Star Dice
by Simon Henderson
I had spent the day in Olympia in offices and waiting rooms and was relieved to finally be on my way home, reeling from powerful antibiotics, swollen lymph nodes in my armpit and a sinister condition in my throat, which I had never experienced before. I was totally mute, only able to whisper one or two word monosyllables. Catching my reflection in the rear view mirror I remembered, Haircut! A Supercuts salon loomed a short way up on Capitol Mall Way.
A middle-aged lady with a lot of mileage on her face peeked around from behind a divider filled with Regis Hair Salon Products. She had frosted, mousey brown hair with blonde tips. Kind of like a pixie Tinkerbell look on a septuagenarian
"I can work you in in about 10 minutes", she barked and threw herself back into a lurking position over her customer. Flailing her hands sequentially between comb, sissors and clippers. Her activity resembled more a dental technician's than a hairdresser's.
She called me in as her last customer floated accross the salon and out the door without saying a word. Like a street person leaving a blood bank. An unspoken contractual agreement obviously existed between them which I was not privy to. Or was it shock?
"Whattle it be?" she queried. "Just a trim tonight?"
Spontaneously, I leaned forward in the chair and traced the letters out in her steamed-up mirror; "B-U-Z-Z-C-U-T".
"You mean just the top, right?"
"No. All of it" I wheezed. She looked at me quizzically in the mirror's reflection and lifted the long grey curls at the back of my head. "These too?"
"All of it", I wheezed again.
"Just making sure" as she began to clearcut 35 years of hippy hair and history.
I told the lady; "Now the 60's are REALLY over, O.K.?"