i walked up to my regular barbershop today and discovered that it was no longer my regular barbershop. the man cutting hair was young, in his late 20s maybe early 30s. he had a tattoo on his neck and he was wearing a white smock of some kind. these were all clear indicators that he wasn’t george.

george is an older white dude with a texas accent and a sincere smile.

george owns, er, owned “george’s barbershop.” okay, actually, i guess i don’t know if he actually owned the place, maybe he was renting it or… whatever, it doesn’t matter. for approximately the last four years, george has been the only person i’ve trusted to cut my hair.

see, apparently my hair is really easy to fuck up. all those places like supercuts or whatever, it wouldn’t even matter what i said to them, i’d always end up with some weird cowlick outcroppings on the back of my head when i left. always. without fail. either that, or they’d try to give me the generic asian dude haircut (of which i realize my current hairstyle is merely a derivation). and after they’d fuck it up, they would always say, “oh, well that’ll be easy to mousse down” or some such nonsense. yeah, or you could’ve cut my hair right in the first place.

but then i found george. the first time i went in there i gave the same preamble i always gave to people about to cut my hair. i’m prone to cowlicks. i don’t want the asian buzzcut. barbers always fuck up my hair. please don’t fuck up my hair. et cetera. george took all this in with a smile, and replied with the earnest question, “so… what? about a medium?”

i was shocked because i’d never heard anyone refer to a haircut, or a style of haircut, as a “medium.” i’d become well-versed with barber slang over the years prior to meeting george. the clippers have a numerical system corresponding to shortness. i wanted my hair tapered using clippers at about a 2. that’s what i had learned to say that would give me something close to what i wanted. but george didn’t have time for that kind of bullshit. he wanted to give me a “medium” haircut. and i figured i had nothing to lose.

it was perfect. well okay, not “perfect.” women passing me on the street wouldn’t be like, “damn, that’s some well-cut hair.” but my hair was even. clean cut. no outcroppings or patches of hair staging a rebellion against the collective. it was shorter than i was used to, but i knew that in a week it would be fine. he asked, “how’s that?” and somewhat speechlessly i said, “um, yeah. that’s… that’s perfect.”

and then he shaved the edges with a straight razor.

i knew right then and there that i’d found my barber shop. because george was a motherfucking badass. and every time i came back, i didn’t even have to tell him what i wanted. he just remembered. i’d come in, we’d say hello, talk about the weather for a second, and then he’d cut my hair. five minutes tops. $10. “okay, see ya next time!” or “okay, be careful out there!” yes, george, i will be careful out there. thank you. no really, thank you.

and george is a nice guy. once i came in to find george just chilling out in one of the barber chairs with his arm in a sling. (around this time he’d added one more barber to his roster, which previously had consisted of, well, him. i forget her name. she was nice enough, but she wasn’t george.) it turns out he was helping one of his neighboring storefronts with some kind of lighting or… the deal was he was on a ladder helping one of the neighboring stores with something. and he fell and fucked up his arm.

i remember that day, because three other guys came in after me and they each went through the exact same sequence of reactions. concern for george. inquiry about the incident. then growing worry on their face as they realized george wouldn’t be able to cut their hair that day.

so today when i walked up to find some imposter barbershop where george’s should have been, i could barely deal with it. i was just standing in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold lest i lend credence to this cruel illusion. my question came out as, “this isn’t george’s barbershop anymore?” and they said no, they were under new management. i turned around and walked outside. my mind wasn’t operating. how could this happen? surely there must be some kind of mistake. i walked into the barbershop and looked around, trying to understand. it looked about the same. except the lighting was brighter. and everything was a little, well, cleaner. and the two barbers were wearing white smocks. i looked at the one barber who was chilling out on the wait-bench, and asked, “how much is a haircut here?”

i want to make it clear that i wasn’t even considering getting my hair cut there. these people had something to do with george’s disappearance, and i would have no part in supporting them. i just wanted to know how much i would not be supporting them.

$18. ha! i laughed out loud. “eighteen dollars?!” the guy just kind of looked at me like i was nuts and simply said, “yeah.” i shook my head and left in disgust.

i couldn’t even think straight. as i was driving around, i thought in hindsight that i probably should’ve asked if they knew what had happened to george. and then i worried that maybe he’d gotten sick, or died or something, but then i shook off those dark thoughts because they were too hard to bear.

george had to be alive and well somewhere, just so i could be mad at him for selling his barbershop. how could you do this, george? i know you probably made some cash selling out your place, but who’s going to cut my hair? then my thoughts turned irrational. maybe i could pay george $18 and he could cut my hair, um, wherever. was there any way i could get george to come back to the barbershop and kick these other jokers out? what the fuck was i thinking? i didn’t even know the story of what had happened.

i went to shady grove to regroup and eat lunch. i go to shady grove sometimes when i’m having a bad day. because the waitresses there are always lovely, and i really like their chicken fried chicken. and i find that combination comforting, which probably scientifically proves i grew up in texas.

it helped, but i’ve been in a daze all afternoon. i vacillate between worrying if george is okay and selfishly wondering where i’m going to get my hair cut now.

because i certainly won’t get my hair cut at that imposter barbershop. with their white smocks. pretending to have been there for years.

“under new management,” my ass. i know, motherfucker. you know how i know? because the old management was george. the old employees? george.

and what self-respecting, legit barbershop charges $18? it’s a fucking haircut.

i don’t want their $18 haircut, their white smocks, or their bright lighting.

i just want a “medium.”