What Will My Friend Do To My Hair? by Jonathan

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It had been my first summer after graduating from high school. I was 18 and my best friend Carlos was 17. My name is Jonathan. Carlos was a very good looking kid. I never figured out if he was gay or not. He acted like it sometimes. He was also so pretty, you wondered. I didn't care, I needed a best friend and somehow here he was. This whole story took place years ago and is true.

About a year or so earlier I had noticed Carlos in the Taco Bell at lunch time in high school. Some kids went off campus to eat. I was a smoker in high school, so it was the perfect chance to get a couple of cigs in at lunch time. You couldn't smoke on campus. I had noticed him eating there many times, but didn't have any idea a year later this guy would be my best friend. He had kind of a pompador hair style and was very dark. He dressed almost always in Hawaiian shirts and may have warn a little bit of makeup. One day I may have bummed a light or two off him for my cig. That was it. There was some sort of mysterious quality about him as I remembered.

Just at the end of my senior year in high school my friend Erin and I were going to a huge punk rock party in an upper class neighborhood. I was driving and he asked if his friend Carlos could go too. Sure I said not having officially met Carlos yet. Erin and I were all dressed in ripped up punk clothes and boots that night. We picked up Carlos at his house. When we got there I was surprised to see it was the same kid from Taco Bell. We hit it off right away. All three of us hung out together drinking and partying.

Erin was only 16 and we were 17 and 18. Ironically Erin was by far the wildest of all three of us. We became close friends for about five or six months. Suddenly Erin's grades, attitude and look got worse. His parents were fairly wealthy and quickly shipped him off to boarding school. This left just Carlos and I. Looking back at your youth, one often wonders how you made it in life. Drinking, smoking, and drugs. We weren't even 21 yet! Shameful, and so little parent supervision. Well my own parents were wild when they were young too.

Carlos soon became my best friend. He knew at 17 he wanted to be a barber or hair dresser. He had a haircutting kit and had cut people's hair. He also claimed to have been taking hair cutting courses. Well if you knew Carlos' parents, I doubted he was taking any hair cutting classes. I was friends with him the last part of my high school and he showed up to school about 2 or 3 days a week on average. He almost never went to all his classes and he had straight F's. They never disciplined him at all. The amazing thing was he had. He should have gone away to boarding school. Me too for that matter.


My senior year of high school ended. I did at least graduate and start a junior college. Carlos still had another year of high school. The problem was they kicked him out. He had to go to the probationary high school campus for the bad kids. He went about two weeks, hated some kids there and never went back. He was soon turning 18 and they could not make him go. His parents never made him go. I'm sure the district took his parents to court at least until he turned 18. Yet nothing was done. No more school for Carlos. Today he is a hairdresser and barber so things did work out.

I was 18 and just starting junior college. I had a prefect mop of hair that ran the length of my neck. The bangs went nearly to my mouth if I pulled them down. It was well over the ears too. I loved my hair. I liked having my ears covered and my hair almost in my eyes sometimes. I would keep flipping it over to the side out of my eyes. I knew one day that I'd need to cut it, but not ready yet, no!

Carlos was hanging around with me a lot. He really had nothing else to do. He was no longer going to school. Once he turned 18 he even went to college sometimes with me. He was not enrolled of course, but did like the college campus. It would be here he would find out about barber classes and his G.E.D. (high school equivalency test) This entire story pretty much happened this way.

Carlos had a sister who was a waitress at an Italian pizza resturante. This is so wrong but she used to serve us beer there along with a bunch of other people just around our age. None of us 21 yet! We had a great time together. It was just before you had to take life really serious at around 20 or 21. We drank, smoked a little pot and went to school.

Carlos now was taking some sort of hair cutting 101 type class. I can't remember exactly how it all worked. I think though the two of us were ment to be friends in this space and time. My life was heading more on tract as well. We never really heard much of anything from Erin our friend away at boarding school. Carlos had managed to talk some family and friends into cutting their hair. How good or bad he was I didn't know yet.

One weekend I was going to drive Carlos, my brother, and two of my brother's friends to our grandparent's ranch. This was a place about 3 hours away. They had bought this place in the 1960's and used it as a vacation house. It was the perfect teenage party hangout in the middle of nowhere for us. There was a caretaker who lived in a small house on the property. We could shoot guns, hunt and ride dirt bikes their. My grandparents had a lot of money. Their health was starting to fail and they said they were selling the ranch soon. They'd grown tired of it after nearly 40 years and didn't go there much any longer. Our parents loved the peace and quiet they got when we went there for the weekends. This place was soon sold and I miss it to this day.

The night before the trip I spent the night at Carlos' house for some reason. He showed me his haircutting stuff. The cape, scissors, and clippers. Then he asked me if I wanted a haircut. I made the mistake of saying I need to cut this mop all off. I then ran my hands through my long hair like I was motioning it was too long. I really didn't mean to say it quite like that. I meant more like a trim. Well do you want to do it now or at the ranch? He was asking me. It was getting late so I said let's just do it this weekend at the ranch. Ok he said, and maybe some of the other kids might want a haircut there too. You need to cut your hair for sure Jonathan. That hair is out of controll!

As we packed and checked to make sure my beat up old car would make it to the ranch I kept thinking about that haircut. Take this mop all off is what I said. Carlos had those clippers too! I was used to just using scissors now. For several years I'd trimmed it myself in fear of some barber butchering off all my hair. How would Carlos cut my hair? I really didn't want to hurt his feeling though. I promised him he could cut my hair and now all his hair cutting equipment was packed for the trip.

Soon we picked up my brother and his two friends and that Saturday we headed for the ranch. The traffic was light on a Saturday morning. We had to stop and get groceries on the way. As we drove I kept looking in the rear view mirror at my hair. It had been nearly three years since it had been short. I didn't even remember how it looked with my ears exposed. How short would it wind up being? I planned to put it off as long as possible.

We arrived at the ranch. There were all the usual things to do when we got there. Unpack the groceries, turn on the water heaters, and unload the car. We did all this in around an hour or so. Then we hiked around and explored a bit. We ate a late lunch, and relaxed in the living room awhile. No mention of a haircut yet. Maybe Carlos forgot?

That night we had a big dinner of tacos, rice and beans we made. We drank some beer and smoked a bit of pot. Then we went to our bedrooms. Carlos and I shared one. That's when Carlos mentioned, do you want your haircut know. I knew this was not the best time. We where a little waisted. Could Carlos still cut my hair like this? Maybe it would be easier for me like this instead of completely sober. Somehow I didn't care so much now how it would turn out. When your're drunk you'll do things you might not be brave enough to do sober. Jonathan are we cutting your hair now? Carlos was the kind of person who would not force something. I knew I could say no.

I thought quick, then said maybe tomorrow. Carlos looked real disappointed, but said ok tomorrow. Now I knew I'd given a specific time frame and the haircut had to be tomorrow. We both soon drifted off to sleep.

That next morning I woke up very early. I was the first of all 5 of us to wake up. We spent the day at the lake and had a really great day. We road the dirt bikes all around. That day I'd made up my mind to let Carlos cut my hair that night. I'd get drunk and just tell him to cut it how he wanted. That was that. He asked again that afternoon if we could cut my hair. I told him tonight around 8:00 for sure.

That night came fast. I drank a bunch of beer and was ready for my mop to get cut! We set up a chair in the bathroom. He was slightly stoned and drunk. He put on the cape and got everything ready. Jonathan how should we cut your hair? You want this mop cut off right? That's what you said on Friday. What do you think I asked him? Let's buzz it with a number two all around he says. I had not thought of this. I thought he'd say a regular short haircut. I was drunk so it made it easier to say ok now. I was just kind of in a state of not worrying about it much either way. Then he tells me my hair is really damaged from the hair dryer and buzzing it mostly off is better. He was right it was damaged. Ok go ahead and shave it I said. The clippers went to work. My best friend was shaving my mop off all around number two. It didn't take long. I could feel him going over it several times. Then folding my ears down and clippering around them. Soon it was done. I was shocked at how much hair was on the floor. Then he showed me my haircut in his little mirror. I looked like a little boy. It felt so smooth too. I kind of liked it. I saw my ears again for the first time in years. We cleaned up and went to bed. That night my head felt so nice and soft without my mop.

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