I was awaiting my turn, flipping through a decade-old sports magazine. One of the athletes, I knew, was dead now—something about a boating accident, an explosion maybe, definitely foul play—that’s when I decided to dye my hair a bright color. It wasn’t completely surprising, my decision. I’d been thinking about it for some time. School had let out early that afternoon for Christmas break and I had sixteen whole days of no dress code; no Stand up straight, gentlemen; no Hey, you there, your hair’s touching your collar, someone give me some scissors; time is short, gentlemen.

I’d come to Hilltop directly from school. It was on the way. I figured, why not?

There was an old man sitting in front of me, facing me, and he looked like my grandfather. I put him in his late seventies. I could tell he was on the shorter side, his solid frame pushed against the black robe slung across his chest and thighs, filling it out pretty well. His knuckles were stained gray with dirt and grease and whatever else. The bottoms of his jeans were rolled and he wore black socks. I guessed no one had seen this man’s ankles in years.

Robert stood behind him, making a real show out of snipping away at the old man’s lumpy head. His elbows were cocked high. Every now and then he’d twirl the scissors around his fingers—a real gunslinger that Robert, but I knew he was just killing time, searching for more hair to cut so the old man could get his money’s worth.

Next to Robert’s station was an empty chair and next to that was his brother Jose, but everyone called him Pablo. Pablo was also busy snipping away at an old man’s head. His movements were slower. He examined his work carefully through a pair of tinted glasses that sat at the tip of his nose. His shoulders slumped forward a bit. He didn’t twirl his scissors.

I returned to the magazine. It had happened in Greece, I recalled, but there had been no explosion, something quieter and it had been days, weeks even, before anyone found the boat, bobbing around there like a stupid toy in old bathwater. I shifted in my seat, crossed and then re-crossed my legs but I couldn’t get comfortable. The vinyl was cracked and I was sinking and slipping at the same time.

“Where’s your pop?” Robert said.

I looked up at him. I considered the question. “Oh you know,” Isaid. “He’s around.”

“Said he was coming in today.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t know about that.”

A broom fell to the ground. Pablo picked it up and leaned it against the wall. He then turned to adjust a knob on the small radio behind him. He spent some time there. I couldn’t hear a thing either way.

“How’s school?” Robert said.

“It’s alright,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“Look at you,” he said. “What are you, sixteen, seventeen now?”

I told him.

Robert smirked a little. He adjusted the old man’s head with his thumb and index finger.

“Oh boy,” he said. “I was a real terror back then. Parties, girls, don’t get me started.” He wiped at his brow with the side of his hand. “Jesus, I wouldn’t feel right even repeating the things I did.” He turned to Pablo. “Old man didn’t know what the hell to do with me, isn’t that right? Pablo,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”

Pablo shook his head. “Too much.”

“Oh boy,” Robert said. “My God.”

He took a black comb and began slicking back the few strands of hair atop the old man’s head. Then he parted it. Then he slicked it back again. He made a few more snips and spun the old man in his seat so that they both faced the mirror.

“A million bucks,” he said.

The old man stood and removed his robe. He reached for his wallet and handed Robert a five-dollar bill. Then he found his baseball cap against the seat next to me and put it on his head. It looked brand new. It just about glowed. “ABDick” it said in different colors and the old man whistled and Pablo lifted his head and then the old man stepped out into the sun. The bells above the door hardly made a sound.

“Another satisfied customer,” Robert said and he winked at me.

“Saddle up, partner.” He patted at the back of the seat and then turned to throw several long and short combs into a clear cylinder of Barbicide I climbed aboard and he threw a robe across my chest.

“So,” Robert said. “What are we doing today?”

“I want to dye it,” I said calmly, as if I’d said it a hundred times before. “I was thinking yellow. This time,” I added. Then I shrugged a little.

“Listen to this guy!” Robert said. He took his spray bottle to a faucet and filled it with water. “Mr. Hollywood wants to go yellow! Mr. Movies is walking the red carpet! Watch out!” He moved to the empty station between him and Pablo and squatted in front of a cabinet. I watched him take out a handful of supplies, a roll of tin foil. He blew on it.
Just then Pablo finished with his own customer. He lowered the seat and the old man stood up and looked in the mirror. He smoothed back his hair some, then he reached for Pablo’s arm and shook it a little and they both looked at the ground. The old man left and I didn’t even see him pay but maybe he had a tab or something. Hilltop sometimes worked like that. The first time my father brought me and my brother he’d forgotten his wallet. This was a long time ago. It was no problem, I remember, he could pay later because they weren’t going anywhere and neither was anyone else. That’s what the old man who owned the place had told my father. He’d been right about one thing.
Robert sprayed water at my head. A few snips here and there and chunks of shiny black started falling onto my lap. “We gotta clean it up first,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.”

He leaned real close to the side of my head and began trimming around my ear. “So your pop know about this? Because it sounds like you’re asking for trouble.” He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a little trouble. But your pop—he’s gonna kill you. He’s really gonna let you have it.” I looked at him in the mirror. “Hey,” he said,” don’t listen to me. I just work here.” He threw his hands in the air. “I do what I’m told. No trouble here. Isn’t that right, Pablo? Don’t I do what I’m told?”

Pablo was moving the broom around the same spot. “That’s right,” he said. “No trouble.” He leaned it against the wall and turned once more to adjust the knob on the radio. There was a thin line of sweat at the very top of Pablo’s collar. His brown khakis looked as if they’d just been ironed.

“So is your pop coming in today or what?” Robert said. “Did I get that wrong? I haven’t seen him in weeks. He must have his hair down to his damn waist by now.”

We laughed at that, at the image of my father like that.

“You said yellow right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” I said.

Robert sighed. “Those were some days.”

In the mirror, I watched him drag a hand across his puff of hair. I knew he was going gray prematurely. He couldn’t have been a day over thirty-five.

He said, “Used to have so much hair hanging off my shoulders I could’ve sold it to those Hollywood wig places. For a nice price too. You know I trained there, don’t you? Did I ever tell you that?”

I shrugged.

“Hey, Pablo,” he called. “Didn’t I train in Haw-lee-wood? Go ahead. Tell him.”

Pablo stuck his head out from a smaller room where they kept a TV and a soda machine and maybe a fridge too. “Oh yeah,” Pablo said. “You got that right.”

“Get this,” Robert said. “For our final test, would you believe they made us cut hair blindfolded? No bullshit. They were mannequins of course, our clients, with all kinds of funny hair, but still,” he said, “imagine that—blind as a bat with a pair of scissors. Some people made a real mess out of it. Might as well have taken the damn head clean off. I don’t know why. Nerves I guess. But they were mannequins,” he said. “All plastic and horse hair! I don’t know. Maybe it was the blindfold. Couldn’t handle it I guess. But I was on that day. I was it. I said to them, ‘Forget these things, bring on the stars!’” He turned me in my seat so that I was no longer facing the mirror. “Farrah Fawcet,” he said. “Boy, I woulda done a number on her.”

A flash of tin foil and Robert was tearing off pieces from the roll now. He began fitting them into my hair.

The door opened and another old man stepped in. Pablo came out, chewing on something and wiping at his fingers with a paper towel. The air smelled of barbecue. The old man crossed in front of me and the two of them mumbled something to each other in Spanish. Pablo directed him to the chair. Before climbing on, the old man looked at the empty seat between us for a moment. Pablo turned to the radio again.

“So where’s your pop?” Robert said again. “Tell him to get in here. I’ll do a number on him. Listen up,” he said. “I’ll turn back his clock.” He laughed. He stopped with the tin foil and squeezed something from a bottle into my hair. It was cold at first, then it stung, then it went away.

“Yeah well,” I said. “I wouldn’t know much about that.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Robert said. “I was a real terror back then. I could tell you some stories. Listen to this one.”

Robert began telling a story about prom night or homecoming. Something about a girl named Vanessa and sneaking out of the house or maybe sneaking in. I don’t know. I was half listening. I’d heard the story somewhere before. Robert then began pulling at the ends of my hair with a comb. I could feel that it was sticking up, probably because of whatever he’d squeezed into it. I must have been a sight alright—going yellow in a place like that. It was probably better I couldn’t see myself. Some more snipping here and there. Then the blow dryer. A damn fool.

“But this girl,” Robert was saying, “she had that look in her eye.

You know the one? Oh

Christ almighty,” he said. “Not the kind you wanna bring home.

No sir, not on your life.”
Robert turned me in my seat a bit and I watched Pablo take a razor to the old man’s sides. Then he clicked it off and took some baby powder and shook it across the back of his neck. He cleaned it off with a small brush and then patted the old man’s shoulders. The old man stood up and folded his robe. He handed it to Pablo and paid him. Pablo took the bill to the smaller room and the old man left. Pablo came back out a minute later, counting some singles.

“Where’s Tigre?” he said.

“Who?” Robert said.

“He forgot his damn change.”

“Better for us.”

“He left?” Pablo said.

“It’s a tip, bro,” Robert said. “Throw it in the jar.”

“Tigre don’t tip,” he said and his voice sounded different, rougher. Pablo went to the door and looked both ways through the glass. Then he counted the singles again and returned to the smaller room.

“In L.A.,” Robert said, “you wouldn’t believe the tips. You could pay rent with those tips.”

Pablo came out holding a bowl of something and he sat against one of the vinyl chairs. He brought his knees close together. He used a fork to scoop into his mouth what I saw now was barbacoa. I couldn’t take my eyes away from his legs, the way he brought them together like that, his ironed pants, his feet pointing inward.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Robert said. “I’m thinking it might be time to give it another go. What do you think about that?”

“Hollywood?” I said.

“Hell yeah, Hollywood. Not shit around here. Nothing to get into around here. I’ve always thought so.”

Just then the bells sounded and a fat man wearing a brown suit and tie stepped in. His face was red from the sun outside. He shifted his briefcase in his hands and then took out a handkerchief from an inside pocket. He patted at his forehead. His hair was so blonde you could barely see it. He smiled at all of us.

“This heat, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s too much.”

He kept his eyes on me for a moment longer. Robert was busy fitting some plastic over my head now. Maybe the color was turning already. I looked at my lap. A goddamn fool.

“Bobby,” the fat man said.

“Heya, Bill,” Robert said.

Pablo placed the bowl on the seat. When he finished chewing, he said, “What did I tell you, huh? Get the hell out of here. Go on and get the hell out.” I’d never heard Pablo shout. “Didn’t I say that? Didn’t you hear me the last time?”

The fat man looked uneasily toward Robert.

“Bobby,” he said.

Robert took his hands away from my head. “C’mon, Pablo,” he said softly. “Lay off him, willya? Let’s give it a rest today.”

Pablo kept his eyes on the fat man. He didn’t move. His fists were clenched and I could see that his lips were trembling. I looked at his pants, riding there just above his narrow waist, creased, from another time. This whole place. If I had a car I might not even be here. I know I wouldn’t.

“Hear me out, Jose,” the fat man said. “Just give me a minute.

Let me talk. Is it a crime to talk in here?”

“I’ll tear your house down,” Pablo said. “How about that? I’ll do it with my own two hands and you’ll watch me do it.”

“Hey, c’mon now,” said the fat man. “Now just hold on, Jose. That’s no way to be.”
Pablo didn’t say anything. Even Robert had gone silent. He removed the plastic from my hair and began pulling out the tin foil.

“Alright,” said the fat man when no one said anything. “Have it your way then. If that’s what you want.” He shifted his briefcase again and straightened his tie. He looked around. “It stinks in here. You know that?”

Pablo stared at him.

“See you around, Bobby,” the fat man said.

“Sure, Bill,” Robert said. “Stay cool,” he said. “City’ll burn you up.”

The fat man turned around and left and through the glass I watched him pat at his forehead with his handkerchief again. He looked down the street and then turned to go the other way. Pablo disappeared into the smaller room and closed the door behind him.

“What was all that about?” I said. “What was Pablo saying?”
Robert laughed. “Who knows what that guy is ever saying,” he said. He shook his head.

“That guy,” he said. He took the blow dryer to my hair once more and my scalp was tingling. He did that for a while and then he let it sit and after ten minutes or so he spun me around to face the mirror. I didn’t recognize myself for a second but then I did. There I was. “So, Mr. Hollywood,” Robert said.

“Waddya think? Is your pop gonna kill you or what?”

—

My father was in the backyard, sitting in a lawn chair and shaking a glass around. I pulled up a seat next to him. The sun was on its way down, throwing an orange light on everything, and he stared at the yard. I took a moment to stare along with him. It needed a good mowing I figured and maybe I could do that for him. Sixteen whole days. In his lap my father held a small wooden box with all kinds of things no one wanted to look at anymore. I hadn’t noticed it at first. I’d already told him he needed to get rid of it—or not get rid of it but put it away or something. He pressed his thumb into the box. He shook the ice around. He stared at the yard.

“Robert was asking for you,” I said. “Said you had an appointment today.”

My father looked at me then, seemed to examine my hair in all its fiery and comic glory. I imagined Robert would get a kick out of this, this moment right here and I waited for it. But my father turned and went back to his drink, shook the ice around some more. His thumb pressed harder into the box. I almost reached for his wrist so that he could bash the thing against my head, really let me have it. I wanted to hear the wood split against my skull and let that be that.

“This yard’s just too goddamn big,” he said. “No one needs a yard this big.”

“Probably just the grass,” I said. “Maybe I’ll cut it tomorrow. How about that?”

“Worth a try,” he said.

We stared at the yard some more. I ran a hand through my hair and it felt thicker than before but that was probably just because of the stuff Robert had squeezed into it. When I brought my hand down my fingertips were a little orange.

“Alright,” I said and I stood up and went inside and then I looked at the TV for a minute and then I left the house again.

—

I crossed a few streets and started up the narrow sidewalk that ran alongside some brick houses, all with identical porches. I passed an empty lot where an abandoned house had once been. My brother and I used to call the house haunted and I dared him to go into it once. Of course he took the dare because he was always stupid like that, the asshole, never thinking about a damn thing, and when he came out he shrugged and said we’d been wrong. It was just another regular ol’ shit dump with nothing inside. Not long after that we watched the police drag a homeless man down the front steps, kicking and screaming. “Look,” my brother said. “There’s your ghost.” They eventually knocked the place down and now there was a sign in the lot showing a picture of whatever was coming next.

I passed a few more houses. A car slowed down next to me and a kid I knew from school—a kid who didn’t live too far away—stuck his head out the passenger side. “Woah, check it out!” he said. “What happened to you? You stick your head in a bucket of paint?”

“Yeah, hey,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“A Mexican Dennis the Menace!” he said.

“So what are you up to?” I said.

“You mean besides not a goddamn thing?” He leaned out a bit to look up the street. He spit. I still couldn’t see who was driving the car. “You cool?” He then said, “You want a ride somewhere?”

I told him I was going the opposite direction and he looked at me for a moment and then shrugged. “Well go easy on Mr. What’s-His-Nuts, Dennis.” Then he was off, honking the horn, the car swerving a little. Two weeks of nothing.

When I arrived, I poked my head in and saw that Pablo was back in that vinyl seat, his knees together, eating from that bowl. When he saw me he stood up. He wiped at his fingers with the paper towel. Then he took the broom and began moving it around.

“Robert here?” I said.

“Gone for the day,” he said. “Can I do something?”

I dragged my hand across the top of my head. “I think I messed up,” I said.

Pablo stopped sweeping. He smirked. “Old man give you hell?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s not having it.”

Pablo looked at me. He leaned the broom against the wall.

“Well,” I said. “Maybe I’ll give it a day, you know?”

Pablo took up the broom again. “Robert’ll be in tomorrow morning,” he said.

“Are you sure he hasn’t already left town?” I said.

Pablo stopped sweeping and looked up at me. Then he laughed. “Oh right,” he said. “That guy, he’s too much.”

I stood outside Hilltop for a while, watching the cars go by, people in them hunched over the wheel, leaning forward as if to move along faster. The sun dipped just beneath the mountains, setting the horizon on fire and then it was gone, leaving the sky a bruised color. I could go home. I could not. I’d been out of school for a few hours and I already missed someone standing over me and telling me what to do, telling me how it was going to be. Buck up, young man, and look me in the eye. Time is short. I leaned against the stucco and a few pieces crumbled against me in pink bits. I turned and with my hand removed a larger piece and I tossed it into the street. I imagined Pablo tearing down the fat man’s house with his own two hands and then the fat man tearing down Hilltop with his hands and the rest of us watching them do it, thinking that there was probably no better feeling in the world. I took off another piece and threw it. A car honked at me for that one. I’d make my father come in with me tomorrow. I would. We all just needed a trim, that was all. Cold water against our necks. Baby powder and some light brushing to finish it off. The feeling once more of what it means to sit still and get a decent cut.

Story by Stephen Ramirez
Photography by Adam Hobbins