SEAN TAKES THE FALL!

"Four bells and all`s well, Mackleby." said Blimp Hanlon one Friday afternoon after school. They were carrying their books leisurely down Dufferin Street enjoying the warm summery weather.
"I`m glad you think so." grumbled his pal Sean, kicking a bottle cap into the gutter.
Blimp cocked and eyebrow and glanced at his chum. Then he chuckled. He knew why Sean was feeling edgy. A decree had come down from on high that morning that Sean should get his hair cut on the way home from school. With shoulders drooped, like a lamb to the slaughter, Sean was headed there now.
"It won`t be so bad." said Blimp, giving his friend an encouraging clap on the back. "It`ll be cooler."
Sean made a sour face. The two chums parted company at the corner of second avenue. Blimp`s Auntie had some chores for him to do that he couldn`t put off any longer.
"Don`t fall asleep in the barber`s chair!" he called cheerfully to his pal`s retreating back as Sean swung off down second avenue. "It could be fatal."
"Thanks for the tip!" hollered Sean turning round. "If I show up at the fort tomorrow wearing a paper bag over my head you`ll know she got the better of me."
Blimp grinned and waved "so long."
The "she" referred to was Bonny the breezy red faced barber downtown who always cut Sean`s hair. Sean didn`t think she played fair. She always pretended to agree with her customer`s instructions until she had them strapped helplessly into her chair. Then she gave them whatever sort of haircut she favoured. In Sean`s case it was invariably a buzz cut. Many a time he had slunk home cropped like a felon fresh out of prison.
Bonny had this thing about brush cuts. So did Sean for that matter, but their views differed greatly.
Sean thought Bonny`s cropped skull made her look like one of the "bulls" in a concentration camp. She no doubt felt it was neat and easy to care for. That was her business.
HIs own hair was just reaching a nice length, like John Lennon's.
Sean`s Mother didn`t approve, of course, and "as long as he was under her roof" etc. The old, old story.
Sean sighed resignedly. Reaching the bottom of second avenue, he crossed the street, took a deep breath, and plunged into the Barber Shop.
The door crashing shut behind him made his stomach lurch like he`d stepped off into the void.
"Well look who`s here!" Bonny boomed heartily, setting aside her broom as she deftly flicked a stray lock of hair from the Throne of Doom. She glanced sharply at his hair and a hungry gleam flared in her eyes."Step right up!" she crooned invitingly.
In a trice she had whisked him off his feet into the chair and swaddled him up to the chin in a plastic apron. Sean`s eyes bulged as she cinched it tight round his neck with her thick, meaty fingers and thrust home a pin the size of a bayonet with a grunt of satisfaction.
He could feel his cheeks ballooning as the flow of blood to his head was constrict ed. She always did the pin too tight so he couldn`t struggle or yell for help. He knew her tricks by now, by God, but that wouldn`t save him.
"Well, what`ll we have today?" she bellowed amiably, playing the game with relish. "Short back and sides?"
""Hardy har har." thought Sean. He crammed a finger down twixt the collar and his throat and managed a gulp of air.
"Not too short!" he croaked desparately, knowing it was no good telling her.
"Right you are!"she yelled ecstaticly, shoving the sleeved up her brawny forearms and clutching the shears in her big meaty fist. She cranked up the radio to drown out his screams and fell to. "Hold still now." she hollered.
Sean consigned his soul to his maker as the sharp points of Bonny`s scissors jabbed past his eye.
"Real nice weather we been havin`." Bonny boomed cheerily as she started snipping. Sean`s curls fell away like leaves in September and his soul cried out within him as they fluttered sadly down to the floor.
"Goodbye old friends, we almost made it this time." he thought miserably. Soon he felt a cold draught down his neck as the rear guard gave way.
"Why is it women like short hair on a guy?" he fumed inwardly. "Don`t they like competition? Is that it? I mean, look at Sampson and Delilah, what was that all about?"
Clip, clip clip, clatter followed by a gush of water in the sink to rinse the blood off the shears no doubt.. She`d finished with the shears. Now came the lawn mower. It coughed and sputtered as she fired it up. Buzzzz up and down his head. Sean could feel the bristles prickling at the nape of his neck, exposed now to view for the first time in weeks. She was hitting her stride now, shearing him rhythmically back and forth like a sheep. Drat the woman and his mother too. It was some kind of feminine conspiracy to keep boys neat and in their place. Never again though, he vowed simmering. If he had to, he`d run away from home and grow his hair down past his butt. Yeah, sure, he`d said that before.
ZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! droned the clippers high above his ear and Sean writhed and squirmed in the chair. A glance in the mirror confirmed his very worst suspicions. She was giving him the kiwi cut again, shaving down every hair in sight with wild maniacal glee. She clearly relished this sort of thing. It must be some kind of sickness. He winced as she grabbed his poor little bald head between her strong fingers and wrenched it fiercely first one way and then the other just for the sheer joy of it all.
"Maybe she`ll pull it off." he thought glumly, hanging on to the chair for dear life. "Then I won`t have to come back here anymore."
The foul deed was nearly done and Sean shivered in the draught from the door. His scalp lay exposed to the wind, the rain and the ridicule of his rowdy classmates. How are the mighty fallen!
Bonny raked a comb across it painfully a few times to make him think he still had hair there and then shook a few drops of aromatic slick`em from a bottle to disinfect the nicks he`d suffered along the way.
"Happy now?" he thought bitterly as she buffed up his head with a hot shammy.
"There we are, now we can see your face!" she cried ironically as she tore away the bib and gave the chair a spin with her foot.
Sean went flying out onto the hair-strewn floor, nearly losing his balance and careening into the magazine rack.
"That`ll be fifteen dollars." said Bonny briskly, adding insult to injury. "I knocked off a buck for nicking your ear."
"Gee, thanks." mumbled Sean, avoiding the mirror as he dug out his money. He`d felt something warm trickling down his neck earlier but he never dreamed she`d have the nerve to shed blood right there in the shop in broad daylight.
Bonny snatched the money form his fingers and beamed as she told him encouragingly:"That`s a haircut your mother will be proud of."
"And that was the unkindest cut of all." thought Sean. "How much is she paying you on the side?"
Ignoring Bonny`s parting sallies Sean poked his plucked head warily through the doorway to see if anyone he knew was coming down the street. The coast was clear and with a rueful backward glance at two month`s growth of hair strewn all over the linoleum he pulled the door shut behind him and slunk off down the street wishing fervently that he had worn his bunny hug to school that day. The hood would have made a good disguise- the Franciscan Monk effect and he sure had the tonsure to prove it.
By accident he caught a glimpse of himself in the window of Hall`s Leather and Sporting Goods as he hurried by. He gasped, stopped and had to look twice to make sure it was really him. The saleslady smiled approvingly at him through the glass. Yeah sure, they were all in it together.
Well, there was nothing for it, he`d have to leave town. If his friends saw him like this there`d be no living with them. Come to think of it there`d be no living with his sister Katy either. Sean squared his shoulders back to meet his fate bravely.
Life`s hard at eleven.


The end.