The Glass Fro

Today I got a hair cut. I went a long way for this hair cut, into the kitchen to ask my girlfriend to do it for me. I'm a cheapskate and haven't paid for a hair cut in probably 3 years. Usually I shave it in the summer time, and then let it grow into a mangy fro over the winter time. Until summer time. It was starting to get annoying and frizzy. Eliaz of Wood Sugars made a comment to me over a month ago about white guys with fros being distracting on film, based on what he received from someone when he sent press releases out about our film Ctrl Alt Delete. In the reply the person said "tell Jeff to get a hair cut." Although to be fair that was something we shot a year ago now, and I have indeed cut my hair since then. Yet it's grown back, thick and quick. I was also having a hard time fitting my winter hat over my head. The mass of hair pushed up and rode the thick stocking fringe above my ears and the lobes would grow cold when I was out and about. 


I wrote this piece when thinking about chopping my hair off. And thinking about winter. Those cold days when your freshly showered hair freezes. Not that we've had many of those in Chicago this winter. I have no real attachment to my hair other than I'm lazy about it and like seeing how far I can let it go. When you finally cut it, it's refreshing. I read it at You Me Them Everybody's 8x8 at the end of January.

The Glass Fro

I awoke at the spark of dawn. That red perk. Over the horizon. Taunting me to wake the fuck up and join society. And reminding me how frigid the weather had become. I reached up and rubbed my hair as I yawned. As I usually do. I snapped off a frozen strand. I dug my finger tips further into my scalp. The surface of the follicles were beyond an icy temperature. Seemingly iced over in whole, I snapped off more strands. I cringed at a sharp pain that gouged into my head. Blood smeared my cool, jittery hand. Snapping off another, the same throb ran deep. Blood ran down my forehead, into my eyes. I went and stood in front of the radiator to thaw out.

Fifteen minutes later my hair was still of this thick, smooth texture. Frustrated I snapped off strand after strand, tears running, blood joining them in a salty cheek stream. My fist ground around the hair clumps and they cut into my palm. It dawned on me these weren't ice crystals but little shards of glass. Bending down to look at my reflection in the oven window I saw my head was actually layered with the messy snarl of glassed over afropuff.

With a dirty fork sitting in the sink I began to scrape into the roots to give myself a proper hair cut. Thenastiest cut of my life. Looking back in the oven window I could see what looked almost like wet bangs and freshly showered long girl's hair. Yet as my eyes adjusted to the dark reflection I was reminded of theallusion, reinforced by the iron taste touching my tongue.

Shards gathered on the floor as I continued to snap and break it all up. It looked like a pile of wool gone bitter and berserk. With the heel of my foot I crunched it up and cursed the morning's sardonic surprise.