Page 5 of Cut Me Down

Though I suppose that’s true for everyone. I can’t just include men in my statement. So, I take it all back. I just hate people, most women are sinister too, and I find myself having a harder time tolerating them. It’s the main reason I chose to be a barber over a cosmetologist.

I don’t take appointments at the barber shop, I haven’t the whole six years I’ve been here, and that’s where the entitlement some men carry tends to bother me. The regulars always complain that they can’t make an appointment with me. I was hired to take the walk ins that come into the shop because the other barber’s chair rent and are booked up weeks in advance. Every single one of my clients knows this.

I work at ‘Cut Me Down’, a barber shop located right in downtown, on the first floor of the building that occupies my apartment. My run down, rotting apartment. Well, not rotting. That’s a tad dramatic, but it is a small, one bedroom apartment. Clean white walls and beige wooden floors give the small space warmth, with an almost open floor plan and only two doors. One to my bedroom, and inside it is the door to the bathroom. Its lack of space and creaky floors may not be pristine, but it’s a good size for me since I live alone.

The shop is in much better shape than that. It’s not polished and doused in marble like a salon, and there’s not neon signs and chrome plastered everywhere like every other barber shop in town. It’s cute. Quant. Plain wooden floors, with altered desks mounted to the walls for our stations. Cheap, dusty ceiling fans and plain white paint on the walls. The men I work with have slightly better taste than others and refuse to use wheeled toolboxes to hold their equipment, thankfully.

They like to tease that I should set up my equipment like the barbers from Instagram. Have a fake grass wall, and a neon sign of my name. ‘Since I’m a woman’ is their punchline. I just laugh it off. It’s never bothered me how they pick and tease, and it’s never bothered my clients that I’m a woman. Definitely not bothered, since they like to snap their fingers and command me like I’ll be a good little girl and take it.

Which, I mean, I will, and I do. Because I need the money, and it’s not only my reputation as a barber I have to worry about. Especially since my haircuts are above average for our area. Not to toot my own horn, but the time and practice I put into this profession has definitely paid off.

Each barber has their own schedule. Most of them work from nine in the morning to about four in the afternoon, Tuesday through Saturday, except on Friday evenings, they work a little later with me.

Me? I work from eight in the morning until six in the evening, seven days a week. I don’t mind. The money helps me pay for my apartment, car, the mountain of hospital bills I'm still paying on, it helps Emmett, and it keeps me out of the public eye. The shop has six chairs, and most of the time all six are running. It’s a pretty busy little shop, and we all bring in good business. Which is beneficial for all of us.

While the other barbers only pay a weekly fee to work here, I give Emmett half of my profits. He owns the place, and he’s been struggling for the past year. His wife, Linette, was in a bad car accident when she was about seven months pregnant. His son, Jacob, has a lot of health issues due to the accident. Emmett had to take a month off just for his NICU stay, and then another two months after that to stay at home with them, with one or two hospital visits in that time, not including all of the doctors’ appointments they have now.

The other barbers and I pitched in and doubled our cuts to help him get through after the accident first happened, but when he came back, everyone else stopped but me. He’s a family friend, and someone who supported me through rough times, so I'm happy to help him. Well, not my family, but Serena’s family.

Serena Anderson has been my best friend since kindergarten, and with all the trouble I used to have at home, her family practically raised me and took care of me. She’s your typical, hot blonde. Beautiful, perky, and full of attitude. Thick platinum waves, piercing emerald, green eyes, one cute little nose stud, and she only has that because I pressured her to get it done when I got mine. Did I mention hot? I’m not into other women, but I feel like as women, when we see another hot woman, we give props when they’re due. And Serena? She’s smoking. Comparable to a model in my opinion.

I try to stay as average and unappealing as possible. I have thick, straight, black hair and normal brown eyes. Serena and I have the same body type, but I cover mine up. Every day, I wear fitted boot cut jeans, and plain V-neck shirt, and when I work, I have a thin, zip-up barbers shirt I wear over my normal clothes to keep the hair from sticking to me.

Whereas Serena loves to flaunt her body to every man she walks past. If she’s not in her scrubs, she’s always wearing cute sundresses or outfits that show off what her genetics gave her. She has one tattoo on the inside of her wrist and it’s just a cute, lined rose. I made her get one when I started my sleeve to cover up my scars.

That’s the one thing my clients all seem to agree on. My sci-fi star-ship battle sleeve is seriously cool. I’m a big nerd at heart, and it helps make conversations with some of the men. It’s basically a collage of different ships, stars, and blaster fire positioned correctly to cover up anything visible on that arm.

When I was emancipated at sixteen and moved in with Serena and her family, I only had a backpack full of things left from my parents’ house. They cared for me and took me in like I was their daughter. They’ve treated me like that for years, almost my whole life. I swear they call and check on me as much as they do Serena. I wasn’t with them for too long, though. I didn’t want to take advantage of their generosity.

Two years later, I moved in with…him. The reason for the need for my tattoos…I don’t talk about it much, and it’s been years since that last altercation. Six years. I don’t need to think about it, or let it run my life. Hence the tattoos. So, I don’t have a constant reminder of the day I almost died, and so my clients don’t stare at me while I cut their hair.

Serena tells me I work too much. Says the nurse who works sixty hour weeks sometimes, but I don’t argue. Plus, I still have the evenings. She likes to go out to bars and clubs, and well, I'm more of a homebody myself. When I lived with Serena and her parents, it was hard not to go out with her. Granted, at the time, we were too young to go to bars, but she always found something for us to do. Bonfires, parties in cornfields, or someone’s backyard at midnight. Anything really. She is a ball of fun, and she’s always out looking for her next adventure, or her next fuck.

We have different tastes in music, and in men, which I think really strengthens our relationship. She’s more into the playboy, the names Chad, ‘my papa drives a Rolls-Royce’ type. She can keep those. I get those all day at work. The big talk, little dick, punch holes in the walls type. For myself, I have very few limitations on men. I love when they have tattoos, and I love it when they’re not a raging dick.

After I left my parents and got emancipated, I have only been in one relationship, if that’s what you can call it. Other than that, I’ve lived a pretty lonely life. I can’t say I mind it though; people can’t break your heart if you don’t let them in. I can hear my Tuesday evening group leader say, ‘You shouldn’t change your ideas of what you need to be happy because someone else made that decision for you.’ Yeah, well. Fuck that. I’ve had a lot of people in my life show me that you truly can't trust anyone.

I trust Serena as my best friend, but I suppose being friends for so long granted her that. She’s practically my sister, trust comes with the territory. She knows every little thing about me, and while we’ve had our ups and downs, she’s always accepted me and supported me. If I've had one good thing in this life, it’s her.

To try and clear my thoughts before I open the door, I play the ‘Devil’s Hands’ Insider podcast on Spotify. Serena and I normally talk about it after our shifts, and always keep tabs on it. A part of me is intrigued by DH and what they do. Hell, I admire them for it. Sometimes, it can seem a little excessive, but some of the assholes they deal with deserve it.

I've seen what evil can do, and what happens when you stare at it in the eyes. The void that lays behind alive eyes, and how darkness can remain dormant until it’s too late. Granted, my ex was nothing compared to some of the people DH deals with, but evil is still evil, no matter the form it takes.

“Good morning city people! This is D.N. with all things D.H., and we have some brand-new action to talk about today! At six am, officers discovered two men handcuffed to each other in front of the main Police Department entrance, deceased. Attached to these men was a large black duffle bag containing pounds, that’s right you heard me, POUNDS of methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and heroine. Not to mention the four firearms also found with the inventory.

Background of the two victims suggest that they were possibly the dealers of these drugs, as there were also rolls of large amounts of cash inside the bags. Both men have previous charges of possession, distribution, and other petty crimes such as vandalism. Now, some of you may ask how we know Devil’s Hands is responsible. Well, the large ‘DH’ carved into their foreheads proves that theory.

Police are baffled as there is no evidence of when these bodies were displayed, and no time of death has been concluded as of yet. All security camera footage was hacked and edited. So, the largest question of all remains. Who the hell is DH? How are they so good at what they do? How many men does he, or she, have? Surely, this can’t all be the work of a single man or woman.

Which begs me to wonder, is this person really the savior and protector we see them as? Or are the police right, and they’re a mad man playing God? My personal opinion folks? They’re most definitely our protectors, and the police are embarrassed and ashamed of their lack of traction in their own efforts. The two dealers laid to rest last night had warrants, previous charges, witnesses to distribution deals, and yet, NOTHING WAS DONE!

The method of their madness is only as reflective as the result. This was not an act of a crazed, insane warrior. There was no mutilation of the bodies, and per my sources, the DH must have been carved postmortem. The deaths of these individuals were solely to protect the people. WHICH IS WHAT THE POLICE SHOULD BE DOING!

Enough with the warrants, and the surveillance, and all of the other bullshit these courts keep requiring to arrest these assholes! As far as I’m concerned, DH is the only faction out for our security and well-being. Who knows if the police can even be trusted at this point! I would bet that…”

He continues on as I turn to see the clock say seven fifty-five, and unfortunately, it’s time to put my people face on. Though sometimes, it’sreallyhard. Once I get some nice and talk playful shit guys, it’ll be easier. However, the four men I see standing at the door right now, are not those people, and there’s not enough caffeine or smoothies in the world to help me genuinely care about what they’re about to say.

All of them are wearing their pressed, fancy blue or gray suits with shiny, bleached, white, collared shirts underneath. All wanting the ‘business casual’ look so they can look professional from eight-to-five, but then be a raging douche starting at six.

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