Waiting For The Cut

1991

With Matt Gaetano Levin

Two men, STEVE and HAROLD, both in their early twenties, and with long hair styles, are standing outside a small hair cutting salon on a sweltering July afternoon. The salon is closed. STEVE, after offering a cigarette to HAROLD — who waves it off — lights one himself and begins to pace.

STEVE: I hate fucking Brooklyn.
HAROLD: [Wipes his face with a balled-up handkerchief.] Brooklyn? I don’t know about Brooklyn yet. It’s hard to form an opinion when you’re rapidly losing consciousness. It’s like we’re standing on the sun here.
STEVE: [Looking away.] Brooklyn’s where you have to wait for this jerkoff. [Looks at his watch.] Christ, my watch is sweating!
HAROLD: I think they said last night that, factoring in the wind-chill index with the temperature-humidity thing, today would be the hottest day in the history of the world.
STEVE: If they did, they got it right. [Looks up and down the block.] It’s a goddamn hour. Where is this asshole?
HAROLD: Don’t quote me on that. Okay? I could be way off. [Rolls his neck.] This isn’t what you meant when you said he always keeps you waiting? He’s not always this late, is he? Did you confirm the time with him?
STEVE: Yeah. Yesterday.
HAROLD: And he’s got your number? He could have reached you this morning if he wanted to?
STEVE: Yeah.
HAROLD: [Feeling his wrist.] Dude, my pulse is gone! [Mocks panic. Holds his head with both hands.] And my memory — it’s gone, too!
STEVE: Jesus! All of it?
HAROLD: No. I think just the last year.
STEVE: If it’s just the last year then you can still remember the last time you got laid. [Walks to the salon window and peers into it. Then looks down the block.] No, He’s never been this late before. [Looks at his watch again. Then directly at HAROLD.] There’s something I probably should have mentioned.
HAROLD: What?
STEVE: He can also fuckup his cuts. And in a major way. There was one fuckup that was actually beyond major, really spectacular — worthy of its own wing in the Hall of Fuckups.
HAROLD: Yeah?
STEVE: He loved what he did. He was proud of himself. He even took a Polaroid.
HAROLD: Yeah? I don’t remember. . .
STEVE: You don’t remember because you didn’t see me for a month. I cancelled all my public appearances.
HAROLD: Wait. That was. . . ? It was that bad?
STEVE: Put it this way: I would definitely have gotten mucho action — if it’d been 1964 and I had a cockney accent.
HAROLD: You looked like a Beatle?
STEVE: Early Ringo Starr.
HAROLD: Okay. I’ve got a statement and then a question. The statement is: Yeah, when you were bugging me to give him a shot and finally getting me to make this trip — which I never wanted to do because nothing I’ve seen of his work for you has moved my little finger — you fucking probably should have mentioned that! The question is: Do you figure I can find my way back to Manhattan by myself? The “3” train, right? What is it — four blocks this way, then hang a left?
STEVE: Let’s give him a little while longer.
HAROLD: Why? Damn. I was expecting an acceptable level of mediocrity. I thought the worst thing I had to worry about was getting wasted in a crossfire.
STEVE: Because you’re my friend and because we’re both in a bad stretch chickwise. Plus, speaking of “getting it ri…”
HAROLD: [Steps on and obscures STEVE’s last word]. So you want to make things worse? You know the barbershop in the 86th Street subway station? It’s beginning to loom as a viable option.
STEVE: We’ll give him another fifteen minutes. Okay? [Looks at his watch.] Fifteen minutes. You can handle fifteen minutes, can’t you?
HAROLD: [Hugs himself and pretends to shiver.] My sweat just turned very cold. You ever hear of someone freezing to death in his own sweat?
STEVE: Okay. Listen to me. Let me tell you this. The first haircut he gave me — when I was working the lights for a music thing in the little park around the corner and needed a quick trim. It was strange because I asked him for just a simple trim and at first that’s all that I thought I got, you know? There was nothing noticeably out of the ordinary. If anything, it seemed a little on the flat side.
HAROLD: Right. But after you washed it — and probably factoring in certain favorable atmospheric conditions…
STEVE: No. Yeah — maybe something like that. I don’t know what it was, what he did, and whenever I bring it up he says he doesn’t remember.
HAROLD: When was this?
STEVE: 1987.
HAROLD: 1987? That’s four years back in the dank and murky past — that’s back when you were with Beth, the great lost love of your wretched life.
STEVE: Actually, it was the day before I met Beth.
HAROLD: [Startled.] He gave you a haircut the day before you met Beth?
STEVE: Yeah.
HAROLD: I heard you right? Yes? You’re saying that before that haircut you and Beth hadn’t crossed paths yet?
STEVE: Only in my dreams.
[HAROLD stares at STEVE. Then abruptly turns away from him; walks a few steps off; stops; comes back.] Let me have one of those.
[STEVE gives HAROLD a cigarette, takes another one himself; lights them both.].
HAROLD: And you met her the very next day?
STEVE: Correct. You were taking summer courses. You weren’t around.
HAROLD: [Turns away again. Turns back.] You know, I’m thinking he could still be coming. I mean there’s a chance that he stumbled into a serious crisis situation on his way here. It’s possible that he was called on to administer multiple emergency mullets and buzz cuts and shit, and he could have every intention of showing up when he’s done.
STEVE: Weird. I was just thinking the very same thing.
HAROLD: [Motions toward STEVE’s watch.] How much time did you…?
STEVE: [Looks at his watch.] Twelve minutes now.
HAROLD: Considering that the crisis he may be dealing with could have a heartbreaking size and scale, he might need more than just another twelve minutes.
STEVE: A crisis of the magnitude we’re talking about. . . Yeah, I’d say he…
HAROLD: What I think is that, under the conceivable circumstances, we should go another round — give him another full hour.
STEVE: [Taken aback. Emits a quick laugh.]
HAROLD: Hey, another hour’s not unreasonable, man — not under the conceivable circumstances.
STEVE: [Holds up his hand.] No. You’re right. Absolutely. Another hour’s more than reasonable. [Looks at Harold with a suddenly pensive expression. Says softly…] You’re on my page now.
HAROLD: And, if you think about it, man, under the conceivable circumstances we owe him that much, don’t we? He could be busting his ass trying to get here. Under the conceivable circumstances it fucking behooves us to give him another hour.
STEVE: That’s very good. Shit, I could learn a lot about living from you.
HAROLD: It’s not like we even have any respectable options here.
STEVE: I can’t think of any.
HAROLD: Then we’re doing it — we’re doing another hour?
STEVE: I don’t think we could live with ourselves if we didn’t. [Looks at his watch.] Make that sixty minutes. [Squints down the block. Purses his lips. Grimaces.] Exactly sixty minutes.
HAROLD: [Sits on his haunches as he too looks down the block. Wipes his face with his handkerchief. Thinks aloud.] Yeah, another hour. That might do it. That might be just what this prick needs us to give him.

BLACK