Buddha's Haircut

"Ada orang dalam jamban ke?"

Every two, three weeks or so, I would shave my head clean Marine-style. Usually, this activity, which has gradually now become somewhat of a ritualistic spiritual ceremony, this shaving of the head, I would do it in the later hours of a Saturday morning, when the toilet is least likely to be hogged by any of my much-harrier roommates. The barbershop machine, which now has become an essential accessory to my present-day public image, replacing the regal position of what used to be the comb's, costed me only a mere few dollars more than I had expected it to be priced at, but every inch of the warm vibrating equipment is worth its price. This shift of hairstyle, from got-hair to no-hair, not only did it saved me many a buck each month on shampoos and combs and hair gels and hairsprays, but you know, a shiny squeaky bald head in the morning -- you wake up from bed and you realize that you are a half hour late to the week's first class; thus, you put on your winter jacket and mismatched socks, and you grab your bag and you stuff into it whatever school-related things that you can get your hands on, and you rush to quench the toilet bowl's thirst for your morning piss, vaporizing pungent warm urine into the atmosphere for the later enjoyment of your roommates, and as you wait for your beloved dong to finish its job, you gargle like a camel a cupload of minty Listerine, and into the undersized overweight thick winter boots, and onwards to class you go, like the intelligent diligent sponsored oversea student that you are.

"Aku nak potong rambut weh, jangan masuk."

The feeling that the warm vibrating barbershop machine gives to the thick skin of your scalp when pushed and squeezed and glided all throughout your heavy head is, for lack of a better word, fun; orgasmic type of fun, to be exact. It is very addictive indeed, and at the same time, very soothing to the soul, and very pleasing to the senses, and what makes me keep on shaving my head again and again every month, despite the constant reminding of the well-received negative response from the younger much-voluptuous opposite sex, who probably have never heard of such names as Assistant Director Skinner, Van Diesel, Moby and Homer Jay Simpson, is the fact that shaving your own head is very rebellious; it is against everything that the perfectly coiffed majority stands for. It is against the biological purposes for the existence of the hair, the reasons why God made it for man in the first place, and why horny pre-teen girls like the tall-dark-and-handsome so much, and the manner in which the public sees it as the clear-cut barometer for one's degree of youth, fashion and beauty. The shaved head is a walking burning flag. It emits the sense of authority against all others, the sheer strength of resolve in protest; it transmits the aura of hideous terror, and forces the beautiful many to flee the scene in utter disgust. Each time I shave my head, my dong hardens like a rock, adrenaline rushes in, and every visible elements of my masculinity are pushed to the edge, tested to the limit. My spine tingles spasmically from the excitement of such a sight, like a Hanoi street whore to a bored American G.I.

Now that I am bald and ugly, am I less of a man?

When all is done, I'd rub my scalp and say, "You're a beautiful man, Lalat."

*****


"Rambut kau dah panjang dah, Along -- jom, potong."

The guy that ran the new barbershop in the neighborhood just got out of Tampoi, and Tampoi, other than its famously scarred reference to a certain guffaw-inducing nuthouse looney zoo, is also notorious for its military-style hardcore drug rehab program, which historically was planned to be implemented for the treatment of "criminal" drug addicts -- hardened drug dealers, addicted gang members, small-time street runners with colorful police records, AIDS-ridden zombies and such similar irredeemable spent souls. Among the few events in my life that I thank God for, without having to rely on iman to remind me to be grateful for, is that He did not put us in such a harm's way by transferring Dad to Pusat Serenti Tampoi to head the program, but instead, He moved us all one family to the relatively serene and slow-paced isolated Bugis town of Pengerang, Johor, where a new experimental drug rehab regiment focusing on religion and counseling targeting the teen and pre-youth drug addicts was well into its infant stages.

"Mak nak bawak kau pergi kedai gunting budak pusat tu."

Dad, although a junior officer then in the Jabatan Anti Dadah of Kementerian Dalam Negeri, was the first non-military officer in the country to run a Pusat Serenti as its top dog, the Commandant, or head of operations officer. Prior to that job, he was merely an assistant to the Pegawai Kebajikan Masyarakat for the District of Kuala Selangor, a much politicized position in the state government, especially during the election season. God knows how many times he came home from his dead-end desk-pushing job to whine to us kids and his wife at the dinner table about having to being forced to lend his signature to authorize numerous government cheques to be handed over in a lavish pompous UMNO banquet to some undeserving paddy plantation landlord as a fertilizer subsidy, when at the same time, there are a handful of villages of rural palm oil estate Indians in the Sekinchan district area under his immediate supervision being struck with a merciless downpour of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. Through words such as these said at the dinner table, and his persistent talk on the degrading rule of law by the dominant ruling party, Dad, in more ways than he could have imagined, had educated me well in the school of thoughts only a small circle of my peers has a feeble mastery of: the politics of the Malay.

"Mak rimas tengok kepala kau kalau rambut panjang."
"Alah, mak, macam lah Along ni budak sekolah lagi."
"Tak pergi sekolah pun, selekeh macam kepala mawas..."
"Ye lah, ye lah, potong, tapi kejap, nak mandi."
"La ilaha ilallah! Cepat lah! Aku nak ke pasar ni!"
"Pasar tu pukul sepuluh tu pun bukak lagi, mak..."
"Aku nak beli ikan ni, Long, nanti adik kau balik taska, sibuk nak ikut!"
"Ye, ye, tahu, nak mandi, nak mandi!"
"Budak ni, makin tua, makin tak betul kepala hotaknya..."

The barbershop was a decent one; very humble with its decorations, very simple in terms of its furniture, and above all else, very clean. The marble floors were glowing with such a strong radiance of white that not noticing them is simply an abnormality beyond comprehension. Only the sight of the relatively dirty barbershop seat would stain a customer's first impression of the shop. The classic reclining barbershop cushioned seat with a height-adjustment crank at the side and a bicycle-like metal feet rest; there was only one of it instead of a typical barbershop minimum set of two seats, and it alone stood awkwardly in the heart of the new shop, deeply in contrast with all the shellac-brown wooden furniture around it. The guy who ran the premise had gone out to the post office a few blocks away for a while, the neighboring restaurant waiter informed me, and he had asked her to wait on any customer that would come to his shop, the talkative waiter further lavished me with details, and he said that if it was necessary, a cup of tea and a donut was to be served by the waiter to the waiting customer and the incurred payment from that be put on his 555 book. It did not take me a bachelor's degree in rocket science to understand such kindness in a nice gesture; he was merely afraid that he would lose his customer for the day.

"Takpa Makcik, saya tak lapar, saya tunggu je sini."

On the way to dropping me off at the barbershop, Mom talked endlessly about how much Dad hated being transferred back to his much-loathed old domain at the Kementerian Kebajikan Masyarakat in the Kuala Selangor district --especially the Kuala Selangor district, he expressed that clearly to her-- and once more having to go through the same bureaucratic pain-in-the-ass, the same party fascist hell; reluctantly confronting the familiar corrupting elements in the department's administration. But he could not do anything about the current state that he was in then -- no one could; it was the wiser of two similarly futile options. It was either to return to Kuala Selangor and to his former employer and in the process, saving his family, or to risk ahead and further his career boldly at the face of such dire threat.

The morning that Dad woke up to see his two-block central office went up in smoke, consumed by the gasoline flames of an angry mob, their hysterical anti-government chants and their brandishing defiantly of gardening tools that Dad had provided them for the newly-revived Unit Latihan Pertanian; that morning was the defining moment in all of my life as his son, to witness your father a helpless man who had lost all that he had worked hard for, all that he had put his faith into, his youth, his energy, his ambition. I remember the darkness that befell his stare, the emptiness in his heart at the sight of failure, his face haunted by a menacing ghost born out of anger, hopelessness and confusion; it was as if he'd changed.

"Ayah kau sekarang dah tak sehappy masa dia kerja kat Pusat dulu."

Pusat Serenti Pengerang's two-block office was burned down by a ravaging night mob of 20-year-old pelatihs furious at the administration's decision to take away their weekend TV privileges for a period of three months as a mean of punishment after security guards stumbled upon their hidden caches of homemade cigarettes, wood glue and stolen gardening equipments under the plywood floors of the suraus of Asrama Blok Jati and Asrama Blok Iman. Dad felt personally betrayed and cheated by this discovery of vice, since it was his direct executive order that the well being of the asrama's four new suraus be administered by the Jawatankuasa Agama Pelatih Pusat, a committee of religious and admirable pelatihs that Dad favored so much over the others and had entrusted with various other crucial responsibilities with regards to the pelatih's welfare and development. When the hidden caches were discovered, he went outright ballistic, and soon, heads started to fly. Initial investigation pointed out that the committee knew all about this, and supported with substantial evidence, had cooperated willingly with the culprits who had planned the whole thing for a fixed amount of pay in cigarettes and wood glue per week; in the asramas, cigarettes and wood glue are the equivalents of money and sex, and the gardening tools stolen from the storeroom are for their use as weapons in skirmishes between gangs.

Walking through the burnt rubbles, the office that used to be his, Dad cried.

"Assalamualaikum, dah lama ke tunggu?"
"Waalaikumsalam, tak, tak lama, baru je."
"Dah minum dah? Kak Mah ada hidang air?"
"Takpa, takpa, saya yang tak nak, saya baru je sarapan."
"Oh ye ke -- adik ni anak Cik Sharin ke?"
"Ha'ah. Macam mana kenal ayah saya?"
"Kenal kat masjid."
"Oh."
"Ni datang nak bergunting ke?"
"Ha'ah."
"Hah, masuk lah kedai..."

*****


"Betul kau nak potong macam ni, Lalat?"
"Potong je lah cepat sementara aku belum tukar pikiran ni."
"Eh, mana lak cam tu. Kau cakap betul-betul!"
"Ye, ye, aku nak potong botak, botak, botak!"

Farid Rabuni was pissed at my attitude, but it did not stop him. The evening went on like a sick turtle. It took him more than the usual time to finish up with my thick hair. During those days, all we had were a blunt pair of scissors and a plastic comb with its teeth so dirty with hair grease and dandruff that it was almost impossible to comb your hair into style. It was hard to stay smart-looking but we didn't complain.

"Lalat, kau cerita sikit kenapa kau nak skinhead ni."
"Takde apa, saja je."
"Terus terang ah aku cakap, kau lagi smart ah kalau rambut panjang sikit."
"Aku tahu, tapi aku still nak skinhead jugak."

Nazrin 'Yen' Nazir, a fellow Jawa from Banting, introduced me to the world of underground music via his wild tales of going to clubs where various punk and hardcore gigs were held in the KL area and surviving the occasional police raids by escaping through toilet windows and jumping into garbage dumps. The numerous colorful fan-made magazines, or simply "zines", however, provided me with the details to the subcultures of skinheads and straight edge veganism, which the former's fashion I began to imitate almost as immediately as the latter's rigid creed I ridiculed. Teenage angst bred well in such music.

"Kau ni, suka sangat lah lagu-lagu orang gila tu. Nirvana lah hapa."
"Hoi, tolong sikit. Punk dengan grunge lain ah, encik. Sorry sikit."
"Grunge ke, punk ke, keroncong Sri Mersing ke, peduli apa aku."
"Farid, lu tak cool lah, lu tak join crowd. Mana awek nak lekat..."

During prep class last night, junior members of the Pancaragam Club of Muzaffar Syah went from one classroom to another handing out apples and chocolate bars to their designated receivers. This event, the Apple and Chocolate Day, as it was unimaginatively called, marked the celebration for Valentine's Day at school, when girls and boys alike, secretly and not so secretly, send to their loved ones, and ones that they secretly admired too, apples and chocolate bars, gift-wrapped and garnished with a Hallmark card containing their short and often romantic messages. Last night, I received one, a first.

"Aku dengar kau dapat epal semalam, Lat."
"Celaka ah bebudak ni, suka gossip, sial."
"Haha, lepak, lepak. Tak perlu malu, tak perlu..."
"Aku rasa ni mesti kerja si Wak ni, buat prank."

The truth was, I knew it was coming, but there was nothing that I could do to stop it. A girl in my class liked me, and I hated that. To make things worse, I had no clue who she was, but I knew why she liked me -- she wrote it with a black ink pen on my light yellow table: "Lalat, I like your style, and you have the deepest stare. Smile more, and I'll be happy." The morning I first saw the graffiti on my table, I was so shocked that I stood there speechless, instantly flushed red in embarrassment. I heard chuckles coming from the far end of the classroom where the girls' tables were, but I dared not to look at them.

"Dah, dah siap, tapi bucu-bucu ni kena cukur sikit."
"Kau ada pisau cukur?"
"Mana ada -- aku ingat kau ada. Kejap, aku pinjam Poon punya."
"Poon belum balik lagi, dia keluar outing. Takpa ah, cukup ah ni."

It was not that I did not appreciate such an attention from the opposite sex, or that I was still green in this crazy boy-girl tail-chasing slowdance, but rather, I knew that if I let myself be taken in like this, not only would it be the end of my grand plan towards a glorious exit out of this school, it would also be the end of who I am notoriously known to be amongst my peers: a girl-hater. Hating a girl, as childish as it seems now, carried a lot of respect and reverence then. This twisted form of abstinence, performed more dutifully than reporting grades to your parents, in the raging heat of puberty, is all about sacrifice.

"Thanks Farid. Nah, ni, dua ringgit, duit kopi."
"Ah, takpa, tak yah bayar. Bukan apa sangat pun, Lat."
"Mana boleh, aku dah cakap aku nak bayar kau..."
"Macam ni ah, kau ajar aku buat homework Add Maths, okay?"

That day's night prep class, I walked into my classroom with a shaved head held up high and defiant. Everyone who was there, hanging out at the corridor and enjoying the cool breeze of Selat Melaka, noticed the physical change in me, but they pretended not to care, and how obvious they were at that. I marched into the heart of the class, sat down on my chair, and wiped off the sweat on my scalp. Only Syed Jefrizul, the batch's sexy hoodlum and part-time jock-idol, had the big shiny balls to mock my entrance, announcing loudly and in his quasi-rockstar voice, the king of nerds who became a skinhead.

The girls were appalled at my parade, as I had hoped for; thereafter, no more apples.

*****


"Adik ni nak potong rambut macam mana?"

I pushed my body up with one arm pressing against the handrail of the barbershop seat, and the other arm reaching around the protective white cloth tied at my neck, trying to get a piece of paper that I tore off from my kid brother's favorite comic book. I had it tucked neatly in my left pocket, and I remember struggling for quite a long time to pull it out, and then unfolding it carefully, and showing it to the guy. He took it from the gentle grip of my fingers and drew the small piece of paper near to his face for a proper inspection, as if this were an everyday routine for him, each customer showing him their own photo of a perfectly coiffed good-looking celebrity with no remote resemblances to them at all. He flinched at mine.

"Potong macam ni boleh bang?"

The first time I saw that picture from my kid brother's comic book, all that I could say to myself then was, "Whoa, you got a mighty fine hair there, buddy". Hisashi Mitsui is one of the many key characters in the SlamDunk comic book series; a troubled talented youth who has a deep passion for basketball. Although not the smartest or the most gifted in his team, he is, however, by far, the most determined. It is his mantra, "Di saat-saat akhir hanya kepenatan dan harga diri yang mendorong si bodoh yang degil” that he uttered at the end of one of his fiercest semifinal matches, that I immortalized as my email end signature and that I indoctrinated into my policies on late homework and bad midterm exam scores.

"Potong macam gambar kartun ni, dik?"
"Ha'ah."
"Mana adik dapat ni? Gambar sapa ni?"
"Dari komik SlamDunk, itu watak utama dia, Mitsui."

The barbershop guy moved his head from one side to the next, tilting it gracefully this way and that way, and he moved the comic book piece an arm's length near and far, and adjusted it against the brightest source of light at an angle and then at another steeper angle, meanwhile his pout lips sharpened up and crooked out to the rhythmic pace of change of the picture he was holding between his two extended hands. His gaze caressed the top of the picture in small uneven circles and trailed down to the bottom of it, carefully scraping every inch of the cut's details, visualizing every possible dimensions of the comic book character's head, and instantly referring them to his skills register inside his head; is this style manageable, can it be done to my head, will the back hair even out in the end, and so on, so forth.

Suddenly, he laughed a polite laugh, and returned to me the piece.

"Haha, nah dik."
"Boleh ke tak bang?"
"Saya boleh potong, tapi tak elok jadinya nanti."
"Oh ye ke..."
"Kepala kartun tu empat segi bujur, rambutnya lebat."
"Oh gitu..."
"Rambut depan dia tumbuh rata, garis dahi lurus."
"Ha'ah, perasan, perasan..."
"Jadi, minta maaf lah dik, tak boleh lah abang buat."
"Takpa, takpa, saya paham."
"Tapi, memang handsome adik kalau style macam tu..."
"Haha, tak ah, haha..."
"Nak gunting rambut ni, cuti sekolah dah habis ke?"
"Eh, tak, saya dah habis sekolah menengah dah."
"Oh, nak ke U lah ni. Ada nak ke interview ke?"
"Tak ah, mak saya sibuk suruh potong."
"Ah, biasa lah tu, mak suruh potong rambut..."
"Takde ah panjang sangat pun, tebal je sikit ni ha."
"So, nak ke tak nak ni gunting ni?"
"Terpaksalah bang, apa nak buat, bising dia nanti."
"Mak adik bukan apa, dia nak anak dia kemas, smart, tu je."
"Hm..."
"Gunting pendek ke?"
"Ha'ah, pendek askar."
"Pendek askar?"
"Mesin mata saiz satu."
"Tu pendek betul tu, nak botak dah tu."
"Tahu..."
"Aih, protes kat mak adik ke?"
"Tak lah, saja, senang jaga, lama lagi nak gunting, jimat."
"Pendek askar ada jambul depan ke?"
"Ish, tak nak ah, sakai je."
"Sideburn, cukur?"
"Tak yah, biarkan."
"Misai, janggut?"
"Haha, saya mana ada misai lagi, janggut pun, haha..."
"Muda remaja lagi, tak gitu dik?"
"Haha, muda muda..."

On the waist-high shelf where all different types of shampoo, haircream and oil bottles were laid down to rest, and an assorted variety of colorful combs and shiny scissors scattered about in chaos, and knives and handheld mirrors of all sizes were hung from the makeshift nails above it, there resided the black vibrating barbershop machine that made it all impossible for the common unskilled average joe to get himself the crispy good haircut that his mother wants to see on his beloved son's head, that his lover loves to run her naked fingers through. That invention there; that has turned innocent young men from all walks of simple life into an army brigade of dedicated cruel killing machines for the pride of a country's generals. The same contraption that feed the life of many barbershops, that provide food for their kids; there it was, on that man's wooden shelf, looking so unknowing and so faultless, like a can of sardines.

He approached the shelf, close to where the machine was, and ran his hand wildly over the combs and the scissors and the haircreams, as if he was searching for the perfect shirt in the darkness of a closet. Finally, he took the machine to his hand, plugged it into the wall, and into the reflection of the big mirror in front of us, he made eye contact, waved the machine left and right, and smiled like a drunk Buddha.

"Mesin mata saiz satu, ya?"

I nodded, and I rested my head, and reminisced the first day I had that haircut.