Uno

    

November 17, 2008 by Migs  
Filed under Feature, Migs

Yesterday I walked to the barbershop for a clean head shave. Apart from other considerations, I fancied that such a hairstyle would help me perform better in my semifinals basketball game. So I went to Hombre’s, just five blocks away, where, beside the barber’s pole, the front plate glass windows announced in maroon lettering that haircuts cost only fifty pesos each. It seemed so like of blood.

“Dos?” my barber asked, as soon as he saw me come in. Wearing his usual thin, bronze-dyed hair, small steel-framed spectacles, and a perpetual blush in the face, he began to button up the white polo shirt which all the other employees also wore.

“No,” I muttered, shaking my head politely. “Uno…and don’t shave the sideburns; just cut ‘em clean.”

But with or without the reminder, I was sure he would’ve known that autonomously. The man has been shaving my head for years, and though I never remembered his name, the familiarity – far from breeding contempt – always inspired confidence.

It was a sweltering afternoon. The unoccupied barbers were either watching Superman on TV or writing their bets for the horse race, while a couple of familiar strangers read the tabloids. Few discussed the elections, for apparently the people at the barbershop were more excited about the NBA and Ding Dong Dantes’ breakup with Karylle. It was a sweltering afternoon, but I was consoled by the sight of white towels, the scent of isopropyl alcohol, the cheerful commonplace. Mornings will be spent answering crossword puzzles; afternoons, smoking cigars and drinking or reading; evenings, in reminiscence of youth, of “the good old days”, and on a rocking chair that rocked the ticks and tocks of time and which creaked against the wooden floor. The buzzing razor did nothing to break me out of the stupor, and all I could hope for was to always be bald by choice. My shaved head feeling cool in the climate of the city, I gave a twenty-peso tip to the barber whose name I didn’t remember.

My barber brought out his razor and started shaving the mid-frontal part of my head. Armed with a pink plastic comb, he was very meticulous. Instead of sleeping, I watched the progression and saw that we were, as always, reflected into infinity by the two facing mirrors. And because the patches of hair on both the lateral sides of my forehead were yet untouched, when I saw the rear of my head I looked to be suffering from a case of premature baldness.

And so it was that I imagined that ugly reflection turning around to show its face – older by many decades and wrinkled by many more days. What if indeed the time came when I have aged into a man with a positively receding hairline? I thought of myself as a quinquagenarian, maybe older – a few strands of white hair here and there (but none where it should actually grow) and scruffy whiskers sufficient to make a real beard. There will be warts. There will be furrows by the forehead. There will be hallmark memory loss. I’d have, by then, cute little grandchildren who’d be outnumbered by monstrous in-laws, as well as real assets, real liabilities, and real worries.

But gasp! Will I grow finally to be well-versed in politics? Will I then have my own opinions? As the barber scraped once and again at my scalp, wary of razor bumps and shaving against the grain, my head throbbed with the mysteries of aging, mysteries that left too much to the imagination. Of course I’d never be younger, for no one ever is, but still I became frightfully afraid of the prospect of being corroded by cynicism and corrupted by self-righteousness. I’d have a jaded grin, too, just like what experienced people have, and surely the belly was to bulge catastrophically.

When my barber had finished, he allowed me a moment to rise from my seat, rub my scalp and glide my hand through the very thin stubble left. The reflection in the mirror was no longer terribly thought-provoking. I felt reborn – again.

About the Author:  Migs Bassig is a freelance writer and journalist with a background in Mass Communications. After working for a Manila-based advertising agency, PR firm, and events organizer, he now contributes to various locally published magazines and newspapers, and is one of the authors of Metroblogging Manila. A suburbanite commuter, Migs has lived all his life in the Philippines and loves scouring the Philippine capital’s rich patina of arts and literature.