moms featured on the TLC network. “He’s not going to use one of those machetes on me, is he?” Vickie was too preoccupied talking to a man wearing a Buffalo Bills cap to answer my earnest question. Although I’m sure if she had heard me, she would’ve tossed her head back and laughed, her repulsive Kentucky waterfall draped between her shoulder blades. I kept thinking about how out of place I must have looked: a 16 year old Filipino boy in girl jeans and a plaid shirt set against the Americana background of a barbershop. Here he sits next to his chain smoking, overweight aunt from god-knowswhere-that’s-on-the-map, Oregon while he awaits his hair cut from a man who probably refers to any Asian as a “Jap.” I envisioned that as the narrative for a photo inside a local newspaper. I also envisioned the headlines of something more macabre: “Filipino teen dies in freak barbershop incident.” I was desperate to create any excuse I could to avoid getting my hair cut and leave. At this stage, I was willing to let my hair grow like a Chia pet and be made fun of at school. Emotional turmoil caused by inner city school thugs seemed like a better fate than what I deemed to be my last day on Earth if I sat on that barber seat. “I could pretend to have a stomach ache,” I thought. This would’ve been a good excuse, but I was afraid someone would tell me there was a bathroom inside the shop, and that I could “shit in there until I felt better.” I thought of pretending to receive an emergency phone call from my mom about the house burning down, or much to Vickie’s terror and my enjoyment, one of the cats getting hit by a car, but I didn’t have a cell phone, and it was entirely impossible to get an incoming call from the barber shop’s telephone. “Are you ready, Angelo?” This was posed to me by Vickie as I hoped the Mayan prophecy of 2012 would come six years prematurely. I couldn’t process a response to her obviously rhetorical question, and I knew there was no way out of this so I quickly hopped onto the seat with the approach that if I prolong any more negative thoughts I would only be making my fear much more formidable. “Such thick, black hair,” Lou said as he ran his fingers through my hair. I’m pretty sure his hand got stuck half way through his examining. If a certain ineffable dark wizard needed a location to hide a Horcrux, my hair circa 2006 would be his best option—or any screening of a Jennifer Lopez movie. Lou asked me a lot of standard, perfunctory questions: where am I going to school? where am I from? do I like Buffalo? how about them Sabres? I hadn’t the slightest idea who the Sabres were so I evaded the question by telling him it was my first time inside a barber shop. “Your first time?! Get outta here!” Oh believe me, I would’ve done that the minute I walked in, but I don’t think that would be very tactful of me. “Where do you get your hair cut, usually?” I answered that I usually get my hair cut at salons, and at that, Lou laughed in a condescending manner. “Salons? With the pretty girls and blow dryers? I bet you just like getting your hair done there ‘cause you like looking at the pretty girls.” I actually did enjoy looking at the girls, but Lou’s implication was that I was straight, and that was not the case. If anything, I would’ve been more theMeadow 11
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