On Monday, I woke up feeling very shabby. It had been over two weeks since I got trimmed. When I asked Riccardo last week about a recommendation, I never got an answer. Later the faux pas dawned on me. Two and two, sometimes, just doesn’t compute with me. He shaves his head because he is losing his hair. I later thought to ask Mateo but his hair is so closely cut I might get the same reaction. Sporting a ponytail I doubt that Mas can remember who last cut his hair. I was on my own. I left early that afternoon for the gym, as I remembered seeing a place on the scooter ride in Firenze Nova.
Barbers and the like are closed on Mondays.
Shabby just had to be tolerated. Besides later at the gym when I ran my forehead into the dumb-bell bar (full pun intended), I oozed blood and hair-length was superceded as a concern. As I always say to myself, “Make an impression Larry.” It is healing nicely. Although a little high-up, the perfectly round red scab is smack dab in the middle of my forehead and almost looks like an Indian sign of auspiciousness. All I need is a sari.
You have heard of my day Tuesday, locked up with the Ariston front-loader. Socks constitute the limiting factor for laundry. They were all dirty. The smell test of yesterdays socks, although not a failing grade, revealed that a haircut would have to wait. My feet were not going to stink.
On Wednesday I had decided to go to the Museo di Storia della Scienza to see the Galileo exhibit. It was impressive to see the world changing telescopes from 1609 as well as those of his contemporaries. But the most important item in the exhibit was a great portrait of him in his latter years…he had hair to his shoulders. That was not going to happen to me. I marched out of the place with a determination to look a little less like Galileo Galilee.
Still within the Area Pedonale, about half way between Signoria and Santa Croce I spotted two white-coated old barbers standing in front of their three-chair shop. I inquired as to the price. Ok, it was steep and my friend Jennifer who is a financial planner would have said to put the money in a Roth IRA but retirement be damned, I was not going to look like Galileo.
I stumbled through explaining (in my multi-tongued Italian way) and he attempted to understand (in his non-English way). We seemed to agree on something. I sat in that standard out-of-the-past barber stool like I was Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. With determination. Like I knew where the hell this was taking me. I got a towel wrapped around the back of my head. Why?
Then the standard barbers drape. I don’t like it too tight so I always put my finger between my neck and the drape as it is being tied, thus creating a little extra space. This always required an explanation with any stylist I have ever used. They all think I am silly but none-the-less it is tied loosely…when I can explain in English. I put my finger in while he tied. Great… just the way I like it. Unfortunately a few moments later he noticed how loose it was and went to re-tie it. I stuck my finger in, again. The next time he noticed and re-tied I figured this was turning into a Laurel and Hardy skit and just dealt with the noose-like feeling.
He turned and stepped on a foot pedal contraption causing the lid of a stainless steel receptacle to open and billow forth a cloud of steam. He reached in and got his scissors and comb. Later I took consolation in this steamy beginning; at least I don’t have to worry about infection.
The second his fingers grasped the instrument “that sound” began. This barber wasn’t one to conserve scissor-strokes. He turned from the caldron of steam with an unceasing, metal scraping against metal, sound. With his left hand he combed out the copious amounts of product I slather into my hair each morning but his right hand never moved position. It kept slicing metal against metal down at his side; gathering up momentum…I assumed. With my eyes closed I knew exactly where his right hand was. I was like a bat using sonar.
I kept thinking of my ears as I heard the swooping of his hand up from his side in this wide graceful concert-conductor curve… toward my head…or my ear. What was this going to look like, would my eyebrows survive, would my ears survive; for that matter would the plants outside the front door survive once those unceasing scissors hit full stride. Almost immediately a picture of Edward Sissorhands came to mind. Would I walk out with a poodle-topiary haircut?
I KEPT MY EYES CLOSED.
His hands moved quickly and precisely. The scissors scraped against each other four or five times for every time he engaged hair. Then every five times he cut, the scissors smacked hard and loudly against the comb to loosen what I imagined to be a cloud of hair-bits. All the time he was having the typical boisterous Italian conversation with his comrade. Italians can be reading the grocery list and it sounds like a political argument. I just wondered if he was keeping an eye on my ears.
He stopped and turned away. Then the scissors stopped. I had to open my eyes. As I did I saw the caldron of steam open up again. That swooping, frantically scissoring, rapidly moving right-hand of energy, picked up a large gleaming straight razor from the billowing steam.
BEST I CLOSE MY EYES AGAIN.
Now I knew what the towel was for…to sop up the blood!
Fortunately it must have already been sharpened. If I had to endure the anticipation of hearing the back and forth of the Demon Barber jugular-cutting blade, stropping against the strap I might have weakened. He lathered me up and began cutting.
I bleed easily. After shaving I always look like a wolf that has devoured a bunny. This, I feared, was not going to be good. But there wasn’t a single drop of bunny blood to be found when he finished and I finally opened my eyes. The haircut was perfect. “Perfetto” I gleefully said made my IRA payment and left feeling less like Galileo.
Pictures for tonight are disparate and unrelated to today’s story: flower market at my post office, a bike near the Piazza della Liberta, a flag north of the Duomo, the ancient floor of the Battistero and signs with flowers south of the Fiume Arno.
