Dad’s World with Jonathan deBurca Butler

MY LOCAL barbershop is run by women. They are no fuss, inexpensive and chatty, but more than anything, I know I can trust them. 

Last time I was in I had spoken to them about the fact that we were cutting Fionn’s hair at home. They looked worried and suggested I bring him in for a visit. So last Saturday Fionn made his first trip to a barber’s.

It was a dirty rainy morning so when we got there, it was no surprise to find three others ahead of us. Fionn didn’t complain. From the moment he walked in he was fascinated.

Right before his three-year-old eyes two men sat silently in two spaceship-like chairs. Dressed in gowns that covered their clothes, their floating, almost ghostly heads stared into mirrors as two women chopped at their heads with scissors. Clumps of hair trundled down the men’s faces and down on to the floor. In only a few moments a carpet of hair had gathered.

Fionn, who by now was flicking through a magazine (I swear he’s been here before), looked up for a moment.

“What are they going to do with all that hair?” he asked me in a hushed tone.

A bald man popped up on the television screen in front of me.

“They’ll sweep it and try to stick it on that man’s head,” I said.

He seemed happy enough with that answer and went back to his magazine. For the next 10 minutes he sat there silently. He was bewildered, amazed, demure and interested, all at the same time. So when Angie popped him into his chair and started pumping a foot lever to raise the height, he smiled nervously, I felt a little sorry for him. She took out a bright red bottle, sprayed his hair with water and began to brush it out. He scrunched up his shoulders to defend himself but still the look of ‘this-place-is-mad’ on his face never went away.

As Angie began to chop away, he winced a little but he couldn’t take his eyes off his image in the mirror.

At one point an embarrassed smile ran across his face and he gave out a little chuckle. As a boy I had always had my hair cut by women. As Fionn sat there I remembered my own early experiences in barber shops — that inexplicable exhilaration you felt as a woman, who was not your mother, came uncomfortably but excitingly close to you and played with your hair. I knew what Fionn was going through even if he didn’t.

By now the shop had emptied out a little so I sat in the chair beside him and started chatting to Angie and her colleagues.

“This year’s Toy Show was good, wasn’t it?” said Angie.

“I saw it alright,” I said, “I thought Ryan was a bit hyper. But it was good”

“It was a lot better than when the other fella did the bloody thing,” said Angie.

“Bloody is a bold word,” chimed Fionn to instant howls of laughter.

“Is it?” asked Angie. “Oh sorry about that. I’ll have to watch my mouth.”

“My Daddy uses bold words all the time,” said Fionn.

I tried my best to cut this one off at the pass: “Thanks Fionn that’s o…”

“Does he?” asked Angie with a twinkle in her eye... “Yeah, he says…”

“Woh! woh! woh! Thank you Fionn that’s okay now,” I said.

I don’t know if she did it to save my skin or what but Angie picked the right moment to turn the hairdryer on. Two minutes later it was all over.

“You needed that,” said Angie looking at Fionn but talking to me. “You’d know your Daddy had been at your hair — all over the place it was.”

For being such a good boy, and I suspect for providing entertainment, Fionn was given an orange lollipop.

As we drove home I looked into the rearview mirror. I had expected to find a toddler slathering over the lollipop’s shiny round sweetness. But instead I saw a boy. He had been a boy for a while now. The haircut just made it more real.