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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Rooster

I was making out invoices in the office when a middle nineties Jeep drove up into the shop. Exiting the office, and paying more attention to the shape of the jeep, I missed the customer who had ducked out from the driver’s side. Now at some point over thirty years, just about every example of hair styles, pin cushion faces, and tattoos have stopped by either in a vehicle or walking in off the street. Although I’ve seen mild variations of the hair style my visitor sported, it is the most extreme I’ve seen to date. The kid was probably in his late teens, and just under six feet tall. His head was shaved but for a light colored fan of hair like you see on a pheasant, spiked up in a semicircle from his forehead to the back of his neck, nearly a foot long. I kept thinking he would break out in a cock-a-doodle-doo, and start strutting around, hands on waist. I’ll call my young visitor Rooster Cogburn.

“Can I help you,” I manage to say without cracking even a smile.

“I want you to install hydraulics on my Jeep,” Rooster told me.

“Do you mean wheel cylinders, calipers, and master cylinder on your brakes?” I asked.

“No man!” Rooster looks at me like I just fell from Mars. “You know… those kits for making the Jeep jump up and down.”

“No, I don’t do that type of work, only general repair and diagnostics,” I answer politely. “I don’t do…”

Rooster Cogburn waves me off. He has a call. Rooster turns so I get a profile shot of him as he talks animatedly to someone on his cell-phone, all the while bobbing his head and fan. I was impressed. Rooster tells his phone mate to hang on, and gives me a raised brow look, which is when I first noticed Mr. Cogburn had matching bars through his eyebrows. The hair had captivated me and I missed the face decorations.

“Well… can you do it or not?”

“Not.”

“Fine…” Rooster jumps in the Jeep and leaves, half his hair fan bent into the Jeep roof.

I should have saved Rooster for Layla. :)

2 comments:

Virginia Lady said...

So did his hair straighten out when he got out of the jeep? It had to have been bent before as well. Interesting trick, 'bounce-back' hair. :-) I saw a guy with brilliant yellow hair in a similar style, but it wasn't nearly that long, only about 7 inches, that was impressive enough.

I always wonder what their high school photos look like.

BernardL said...

It did, VL. When he left the Jeep, it was spiked straight up. I noticed they do a braid line at the hair fan base, so the hair spiking up has a platform to bob up on. I don't want to know what he actually put on it to achieve the effect. :)