Photograph by Nakeya Brown for The New Yorker
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The night after Jerome’s brother turned up on a Southside sidewalk, bloodied and babbling in and out of consciousness, Tiny took Jerome’s hand, sat him on a stool, wiped tears from his cheeks, draped a towel over his shoulders, and whispered, Relax, baby, you can’t go to the hospital like that. Your brother’ll wake up to that damn bird’s nest on your head and fall right back into another coma. For the next two hours, Tiny sheared away Jerome’s knotty beads until his head appeared smooth and black, with orderly hairs laid prone by her soft, smoothing hand. Back when they met, she’d told him she cut hair, said she was damn good, too. Jerome had nodded, smiled a bit, as if to say, How cute, and changed the subject. But now, the way his eyes danced in the mirror, the joy that broadened his face, it all said, Where in the hell did a woman, a W-O-M-A-N, learn to cut like that? She circled him as she did her work, looking at every angle of his head. She lathered up the front and went at it with a straight razor so that his hairline sat as crisp and sharp as the bevelled edge of the blade that cut it. Tiny imagined slicing her finger while sliding it across the front of his head; her imagined self then smeared the blood all over Jerome’s face. After she finished and had swept the fine hairs from his shoulders and back, Jerome and Tiny collapsed onto the floor, spent, as if they had just made love for hours. On a bed of Jerome’s shorn hair, they slept into the early morning.

A year to the day after Jerome’s brother got out of the hospital, Jerome showed up at the only place he’d ever found comfort, on the doorstep of the woman he no longer loved and who, by agreement, no longer loved him. When Tiny opened the door that night she snorted and looked him up and down, this man she had been comfortable not seeing or speaking to for the past several months. Before she could complete her condescension, Jerome spoke: My mother is dead.

Tiny’s face grew tender with sadness and disbelief. She opened her arms and called for Jerome to rest his head on the soft roundness of her chest. But he breezed by her, eyes on the floor, and crumpled onto the couch. His face was so fallen she barely recognized him; sadness so chiselled into his cheeks and his brow that Tiny couldn’t imagine anything softening the rock of his face, so she sat and said nothing. She thought of how much she had loved Jerome’s mother—but that wasn’t the truth, simply one of those things people tell themselves when someone dies. The woman, Tiny realized, was just a proxy; it wasn’t for Jerome’s mother that she had once held an unshakable love but for Jerome himself. She opened her arms wide again and pulled him tightly to her body. His head nestled itself between her breasts. It felt wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. Jerome trembled in her arms. He wept and sniffled. Tiny brushed her lips against his cheeks, and then she stopped.

I’m sorry, Jerome, she said. I want to end all that pain you’re carrying, but I can’t do what you want me to do.

Damn it, he said. My mother just died. Is it that hard for you to break out your clippers and make me look presentable? Is your heart that full of ice for me? I got a funeral to attend. God damn it, my little brother was doing better, now I can’t find him and you not trying to help me. My brother is God knows where, doing God knows what drugs, in God knows how much pain, and you can’t offer me this simple kindness?

No, Tiny whispered. No. I can’t.

Still, she walked into her bathroom, whispering, No, as she grabbed the clippers, the razor, the rubbing alcohol, and a towel. She draped the towel over his shoulders and, in silence, she cut his uncombed locks. They both whimpered and sniffled a bit, avoiding each other’s eyes. When the tears blurred Tiny’s vision, she didn’t stop; instead, she let the salty drops drip onto Jerome’s head as she cut from memory, her smoothing hand rubbing the tears into his scalp.

It took her double the time of her most careful cuts, four whole painful hours. When she finished, Jerome thanked her and left, wiping his cheeks. I’m crying, he said, ’cause of my mom, but also ’cause this haircut is so goddam beautiful.

Tiny nodded, hoping that Jerome would never return. After she shut the door, she sat in the hallway sobbing into the night, until she felt as useless as piles and piles and piles of dead hair.

Tiny had started cutting hair almost on a whim. She had found her father’s old clippers at the bottom of a dusty box beneath the sink in a seldom used bathroom in the basement. Her father used to zug crooked lines and potholes into his three sons’ hair when they were young and not yet vain. Soon her older brothers no longer allowed the maiming, so someone buried the clippers under piles of stuff. When Tiny stumbled on the clippers, she realized she had grown tired of her perm. The time had come to shave it all off and let her natural hair grow long. She’d shape it and twist it, braid it and maybe lock it, as her mother had, but whenever her hair grew she felt the urge only to trim it into what everyone called “boy styles”: a faded-in Mohawk, or just a fade, or a Caesar, or a temple taper. It changed every two weeks. Soon Tiny began to choose her lovers based partly on the shape of their heads, what styles she could carve on their domes. When their heads no longer intrigued her, she would lose interest. These days, her hair grew long enough to keep in a simple ponytail, and that was how she wore it. She no longer had any interest in her own hair, just other people’s.

Nearly a year to the day after Tiny watched the folds at the back of Jerome’s freshly cut head bob out her door for the last time, Tiny’s Hair Technology opened up, on River Way. The Great Hair Crisis was raging on with no visible end. Every single barbering Cross Riverian man somehow losing his touch, the ability to deliver even a decent shape-up. Afros had abounded within the town’s borders since that moment in ’05 when all the clippers and cutting hands began shaving ragged patches into heads. It had been ten years of this wilderness, this dystopia. Men with beautiful haircuts became as mythical as the glowing wolves—lit up like earthbound Canis Majors—that are said to walk the Wildlands. Sonny Beaumont, Jr., once Cross River’s greatest barber, now looked like a haggard old troll; he was about forty-five years old, and resembled a wrinkled set of intertwined wires covered in the thinnest, baggiest brown flesh. There would never again be any good days for Sonny. Even decent haircuts stayed frozen in his past, and all he was capable of now were messes—carefully, carefully carved messes. His remaining customers patronized him only out of loyalty—poisoned nostalgia for the perfect cuts they’d once received—and false hope.

All those Cross Riverian Afros left one to ask, Who cursed Cross River? A shop opened up on the Northside—a decent shop—only for the owner to die of a heart attack mid-cut. The two remaining barbers opened shops of their own, and eventually murdered each other in a gunfight over customers and territory. Kimothy Beam closed his business, Mobile Cutting Unit, after his haircut van flipped during a police chase. He served three months and hung up his clippers for good when the authorities turned him loose. There was a long scroll of such mishaps: haircutting men, always men, driven from the business and, in some cases, from this world, through some misfortune. That’s not going to be me, Tiny thought. The simple science of haircutting gets down into one’s bones, into the soul of a person. She watched the peace settle over her customers after a good cut. They’d walk out into the world, where the noise would start again, but that moment at the end of a fresh cut—from the crack of the cape, as she removed it from a patron’s shoulders, to the door—was pure, pure magic.

Tiny no longer cut her lovers’ hair for free. They’d have to pay like anyone else. After Jerome, she’d loved Cameron, and then Sherita passed through her life, and then Bo and Jo, and Katrina, and De’Andre and Ron. They all fell out of love with her when they realized she wouldn’t use her magic on them. And that was fine with her; it was easy for Tiny to fall out of love with them, too. Jerome seemed so long ago. She hadn’t even loved him best.

In the scheme of things Tiny’s Hair Technology is just a footnote, but it would be even less than that had the shop not opened during such desperate times. A shop of lady barbers? Who had ever heard of such a thing? It was Tiny and Claudine and Mariah at first; later, a whole cast of lady barbers passed through. No one expected anything but another business popping up and then shuttering within a couple of months. There had been five in three years in that location. Folks in the neighborhood had taken to calling it the Wack Spot, a dingy cardboard box of a structure tucked away at the edge of an unimpressive side street. Behind the building stood knotted trees that stayed bare no matter the season. The jutting branches resembled skeletal fingers, so the building appeared always on the verge of being snatched into an abyss. The Wack Spot was salted earth; no successful business could sprout from the ruined soil. There was the roti shop that never seemed to have any roti. Then there was Ice Screamers (later Sweet Screamers, and, as a last ditch, Sweet Creamers), a soft-serve spot run by a surly guy with an eyepatch. For the previous several months the Wack Spot had housed an adult bookstore that, much to the dismay of the surly ice-cream peddler, retained the final name of the soft-serve spot. It was common knowledge that only a witch spouting the most forbidden of spells could make the Wack Spot work, and Tiny figured she would be that witch, conjuring the pitchest black magic from the back of her spell book.

When Jerome walked into the shop, shortly after it opened, he was still tall and fine, though scruffy—he appeared to be trying to grow a beard, but had managed only wild crabgrass patches along his cheeks.

Woman, cut my hair, he said with a smirk.

Tiny spun her chair and dashed herself onto it. She loved to hear the lumpy springs whine beneath the heft of her backside.

Hello, Jerome, she said. Can I help you with something?

All this formality now?

She didn’t respond, tried to make her eyes blank as if she’d never seen him before. She couldn’t hide everything, though; as she glanced at him she flashed a twinkle he took for a bit of residual love.

This is boring me, he said. I just want a cut. One of your perfect little tight cuts.

Well, I’m busy now. Jerome looked about the empty shop. Mariah, Tiny said, should be here in a few. Would you like me to make an appoint—

I don’t want a cut from some-damn-body named Mariah! I want you. No one makes me look as good as you do.

Tiny turned her head, reached for a magazine, and pawed through the pages with the bored, languid movements of a cat. How’s your brother? she said, finally.

Dude is doing great. Jerome smiled a little. Just great. It took Mom to die, but you should see him. Designer suit every day. This fucking little Dick Tracy hat. Looks fly on him. I’m proud of the guy. He needs a haircut, though. If you do it good to me—the haircut, I mean—I’ll recommend you.

How’d you even hear I was over here?

You think niggas not gon’ talk about a new shop full of lady barbers during the Hair Crisis? Now, you gonna cut me, or what?

I’m sorry, Jerome, but I have a few things to do now—

I’m trying to give your failing business some work.

Like I said, Jerome, Mariah—

You’re just going to repeat your bullshit over and over, huh? I already know how you do. Thought you would have matured by now, Tiny. Wanna take the little-girl route? Gotcha. It’s fine.

Jerome jutted out his lips, did a quick head nod, and watched his ex-lover as if silence could break her. Don’t worry, bitch, he continued, sweeping a stack of magazines to the ground and walking out the door. You’ll get yours. See you real soon.

After weeks of barber-chair emptiness and a floor sadly clean of shorn hair, Tiny arrived one morning to find a line of men—many sporting unkempt dandruff bushes—waiting outside.

I thought you opened at ten, called the first desperately uncombed man in line to a chorus of grumbles. It’s nearly noon!

You guys been here since ten? Tiny asked. As she unlocked the door, the men dazed her with numbers. Six in the morning, one said, his voice trembling with a mixture of embarrassment and pride.

I been here since five-fifty-five, a man whose hair was cut into an asymmetrical field of black said. He held the hand of a boy who looked everything like a little Jackson 5 Michael Jackson except for the gopher hole shaved into the center of his head.

But . . . but, it’s a school day, Tiny said.

And? the father replied. I take him out of school when he got a doctor’s appointment, too.

When she finished with the first man, he strutted out to cries of admiration and even applause. His hair—once dangerously overgrown—now glittered. Tiny slapped the chair with the cape and cried, Next up!

A tall Eritrean man with curly hair and a tall—shorter than the Eritrean, but still tall—man with an oblong head scrambled for the seat. As they tussled, a short dark-skinned man with salt-and-pepper hair and the twisted but unbecoming grin of a mischievous child strolled to the barber’s chair. A Ghanaian guy they called Doc pointed and laughed. Don’t forget to get the booster seat for my man, he said.

Quiet, you fool, the short man replied.

You folks rowdy, Tiny said with a smile. Don’t make me have to call the police to keep things quiet in here. How’d y’all even hear about my shop?

“I told you to listen to the climate science.”
Cartoon by Emily Flake

The short man grinned and pointed to the tall Eritrean.

I heard from Doc, the tall Eritrean said.

That first guy you cut today, Doc said. That loudmouth. I heard from him.

Hmm, Tiny grunted. He said someone I never even heard of told him.

All I know, the short man said, is that the Great Hair Crisis is over!

That day, Tiny cut as if possessed, head after head, each cut better than the last. She ignored the non-stop talk, the chatter about sports and politics and the proper way to beat young children. After hours of clutching the vibrating clippers, her hand trembled. Men kept coming, though. Man after man. Each with a different story as to how he’d learned of Tiny’s shop. Mariah showed up midafternoon to pick up the slack. The first man she cut approached her chair hesitantly, but when she finished he looked in the mirror and turned his head this way and that.

She better than Tiny!

Watch it! Tiny called, not taking her eyes off the head she was trimming.

As Mariah’s customer walked out, a man with dark glasses and a shining silver mane stomped in. He clutched a thick Bible so old it looked as if the pages had begun to sprout hair. He held his book aloft and cried, And De-li-lah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. That’s from Judges 16:6. You men here giving away your strength, and for what? A nice haircut? Wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

Get out of my damn shop, Tiny called. Now! Get out!

Dale! the Bible man called to the customer in Tiny’s chair. I’m surprised at you. Real surprised. Your wife know you in here giving away your power?

Rev. Kimothy, Dale said. I . . . I . . . I’m tired of coming into your church looking like I just stumbled in off the street.

Kimothy? Tiny asked. Kimothy Beam who had the Mobile Cutting Unit?

I found God in prison, and you must be Delilah—that’s who you are.

I’ll be that, Rev.

Dale stood from the chair, half of his head shaved close, the other wild and unshorn. He held a fistful of twenties in his outstretched hand. I’m sorry, Tiny, he said. Real sorry.

That’s right, Rev. Kimothy said. Sorry as snake shit.

Naw, Tiny said. You sit your monkey ass down and keep your money. You ain’t telling no one Tiny did that to your head. Sit and you can rest your eternal soul in Hell, Rev. Kimothy shouted. Dale stood paralyzed, looking back and forth between his reverend and his barber, until some guys from the back of the shop made Dale’s decision easier, snatching Rev. Kimothy by his arms and tossing him onto the sidewalk as he struggled and screamed, Lady barbers! Whoever heard of such a thing? The Devil, that’s who! You gon’ burn! You gon’ burn! You gon’ burn!

Even as Dale sat back down in the barber’s chair, three Afroed men slipped quietly out the door.

Bunch of bitches, Mariah mumbled, staring into the sharp lines she had trimmed into her customer’s head. Bunch of little pussy-ass bitches.

This has been some day, Tiny muttered into Dale’s hair. Some day.

Late one night—say, nearly eleven—a man in a beautiful cream serge suit and a white panama hat came in just as Tiny finished her last head, a woman whose husband had recommended the shop. Tiny’s feet ached from standing, and she could feel her eyelids hanging heavy like curtains falling over her eyes. Ordinarily she would have turned the cream-suited man away, but he had pushed through a line of protesters out front. Rev. Kimothy and his new legion of followers had grown relentless. Fighting through those fools just to get a haircut, especially at this time of night, was a level of dedication that deserved a reward, Tiny thought. She glanced at him, didn’t take him in much. She yawned.

Tiny’s life was now love and hatred falling on her in equal measure. Accolades and applause, followed by bricks wrapped in Bible verses sailing through her window at night. The woman stood and stared into a handheld mirror, admiring her new fade from all angles. This shit right here fine, she said. Sonny trash now. From now on, you my barberess.

The Barberess. What a title. Tiny had thought about changing the shop’s name. That old name had grown stale. Barberesses, maybe. Maybe. It would look beautiful out front in red and white, Tiny thought.

Wow, you sure are deep in thought, Tiny heard a voice say. She looked up and the woman and her fade had left. The man with the cream suit took her place in the chair. He held the panama hat in his lap. It took Tiny a half second to recognize the face. It seemed to have aged since she’d last seen it. Jerome’s patchy beard had turned into a choppy bush, but it was definitely him, and this realization made Tiny close her eyes for what seemed to her like a long minute or two.

You thinking about what you gon’ do with all this mess, huh? he said, pointing to the unkempt pikes of locks jutting from his scalp. I never, never, ever take off this hat for any reason nowadays, unless I’m home or something. Got a new attitude, a new style, Tine. The hat allows me to conduct business without looking like a vagrant, but it’s havoc on me, I tell you. Havoc. This thing itches and flakes. My bush, I mean. These amateurs around here worse than they ever been. I’m ready to give anything a try, even a woman barber who ain’t you. Jerome chuckled. Mariah here? I’ll wait for Mariah if you want me to.

I’ve seen worse on you, Tiny said, combing out the coils. The prongs of the pick made a plink, plink, plink music. You better give me a big tip, making me revisit your big head.

When Tiny had finished, she took a straight razor and cleaned up the sprigs from Jerome’s cheeks and chin. She placed a warm, wet towel on his face. When she removed the towel, she nearly jumped back in fright. With his beard and sideburns trimmed, the smile Jerome flashed took on a sinister edge; he grinned as if he had already poisoned her and was just waiting for her to die.

How you work this magic, huh, babe?

There’s that evil look again, Tiny replied. Like you the Devil come to burn me right here where I stand.

No, Jerome said. No. Of course not. I haven’t gotten a proper haircut in I don’t know how long. And you did something divine up there, Ms. Tiny. I just want to know what you got that them fools lack.

Tiny sighed. Look at my eyes, she said. I’m tired. I’m half ’sleep. I don’t have the energy to talk to you anymore tonight.

I must be half ’sleep, too, ’cause even when you was cutting me back in the day I thought it was a fluke. I thought it was ’cause you loved me. You clearly don’t love me now. You hate me, as a matter of fact, but you still the best cut around. You cut other people’s hair perfectly, too. You can’t be in love with all them people. How a woman cut hair like this, huh?

Men barbers got some kind of secret? Tiny said. They grip the clippers with they dicks or something?

I guess not. He chuckled again and looked down, shifted in his seat. You know, I bought this fancy suit from my brother.

How he doing?

He good, he good. He off that stuff. Not owing no thugs no money no more. He don’t be off disappearing no more. He good. I helped him apply to his new job selling these things at the haberdashery. Nigga had no experience selling anything—anything legal, that is. No experience being good at selling anything. None. I helped him ’cause I couldn’t lose nobody else after you and then my mother. I buy a lot of fancy suits with his discount. So do he. Getting high off your own supply is not a big deal when you selling suits, it turns out. But look, Tiny. My brother says I’m a fool for coming here.

Damn right.

You owe me, though.

How you figure?

You see that? Jerome pointed to the fools outside pacing with signs reading Delilah! Repent! and Bitches Ain’t Shit (at Cutting Hair)! You don’t think that mess organized itself, do you? You think Rev. Kimothy’s dumb ass put all this together by himself?

You telling me you behind this mess? She scrunched her face for a second and then straightened her brow. Jerome, I knew you could be a goddam bastard, but—

Hold on, Ms. Tiny, Jerome replied. It’s not even like that. I was mad at you when you turned me away, but I was still proud, so I told every nigga I know about this shop. Thought Rev. Kimothy would be interested, since he used to cut hair. Figured he’d tell his congregation, and he did. It’s just that he told them to meet him out front to protest this new Delilah. Got to admit, though, Rev. Kimothy’s dumb ass is good for business.

Is he, though? I had a full shop before he started his nonsense. Now I got a hassle of men outside my door at all hours. Tiny sucked her teeth. She looked to the floor, shaking her head. Y’all men something else, boy. Something else. I don’t respect Rev. Kimothy or any of them stupid-ass niggas outside, but I can’t be mad at you for their dumb shit.

Yeah . . . He trailed off. But, look, you gotta tell me your secret.

Secret?

Every lady barber in here know how to do something extra special with her clippers.

You can’t be this much of an idiot, Jerome. There is no secret. Secret is I get a good night’s rest before I cut. Now I’m tired and don’t know if I can work magic tomorrow. That’s my secret. I got another secret: I’m going home. I’ll come early to clean up before the day get started. I need my beauty rest.

Let me walk you, Tine.

No thanks. I’m done with you again.

Gotta be careful, sis. All those fools out here—

Tiny turned out the lights and pushed open the door. With the black of the sky as a backdrop, and the bright bluish-white glow of the street light hovering above like a low-hanging moon, the faces of the men who rushed Tiny appeared to her as hovering, disembodied fright masks. The shouting sounded like sharp, high winds battering her eardrums. Tiny tensed and clutched her hands to her chest before she stumbled and nearly fell backward. She caught a glimpse of one of the signs. It featured an obscene drawing and read I Like My Hair Like I Like My Junk, Raw and Uncut. The man who held the placard had a bush that sat atop his head like a woollen black cube. His face looked grotesque and plastic. Jerome shoved the forehead of the block-headed man and snatched at Tiny’s arm. He pushed his way through the protesters, who had suddenly quieted, offering no resistance, giving Tiny and her guardian space to escape into night’s darkness.

When they got to her house, Tiny looked up into her protector’s eyes and examined his freshly shaved face. Stray hairs dotted his cheeks and his forehead like black snowflakes. She looked away.

That was quite impressive, she said.

Well, he replied. I told you to let me walk you. You gon’ to let me walk you tomorrow?

Jerome’s face hovered over hers, a different sort of fright mask, fearful instead of terrifying. This time she didn’t turn away. Maybe, she said.

Look, Ms. Tiny, you owe me.

I hope this isn’t your corny way of trying to get a kiss or something, ’cause we too old to be speaking in riddles.

You can kiss me if you want, Jerome said. I’ll take that. But what I really want is the secret. How y’all lady barbers cut like that, huh?

Tiny kissed his cheek. That’s not so wrong, is it? she asked herself.

A lady barber’s got to keep her secrets, she told him. What if I give away my secret and the result is you can’t get no more good cuts, huh?

I’ll take the chance.

There is no secret, ’Rome—how’s that for a secret? She watched his eyes as they began dimming in sadness. I cut with love. That’s it. Tiny said this because she assumed that was what Jerome wanted to hear. His eyes grew sadder still; they rimmed with an unbearable melancholy that she had seen before. Tiny looked down. She wanted it to stop.

Lye, she said. It’s lye. Red Devil Lye. That’s the secret. Makes the hair manageable. Mix in some eggs and potatoes and you got good old-fashioned conk juice. That’s the shit I be spraying on your head. Makes anyone with a little skill cut with magic. Even a lady barber.

I knew I felt my head burn a little, Jerome said. I knew it. I’ma keep this secret close to my heart, Tine. Jerome blathered with joy as Tiny walked slowly into her house.

Tiny woke one morning with the urge, just a throbbing and unrelenting urge, to change the name of the barbershop to Delilah’s. She hired a woman to paint a new sign, and the woman worked at it all day. Tiny hung it after the last customer left. When Jerome met her at the shop that night he took a look at the sign and said, You’re such a troublemaker. This was after Claudine had left for good, unable to handle the crowds, the hatred, the men who shouted vile threats and called her bitch, as if it were the name her mother had given her. Tiny understood. She welcomed a rotating cast of women, each a better barber than the previous one. The new woman would claim Claudine’s chair and then disappear after a week or so, afraid of the angry men outside. And with “Delilah’s” on the front of the window, no one called her Tiny anymore. Tiny became D. As the new name took hold, she smiled secretly, especially when Mariah bought her a black apron emblazoned with a bright-red “D.”

Each morning brought a new influx of men. A madness of men. So many men. Since there were more men than seats, the men gladly stood. Men bursting out of the little shop, sometimes pouring onto the sidewalk. Everywhere Tiny turned she saw men. Men who had previously protested, once yelling, now quiet as sheep. Sheep-men walking upright to be shorn. These men said things like Real men, Tiny, real men can admit when they wrong. But, really, it was that they’d observed other men, their friends who were now shining, beautiful men because of their perfectly cut heads. Tiny and Mariah and whoever took the third chair couldn’t cut fast enough to keep up with all those men.

Tiny could scarcely understand the uptick, until one day Dale burst into the shop, his eyes wild, pupils dilated, his head covered in a cap of soft black silk.

Them nig—uh, dudes up the hill done gone crazy!

Say, bruh, a man from the back called. I think you got on your wife’s bonnet.

Yeah, another voice called. This nigga wearing hair underwear!

You clowns laugh, Dale said. Did you know that the idiots up the hill started putting lye in people’s hair without any goddam warning? Pardon my language, but that shi—stuff burned so bad I ran to the damn—pardon me—Cross River and stuck my head right in!

Dale uncovered his head; the once coarse grains of his hair were now straight and wavy. The nig—guy, the darn barber, Sonny, said it makes the hair easier to cut. D, you ever hear anything so stupid?

Mariah and Tiny exchanged glances as Dale took a seat to wait.

Jerome arrived that night just as the shop was closing. Unfallen tears rested in the corners of his eyes. The shop sat empty except for Tiny and Mariah. When he walked through the door, Tiny turned and pretended to straighten the hair products on the table behind her chair.

Why is there no trust between us? he said. After all I did for you? All our walks.

Mariah swept, trying to look away from Jerome’s sad, dim eyes while suppressing a smile.

Go somewhere, Tiny said. You fools believe anything.

Yeah, Mariah said. Red Devil Lye? Everyone knows we lick our razors just before every cut.

Mariah! Tiny called.

Don’t mind me, Mariah said. I’m half ’sleep.

Look, Jerome, Tiny said. I don’t want you in my shop no more. At all. Go. You’re not different. You’re not welcome. You can’t seem to grow up. You’re the same goddam fool I didn’t want to be with anymore.

But our walks—

“I’m concerned about his memory. He keeps asking, ‘Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?’ ”
Cartoon by Paul Karasik

You can get a head start. Go on.

Jerome didn’t argue or fight; he simply backed out of the shop, slowly, with a strange feline walk.

Late in the afternoon the next day, a man with a tuft of spongy and unruly hair sat in Mariah’s seat and called for his hair to be cut into a high-top fade.

You want it tall, right? Mariah asked.

Yeah. But please don’t do nothing weird. I almost had to knock Sonny out this morning. I caught the nigga licking his clippers like some kind of goddam animal.

Back when they were together, Jerome never found out how she’d gained the name Tiny, but another man did, over a perfect haircut one afternoon while Jerome was elsewhere looking the other way. The illicit haircut was something else Jerome never found out about, and so that particular betrayal was not even why they broke up. And why should it matter that she cut another man’s hair, huh? Why does a haircut become an intimacy simply because Tiny’s a woman? Such absurdity. But then that whispered story. Surely that was an intimacy. Or perhaps she spoke so freely, so easily, because she knew she’d never see this man again. This man who smiled at her when she passed him at the bus stop. She couldn’t bear his smile, because the animal atop his head made him look defective. Every man around her during the Great Hair Crisis had become a ruined sculpture. She felt like a lapsed superhero, all that power she shrank from wielding, all that responsibility she shirked day after blessed day. Let me cut your hair, she said to the man, as an act of charity. Shortly after that, she cut another man. And another man. They grew as indistinguishable as strands of hair in her memory. One man told the next about Tiny. And she accepted them into her house, warning them all that she’d cut them only once. One time and no more—that way, she could control the flow of hair-blighted men and she could tell herself that by seeing these men only once she wasn’t betraying Jerome.

She cut their hair and never saw them again, and usually during the shape-up she’d whisper the source of her name and they’d all miss the point and ask the source of her power.

One man, though, managed to slip in a second time. He was a small man with a reddish Afro. He hunched as he walked and scrunched himself into a ball as he sat. His voice sounded like a high-pitched strain, and both times his hair had grown wild and unkempt. Balls of white lint coiled into his curls. Tiny had to wash his hair to soften it in order to move the clippers through his knots. As he bent over the sink in the back of Tiny’s basement with the water and lather dripping through his naps, she told him, as she usually told the men, about her name. When I was small, she said, I was tiny. She chuckled, as she always did. The youngest and the tiniest one in the family. But that’s not why they call me Tiny. I been a big girl ever since, like, fourteen, but it’s like no one could see that. When someone felt disrespected, they’d say something like, You must think you talking to Abigail or some shit? That’s me, Abigail. Abby. Disrespecting me was nothing to them, I guess. Like disrespecting a bug or something. Tiny. Inconsequential. Eventually, I told folks to stop calling me Abigail, Abby, all that shit—

Before Tiny could finish, the man looked up at her with glowing eyes and finished for her: Told ’em to call me Tiny and no one ever asked why. It’s a beautiful story. You told me last time. He laughed as if he had carved out some sort of victory.

Last time? She looked at his head and suddenly remembered. Uh-uh. I told you my rule then, I told you when you came in the door today. One-time-only deal. Dry your head, and then you gotta go.

You can’t do that to me, Abigail. He smiled wider. You can’t do that to Cross River. Too many heads in crisis. Uh-uh, you gon’ cut this. He snatched at her wrist. Come on, Abby. Just give me a little trim. He chuckled a mean, mean little chuckle. Make magic.

The small man let go of Tiny’s wrist and sat with his back to her. Just a Caesar today, he said, so confident he was that Tiny would cut his hair with little fuss. And he was right. It was easier to start shearing his nappy kinks than to keep arguing. Her hand shook as she trimmed, though. She rushed the tricky parts she would usually have moved through with precision and care. The sooner she finished, the sooner she’d never have to see him again. Tiny cut with disgust, watching the stubborn dirt and dandruff as if they had left indelible splotches on her, forever staining her soul.

When the small man stood and looked into the mirror, he said nothing at first, and then he balled his fists.

What is this trash? he screamed. You did this on . . . You did this ’cause I wouldn’t leave!

No, I—

Of course you did. This is worse than one of Sonny’s cuts.

You want your money back? Tiny tried to joke, but that seemed to make the small man even more angry. It’s the curse, Tiny said, still trembling in fear. The Hair Crisis, she said, it comes for every barber in Cross River eventua—

You think I’m a fool, bitch? The man snatched at Tiny’s shoulders. All I wanted was a good haircut for once. Is that too . . . Tell me your secret, Abby. How come the Crisis ain’t come for you, huh?

I don’t have a secret, she said, shoving the man. Please leave.

The small man raised his right fist as if about to throw a punch. The gold bracelet on his wrist, the gold chain around his neck, they both jangled. Tiny raised her arms and flinched to curl away from the blow, but the small man lowered his fist with a snort and a chuckle. He tossed the towel that lay around his neck before stomping up the stairs and out of Tiny’s house.

The next day, when Jerome came for his weekly cut, Tiny’s hand trembled as if still trimming the small man’s red bush. She could feel the heaviness of his fingers at her shoulders and her wrist.

What in the fuck is this? Jerome said, peering into the mirror.

I don’t know what’s wrong, Tiny lied. It’s the curse.

For the rest of the week, Jerome remained sullen, only frowning at Tiny or grumbling her way. She wanted to tell him what had happened, but that would be a long story, beginning with the first man she cut behind his back.

Or perhaps it would begin with her name and how her family made it into a curse, how they made her into a small, tiny thing. She imagined him laughing at her, sneering and calling her Abigail the next time she accidentally cut jagged marks into his head. Two, three weeks of bad haircuts made Jerome into a different man. If there was a fight to be picked, he picked it like some naps.

One day after a particularly bad haircut, Jerome fingered the slanted frontier that was now his hairline as they ate Chinese food. Tiny’s clippers had pushed it back so much that Jerome’s forehead now looked like an eroding coastline. Tiny asked Jerome to pass her a packet of soy sauce.

Get it your damn self, Jerome barked, standing sharply from his seat. Got me out here looking like George Jefferson. I was the dude with the good haircuts! Who the fuck am I now?

He stomped out the door, hunched and scarred like the small man. Tiny watched his disappearing form with sad eyes, vowing to never cut another man’s head. Tiny held firm to her promise no matter how many men knocked and cried and pleaded. She remained firm until that night Jerome returned to her doorstep several months later with tears in his eyes.

After that, she vowed to never again give up her power. To never again freely give away something as precious as a haircut.

Tiny swept the hair of her last couple of customers into woolly piles late one night. She rubbed her clippers, razors, and combs with alcohol even as she felt her eyelids forcing themselves shut. She enjoyed the solitude, though she stumbled through the shop with her eyelids low, sleep trying to ambush her. The one thing she couldn’t allow herself was a seat. To sit down would be to fall asleep and make herself vulnerable to an opportunist, one of Rev. Kimothy’s legion out there, always looking to catch her slipping so they could do her harm. Tiny grasped the broom again and went at some hair clumps she’d missed, and as she swept she heard the flat slap of an open palm against the window. Without looking up she waved the interloper away. The noise persisted. She slowly turned to the entranceway. Jerome stood at the window waving. A sharp pang of irritation ran through Tiny, but also relief. At least it wasn’t another head to cut. At least it wasn’t a protester. Any annoyance Jerome was about to cause would not end in her destruction. When she opened the door she noticed he wore that same serge suit. The same panama hat. Dirt stains now ringed the hat’s brim and the jacket’s wrists.

D! he exclaimed, stretching his arms out as if preparing to strangle her. D! Why is there no trust between us?

Look at my eyes, Tiny said. I’m half ’sleep.

Please, please, please, please, D, please tell me your secret.

Tiny sighed. She just wanted to sleep. This man in front of her looked so anguished that it sent sharp pains shooting through her joints.

It’s piss. She dashed these words off halfheartedly, surprising even herself with the sting of her sarcasm.

Piss? You mean you pee on your clippers?

No, silly. That would be ridiculous. I soak all my clippers, my combs, everything I have . . . I leave them all to soak overnight in jars of piss.

Really? True this time?

Yep. That’s my secret.

Yes, Jerome said. That makes so much more sense than all that other stuff you told me.

Does it? Tiny said, and then she sighed again. Of course it does.

Tiny looked at Jerome with sad, tired eyes. She forced a smile onto her lips. She wanted to say, No, fool, what do you take me for? But to point out his gullibility now would be a true act of cruelty. If only Jerome knew how to read the crooked tilt of her lips. Her face was a book he could never truly comprehend. These men, she realized, would believe anything. They preached logic and reason but followed only magic. Things would always be like this. Always and forever. As long as she lived and cut hair. Tiny felt more exhausted than she had ever felt before, like weights had attached themselves to her eyelids, her limbs, her neck, everywhere. After Jerome left, she locked the door and walked through the protest and into darkest night, never to be seen in Cross River again.

It was better this way. Perhaps Tiny sensed the horrors that hovered on the horizon. Sonny sitting alone every day in an empty shop surrounded by endless jars of his own piss. Soon would come the hair cults. The Cult of the Licked Razor. The Cult of Red Devil Lye. The Cult of Blood. The Cult of Piss.

But then there were also the Children of Delilah, the barbers, the barberesses, sprouting all over town like new growth and shining like the brightest points of light, like the finest, most luxurious hair, smoothed with a slick sheen of grease, growing faster than any havoc the Hair Crisis could cause, faster than any curse could possibly curse. ♦