The bells jingled as the door closed. The red rays of a sleepy sun poured through for a moment. A young girl walked to the counter.
“Just take a seat, and I’ll be right with you,” Quince said as she continued to snip away.
“I don’t have time to wait,” the young girl said, “so if you would kindly finish and send your client on her way, I’d be very appreciative.”
Quince held the scissors by her side and peered over the top of her glasses. Blue eyes peeking through an overgrown jumble of golden curls stared back at her. She looked in the mirror at the half-finished job and pointed the scissors at the girl behind her.
“She’ll take care of ya’ when she’s done,” she said.
The young girl harrumphed, grabbed Young Mademoiselle, and plopped down on the black leather couch worn by time and a host of ample tuchuses. Her feet dangled in the air as she kicked the front of the couch with a repetitive thump.
“Hey, Genny,” Quince said. “You got another one on deck.” She lowered her voice. “Give her the special.”
Genny smiled and dabbed at the sweat on her brows. “I’ll be done soon,” she said to Quince. She turned back to the customer in her chair and spoke to him. “Just a few more cuts here ….” Snip, snip. “And here.” Snip, snap. “One more over here … and done.”
She spun the man around so he could see himself in the mirror. Clumps of uneven hair stood at irregular intervals as if a blind goat had chewed at his mane. The man observed the haircut in the mirror, twisting his head to one side, then, to the other. The haircut equivalent of a handful of hangnails twisted back in the opposite direction. His brow furrowed. The inked teardrop on the side of his face compressed into the shape of a bullet. Angry, sharp teeth flashed white.
“Now, thees eez what I call a haircut,” he said. “You a-gettin’ a big teep.” He threw off the black cloth which had protected his clothes from the falling tufts and stood up. His brown skin clashed with the black of his leather jacket and the off-green of the rockers on its back, which read ‘Esnapping Tortugas’ across the top and ‘East LA’ across the bottom. “There’s a one and a two and a three bags for you.”
Genny looked at the tiny crystals wrapped in transparent paper. “Thank you,” she said. “What are these?” she added.
“Just a little something I made specially for you,” he said. He turned to the silent man standing in the corner. “Let’s a go, Jorge.”
“It’s Hor hay,” the silent man corrected.
“It eez what I say eet eez,” the man said.
“Yes, jefe. Of course. By the way, may I compliment you on your haircut. It’s … what’re the words I’m looking for … exquisite, stylish, certainly a trendsetter.”
“You a like eet?”
“Oh, yes!”
“You don’t a think eet’s a leetle too, how do I say, traditional, do you? I would a hate to theenk the homies would theenk eet’s a too traditional.”
“Traditional. No. Certainly not.”
“How would a you describe eet, then?”
“Um … well ….”
“I’m a waiteeng.”
“Let’s see. You know that painter, Jackson Pollock?”
“Of course.”
“It’s like Koko the gorilla tried to imitate him on your head using scissors, a pack of matches, and really strong duck tape.”
“Eet’s a that good?”
“Uh huh. You might want to put on your beret, though. To keep your head warm. There. That’s good.”
The bells jingled as they walked out. “You got any of that duck tape left? I got a few ducks I want too ….”
The door closed before Genny could hear the rest. She took a moment to sweep up the hair which had fallen to the floor. They spoke to her in dark undertones. Quietly, like Marie Antoinette’s head must have done.
“You killed us, Genny,” a large clump said.
“I was just doing my job,” she replied, the fear quivering from her unpainted lips.
Genny finished sweeping up the remains and dumped them in the garbage can. She looked around and sighed. She felt like a failure. A complete and utter failure. She had already been in Los Angeles for a couple months, and she hadn’t found a clue as to her father’s disappearance. Nor had she found any indication that she would find a clue. Her only minor success, if that was what it could be called, was landing a job last week at the Hairy Cherub Hair Salon, specializing in the shaggy toddler. The unfortunate demise of the neon ‘Ch’ in the sign outside the window brought in a secondary and totally unexpected clientele, which was composed of mainly semi-literate Lebanese immigrants who loudly proclaimed to anyone who cared that they were actually descendants of Phoenicians.
And Pierre. Leader of the Esnapping Tortugas. He came every Thursday night like clockwork.
Unfortunately, the $5.35 an hour she was paid barely covered the rent. The tips, such as they were, went towards food. It had been a couple months living off of other people’s leftovers, affectionately known as the Nicolas Maduro diet, and she was hoping that for one night she could feel like a movie star and ride home in the luxury of a cab.
“You done?” the young girl asked, thumping the couch with more vigor.
“Yes, of course,” Genny said. “Come on over.”
It took the girl a few tries to boost herself into the stylist’s chair. When she finally made it, she pulled out a neatly folded picture from her purse and showed it to Genny.
“I want to look like her,” she demanded, “and if you can’t do it to my liking, don’t expect to get paid.”
Genny took hold of the picture. “That’s a beautiful lady,” she said almost to herself as if she had seen the face before. But where?
“It certainly is, Genny,” the young girl said.
“H – how?” Genny stuttered. “How did you … I mean … how do you know my name? Have we met before? I don’t think we have, seeing as how I’ve only been working here a week. Did I give you a haircut last week? If you were the one that requested the Madonna but got the Sinead, I’m terribly sorry. That was you, wasn’t it? My, how fast your hair grows. It is such lovely hair. Such lovely golden hair. Are those curls natural? What I wouldn’t give for natural curls like that. And hair that grows so quickly and lushly. I’d kill to have those curls. Literally. I’d take a tire iron and smash your skull.”
The young girl seemed somewhat between amused and repulsed. “No. We’ve never met before. And I recommend that the only iron that gets near my head is a curling iron. Not that I need one,” she said as she flicked her golden curls from one shoulder to the other.
“Then, how …?” Genny couldn’t finish the sentence. She just stood there with her mouth agape and the door in her mind slightly ajar.
“I’ll let you figure that out,” the girl said, staring at the name tag sewed onto Genny’s shirt. “You think she’ll be able to do it, Quince?”
Quince looked the girl over from head to toe which didn’t take more than a hot second. She then turned her attention to Genny and let her gaze travel up the long, elegant, Pennsylvania body, resting on the mind of the most brilliant girl the world may have ever known.
“Nope,” she said and zipped up her stylist’s bag. “Well, I’m out of here, Genny. I got a hot date tonight. You’re not afraid of being alone with her, now are you?” Quince winked.
“I’m sure I can handle a child,” Genny said, “but if I don’t show up for work tomorrow, I hope you’ll be able to describe her to the police.” Genny winked back.
“Oh, I will. Height: one extra long baguette. Weight: 84.6 centimeters – that’s metric. A winning smile that holds a sharp tongue. Long, golden hair that I’m sure will shows chunks of scalp. Yeah, I think can describe her.”
“Ahem,” the young girl vocalized, although it came out as, ‘Mmgmmfff.’ “If you two are done, my hair’s not getting any shorter, and I’d like to get out of here before the world ends, which should be,” she stopped to look at her watch, “heck, any day now. And for those of you who are keeping score, I’m not a child. I’m already nine.”
“Nine. Then you are a child,” Quince said.
“Nine hundred years, but not as you count them,” the girl said in such a way that it was impossible to tell if she was joking or not. In fact, the tone of her voice made a chill run up Quince’s spine.
“Ooooh. Ooooooh,” Quince said.
“What is it?” Genny asked, afraid that Quince had managed to get her lips on Genny’s smoothie, causing a severe onslaught of brainfreeze.
“It’s nothing. I mean … I’ve gotta go.”
With that Quince grabbed her purse and hurtled out the front door.
“I wonder what got into her,” Genny mused. She turned back to the girl and started to muss with her hair. It was soft, silky, like what a corn cob would feel like if it could grow hair. “You’ve got such lovely hair. Do you take after your mom?”
“If you don’t mind, I’m not really a fan of small talk.”
The girl gave Genny a hard stare and pulled out a magazine, indicating her desire to be left alone. Genny, who was never one for being able to take a hint, continued on.
“I lost my mom at an early age. It was tough on me. I think the worst part, besides having a dad who doesn’t know how to tie a braid … I mean how hard is over, over, under, over, over, under? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist. Anyway, the worst part is not having someone I can talk to about, you know,” ‘Mmgmmfff,’ “women things, like when Mrs. Grumpy comes for a visit, or,” Genny’s eyes turned dreamy, “what to expect on your very first kiss or how quarks must come in a set of six according to Group Theory. All of that, I missed out on.” She stopped as a wave of guilt crashed over her. “Not that I’m saying I don’t love my dad and that he’s not wonderful, wherever he is, I’m just saying that it’s different.”
The girl took a deep sigh and rolled her eyes upward until her pupils scraped her eyebrows. She put the paper down to partake in the inevitable conversation but left it face up so Genny could see the headline, which read, ‘The Hole in the Ozone Layer is Thought to be Responsible for the Rise in the Proliferation of Serial Killers.’ Genny made a mental note to get rid of the spray can of ozone in her purse and to give the girl’s eyebrows a trim.
“Let’s get this over with,” the girl said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, nothing. I don’t need to talk, not if you don’t want to talk, that is. I’m not one of those who needs to talk just to hear the sound of her own voice. I can shut up whenever I want for as long as I want. I don’t mind silence. . See what’d I tell you. Silence. On cue. Whenever I want. By the way, what’s your name?”
All the while the snip, snip, crump of the scissors could be heard in the background as golden tassels floated harmlessly to the floor.
“My name is Cherie, like the wine, but with a Ch at the front, a single r in the middle, and an ie at the end. But the first e is the same.”
“Oh, that’s a beautiful name. What’s your last name?”
“Bubb.” Cherie looked at her watch, jumped out of the chair and threw off the black cape that kept the hair from falling on her white, gossamer dress. “I’ve got to go. I just remembered that I left a meatloaf in the oven. Thanks for the haircut.” She threw a hundred at Genny and bolted out the door. “Keep the change,” she yelled back over her shoulder.
Genny picked the bill up. She had never seen such a large denomination before and held it to the light to see if it was real. Not being convinced, and not really knowing what to look for, she sniffed it and put it in her mouth. It tasted like what she imagined a hundred-dollar bill would taste like. Figuring it was real, she put it in her pocket, cleaned up the shop, turned out the lights, locked the front door, rolled down that metal rolling thing that protects the windows, and walked to the corner to wait for a taxi.
Less than a minute later, a cab pulled up and stopped half a block away. Genny made her way down and tapped on the window.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m heading to El Segundo. Do you go that way?”
“I’m off duty,” came back the gravelly voice. “Wait for the next one.”
“Taxis rarely come this way,” she said. “Not after the police made an example out of that guy with the really good tan. I still can’t figure what that was all about. Just because a guy gets a good tan doesn’t give the police the right to use their batons, unless of course they were trying to beat the skin cancer off of him, which didn’t seem like the case here. Then, the fine folk in the ’hood beat that white trucker afterwards. Serves him right, driving all arrogantly with goods and products and construction stuff. If I was there and I had my whacking brick, I would have given him a what for myself.”
“I’m off duty,” the gravelly voice repeated again. He started to roll up the window but stopped halfway. His cold, empty eyes stared directly at Genny’s. “Consider it your lucky night.”
Genny watched until the taxi turned the corner. She checked the time. “Nine thirty,” she said to herself. “Twelve miles. Slight breeze in my face. I should be home well before eleven. I’m just glad I wore my running shoes.”
She let out a soft sigh and headed west. Standing in the shadows, leaning against the wall at the end of the block, the man with the gravelly voice watched her until she disappeared from sight.