A Hair Too Far Outside the Zone
For a certain kind of male, a haircut is a bit like a screen name. Changing it causes so much trouble that, no matter how embarrassing it is, no matter how much ridicule might be heaped upon it, it’s better just to stick with what you’ve got. For the last 30 or so years my own hair has been intractable. Next to it, the World War II Japanese soldier still hunkered down in some Pacific island cave looks shiftless. It isn’t that I don’t like variety; it’s that my hair will not allow for it. Too short and -- as my wife often points out -- I am unpleasant to look at. Too long and it flops around in my eyes in a manner perhaps charming in a 5-year-old boy but annoying to a 43-year-old man. My job, as tender of my own hair, is to keep it within the acceptable band. The zone.
Lately the zone has proved trying. Either my hair is growing faster or the zone is shrinking. Trudging down the Berkeley hills to the barber once every three weeks, more than twice the acceptable rate, has become irritating. Today on the walk down it occurs to me that I have arrived at a personal tipping point. For the first time in 18 months my schedule is clear of public appearances. For the next few months -- when the weather in Berkeley is chilly, and the wearing of hats a common response -- it really doesn’t matter what’s on my head.
I take my usual seat in the chair and give Erika the news. Erika is technically a hair stylist. She resents that I treat her like a barber -- giving her exactly 20 minutes to execute exactly the same cut. She never says it, but I can tell she believes I deprive her of her artistic freedom. Now, when I tell her I’m ready for something different, and shorter, she grows excited.
“I’m so glad you decided to do this,” she says as she grabs and removes huge chunks of hair. “What you had looked almost like a toupee.”
Forty minutes later my eyes meet Erika’s in the mirror. “You know,” she says, “with your hair you can’t really wear it that short naturally. We’ll get you some product.”
Product? “Product,” it turns out, is clear shoe polish. It causes escaped convicts to gleam in the sunlight and attract attention. With product I am transformed from a man with a bad haircut to a man with a bad haircut who believes he has a good haircut.
“The whole point of this,” I say to Erika, “is that I don’t want to think about my hair.” I want to escape the zone.
“Oh, you won’t have to think about it at all,” she says, handing me a tub of shoe polish. “Just rub this in every morning and you’re ready to go.”
As she pushes me out of her chair, the other stylists, who have been eavesdropping, rush in to offer support.
“You look so much better,” says one.
“You look hot. You really do.”
Twenty minutes later, I stumble into the house, hoping it will be empty. Hoping, I think, for a few more minutes in which my hair might grow back. Out leaps Tallulah. She takes one look and screeches, “Hey baldy!”
To Top Dog, in a stocking cap, for lunch. Top Dog is the perfect place for a man who wishes to be fed by others and yet remain essentially unseen. Top Dog isn’t just a hot dog stand; it’s a libertarian hot dog stand. Not an inch of wall space is spared the libertarian message: Leave me alone! Get out of my face. Top Dog even has its own soda cups, with a sarcastic motto encircling the base: “There’d be chaos if everyone thought for himself. Believe what you’re told.”
Berkeley is probably the world’s capital of political bumper stickers, but the ones you see on the cars around here (Somewhere in Texas a Village Is Missing an Idiot) are factory-made. Top Dog’s bumper stickers, in rows on the wall behind the grill, are homemade. Unique expressions of a singular point of view.
There’s Always FREE CHEESE in a mousetrap.
Beware “The Leader.”
Individualism Is One’s Ultimate Diversity.
The great thing about Top Dog, other than the hot links, is that it’s near the UC Berkeley campus. And that the people who wander in for lunch make a point of not noticing you.
I’d forgotten just how much like a public appearance Christmas can be. The last six nights we’ve been to five dinner parties. At each, during a lull in the conversation, Tabitha grabs what’s left of my hair: “Did you notice Michael’s new haircut? He’s using product now.”