Tom, what do you think of my tribute to Greg?
dd...@bellsouth.net
whom I’ll never forget
By Denise Noe
I was fifteen years old. It was 1972. Mom had two coupons for free
hair stylings at a local beauty college. She let me make use of both
coupons. I don’t recall much about the first styling.
I will never forget the second.
The student hairdresser who would perform that styling introduced
himself to me as Greg.
It occurred to me that we were both unusual in that beauty college
setting. Greg was a man in a sea of women and I was a teenager in a
sea of gray and white elderly heads.
Greg was a handsome young man. He had an attractive face with bright
eyes and a ready smile. He was blonde and I’ve always had a special
liking for yellow hair. His hair was shoulder length and styled so
that it fell in waves.
I was immediately and strongly attracted to Greg – and just as
immediately embarrassed by that feeling.
After he received the coupon, he asked, “Is there any special way
you’d like me to style your hair?”
“No,” I said, smiling back and shrugging my shoulders.
“Just anything I want to do?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I thank you,” he said, taking a little bow at what he seemed to take
as my implicit compliment to his good judgment or perhaps the
privilege of being the decision maker on what he would do with my
hair.
I was charmed by the gesture of that bow. I was really getting a
strong crush on Greg and feared it must show.
We went to the place where hair was washed. Greg shampooed my hair.
Then we returned to the station where he began working on my cleansed
and wet hair and putting it in curlers. “Do you know any good jokes?”
he asked.
Tongue-tied, I didn’t dare start telling the vulgar jokes I heard –
and told – to my high school acquaintances. “No,” I said.
As Greg worked on my hair, I noticed his arms. The muscles in Greg’s
arms were not especially bulky but they were wonderfully well-defined
and I enjoyed watching the way the bicep and muscles in the forearms
naturally tensed and relaxed under his skin as he moved within that
unbuttoned white coat that was the beauty school uniform. As he
worked, I sometimes giggled from sheer adolescent self-consciousness
at the feelings this man aroused and Greg would look into my eyes and
smile as if to ask, “What is so funny?” I was reminded of the irony of
my negative answer when asked if I knew any good jokes. It seemed we
were both having a lot of fun despite the relative absence of
conversation.
At one point a drop of water touched the top of my ear, sending a
delightful tingle through me.
After Greg had put my hair in curlers, he escorted me to one of the
rows of hair dryers. Before I went under the dryer, Greg asked, “Would
you like a soft drink?”
“Would I have to pay for it?” I asked.
Greg chuckled. “I could buy it for you,” he generously offered.
“No, thank you,” I replied.
After my time under the dryer, I was back at Greg’s station. He took
my hair out of the curlers, brushed and combed it. He appeared to be
very interested in the hair and what he was doing with it. I remember
being impressed by how much he seemed to enjoy his work. Of course, he
was only a student hairdresser so he had not been doing it long enough
to tire of it but I thought he was a lucky person to be doing
something he liked.
When he had my hair fixed to his satisfaction, Greg waved a brush at
one of the teachers and said, “Comb out check, please.”
At my previous beauty college hairstyling, the woman who performed it
had not asked for a comb-out check so I knew it was not always done. I
felt flattered that Greg asked for the check of my hair – perhaps
unreasonably flattered as what he was asking her to look over was HIS
work. Still that work was on my hair so I thought I must look very
nice in the hairdo he had created.
The teacher was a woman with carrot-orange hair that she wore piled up
on her head. The pair of them examined my hair and fussed over it,
both seeming quite pleased with the job Greg had done. I gazed into
the mirror, also liking what I saw.
“She has tough hair,” the woman said.
“Tough hair,” Greg seconded.
I wondered if they meant that my hair was somehow harder or more
substantial than most hair or if “tough” was used in the slang sense
of “good” but I didn’t ask.
I never saw Greg after that one styling but I thought about him often.
I still think about him on occasion.
Greg’s image regularly popped into my mind in two very different
contexts. One was during sexual fantasies. The other was when I heard
someone complain about a job he or she disliked. Such complaints would
make me think: If only we could all be as enthusiastic about our work
as Greg was about fixing my hair!
Some readers may point out what they see as an irony in my having a
crush on Greg since he was training to enter an occupation long known
to be gay-friendly. It just so happens that I have been well
acquainted with several male hairdressers – most of them straight. I
have no idea whether Greg was gay, straight, bi, or asexual. I do know
that he was heterosexual – and heterosexually hungry – in my frequent
and fevered teenaged fantasies featuring him.
I have no way of knowing whether or not Greg is still alive. If he is,
I’m aware that it is quite possible that in the decades since my
memorable free hair styling, the waves of blonde hair I so admired on
him may well have fallen off his head, leaving a bald dome or
motivating the wearing of a toupee. I would prefer to imagine that
Greg has aged into a gray-haired “silver fox.” I hope – and believe
that I am not being unrealistic in hoping – that Greg is now an
elderly man with nice, cleanly defined muscles, a twinkle in his eyes,
a ready smile, and a charming manner.
I have no idea as to how long he worked in hairdressing or if he
eventually went into other occupations. I’m aware that, if still
alive, Greg is probably now retired. I wish that he could know what a
powerful and lasting impression he made on a shy fifteen-year-old; I
know that he cannot.
I’ll never forget the handsome young man who seemed so very happy in
his work.
I hope that he was always as happy at whatever he chose to do as he
was on the long-ago day that he fixed my hair. I hope that he is still
happy at whatever he might be doing today.
Here’s to you, Greg!
Masculist
Gee, this started out like a romance novel and as such I would have
added more about the sensuous feelings one gets when one's hair is
being done. You could have had a picnic with that.
You told this story once before Denise. I think I flippantly joked
about poor old Greg, of course not knowing didley about him except for
your apparently obsessive attraction to him.
Here's too you Greg! May you forever be the adonis in Denise's
memory.
Tom