Hairplay

In North Jersey, just south of Newark and a few miles from any real civilisation, is the small suburban town Hopper’s End.

The name is ridiculous in it’s self as it’s not at the end of anything, but no one living there seems to question it. Hoppers End isn’t on every map of the state, and if you’re not a resident you’re probably going to have trouble finding the tiny paradise amongst all the endless roads and flat land. Those that do find the town, will also find that the place gives a whole new meaning to the world small.

There are a few locally run shops, a fair trade coffee house, a church and a small playground complete with broken swings, and rusty slide. If you stand at the broken swings and look left down Tyron’s Street, leaning a little to the right you may see the only hairdressers in Hopper’s End hidden by the art deco homes and the constant fog submerging the town. 

It’s usually pretty busy because it is the only hairdressers in town, and Hopper’s End is the only town in site for a good few miles, so an appointment is always needed, which you can make with Jamia at least a week before you need the cut. But most people simply book as they leave, as nearly everyone is a regular. 

Most of the hairdressers are in their mid forties or fifties and the shop is owned by Linda Iero who opened up around twenty years ago as a single mum and hair dressing enthusiast.

Gerard doesn’t know where other people got their haircut before that, but if his neighbours were anything like his Ma, then he’s pretty sure bowl cuts were regulation back then. Gerard has some splendid, dated photographs to support this argument, Donna Way will show them to you if you ask.

Linda has cut Gerard’s hair since the end of his mother's hair and beauty adventures, and she’s good at it, she does exactly what Gerard asks and doesn’t try to straighten or dye it thank god. And so Gerard enjoys going to the hairdressers, "It's not a gay thing." He tells Mikey one afternoon over coffee, "It's a genuine need, a necessity." 

Gerard does not enjoy having anyone else cut his hair. It’s a relationship of kinds, in Gerard’s mind, and he so doesn’t want to cheat on Linda, he really loves her Y’know? In that platonic, hairdresser, client relationship that all people should understand. So he doesn’t really appreciate some stranger asshole telling him that Linda is with a client right now, even though he booked an 11:30 with her four weeks ago when he was there last.

He also, most definitely, does not appreciate how the asshole is looking at his hair with those goddamn straighteners in his hand and, Jesus Christ, his hair is dyed. Gerard does not come here for this kind of treatment.

But probably, throwing a paddy over not having Linda cut his hair is not the right thing to do, so Gerard bights his tongue, and draws away from the straighteners, attempting to avoid them without drawing their holder's attention back towards them. He asks, very politely, when her next free slot will be and then the asshole with the hair dye and straighteners says that he will ask then glances over his shoulder to shout.

“Mom, when are you free? Gerard’s here.”

And Gerard almost has a panic attack because this asshole isn’t just any asshole, this is Linda’s son. This is Linda’s son and he has been mentally insulting him for the past ten minutes like a fucking douche bag.

This must be Frankie, the guy Linda goes on about non-stop whenever she’s cutting Gerard’s hair. This is “My Frankie,” this is the guy Linda has been trying to set Gerard up with since she figured out he was gay when he was fourteen, and chubby, and awkward.

And Gerard has just been mentally hurling insults at him for the past ten minutes. He suddenly feels the need to apologise profusely.

Gerard has always been careful not to let Linda talk him into going on a date with her Frankie. As a rule mothers are not to be trusted as wingmen because of them being so obviously biased to say things like, “Oh he’s so handsome!” or, “He was top of his class, you know?” And more often than not mothers are very sorely mistaken.