The Barber Shop

Last night I went to my acupuncturist's and had scraping done.
Scraping.
Have a gander:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4FFmGPPW3w

It's not so painful, really. Maybe a little because I have - this is gross, but I could feel them there - bubbles of tension under my skin. It was like he was popping bubbles (I do not like holes, the Suirnam toad is disgusting, what is its purpose?), blisters of stress, under my skin. Jesus, it's making me feel sick typing that.
I frequently look at the world from other people's point of view and I wondered what was dancing through his mind whilst scraping. Was he just focused on the job? Did he notice the love handles that have swelled since I ate eighty-eight pounds of cookies at Xmas? He works intimately with all types of people's bodies. Does he ever feel revolted? Does he judge? Or simply observe?
But most importantly, I haven't had my upper back waxed in months.
When I hit my late 20s, the hair started growing on my upper back. It crawls around the neck, tufts around the shoulders. I've had, since late teenagehood, the lower back hair, which I like - very Tony Danza on Who's the Boss. Sexy. But upper back hair is middle-aged-menitis. It means something is out of control. Jesus, don't I have discipline of my body? This is a heinous situation for someone with control issues.
Which got me thinking about hair and my old barber.
I haven't seen my old barber in more than a year and a half. I shall keep his name anonymous, of course, but it is one of the traditional Italian names from the list below:

1. Rocco
2. Rocky
3. Rocking
4. Anthony (pronounced Ant-knee)
5. Sal
6. Sausage
7. Rigitoni
8. Boyardee
9. Pesto
10. Joey

You can decide whatever you want for this story.
Anyway, I had to stop going to this barber because we would get fucked-up together. Sometimes we would close the shop down. I would stumble out of there, drunk and high, trying to remember where I had parked my car, eyes-crossing. One time I drove about 8 blocks and pulled over because I realized I was too fucked up to drive. How responsible I was! So I staggered around the city until my eyes uncrossed and I could see just one of everything.
The barber was a character. He was a sight to behold. Tooth missing in the front, the rest of his teeth looking yellowish brown, like a paste of brown sugar had been applied to his gums. His eyes, brown, were somewhat slitted because he was perpetually stoned on marijuana. And yet I felt sexually attracted to him sometimes.
The shop, which he had inherited from his uncle, smelled perpetually of stale pot smoke. And dogs. He had one large dog and one medium dog who lied on the floor; they were gentle and well-behaved. He blasted music. It vacillated between hard rock and Madonna or Mariah Carey, depending on the customers in the shop.
He was hypermasculine and I could see that he frightened many of his customers, mostly the professional heterosexual men. They really did not know he was gay. I think the old Italians in the neighborhood - and there were definitely men from the the Mafia - probably surmised that he was gay and just accepted it because "Why the fuck not?" He would tell stories, laugh, and then explode with jumping on the floor and yelling, "BAM!" These stories and actions tickled me, particularly when I would see the startled reactions of the other customers.
There was a large window into the shop with a view of the whole street. He and I never had sex, never kissed, though there was flirting. One time, and I do not remember what I was on other than I felt happy and warm, he asked to see my penis. He blocked the view of the window while I pulled it out of my pants fly. "Yours looks just like mine," he said, and then pulled his out. He was right. I was glad to see that he had a nice penis. Aesthetics are so important.
The thing I liked about him was that he was very generous with whatever he had. If someone had paid him with Vicoden, he was happy to give me a few. And I liked that there was no pretense in asking me for something. At the time, I constantly had Valium on me. He never complained about neck pain or stress. He simply asked me, "Do you have anything?" Which I did, and always shared, and for which he was always grateful. He was always delighted to give me a few joints for free after cutting my hair and after smoking one with me and after drinking a few beers as well. I remember selling him some Oxys when I was doing that to support my habit. It made him feel happy. He liked that feeling, he said. No pretense, that man.
There was a young man in the neighborhood who he was in love with. This creepy kid, in his early 20s, had stolen from him. He was some kind of opiate addict, perhaps heroin. I remember having a large supply of Percocet on me and being afraid that the kid was going to steal it from me somehow. I remember arguing with the kid about the price per milligram in selling the shit. I know that I stumbled out the shop laughing that day and some customer reached out his arm to catch me, asking if I'd be alright to drive. Well, yeah, I was just high on opiates, hello!