper with what must have been its largest comb fixture attached. The man began dipping the clipper into the bush at the back and sides of my head, prodding my skull, and releasing clumps of fuzz floating to the lino floor. This continued for nearly ten minutes at a leisurely pace, with the man either stopping to exchange rumbling sentences with the man in the flat cap, or clear the clipper. I stared at my reflection more. I was becoming less concerned with my jowls, and more at the haphazard shape my hair was taking. Fidgeting in my seat, I could feel my heart rate increase. Stalling myself, I let the man continue for what seemed like several minutes.

“Usually they use scissors for most of the cut,” I eventually said, motioning with my fingers. “Are you going to use them at all?” “Yeah, yeah,” said the man, making a long plough through the crown of my head, sending a tickle onto my collar bone. Intermittent shrieking laughs stabbed the air from the thin man, punctuating his conversation with the boy out back.

Repositioning himself in front of me, the tiger man shakily held my fringe between his fore and middle fingers and lightly started pulling the clippers over my forehead. The man’s mouth opened as he concentrated, and I could feel his breath on my face. My heart was racing now. I scrunched my hands by my sides and felt how clammy my palms had gotten.
 

“Longer at the front, yeah?” I croaked.

The man nodded a few times, focused on the task at hand.

With one heavy motion I felt the clipper drag over my hairline, and saw a larger clump of hair float toward the floor. The tiger man stepped back to review his work.

I looked at my reflection. There was a sizeable chunk missing from the left hand corner of my fringe, leaving a window of pale skin exposed. The rest of my head had taken a shape the like of which felt very alien.

“Cool,” I swallowed. “Yeah, I reckon that should do…”

“No more?” asked the tiger man, clicking his clippers off and looking alarmed.

“No, that’s great,” I said, picking the tissues out of my collar and trying to adjust my fringe in a way that might hide the new gaping space. “How much was it? Seven?”

The man in the flat cap looked over to the thin man, who was no longer smiling. I dug a crumpled ten pound note from the bottom of my trouser pocket and left it in the tiger man’s hand. Turning, I made for the exit, holding one hand in the air. As I stepped through the door, I caught my right brogue on the bottom of the frame and tripped.