Quería preguntar. Tan mal. La pregunta estaba sentada en mi lengua.
¿De dónde has sacado eso? ¿Qué significa? ¿Conocías a una mujer llamada June Harper?
Pero no lo hice. Era un extraño. Un anciano cansado y quebrado recibiendo un corte de pelo que no podía pagar. No se sentía bien entrometerse.
So I just cut his hair.
Yo hice los lados. Entonces la parte superior. Luego le recorté la barba, ordenada y cerca, de la manera en que mi abuelo solía usar la suya.
Cuando le puse las cortadoras en el cuello, cerró los ojos.
“Mi madre solía cortarme el pelo”, le dije, solo para llenar el silencio. “En nuestra mesa de la cocina. Cada dos semanas. Era tan mala en eso. Siempre hacía el flequillo torcido”. Me he reído un poco. “En realidad es por eso que me convertí en estilista. Me cansé de golpes torcidos”.
Ray didn’t say anything.
But his chin was trembling.
“She’d put an old bedsheet around my shoulders,” I said. “Like this cape. And she’d sing while she did it. Always the same song. Something about a bluebird.”
I don’t know why I said that last part. It just came out.
Ray opened his eyes.
He looked at me in the mirror, and the tears spilled over. Down his cheeks. Into his newly trimmed beard.
—Sobre el arco iris —dijo roncamente. “‘Bluebirds fly’”.
I stopped. The clippers buzzed in my hand.
That was the song.
That was exactly the song.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Él no respondió.
Apagué las cortadoras. El salón se quedó muy tranquilo.
I picked up the scissors one last time. I trimmed the last few strands above his collar. My hands were shaking now. I could barely hold them still.
And as I made the last cut, he suddenly started crying.
Not tears. Crying. The kind where your whole body shakes. He put his face in his hands under the black cape, and his shoulders heaved, and he made a sound I’d never heard a grown man make.
Dejé las tijeras.
“Ray? Ray, are you okay?”
I thought he was moved because I’d been kind to him. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a haircut. It’s okay.”
He shook his head.
