Natural Improvement in Weeks
My name is Ray. This is my first post in this group, but I really want to share this. For twenty-six years I cut this man's hair, and last March he shook my hand and told me his name as if we had never met. I have been cutting the same man's hair every three weeks for twenty-six years, and last March he sat down in my chair and asked me, very politely, what my name was. I have known his wife's birthday since 2003. I cut his grandson's hair before that boy's voice changed. I gave him a Christmas card every year with my own handwriting on it. He has sat in the same chair, the second one from the door, four hundred and fifty times, give or take. Last March, on a Friday morning around ten, he came in wearing his usual brown coat and his glasses pushed up on his forehead, and he eased himself down into that chair like he always did. I draped the cape over his shoulders and pumped the foot pedal twice to get him up to my working height. I picked up the comb. He looked at me in the mirror, and his eyes were friendly the way a stranger's eyes are friendly when you pass them on the same routine walk. He said, "I'm sorry, I'm having one of those mornings. What's your name again?" I told him my name was Ray. He said, "Ray. Right. Ray. I'm Bill." I had been cutting his hair for twenty-six years, and he was introducing himself to me. I finished the cut. I did not say anything about it. I walked him to the till and told him the usual "that will be fifteen pounds please" which is what I have charged him for a haircut for the last seven years, and he paid me in cash like he always did, and he tipped me two pounds like he always did, and he said, "Thanks, Ray," and he walked out the door and got in his Ford Fiesta and drove the three streets home. I stood in the front window of my shop, watched him pull out and carefully drive up the high street. Then I walked back to my station, opened the drawer under my clippers, took out a small green notebook I had bought that
