‘Your usual?, asks Giorgio

as he sprays water over my hair

and adjusts the chair so my head is in correct relation to the mirror

whilst he attaches a black drape over my front to catch the residue

My usual? I’ve had it all and never usually the same style in a row

Straight back and sides

Crew cut

Curtains

Number one all over

Never coloured or dyed

Except when I tried to blonde bleach my hair with Domestos

A moment of Nineties teenage angst

I’ve let my hair grow this time

I suspect he’s anticipating me saying ‘number three on top with an inch off and number two round the back and sides and leave the sideburns. Natural at the back’

‘Number one all over’, I reply

Giorgio looks nervous

‘If you’re sure’ he answers. ‘Can’t stick it back on after’

‘I’m sure’, I say

He prepares his clippers and holds my head firmly with his hand

Turns on the clipper and makes the first shave

The first batch of hair falls to the floor

I like the way he firm grips my head to shave

As he proceeds, I am reminded of my very first number one all overthirty years ago

When I would get my hair cut at Shaws the barbers in hometown Tunbridge Wells

A number one all over was more than a hairstyle

A number one all over was personal statement

A way of me fitting in with other gay men with number ones all over in Soho

at a time when I was not out

I would get the train to London after visiting Shaws

and go to the gay bars and clubs on Old Compton Street

to see

to cruise

to snog

but mainly just to be with and enjoy the company of

other number one all overs

 

I liked this uniformity

My hair did not make me stand out like it did in Tunbridge Wells

where I was once called a thug or ‘lost a fight with a mower’

 

Cut your hair / get your hair cut in a certain way

There’s a story behind your chosen style

 

Hair as anonymity

Hair as community

Hair as statement

Hair as expression

Hair as identity

Hair as strength

Hair as power

Hair as freedom

Hair as liberation

Hair as coming out

Hair as emancipation

 

I bet Shaws is all hipster haircuts and male grooming these days

I went to Shaws at a time when a man would never ask for moisturiser

If he did he’d been called a dirty little queer

Rainy damp drizzly Tunbridge Wells on a Saturday afternoon

Go down the narrow steps to Shaws in the basement

You’d think you were in a smoke filled nightclub

Haircut hedonism

As close as I could get to Heaven

when I was too shy to go into that most infamous of gay nightclubs

Shaws the barbers in the Nineties when smoking was allowed indoors

Shaws haircut heaven

Literally all smoke and mirrors

Cigarette smoke from the lungs of the barbers awaiting customers

Barbers sitting in their waiting room opposite the chairs

I only remember two, Lionel and Malcolm

Lionel, short curly hair

Jewish, I think

Malcolm, slightly younger

Mid forties, the age I am now

Tall dark eyes and wavy hair with a moustache

I liked the way he caressed my hair

I think he enjoyed it too

I liked the way he got closer to me with every cut of hair

I liked to smell his cologne

I loved the pain of the razor blade as he cut the hairs off the back of my neck

And then made it better with talcum powder and a tissue

He was the first gay man I had ever met

He never told me outright he was gay but I knew

I was his Antoine Doinel

The Parisian boy from my favourite Francois Truffaut film

Les quatre cents coups (400 blows)

The film that made me want to be a filmmaker

The way Antoine looked at the breasts of the female hairdresser as she cut his hair

‘How’s you this fine day?’, Malcolm always asked me when I first sat in his chair

‘I’ve bought my first copy of Gay Times’ I once wanted to reply

Earlier that day , I had smuggled a copy of that month’s edition out of WHSmith

hidden in a copy of lad mag Loaded

But instead, when I asked Malcolm for a number one all over,

he knew

And he also knew when I later asked him for a cut and blow job

as if the last two words of my request were the only ones he had cared to hear

 

Years later, a barber told me he could

shave my hair off (give me a number one all over)

in record time

Only eight minutes it took him

I preferred the longer slower cut

These things can’t be rushed

I want to feel every strand of hair shaven off my head

Like I once wanted to feel every caress of Malcolm’s hand

 

Hair as desire

Hair as  pleasure

Hair as homoerotica

Hair as sensual

Hair as affect

 

Moving to London in the early Noughties, I discover Mr Toppers on the corner of Tottenham Court Road, Denmark Street opposite the then Astoria

Now all flattened and made glass box office space for corporate wankers

and totally sanitised alienating immersive digital art installations

Mr Toppers meant cheap cuts no frills

Don’t expect conditioner in that rinse

Like a hair salon equivalent of EasyJet

EasyHair

You always knew what to expect at Mr Toppers

It was rough and ready round the edges

Barbers hairdressing their way around the world

Hair cut by a different nationality every time I visited

I was often seen to though by a lovely Englishman

Same demure as Malcolm but gave off straight bloke vibes

Unless the salon radio system churning out house dance music

affected the frequency of my gaydar

I liked when he moved his hands through my hair in such a sexually provocative manner

I had much longer hair in those days

just so I could feel his slow application of hair product through my hair

I wouldn’t wash my hair for days

I didn’t want to wash the memory of his caress out of me

Nowadays I sometimes go to one of the last remaining Mr Toppers

not for convenience but for nostalgia

 

I am happy to have my haircut at my barbers in Crystal Palace

Often, I am seen to by Giorgio

We only talk about the weather

Most times, a woman cuts my hair

As she does and we exchange small pleasantries,

I often look at the handsome man

having his haircut in the chair two down from me

in the reflection in my mirror

I often give her a tip

I remember giving Mr Straight my mobile phone number once in Mr Toppers

Just a punt

Just in case my gaydar was faulty

 

Over the years, me and my Dad have often had the same hairstyle

I wonder if Dad’s choice of hair style meant the same to him as it did to me

All I can remember is Dad calling me his little proper shave

I think he meant to say protégé