The only doll in the place

This week, I was desperate for a haircut. I didn’t have anyone I liked in L.A. but at least knew I could go to Rudy’s Barbershop in a pinch and get a decent haircut most of the time. Of course, the last time I went there, my gal stepped away after a 20-minute blur of cutting in the spirit of Edward Scissorhands to reveal that she had, in fact, cut off all of my hair. It’s the peril of having short hair. A barber who doesn’t know what he/she’s doing won’t stop until there’s nothing left to cut.

I asked a co-worker for a recommendation. She’s lived in the city a long time and I thought she might know of a similar concept to Rudy’s – a hip barbershop where you can just walk in a get cut by a funky hairdresser. Her gal is booked a month in advance, as most good hairdressers are, so she referred me to a place her husband goes to. So my first Saturday morning in the city, I peeked my head into a 70-year old barbershop in the heart of the Castro, inquiring for someone who could do a woman’s cut. I sat down in Luis’ chair and explained that the last time I’d been cut I walked out looking like him and that I’d prefer that not happen again. I showed him a photo from a magazine and he got to work. Luis was very serious about his work, nervous even.

While he was preparing, I scanned the walls. The price chart listed clipper cut, shave (head), shave (beard) and scissor cut. I was pretty sure that this barbershop in the gayest neighborhood in America, whose head barber that day had a beard distinguished by two ringlets, hadn’t seen many female customers. Luis brushed my bangs into my face and then put the hair on the sides into clips making it look like I had pigtails. With the striped cloth tied around my neck, I looked like one of those old-fashioned dolls when you take the clothes off - a porcelain head on a striped cloth body.

“I look like a doll,” I said, to which Luis replied with a Latin flourish, “You’re the only doll in here honey.” “Do you get many women in here?” I asked. “Yes, we do” he said, “but they want their hair cut like men.” Yikes! Guys started to accumulate in the chairs, waiting for the next available barber, and at least one seemed irritated by the fact that I was taking up so much time. Luis spent 45 minutes on my cut but the guys only took about fifteen with the clippers.

There were mirrors along the wall so in the chair I could watch out the window through the mirror, which also meant that people passing by could see the people in the chairs. I swear that two guys walking by, stopped, looked in the door at me, spoke to each other, looked at me again, and then continued down the street. I must have been something to see. Luis actually gave me a great cut and seemed to be working hard to win my business as I’d filled him in on the fact that I was new in town. The cut was $30, a steal for a woman’s cut, and only $15 more than the clipper cut. I left him a ten-dollar tip hoping I was worth the extra half hour.