Why I Quit Barbering – a “Horror” Story
By Diane Neil, High Desert Branch
My wife and I met in barber college. I became a barber, and she went on to work in a hair salon. There was a movement a few years ago to have beauticians become family counselors because depressed or suicidal women tend to confide in their hairdressers. My wife is a good listener and didn’t mind. She was even able to steer a couple of women to seek professional help.
Well, that’s not my cup of tea! I like being a barber. Most guys come in for a haircut and if they talk at all, it’s just about sports. I’ve worked at the same shop for ten years, and all of us are a pretty tight group and we have a good bunch of regular customers.
There was one guy, though, who drove us all crazy. No one wanted to cut his hair because he was so fussy. He wanted another quarter inch off one side or the other, and he’d insist on scissors, no clippers, and trimming his neck with a straight razor. I swear, whenever I got stuck with him, I wanted to slit my throat!
I was telling my wife about this jerk, and she said it sounded like the same guy who was stalking one of her customers. The poor lady was afraid to go anywhere alone in case she ran into him.
Well, about a month ago this guy comes in and ends up in my chair. He’s yammering on about some dame who wouldn’t give him a second date and then he sees her smooching with some guy with scruffy hair. I swear, that did it! When he leaned forward and stuck out his chin for me to shave his neck, I lost it. I jerked back as hard as I could and cut his jugular vein. Blood spurted all over the place; his yammering stopped mid-gurgle. The other barbers and their customers cheered.
We had to close the shop for the day. Somebody called 911, but of course by the time an ambulance came the guy was already dead.
The police came and questioned all the barbers. They backed up my story about how the guy jerked forward when I was shaving his neck. So they ruled it an accident. One older cop even put his hand on my shoulder and said I should take a few days off to recover from the trauma.
So I stayed home for a week, but when I went back to work, there were reporters all over the place. The news had just come out that the guy I killed was the Stubbins Stalker. He’d been menacing women for years and there was a big reward for his capture. So I got the reward and my picture in the papers, and I was even on the TV news.
I still work at the same barber shop, but I don’t cut hair anymore. I man the appointment desk, sweep up, wash towels, and fetch stuff for the other barbers.
But I’ll never touch another straight razor.
This hair-raising flight of fiction originally appeared in
Inkslinger October 2020,
the newsletter of the High Desert Branch.