Barber shop

The barber snaps the cloak clean, uses it to wipe down the pleather seat.

An atlas of black hair litters the tiled floor. Clippers buzz like a lazy mosquito. A black and white Elvis looks down despondently, even sadly.

Bearded and scruffy-haired mannequin heads watch on from their place on the shelf. The large mirrors watch back. Hair products and upturned shaving brushes line the display racks.

The barber squeezes a mist of water from his can, its lemon scent filling the air.

Sideburns are trimmed, measured, made even. Another customer enters, the barber nods.

The reading material on offer is a stack of bright, outdated tabloid magazines and glossy paged hairstyle books filled with perfectly groomed, serious-looking men, their attitude distinctly American. They lean against Los Angeles shopfronts, in the Californian sun. Similar pictures hang framed on the wall. Barbershop religious icons.

The barber stops cutting to speak, his hands up, a comb in one, parted scissors in the other. He grins, puts the scissors on the fake mahogany bench and opens the straight-razor. Hands fast, sure.

LI

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