Angelo’s Hair Styling Salon & Electrolysis

From the barber’s chair, I watch the same view: photographs of 
shirtless studs, Angelo in younger days hula dancing, my hair 
in the mirror that Angelo makes, for a time, less rinsed in gray. 
After a trim and the day’s first gossip, he always turns the topic to 
Pierre, handsome neighbor who vanished to Palm Springs when 
his mother died and left the money and his clean-shaven looks. 
Have you heard from Pierre? Often we’re the only ones left in the 
shop. We agree Elliot needs a woman before it’s too late; but if he 
decides he’s not straight, he’ll always find work as a houseboy. On 
quiet afternoons, I coax out stories of Tenderloin hookers whose 
hair Angelo bleached and bedside cuts for customers—wasted, 
confused, skeletal—who were dying of a new plague. What’s the 
first thing you notice on a woman? Angelo asks then answers, The 
teeth. Evenings he devotes to the telenovelas: Pedro’s in love with a 
little white witch; Pedro never falls in love with Tomás. Sundays he 
reserves for confession, Mission Dolores and the Bread of Christ. 
Says he lives alone; says he never dates. Like I’d tell anyone. Like 
I’d tell his mother.

Read more from Issue 15.1.