-for Dad, Dempsey R. Lagrimas Sr.

Mom did let Dad cut my hair once. I was probably only 7 or 8 or so. Dad took me downstairs to the basement and pulled one of the tall black leather stools from the bar to the end of the pool table under the light. He didn’t even give me a smock like Mom did, which was just an old raincoat with the hood tucked in. Dad pulled a blue towel from the clean laundry and tied it around my neck like a superhero’s cape.

I could never sit still during a haircut anyway, so Dad would cut for a minute then spin the chair around a few times like one of the rides at the Kmart summer carnival. I’d almost fall and I’d laugh and He’d catch me and He’d laugh too, then He would cut a little more. He ran the comb through my hair harder than Mom would, but I didn’t care. When Dad was done, He rubbed my head to shake out all the little cut hairs with His auto mechanic hands, old and calloused and hard, but I didn’t care about that either.

After He swept up and shook my cape in the laundry sink, we went back upstairs to watch TV, me and Dad and our smiling faces. Walking through the kitchen, Mom looked at me and my smile and my new haircut, then looked at Dad and his smile, then looked at us both again. She wasn’t smiling.

The rest of my childhood haircuts took place upstairs in the kitchen like before, on the old metal chairs with the ugly vinyl covered cushion wearing that stupid plastic raincoat. While Mom cut and kept telling me to sit still and behave, I’d look at Dad sitting on the floor in the living room, leaning against the couch watching TV and eating tortilla chips. He’d look at me and smile and I’d smile back for a second

then I’d go back to sitting still and
hating that the chairs in the kitchen
didn’t spin.

Copyright © 2006 Dempsey Lagrimas Jr.