Brazing by Lila Felix
“Don’t, Bea, don’t! You’re going to regret it! ”
The hairdresser behind me plugged her ears with shears in one hand and a black comb in the other as she waited for the incessant wailing to stop.
“Will you shut up? Get a magazine or text your novio. You’re good at that.”
Her middle finger told me what she thought of that.
“Come on, girl. Cut it all off.”
My parents had preferred me with long hair and were vocal about it. They were vocal about everything.
Katie, the girl behind me, fluffed my waist length hair in a bid of farewell.
“Are you sure?” She met my eyes in the mirror. “It’s so pretty.”
“It’s not pretty when I’m pulling it out of my scalp trying to detangle it after stuffing it into a derby helmet. Cut the shit off—please.”
Funneling most of my hair into a ponytail at the nape of my neck, she hesitated three or four times before making the first cut. As the weight was lifted from my scalp, I noticed an audience of hairdressers had gathered in reverence. They looked as if they were seeing a body in a coffin one last time.
So I clapped and cheered—flailed my arms until shock plastered the faces of the people around and behind me.
It was just hair.
Even after graduating college, getting a job and living on my own for five years, this was the first time I really felt like an adult. No, it wasn’t just hair—it was freedom.
With the mourning finally breaking up, Katie took one long drag of a breath and went to work on the rest of my hair looking like the Mad Hatter shearing seamlessly through silk for the Red Queen’s bonnets.
When she powered up the clippers, Zuri began crossing herself and praying about not cutting off my ears.
She was ridiculous dramatic. In the next half hour, the style took shape, looking more and more like the picture I’d brought in on my phone. I was like a little roller derby chola.
I shut my eyes while Katie blow dried the stray black hairs from my neck. A gasp rang out from my right and I knew that Zuri was next to me freaking the F out.
“It doesn’t look that bad.”
I didn’t even want to see the shock on her face. I kept my eyes closed while Katie’s skilled fingers worked whatever product through my hair—conveniently the same product she was going to try to sell me on my way out. Too bad that on my professor’s wage I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
“It looks hot.” I opened my eyes to see a woman with a pink streak of hair coming out of a blue braid. This was no ordinary woman. To anyone else, she would look like some middle-aged female who was living in the past by continuing to keep her hair like a teenager.
“Good to see you Ms. Reed.”
Quickly, I looked around the place. How did these people not know this woman? She was the new matriarch of a roller derby empire.
The Black Family to roller derby was like The Sopranos to the mafia.
Reed Black was one of their feared leaders—no, more like loved.
Her husband, Falcon, was hot as…
“You too, babe. Really, the hair looks amazing.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Katie was still primping as Reed took a seat in the waiting area which was really six cheap looking chairs, some hair magazines and a dollar store bucket with McDonald’s toys. Why Reed Black got her hair cut in a cheap ass place like this was beyond me.
“There you go, Hot Shot. Pay the lady and let’s get out of here. Mama needs a torta.”
It seemed like we were constantly at the mercy of Zuri’s demanding hunger.