Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge

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Every time he took the curlers from their hair he felt real
calm. Time should stop, he thought. Comb-out came too
soon; he would have liked to keep the curls tight and
specific forever. To brush through the strength of hair
seemed criminal, "the rape of the lock." But there was no
time for segregation. These women wanted to look
spontaneous, so he brushed away the evidence of
perfections, but not before touching and pulling each
springy coil and feeling its determination.
The woman he most often thought about didn't
have curls, natural or otherwise. Her hair was shoulder­
length, thick, and inexpensively brown. It was shiny, and
sometimes he thought he could detect a slight wave, or
maybe it was mere coarseness. Her face was pretty, but
plain and serious, and for reasons he wasn't aware of she
sometimes reminded him of the Wicked Witch of the
West, even though there was no facial resemblance
between the two. It could have been because of a dream
he had one morning where he was dancing with the
witch-she was only a teenager though, a sober green
girl. He felt like kissing her eyelids, but didn't feel
worthy of the honor. For the rest of the day he felt a
familiarity between himself and the brown haired girl
who waxed and exfoliated people in a back room. She
was just as sober as the dream witch.
They said hello and goodbye and how's it going to
each other, but rarely got chatty enough to swap more
than vague mutual regard. Sometimes he imagined her
in her back room. He liked the thought of her ripping
sticky hairs from his eyebrows.
He felt autistic when she stood very near to him­
strangely out of touch with human emotions and social
courtesies. When she moved away he became Tourettic
in his feelings. A surge inside told him to reach out and
grab hold. It was a feeling of having hundreds of little