By Mark Russ
“This will be your last haircut,” Sal said. He draped his barber’s gown over me and fastened it tightly around my neck.
My jaw dropped, hanging loose like a tree limb severed by lightning. The barber’s mirror amplified my expression.
“I thought Aldo had sold the business, and the shop would stay open.”
“The new owner, he changed his mind. Not a good man. Gave only two days’ notice. Today is the last day.”
I looked around the shop. There were no other customers. Marco and Luca, the other two regular barbers, were not there. Aldo, the ninety-five-year-old owner, sat in a straight-back chair, a walker in front of him. He did not look up to greet me, nor did he speak.
“What are your plans, Sal?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood. Sal, a fit-appearing man in his late sixties, had cut my hair for thirty years. He was more comfortable speaking Italian; his English was surprisingly limited for someone who had lived in the country so long.
“I’m not going to work for those other shops in town. No good.” He walked to a drawer where he kept his scissors and combs, pulled out a business card, and said, “I’m going to cut hair in customers’ homes. Maybe you try?”
“Sure. Sounds like a plan,” I said. My sullen expression in the mirror remained unchanged.
“How you like it today?” Sal asked.
“Shorter,” I said, repeating the same awkward joke I had made at every haircut. It seemed more awkward today. “You know. Same as always, Sal.”
“Ah. Short, but not too short.” Sal had a knack for making his standard response sound new.
Content with his instructions, Sal set to work. The water from his spray bottle cooled my scalp on this warm autumn day. He parted my hair in his usual deliberate manner, wielding his comb like a baton. His scissors clicked out a confident march around my head: left side, back, right side, top, then front. My hair, a mix of brown and gray, fell onto the gown, like frayed threads cut from a worn-out overcoat.
Sal stepped back to examine his handiwork, then snipped a stray hair from my forehead and asked whether he should trim my eyebrows.
“Yes. That’s fine,” I said, stealing a glance to my right, where Aldo was sitting behind his walker, his chin resting on his chest. Cheery Italian pop music played overhead.
“It wasn’t his fault. He did his best,” he said, motioning toward his boss.
“Aldo’s has been an institution in town for seventy years. I can’t imagine what it will be like without you guys.”
“Nothing lasts forever.” Sal’s intonation sounded unconvincing.
In the mirror, I pictured my first haircut at Joe’s, a hole-in-the-wall barbershop in the neighborhood where I grew up. Joe called me by my father’s name. Burly men crowded the shop, smoking and cursing. Small and frightened, I feared all the cutting. At the end, a cherry-flavored lollipop marked my rite of passage.
“What about Marco and Luca?” I asked, trying to distract myself.
“Sick. Both sick. Luca has bad cancer. Not good.”
Some men are barber shop talkers. Not me. None of the barbers knew my name, what I did, or whether I had a wife or children. I knew the barbers’ names because of the white-on-black nameplates perched on their counters.
“I’m sorry to hear that about Marco and Luca.” The barbers’ world was collapsing, and I was spiraling with them.
“What can you do? That’s life.”
Sal tucked a white cloth between the gown and my neck and reached for the shaving cream dispenser. The warm cream comforted my neck, but it quickly cooled as Sal’s razor made its first pass.
I knew what came next: Pinaud Clubman talc. The delicious woody, citrusy-sweet aroma enveloped me like a swaddled newborn. For the moment, I felt nothing had changed or would. But no amount of talc could bring Aldo’s back from the brink. I pictured Sal cutting hair in my kitchen.
Sal picked up his scissors and comb, then made the final cuts.
“There! How you like?”
“I don’t like.” I tore my face from the mirror and looked straight at Sal.
The corners of Sal’s mouth turned down, and his lips puckered in feigned disappointment.
“I understand, my friend,” Sal said somberly.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” My protest echoed in the barren shop.
Sal removed my gown in silence. As always, I went to pay Aldo. He pushed his walker aside, slowly rose from his chair, and opened the register. I glanced at the charge board one last time.
“Still twenty-five dollars,” he said faintly, but proudly.
I handed him the money.
“Aldo, you should feel good about your work. You touched three generations,” I said, placing a hand on his bony shoulder.
“I couldn’t save the shop.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Aldo shrugged. I walked over to Sal, rifling through my wallet.
“This is all the cash I have today; I’m sorry,” I said, handing him the last tip. I wanted it to be more.
“Fine, fine. Thank you. You don’t owe me anything,” he said, smiling.
I moved toward the exit. The lingering scent of Pinaud Clubman talc followed me. I pivoted for one last look and caught Aldo’s eye, moist yet with an unanticipated glint.
“Lollipop?”
* * *
Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York. He was born in Cuba, the son of Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the psychiatric literature throughout his career and has published short stories and nonfiction pieces in recent years. His work has appeared in The Jewish Writing Project, The Minison Project, Jewishfiction.net, The Concrete Desert Review, Literally Stories, Fig Tree Lit, Of the book, Blue Lake Review, BooksNPieces, Sortes, and Bright Flash Literary Review. These stories and others are in a collection of short stories titled Mostly Fiction-Stores by a Second Generation Holocaust Survivor (Regent Press, 2025).