BARBER

He’s known as Tony the Trimmer to everyone, and he’s one of those guys that just warms your heart. Big-bellied, always wearing loud Hawaiian shirts with mismatched socks, he’s the man of the street. The first time I walked into his barbershop and asked for a trim, he was in the middle of an angry debate with a customer about who would beat who in a fight between Batman and Superman. He was cutting away at my hair with the cut-throat razor, shouting about why, if he had to choose, Batman would win over Superman, hands down. ‘I’m tellin’ you, he’s got the brain and all the toys,’ Tony said. ‘Batman with the toys and tricks would wipe that meat-headed Superman out every time.’
But this is the crazy part; his customers swear they have witnessed him perform magic tricks while cutting their hair. One guy claimed he saw his own reflection in the mirror fizzle out of existence and reappear a few moments later sporting a radically shortened haircut. Another swears she felt all her stress evaporate the very instant the barber put the first hand-over-eye snip into motion. And the ones who can recall the date of when they had their sideburns officially trimmed insist that the barber accurately predicted their fate for the rest of the year, summoning his powers as though he were an inexplicable wizard of relaxation, working the clippers and volitional razors. Strange but wonderfully so, and if I’m guaranteed a magnificent haircut with a sprinkling of magic, sign me up.