Michael Hood
Nothing else would do. I was scaring the children; my hair was never not greasy from lack of hot water; the Haitian humidity gave each of my curly locks a life of its own. Each hair unaccountable to me, let alone to the stern government recently elected.
It was an untenable situation.
A plumber and his helper were fixing the outdoor sink where we wash the outdoor dishes, and the kid looked like he had a moment so I pulled my electric clippers from my kit and pressed them into his trembling hands.
“It’s easy,” I said in my facile Kreol, so often mistaken by the locals for Spanish. He looked alarmed and more than a little daunted, but I magnanimously handed him the Haitian equivalent of 71 cents, and he was in, baby!
Soon he was dragging the buzzing cutters over my scalp and through my locks which fell hence to the courtyard floor in ugly piles of greyish, sun-bleached dross. The plumber looked up from his PVC with a new respect for the boy, who by now was introducing himself as Didier and was soliciting hairdressing appointments from passersby.
My bald spot was gone, I was assured; the length in front, which was no length at all, was similar to that in back–Didier promised. My head had taken on a distinctive shape slightly more plagiocephalic than I’d remembered as a baby, but the deed was done, and I noticed young women couldn’t resist taking my head in both hands and pressed into my softspots as we walked the path tonight to the village.
Thinking of cutting my nails tomorrow if I can find the time and a kid to do it.
