Everybody Know Thai

The following is a short story I wrote in 2018 as a 17-year-old senior in high school. It was an English assignment to write an essay to express to colleges who you are. I submitted it to the five schools I applied to - I don't think any of them read it. There are things that I would change now if I were to rewrite it, but this is it in its unadultered 17-year-old form. I was confined to a 750-word maximum. It has 623.

The most popular girl in my town knows my name.

Her name is Thai, she is 40 years old and is my barber. A self-made American woman of Vietnamese descent, Thai has been cutting my hair and giving me “the usual” for as long as I can remember.

Main Street Barber, which I have always simply referred to as “Thai’s” is a simple brick building, warm brownish-red with sky blue and bright red lights in the window indicating that Thai is ready to begin styling. I’m greeted with a smile and a wave. “Hi Cha” she says.

The most popular lady in town knows not only my name, she knows the names of the hundreds of customers she serves every month – except for my youngest brother Brett, who she has been mistakenly calling Bradley for too long to correct her now.

Despite her tendency to mispronounce names, Thai knows each customer individually and personally.

I take a seat in her black leather chair, facing the mirror. Thai throws a dark polyester cloth around me and clips a beige towel around my neck. A TV hangs upon the scratched white wall behind me, poorly centered and with wires dangling beneath it. Oftentimes the TV displays breaking news of catastrophe and sorrow. Backwards headlines flash at me through the mirror.

When I was younger, Thai would change the channel. Nowadays she’ll gaze up at the screen, with her dark eyes and gold frames processing the senseless acts that she and I are blessed not to be victims of. She shakes her head as she refocuses on my hair. “Just crazy Cha, people are crazy.”

I watched myself grow up in Thai’s mirror. I didn’t know it at the time. I saw myself fight back tears at six-years-old when she failed to spike my hair in the front, and I was too shy to ask. Unable to stop smiling at nine, I witnessed my own excitement when given the liberty to ride my bike home from Thai’s by myself. Ten-years-old, infuriated, and with an army of lice hell-bent on destroying my chances with the second most popular girl in town, I watched Thai shave away my Justin Bieber flow.

A new barber opened up in my neighborhood when I was twelve, so I gave it a try. SportClips boasts of making every customer “feel like an MVP.” First-timers are treated to the luxury of a steamed towel for the face, an expensive shampoo, and a relaxing massage for the back and shoulders. I sat in a dimly lit room with freshly-painted red walls, and received the only professional back massage of my life, listening to a sports-talk radio show. I was not asked how my family was doing, where my mom has been, or if my little brothers needed a haircut anytime soon.

I prefer the simplicity of Thai’s. Her kindness is more valuable to me than luxurious treatment. It is less than a mile from my home to Thai’s workplace. To get from A to B, three barber shops are passed. I wonder why it is that my parents decided for me that it was Thai who would cut my hair all my life. Perhaps because it is adjacent to the beer store, outside of which I learned patience, waiting on my father and the ice cream he would promise me. Or maybe it’s the nonstop spinning of the magical red, white and blue barber’s pole that enchanted me when I had passed it for the first time.

I explained to Thai once that she was the most popular girl I have ever met. Grinning, she looked at me sideways through the mirror. She chuckled, then looked down smiling. “Everybody know Thai” she said softly.