"Clean cut! Clean cut!" Papa's voice echoed in my head as I reluctantly walked back to the barbershop.
"But papa, this haircut is clean," I replied.
"No, this is a low cut. I can still see some hairs on your head. I don't want to see those hairs; go back and tell the barber to cut them off. That's what I mean by a clean cut," he exclaimed in between reading his newspapers and looking at me.
"But…."
"Marriott! Don't argue, do what I said," he ordered, and immediately I left his presence.
I kept wondering: What does he even mean by that?. I wondered if he knew that my generation took clean cuts as a hairstyle for old men, so why is he forcing it on me?. Why can't he just leave me to make this decision of my life by myself? I asked myself, but then again, I knew the answer.
"When you start paying for your haircut, then you can choose what kind of hairstyle you want, but as long as I'm still paying, it'll always be a clean cut!' Another voice of his echoed within me, answering my question for the eleventh time. That was exactly what Papa said when I asked him why I couldn't get the hairstyle I wanted.
I had returned earlier from the barbershop after Papa had asked me to go to barb my hair for school tomorrow. He complained that it looked bushy. I didn't hesitate; I equally knew how unkempt my hair looked and how I might be flogged the next day in school if I came with unkempt hair. But as I returned from the barbershop with the style I had chosen at the barbershop, a low-cut style, Dad wasn't happy with it. He yelled at the top of his voice, reminding me how he had warned me regularly to stick with the clean-cut hairstyle—"exactly the hairstyle I have on my head now, he would frequently remind me.
I grumbled; my feet felt heavy. Every step felt like a chore. I was literally dragging my feet and body back to the barbershop. My flesh was willing, but my soul and spirit were unwilling.
I remembered how my friends in secondary school would laugh at me the next morning at school. How some of them would spank my 'clean cut' hair and make jest of how smooth it was. How anyone I pass by in class will deal with the urge of spanking me on my head and imitating with their mouths the 'kpam' sound it'll make.
To top it all up, they were going to make jokes about how big my skull was.
My mood immediately changed. How I just wish dad would know what his so-called favourite haircut will mean for me in school.
'God, why can't he just let me be with this low cut instead?" I mumbled within me. "Why can't he just understand that low cut is for teenagers and the young while clean cut is for adults whose hairs are already going bald?" I asked no one in particular.
"Forgot something?" The barber asked me as I got into his shop.
"No," I replied. I explained to the barber the exact haircut my dad had asked for.
"Alright sit. I'll be with you shortly. But next time, heed your father's words; now I'm about to waste my time giving you another haircut when I have other customers to attend to."
"I'm sorry," I apologised.
I got back from the barbershop, and my dad smiled as he saw me and my clean-cut hairstyle. "Now you're looking handsome," he complimented the hairstyle.
I didn't answer but immediately retreated to my room and spoke to nobody all through that day.
The next day in school, I wore a cap trying to hide my haircut, but it didn't last as my classmates found out and made jokes as usual about my hairstyle. I cursed in my mind.
All through those years, I never really understood why parents had to force their kids on the hairstyle to barb. Not until I got older and realised that they never did it out of love. They were only trying to cut costs and save cash.