The Barber of Tartous

The first impression I leave on people is that I 'm a tiny bit more interesting and different from the hordes. I really am not. Like most men, I am a creature of habit. I'm as boring as the guy next door, probably more if you ask my kids. Even my seemingly interesting volatility is, in due course, banal and predictable. What sets me apart, or so I'd like to believe and transmit, is my obdurate loyalty.
I've been cutting my hair for the last 22 years on the hands and with the scissors of the same barber, Abu Ali. This is not so unique in the world of men, especially those who require low or no maintenance like me. I still remember my first haircut. The moment was immortalized by my mother, rest her soul. I was about four perhaps with long and curly hair colored like fields of wheat in early summer. Mom thought that I was the handsomest kid in the world and she probably was right (I don't know what happened as the years went by though). She called our family photographer and asked him to document the occasion. Abdul Karim, the assistant pharmacist took me on his black Chinese Phoenix bicycle to Mahmoud the barber. It was customary to carry a passenger on a bicycle by seating him sideways on the crossbar. From that position and right at the apex of the only steep climb on the way (between Cinema Al-Nejmeh and Cinema Al-Amir, both distant memories from the past) I stuck my foot in between the spokes of the front wheel. I wailed like an owl being harassed by a penguin of the same gender while Abdul Karim laid spread on the sidewalk with blood running from his nose and lip. He didn't pause with me later for the black and white photograph but he continued to take me places until I was old enough to prowl Tartous on my own bike.
Years flew past in the blink of an eye, over forty of them. I crossed the Atlantic to America and drove and flew all over the place but only managed to frequent one barbershop or perhaps two. Like clockwork, and except for a period of time when I let go of everything including my hair (a beta version of Yazan), I went to the barbershop once a month. I never requested any particular style for my haircut. I would just sit on the barber's chair and passively accept whatever creativity or inanity the trainee's dexterity or clumsiness produced. Occasionally God would put in a nice word on my behalf with the angels and I would end up in the hands of a buxom apprentice. But in real life you can't win them all unless you cheat. Eventually my scalp would get caressed by a gay trainee. I think the bald spot in the back of my head is the result of such moments of torment.
In 1986 I came back to Tartous. My first impulse was of course to continue with Mahmoud as my barber. I was surprised when I saw that the building where his shop was located had been replaced by a big hole in the ground. A modern 6-story office building was to be erected on site and Mahmoud was taking a break. I had to make a quick moral decision, one that will affect me for the rest of my life. I would either have to wait until the construction of the new building reaches the ground level and the barbershop reopened, a 4 to 5 months period at least. Or, I had to find me a new barber. Decency and shyness prevented me from choosing one of the nearby alternatives. The well-established barbers knew my father and me and the fact that we were Mahmoud's clients. "So now that Mahmoud doesn't have his shop you came to us", they would think if I approached them. The newcomers were too trendy for my taste with the word Salon instead of Barber on the neon-lighted sign and posters of fashionable male faggots all over the damn place (I don't give a shit if this is politically incorrect, male models are faggots as far as I'm concerned).
Like an outcast I rode my bike to the furthest southern edge of town. I lived on Al-Mina St. back then, very near to the port which defined Tartous northern border. Near the Ghamka River, I found Abu Ali's barbershop which was, and still is, the furthest shop from my neighborhood. The man never saw my face before and assumed that I must've been one of those dumb tourists who cut their hair anywhere on a whim. He should've known better back then as he's been cutting my hair since. I have visited Abu Ali exactly (22 x12 = 264 times). Fares has been escorting me reluctantly for the last 6 years, much to his chagrin. I promised him that when he's old enough to go about the city alone he can choose his own barber. For the time being, however, he has to succumb to the quirks of his old man. Of course Mahmoud reopened his shop a few months later back in 1986 but I was already committed to Abu Ali. He's been my primary source of news, local and international, for the last 2 decades. He specializes in Lebanese politics, a subject which had always put me to sleep instantaneously. I have made my own vows very early in our association that I will never disagree with him. I really don't give a horse's ass about local, Middle Eastern and international affairs so I see no point in disagreeing on a subject which after all, he is a glib expert on. We always talk about the weather, the high cost of living, Al 3arsat Al Arab and the prices of real estate in Tartous. I never told Abu Ali how I like my haircut but I reckon that as my hair had thinned over the years he's been cropping it shorter and shorter. My haircut takes 10 to 15 minutes maximum with all the talking and gesturing. With Fares, Abu Ali needs twice as long as he's bombarded by special requests for modifications and adjustments. Damn, he's barely eight years old and already way more sophisticated than me.
The other day Abu Ali confessed something which really made me very happy. Before opening shop in Tartous he had worked for years in Tripoli, Lebanon. When I first visited him in the early spring of 1986 he had just moved in. I am his oldest client, he told me. "I still remember when you walked in for the very first time", he said. "I thought you were a tourist." "When you came in one month later, I inquired whether you had moved into our neighborhood." "Less than a year later, I knew that we are friends for life." "What do you think about this Akhou'l Sharmouta Junblatt?", he angrily asked switching gears. "kiss Immo", I blissfully replied as I faded into a deliciously hedonistic short nap.