Prodigal
Son
June 15 2021
The
old man looked frail
in
his well-loved chair,
slumping
to one side
as
if his spine had gone too soft
to
hold his head for long.
His
clothes hung loosely,
and
his shrunken body
seemed
hungry for air
even
at rest,
gulping
quick shallow breaths
and
shuddering weakly
with
the beat of a failing heart.
I
watched from behind.
The
thin grey hair
that
seemed too delicate to cut.
The
sagging shoulders, and gaunt neck,
a
visible pulse
in
the corkscrew vessel
throbbing
in each temple.
And
a mottled hand
clutching
the armrest with his death grip strength,
its
papery skin
gnarled
veins
and
spindly bones
looking
more like an anatomical drawing
than
flesh.
Who
was this imposter
and
where had he gone,
the
big confident man
who
was larger than life
and
strong as an ox?
Time
had diminished him
in
its relentless, but imperceptible way,
and
now
after
a long intentional absence
and
the indifference of a rash young man
I felt gut-punched
to
find him like this.
He
continued to sit,
gaze
fixed on a blank wall
waiting
for me to cut his hair.
Which
was so wispy and sparse
it
seemed hardly worth the trouble.
And
my father,
so
fragile and trusting
and
not at all as I remembered.
But
then, memory never serves.
And
did I ever really know him
even
then?
Or
only as a child does,
omniscient
and all-powerful.
And
then the smug adolescent
who
thought he knew everything,
and
even if he didn't
would
never have listened
anyway.
I
carefully draped a towel
over
his shoulders
and
around his neck.
The
scissors were sharp
but
had a rounded end.
The
rasping sound
of
metal on metal,
the
wet rattle of breath.
Again,
I need to emphasize that although I often write in first person, the
vast majority of my pieces are not autobiographical. In fact,
this poem was inspired by another of those fine First Person
essays published in the weekday editions of the Globe and Mail.
I
assiduously try to avoid clichés. Except when I use them ironically.
Because fresh language always has more impact and staying power. But
constrained by the demands of both prosody and economy, I chose to
use a couple here. So please excuse -- if you find this either lazy
or a waste or both -- my use of “paper-thin skin” and “strong
as an ox”. (Except that since I wrote this, I changed that to
“papery skin”. Still a cliché, but not quite as much of one!)
Here's
the essay:
A
NEW HAIRCUT TO SHED OLD ROLES
Cutting my father’s hair was symbolic and
emotional, as it required him to trust me as I trusted him as a
child, Andrew Steinmetz writes. (This week, First Person celebrates
fathers and fatherhood.)
This weekend I cut my hair. A small feat
unrelated to the pandemic. I’ve been cutting my own hair since
before I left home to share an apartment in downtown Montreal with my
older brother. As children, my father cut our hair. In the kitchen.
One child after the other: four in all, less than an hour’s work in
total. You got what you got. And escaped outside to play.
By the time I was 15, I wouldn’t let the man
touch my hair. Nor would I allow my mother near me with the notorious
kitchen scissors. Already by then, we were a house divided, upstairs
from downstairs, by sets of record collections.
These days, I’m equipped with so many
implements to do the job – an embarrassment of riches that includes
an electric cutter with multiple shields, a smaller battery-powered
shaver, thinning scissors, a razor and ordinary scissors, which must
be some kind of cosmic joke, right, since year by year there is less
to shape or cut. Consumerism feeds on despair. Not hair. Not fair.
Back when I left home to share that apartment
with my brother, we just went at the top of our heads with the hedge
clippers. Kind of. For sure we selected the right music, turned the
volume to 11 and chopped away at each other’s lopsided locks. The
more erratic the results, the better.
For by then we had formed our first band
together, and in pursuit of street cred, the brothers Steinmetz,
underground eccentrics, were caught up in a rivalry between angst and
anger.
Although I hungered after the crimes and the
punishment of the mosh pit and looked the part of a contrarian in a
Russian novel, on the inside I was green and innocent. So yeah,
haircuts were important. I would have trusted Peter to do my hair
with a hammer and sickle; he knew my rebel dreams inside out.
This was a long time ago, obviously. Recently,
when I announced to my siblings my intention to go stay with our
parents for a week or two during the pandemic, my news was received
with a bouquet of thumbs-up emojis and bursting hearts.
My father is 83. Over the summer, we had
watched helplessly as he lost close to 30 pounds, then became
unsteady on his feet. During phone calls home, my father reeled off a
list of medical complaints, a symphony of symptoms, the undiagnosed
and idiopathic signs that haunted him now every day. Then came the
diagnosis this fall.
In Montreal, I accompanied my father daily to
his radiotherapy and doctors’ appointments. I walked the dog
through a nearby park. With my mother, while opera and classical
music played on the Bluetooth radio, I made ugnspannkakan and cooked
other Swedish dishes that I was familiar with from childhood.
I was back home with my parents, in their new
apartment; so much was familiar and yet different.
One evening after dinner, during which my
father had attempted a glass of wine against doctor’s orders, he
asked me if I would do him the favour of cutting his hair.
I probably should have predicted this – he
wasn’t running to the barber, mask or no mask – but in truth, I
hadn’t. And although, as advertised, I am an inveterate cutter of
hair, although, I come with lifelong experience having practised on
siblings and friends and the dog, and my own children and sometimes
my wife. Despite this legacy, I lost my composure as my father took
his seat before the mirror, then removed his glasses and hearing aids
and placed them on the counter.
I hesitated just a few seconds while he waited
for me to begin, a bath towel draped around his neck and shoulders.
Clasping strands of his fine hair between my
fingers, a stream of thoughts and complex emotions overwhelmed me.
Here he was, the boy, born in Colombia, to parents who had fled Nazi
Germany. The boy who immigrated to Canada alone at a stage of
development that rarely found me at the same age outside my own
suburban backyard. Here he was, the young father and pediatrician who
allowed me from the ages of 3 to 5 to wander with a tobacco pipe in
my mouth.
Here he was, the man who fostered my character,
his intellectual curiosity intact, his incurable faith in humanity
still in rude health.
Here he was, an old man who appeared at once
obedient and almost child-like, waiting for me to begin, so patient
in his trust.
Wasn’t it him who oft-repeated after Groucho
Marx, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as
a member.”
Wasn’t it him – or maybe my grandfather –
who stung a youthful me with the Hector Berlioz quote, “Time is a
great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”
It most definitely was him.
The intimacy of the moment was broken by an
ironic smile when he gestured for me to go ahead: He didn’t have
all night, get moving, just take a little off, here and here.
There was a wellspring of emotion that I would
never be able to articulate or express. I placed both hands at his
shoulders from behind, and standing opposite the mirror it became
plain to see that no such words were ever needed.
I remembered my smartphone resting on the
counter beside his hearing aids. I selected You’re the Top by Cole
Porter, increased the volume. And cut.
