A Pilgrim’s Digression

I took Brendan to the barber today.  We arrived at eleven; the barber closes at noon on Saturday, so the shop was quite crowded.  There were three people ahead of me.

Walking in, it was one of those moments where as a parent, you think, “Do I really want to wait this long with a five year old?”

But he needed a haircut, as did I, and there was nowhere else to go at nearly noon on Saturday except the salon at Wal-Mart.  Frankly, I’d cut his hair myself before taking him to the salon at Wal-Mart.  The beauticians there always do a real whack job on my little boy’s hair, for some reason; whereas the elderly, African-American barber I prefer always does a quick, precise job of it.

As it turned out, except for asking if it was his turn yet every five minutes, Brendan was good as gold for the hour we spent in the barber shop.  He sat with me and looked at a Sports Illustrated, far from my ideal reading material, but the only thing available.  I explained to him what little I knew about each of the sports.

“Do you want to play basketball some day?”  I asked him.

“No, I’m not any good at basketball,” he said authoritatively.

I said, “When have you played basketball?”

“I don’t remember,” he said, “But I know I’m not any good at it.”

I said, “You don’t have to be good at it, as long as you enjoy it.  If you think it’s fun, then you should do it.”

He didn’t say anything.

Then he saw a picture of two boxers punching each other simultaneously.

“What are they doing?”  He asked.

Have you ever tried to explain boxing to a five year old whom you have tried to shelter from knowledge of violence, to some extent?  It’s almost as bad as explaining how baby sister got into Mama’s belly.

“Well, in boxing, two people punch each other until one is bloody or unconscious and can’t fight any longer.”

“Why would they do that?  Hands are for helping, not hurting,” he said, repeating a phrase he learned in his Montessori pre-school.

On the subject of golf, Brendan opined knowledgeably, “I’ve played golf before. It’s really difficult.”

“When did you play golf?”

“I played with Grandpa when he took me to the beach last summer.”

“Oh, you played miniature golf.”

“Yes, I played golf,” Brendan said.

Soon, it was Brendan’s turn for a haircut.  He climbed up into the barber’s chair and sat on a board that the old man placed across the arms of the chair.  The barber cinched an apron around Brendan’s neck, tucked in a paper napkin around his collar, and went to work.

My part, from here on out, was to tell Brendan regularly, “Hold your head still.”  Or, “Don’t move, Brendan.”  Or, “Close your eyes,” when the barber went to cut his bangs.

But eventually, I noticed Brendan picking up small handfuls of his hair from the apron and holding it in his fist.

“What are you doing that for?”  I asked.

“I want to keep it,” he said, “as a reminder of my third trip to the barber.”

He has been to the barber many times before.

I said, “I don’t think you should.  You’ll get it all over the car.”

“But I want to.”

I didn’t argue with him then, figuring I’d deal with it at the end.

Later, it was my turn in the barber chair.  My haircuts don’t last long, for reasons that are obvious to people who know me.  I always tell the barber “Just set your clippers to one and shave it.”  I don’t have enough hair to bother with, and I like the convenience of having even less than what little remains.

Brendan sat on a bench and watched me get my haircut, and then after awhile he came over and picked up a patch of hair off my apron.  He went back and sat down on the bench and started rolling my hair into a ball mixed with his hair.

“Ewww,” I said, “Why are you doing that, Brendan?”

“I’m making a friendship ball.”

“What’s a friendship ball?”

He replied, “Well, you take some hair from one person and hair from another person and you roll it all together into a friendship ball.”

“Who told you that?”  I asked, still a little disgusted.

“No one.  I just thought of it.”

“What do you do with a friendship ball?”

“I’m going to put it in my treasure chest because I like you.”

Brendan has a small, porcelain pirate’s treasure chest where he keeps a lot of his personal “treasures.”

I said, “If I’d know you liked hair so much, instead of buying you Christmas presents I would have just combed the cat’s fur and given you a fur-ball.”

The barber laughed; Brendan didn’t get the joke.

I said, “Well, I guess you can take that home.”

Now, Brendan has a ball of our hair in an envelope in his “treasure” chest.