The Hair Salon

The super hero cartoon on the big box TV caused me to watch with awe as I imagined myself performing the different fighting moves. I was glued to my Grandma’s gold shag carpet. I had sat there so long I could feel the carpet flattening underneath me, and my butt hurt. I wanted to go sit in a chair, but grandma’s TV didn’t have a remote control. She didn’t even have cable. Everything in Grandma’s house was old. Her appliances and furniture with plastic slipcovers were like the ones I saw on “Nick at Nite.” Every time I walked into her house, I felt like I had traveled through some time warp, taking me from the days of Cds and PlayStations, to the days of black and white TVs and rotary phones.

Grandma’s house smelled funny, too. Mom said it was mothballs and the ammonia that she used to clean the house with. I didn’t know what either of that was, but the smell mixed with her Marlboro cigarettes, and it stank. The plastic that covered her couch was yellowed. Mom had told me that the now yellow doilies placed on her chairs and coffee tables were white when she was my age. Grandma didn’t know how to entertain me. She just let me do whatever I wanted, and if she didn’t like it, I got fussed at. I wish I was at Aunt Janie’s and Uncle Bob’s house this weekend, I thought. They always have cool things for me to do. Why did they have to have the flu this weekend?

I heard grandma coming down the hallway into the living room. “Timothy, are you ready yet?” she called. She sounded aggravated.

I turned around as she walked up behind me. I hate the way she dresses, I thought. She was wearing an ankle length bright pink dress with big blue flowers on it. She called it a “moo-moo”; I called it “ugly”. Her hair was fixed in the traditional “old lady Baptist do”. I had seen pictures of her when mom and dad got married fifteen years earlier, and her hair was the same. The only difference now was it had a blue tint and it was poofier. Her glasses were embarrassing. The frames were thick, black plastic ones with a seashell chain attached to them that hung around her neck.

“Why do I have to go?” I asked. “I’ll stay here.”

“Grandpa won’t be back for a few more hours and my hair appointment is in forty-five minutes. I told you all this last night.”

“But there’s gonna be old ladies there wanting to pinch my cheeks,” I complained. “Can I to over to Bobby’s instead?” I asked, my voice filling with hope.

“No. Your cousin’s grounded this weekend. He failed a History test.” She took a long puff from her cigarette and blew out the smoke as she told me to go get my shoes.

At least my shoes are better than hers, I thought. She wears funky tan loafers with support hose rolled down to her ankles. They clunked like Mama's on 'Mama's Family'.

I climbed in the front seat of her lime green stick shift Studebaker and tried to ignore the smoky smell. After trying to buckle my seatbelt, she told me to just forget it. She never used hers, and had never gotten stopped by a cop. I kept trying, but she gave me the look that told me to do what she said. Grandma always told me about how Grandpa bought her the car and how much work he did on it to keep it running. Even with the air conditioner that Grandpa installed, my legs still stuck to the black leather seat.

“Grandma, I forgot my Game Boy”, I said as we drove down the street.

“Sorry. There’s not enough time to turn around. You can read whatever magazines Gertrude has there.”

I glanced at the speedometer. We’d have time if you wouldn’t drive five miles below the speed limit, I thought to myself with a disgusted sigh.

It was a long drive to Gertrude’s. Grandma’s AM radio was tuned to “All Classics, All the Time.” “Grandma, can I change the station?” I asked.

“No.”

I slid down in my seat and stared out the window. To kill the time, I counted how many old cars were on the road. My conclusion: Grandma needed to get with the times.

We finally arrived at Gertrude’s salon. “Now listen,” grandma told me as we walked to the door, “behave yourself. This isn’t a playground.”

Of course not, I thought. That would be fun. I’d rather be anywhere but here. I wish I were grounded, too.

Grandma opened the door and the response I received was worse than I had imagined. Four old ladies, all with curlers in their hair, greeted me with “ooh’s” and “aah’s” like they’d never seen an eight-year-old boy before. The only thing that kept them from rushing over and pinching my cheeks was they couldn’t get out of their swivel chairs.

“Who have we here, Beatrice?” Gertrude asked grandma.

“That’s Timothy, my daughter and her husband’s son. They went out of town for the weekend. He was gonna stay with his aunt and uncle, but they have the flu, so we have him. He’ll go home sometime after church tomorrow.

All the old faces smiled. I tentatively smiled back, my eyes scanning the room for a chair as far away as possible. I made a beeline to a vacant chair in the corner as Grandma still stood at the door.

“Timothy! Don’t you have any manners? Say ‘hello’ to my friends,” grandma called from where I left her standing.

“Hi.”

“Help yourself to any magazine on the table there,” Gertrude said. “You can go on over to one of the sinks, Beatrice. I’ll be right with you.”

I looked at the magazines spread haphazardly on the round coffee table a few feet away from my chair. “Redbook”, “Vogue”, “Better Homes & Gardens”, “O”. I sighed. “Do you have any comic books?” I asked.

“No. Sorry, Sugar. Gertrude answered.

Why do old people insist on calling people
‘Sugar’?, I thought. I’m not something that goes on cereal.

I slumped down in my chair trying to imagine that I was somewhere else.

“Sit up straight, Timothy. Don’t slouch. You’ll get a hump on your back.”

“If you want, you can see if the TV will get some cartoons. I lost the remote and there’s no cable, so I don’t know what you might find, Sugar.”

“Thanks.” There she goes with the name calling again, I thought as I walked over to the nineteen inch TV. She only had five channels. I found figure skating and cooking. I couldn’t make out the other three because of snow on the screen.

Grandma always told me that children should be seen and not heard. As I sat back down in my chair, I tried to do that as I took in the scene around me.

The room reeked from hair stuff. At every hair station was bottles of hair spray, mouse, gel, water spritzer bottles, combs, brushes, scissors, and electric razors. Why do they need all that stuff? I wondered. All I use is shampoo and a comb.

The lady closest to the door had two layers of skinny rollers in her hair. One of Gertrude’s stylists had taken long strips of cotton and stuck it around the woman’s face and gave the lady a towel to put over her face. Then she took a small bottle of clear stuff and began squirting it all over the lady’s head. It stank like the alcohol mom kept in her bathroom cabinet at home.

“Timothy, haven’t I told you not to stare?” Grandma called.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m bored. How much longer?”

“It’ll be a while. I just got my hair washed. I’ve gotta get a perm before church tomorrow.”

“Can I call Grandpa? I’m ready to go.” I said.

“Grandpa’s at a church meeting.”

“Is there anything to eat?”

“I fixed you a bowl of cereal for breakfast, Timothy. How can you be hungry? We’ll get something after I’m through.”

Grandma turned her attention back to Gertrude who was putting rollers in grandma’s hair. “I swear. That boy could eat somebody out of house and home.”

Everybody was talking and not paying any attention to me.

“How did your doctor appointment go last week, Edna?” Gertrude asked one of the ladies.

“It went good. I had an ingrown toenail on the big toe of my left foot. There was so much puss in it that when he made the incision, a steady stream of green stuff flowed out into a small basin that my foot was over. That sucker hurt, but it felt so much better. It’s not near as big as it was.

“Have you heard about Barbara Hawkins? She’s pregnant for the sixth time.” Gertrude proclaimed.

“How old is the youngest?” somebody asked.

“Only six months old. Her and her husband need to be fixed. They should know better. They barely have enough to feed the ones they have. Ken is a janitor for the local high school, so you know there’s no benefits. I doubt they can afford good insurance. She can’t work because of all the kids at home. The oldest is only in the second grade,” Gertrude said with a sigh, shaking her head from side to side.

“What does it mean to be fixed?” I asked. Suddenly, everybody stopped. All the people with blue hair stopped talking and faced me with a look of astonishment. Quickly, they turned to grandma. I didn’t understand the smirky smiles on their faces.

Grandma’s face turned red. As she started to answer me, the bell on the salon door jingled, interrupting her. Everybody turned from grandma to the figure wearing blue Dockers, a Polo shirt, and white sneakers standing in the doorway.

“Grandpa!” I shouted and ran to the door.

“Norman, why are you here? Your meeting was supposed to last for another hour.”

“Things went faster than expected. Hi, ladies. What’s the latest gossip? Are you ready, Tim?”

“Yeah. Where are we going?

“Where ever you want.”

“How about the zoo?” I asked.

“Sounds good to me. Let’s go. Bye, Love. Bye, ladies.”

“Bye, Grandma.”

“Bye, boys,” Beatrice said.

I don’t care where we go, I thought as I walked with grandpa to his bright blue El Camino. As long as I’m away from old ladies sharing the town gossip.

Grandpa’s car was old, but cool. It was two in one - half truck and half car. Anything is better than grandma’s tank.

“How was your morning?” Grandpa asked as we pulled away from Gertrude’s shop.

“Boring,” I said. “There were no cartoons on the lady’s TV. She didn’t have any comic books, either. I had to sit there and amuse myself. That place smells funny, you know. What do they use to make their hair blue? It looks like the water in our toilet at home.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Slow down. Take a breath. I take it Grandma wouldn’t let you talk, huh?”

“No. She told me to sit down and behave myself. Are we going to the zoo, Grandpa?”

“If you still want to.”

“Yeah. I’m hungry. Can we get something to eat?”

“Didn’t you eat breakfast?”

“Grandma gave me a bowl of Shredded Wheat. That stuff looks like shingles and tastes like paper. I told her that I didn’t want that. She said ‘Fine’ and threw it away. Can we go to Waffle House? I like their blueberry waffles.”

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“Boy, those waffles were good. How about yours, Timothy?” Grandpa asked as we walked from the restaurant door.

“Great. Grandpa, how come you only eat plain old boring waffles?”

“I eat the flavored waffles, too. I like them with pecans and peanut butter. But my favorite ones are the ‘plain old boring waffles’, he said as he grabbed me and tried to blow a raspberry on my face.

“Ugh!” I yelled as I tried to break free from grandpa’s grasp and run to the car parked just outside the door. People in the parking lot were watching us and laughing.

I was finally able to break free, only to be chased around his car.

“Okay. I give up. Let’s go,” Grandpa said as he searched his pockets for his keys.

As I made my way to the passenger side, grandpa darted around the car and grabbed me, causing me to fall in the back of the car.

“No fair. You cheated!” I yelled through my laughter.

“Hey. When you’re as old as I am, you can do whatever you want. Are we ready?”

“Yeah.”

Riding with grandpa was more fun than with grandma. He drove five miles over the speed limit and let me put the radio on the “Disney music station”. Grandpa actually talked to me while he drove.

“How about getting a haircut to freak out Grandma?” Grandpa asked.

“What kind?” I asked. “Won’t Mom be mad?”

“No. See, you have to do these things delicately. You have to pick something that Mom’s gonna love, and something that Grandma’s gonna hate. We’ll both get one. It’ll be the highlight of the day.”

“What are we gonna get?”

“How about spikes on top and shaved on bottom?” Grandpa suggested.

“Won’t Mom be mad?”

“What can she do? It’s hair. It’ll grow back. Besides, when she was in high school, she tried to iron her hair and ended up burning eight inches and had to get it cut really short. She threatened to never leave the house again.” Grandpa said, laughing.

“Cool. Let’s go.”

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“Beatrice, we’re home.” Grandpa said as we walked into the house with our new hairstyles.

Grandma came into the living room with a cigarette hanging from her mouth and stopped mid-step.

“What’cha think?” Grandpa asked as we stood proudly.

Grandma didn’t say a word. Her mouth opened, her cigarette fell to the floor, and she fainted on the gold shag carpet.

We stood there and laughed.