A Haircut from the Best Hairdresser in England

A Haircut from the Best Hairdresser in England.

            Eventually the day had to come when I would finally have to go out and get a professional haircut while here in Moshi. When the clippers broke last time I had one of the Idahoians scissor trim the other half of my hair to try and match it up with the already buzzed side and honestly, they did not do too bad of a job. It wasn’t until later of course that I noticed that I had a pretty sweet swoosh in my bangs because one half was slightly longer than other. So, I asked Theresa where the nearest barber was that could cut Mazungu hair and she sent me a shop called Hair 2 Hair.

            “I have to warn you though,” Theresa told me before hand, “this guys a little intense. Last time I went there I sat down and after inspecting my hair he asked, ‘Now, is this a woman who loves herself? I don’t think so.’”

            Naturally, I was curious to meet this fellow.

            Hair 2 Hair was a little pink stucco shop a street over from an Indian restaurant that I always love to eat at. There wasn’t a barber pole outside the front like most places you see at home, but there were large windows that reflected like mirrors so when it gave me a last minute reassurance after inspecting myself walking in that hey, I did need a haircut.

            The only way I can think to describe the inside of the shop would be by simply saying that it looked like a stereotypical 80’s music video based out of an even more stereotypical 80’s aquarium room. There were lots of blues and whites and pastel couches and even if they weren’t really there and I’m just making this up, I’m pretty sure the poles on other side of the mirrors were full of colorful fish with confetti in the water. The first television that I’ve actually watched in the last two months was on in the corner and a show on Natural Geographic was playing Shark Week, so the whole aquarium vibe was there.

            No one spoke to me when I walked in and I didn’t really know who to talk to so I just kind of stood in the middle of the room, submerged in this cheesy aquarium. Then, an Indian gentleman turned around from where he was counting a pile of money and just shrugged his shoulders at me and sighed and pointed towards one of the couches, “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said unenthusiastically. He had large gold earring in either ear, a tattoo of a snake on his forearm that looked like it was doing a lazy figure 8, a little flip in the front of his hair that looked like a 50’s greaser, and a blue tooth in one ear. He sounded a bit like Tony Montana from Scarface, with a little less mumbles and slurs, and a little more Richard Simmons enthusiasm and charisma.

            This was definitely the guy Theresa told me about.

            After he had counted the money and put it away he motioned for me to come sit down.

“How do you want your hair cut today,” he asked, so I told him the usual. Little off the top, blend it with the sides, and most importantly, not too military like. He waved his hands and told me not to worry and started getting his clippers ready. I wanted to reiterate the point of not making the sides too short and told him again, and that’s when he put the clippers down and pinched between his eyes. “You can’t be serious?”

I looked at him in the mirror and didn’t know what to say, because I was.

“And when’s the last time you went to a hairdresser, hm?” he asked.

            “Never,” I confessed.

            “See, that’s your problem. And how long have you lived in Tanzania?”

            “A couple of months.”

            “And the last time you had a haircut?”

            “Well, funny story,” and I started going into the clippers story about how they broke when he cut me off abruptly. 

            “That’s what I’m talking about. I can tell. Now, let me do my job and fix this thing.” Remember, Tony Montana with a bit more Richard Simmon.

           

            After a few minutes of him snipping and buzzing away a silence grew that only occurs between a barber and you getting your haircut. That awkward kind of quiet where you don’t really know what to talk about, but at the same time don’t want to start talking because your afraid that if you distract them they’ll accidentally lop off an ear. A couple f times the silence was broken when he received a phone called, and touching his ear with the blue tooth he would stop cutting, put his hand on his hip and answer the phone authoritatively and politely, “Who is this?” He would then tap his finger to his lips, repeat the persons name over and over again as if thinking back on a long ago memory and then as if finding it exclaim, “Ah, yes, of course of course,” and negotiate when he could possibly see them next. His schedule was booked and that he had a 11 o’clock appointment at the moment, but he could maybe pencil them in, and then hang up without a goodbye by tapping his ear.

It was 11 o’clock as I was getting my haircut. I was that appointment, and I had just walked in. The schedule that was booked was on the wall in front of me. It was barren. You rascal you.

            “How long have you been cutting hair for?” I asked.

            “Guess.”

            I’ll be honest, first time I’ve had someone ask me to guess how long they’ve been cutting hair. Decided I’d play along, see what could come out of this, so I threw out the generic response of, “Your whole life.”

            “Wrong. 18 years.” He answered flatly.

            How could I have been so stupid? I disregarded my ignorance and pressed forward with the questions. “And you studied in England?” I asked already knowing the answer because of what Theresa had told me.           

“That’s right, 2 years. And you know what? I went over there because I realized one day that I had this gift. That I was born and put on this earth with this God given talent.” He looked at me in the mirror and shrugged his shoulder like I should agree and reassure his conviction. I just looked up at him in the mirror instead. “So, I said to myself, ‘I’ll go to England, not to just cut hair, but to learn something about it too. To make myself better than I already was.’ I figured I’d cut hair there for a few years and hopefully get a full time job working at a salon. But, you know what I realized?”

            Enthusiastically and only mildly sarcastically I asked him what he had realized.

            And waving his hand through the air in front of him like petting a large dog or his even larger ego he confidently and profoundly confessed, “I’m better than all of them.”

            “All of them?”

            “All of them.”

            “The best in England?”

            “The VERY best in England.”

            “So, you’re the best barber in England AND Tanzania?”

            “That’s right, my friend,” and he pointed at me in the mirror as if also adding, hit it right on the nose there, buddy.

            I sat in my chair, calmly nodded my head, and just had to try my best to soak in the fact that somehow by a stroke of luck or a divine miracle, the best barber in England was cutting my hair while I was in Tanzania. It was almost too much to comprehend.

“Now, I wasn’t even listening to you when you walked in. I asked you what you wanted and pretended to listen, but I wasn’t,” he continued. “No, when people walk in I already know. Just by looking at you I knew what to do with your hair. It’s just a gift. I see you, and I know. The haircut is there already, I just have to bring it out.”

This man is Michelangelo with clippers instead of a rock hammer. At least he was honest about not listening to me before, most barbers just try and play it off like they were at the end of the haircut. Which, we were nearing the end, and I was excited to see the results of this talked about masterpiece. After a few more minutes he held a mirror up behind my head to I could marvel at the unseen work. “I did a natural fade in the back to make it really blend in more with the structure of your head.” He nodded approval to himself. 

            “You did what to the back of my head?”

            “A natural fade,” he assured me. “There are no definitive lines in the back. I blended it in to the back of your neck so it’s like your hair is fading into your skin.”

            “My hair is fading into my skin?”

            “That’s correct.”

            “That’s perfect, that’s actually what I wanted. My hair to fade into my neck.” It would have been tough for someone to not pick up on the sarcasm there, but he continued without faulting.

            “You see, the structure of your head it is very long. You have a long head, and so I wanted your haircut to match the shape of your head and flow with it.” He then walked over to a small counter next to the chair and placed his hand on a jar of green jello. “You want gel?” he asked

            “No, I don’t use gel.”

            “You see, I envisioned your hair with gel when I cut it.”

            “Yeah…” I paused, “But I don’t use gel.”

            He threw his arms up in anguish, “Well, then what do you want to do with your hair?”

            I could tell he was more than upset by my disregard to his envisioned masterpiece so I assured him, “Don’t get me wrong I love your work, but could you take a little more off the top?”

            Thinking it over momentarily he conceded. “Okay, okay that’s fine I will do that. Not a problem. Not a problem, but no more than that. Otherwise, when your hair grows out it will simply,” and he made a gesture with hands that looked like he was petting a longhaired mop. I think he was implying that my hair would grow out like a mop.

            He trimmed the top up a bit, and made sure to let me know that the life span of my haircut was only a month, and that I must be back in a month or else all his work was for nothing. I told him that I would, and that the haircut was the best one I had ever had and getting up from my chair I shook his hand and thanked him. He told me it was not that big of a deal. In the end I left Head 2 Head confused and strangely satisfied, and a bit awestruck by the fact of who had cut my hair. As I walked out of the barbershop I turned and took a last minute look at the aquatic room with the television showing sharks and just had time to see in the mirror like glass of the door at the haircut I had just gotten. I shook my head, and walked away.

            In the end, it seems as if he really had not listened to me at all when I walked in. He must have especially paid special inattention to the part where I described how I didn’t want my hair to look, because it was overly short on the sides border lining nothingness and long and boxed on the top. I was a tall skinny kid on a dusty street with the sun beating down at high noon with the haircut of a military man.

At least I could nod with approval at one thing, as I did an about face (I believe that’s the term that fits my new trim) I briefly glimpsed the back of my head and noticed that in fact, my hair did flow into my neck like he had promised.