Sunday, May 3, 2020

I sit on a bench outside of the barber shop until the person before me is done. Only one customer may be in the shop at a time. I had scheduled this appointment last Sunday, when hair salons reopened. The first available slot was today, in the late afternoon. The barber’s schedule is already full for the coming week. When he’s ready, he steps outside and calls me in. He is wearing both a mask and a transparent shield over his face as well as black gloves that match the rest of his clothes. “Your hair is getting lighter,” he tells me. “You are getting surfer hair.” He doesn’t mention that my hair is also getting thinner. He asks about my family. He knows some of them. Otherwise, he’s less talkative than usual. No music is playing in the shop. All I can see of his face are his eyes, but they look tired. When he cuts the hair around my ears, he moves the elastic from my mask off of them, first on one side and then the other. The mask stays in place. A five o’clock shadow has its uses. Afterwards, I head back to the office. I pass odd objects on the sidewalk: a coffee pot, a propane grill, and a nicely upholstered chair. A bulletin board has what looks like new posters. They announce concerts a month ago that didn’t happen. I wonder why I hadn’t noticed them before.