The Man with the Softest Hands

I have tried them all. The salons, the specialty stores, the chains, the exclusives. I've tried stylists, hair entrepreneurs, burgeoning sculptors...I've paid a lot and I've paid a little.

In the end, the same result: the same haircut that I've had since I've been able to part the left side in the same way that I was taught.

For one long year of my life I received a haircut every week beginning in the hazy hot humidity of August until a wonderful day in March when the long freshman year of Virginia Military Institute officially ended.

I know a barber, and I know a good one, and those two terms are usually mutually exclusive.

Growing up in the 70s in Southern California, your hair was your wavy badge. Mine was exceptionally long, and when I look at pictures from back then I am amazed at what my parents allowed. In the 6th grade it was so long it hit my shoulder and then deflected slightly upward.

I was quite proud of my hair, letting it grow long as a senior in high school, feathered, blown dry and fastidious.

I can remember an inner-dialogue I had with myself in the Ft Benning Barber Shop in Georgia at the advent of Jump School. I had literally been growing my hair for about 3 months since the Ratline ended (VMI reference above) and it was to the point where I could actually comb it.

And in order to start the Airborne School I had to have my head shaved. Not cut; not shorn. Shaved. Stubbled.

Literally, I debated. Silver wings or sweet locks. It didn't take a lot to push me back into reality...I had had my head shaved before, so what the hell.

So yeah, I know barbers.

And I think I found my nirvana, my Grail of the Grizzled men wielding scissors.

Somewhere deep in Northern Virginia, in the tiny Washington DC suburb of Haymarket, VA, there is a barber shop run by a man named Larry.

Larry is a little on the redneck side, probably about 50, white wavy hair, raspy voice crafted by hours of Marlboros, and a drawl that borders on a conspiratorial whisper. He employs mostly Koreans and Asians to help him out, but his prime chair is near the front, and he is normally three-deep in people waiting for him to cut their hair.

Or give them a shave.

You see, Larry is old school. None of this crap like the Grooming Room or some other Male-only salon dripping with faux-leather and charging you $50 bucks to shave you.

Larry's cuts are $13.00. Shears, snipping scissors, maybe an electrical razor for the sides. He whispers hello, spreads the black shear sheet across you and asks what you'd like. He may or may not remember me, but we barely converse. His hands smell slightly of tobacco. His fingers smell of Clubman talc. His hands pale and plump, slightly inflated as if with air. Soft as kittens. Creased and weathered, but smooth and almost dainty.

To me there is an art to shaving, a process we all have gone through and we all likely avoid. If I get lucky enough to go three or four days without shaving, I head on down to Larry and as he likes to say, "get to see the baby's butt."

He lopes on back to the rear of his store for the heated towels, always inquiring if I'm ready, and while I believe I am it is almost always hotter than expected. He spreads it across my face in front of me, twists it slightly and lays it across my neck and then layers it in circles until only my nose is showing. Hot, humid warmth pulsates on my skin, commanding the whiskers to full attention.

After a few minutes, he spreads warm cream on my face, with those bulbous padded hands. Only to return with another hot towel to combine with the cream to create a viscosity against my face, warm, soothing.

While I lay with the heat emanating on me, I hear him preparing. (I've seen him shave others so I know this is what happens while I'm underneath the towels).

Usually taking out the sling blade scalpels, antique single bladed bits of steel. He rubs them on his leather strap, honing to a fine blade.

When he removes the hot towel, he spreads more cream and then hunches close to my face, his eyes focused and his hands touching my skin, pulling the skin taut as the razor glides easily over it. He pauses, scraping the blade across barber paper to clean it.

He takes his time, a shave taking 15 minutes minimally. Hot towels not included.

His studies the angles of my face, the growth lines of my whiskers. With the grain, against the grain. Careful around the nose, the corners of my mouth.

After a few passes, he starts to comment on the smoothness. The Baby's Butt.

I usually sit back, close my eyes, and try not to wonder too much about the man who holds a razor against my throat.

Rather, I luxuriate in the talent and the skill. The slowness and the steadiness. The scent of tobacco and of barber shops, of creams and green potions.

And I always leave with a slight chuckle, knowing that I have a lot of vices in my life, but I cannot help but get genuinely energized when I get to spend twenty minutes in the chair with the man with the softest hands.