The day my father was to go to the barber
I went into the basement, under the stairs,
hid behind boxes of Christmas decorations
stacked on cases of Mason jars of jellies,
my father’s mothballed Army uniforms,
and prayed not to be found and have to go.
I had every intention, in 1971, of letting
my hair grow over the ears and collar—
a mop-top Beatle cut, at the very least,
but he must have known where to look
or knew it was that important. I think
I had given up on his America, on trying
to grow up to be the Good Son, and I know
I wanted to get stoned on a matchbox-sized
nickel bag of marijuana. I was 17, and
there was the Draft and Vietnam between us,
and so we fought right there, in the basement.
I could not imagine besting him, mostly
I was him, in altered form, conscripted,
but at least for a long moment no scissors
subtracted from my dream of a man. I heard
get going, goddammit, no son of mine as he
shoved me up the stairs and out the door. And
when we got to the shop, we were still at it.
Winning by force and shouting, he called me
a shit, in a voice that roared like machinery
until the barber, a friend of his, said "Play it
cool, Roy." (The barber used the name Roy, also
my father’s name, but I knew he meant me.) He
looked around his shop, at the crowd of men, said
it was, after all, just a haircut and couldn’t hurt—
not worth the fuss, nothing to come to blows over.