Short Prose
Buzz Cut
Lisette García
The one thing we failed to bring to war was a working set of clippers. Tampons, alarm clocks and Kodak film were easy enough for me to negotiate at the local Hajji shop. But giving a regulation haircut was simply too foreign a concept in the middle of the desert. Getting the proper implements for it seemed out of the question.
Nobody free to roam beyond the imaginary boundaries of our tent city seemed to understand what I was after until Cameron upped the ante with a deck of naked-lady playing cards.
"I bring from Bahrein," promised Xavier, a Pakistani air conditioner mechanic, alternately examining Griff's humble sketch and a handsome lithograph of a rosy, pointed bosom. Cameron snatched the well-thumbed stack of pictures from Xavier's grease-encrusted fingers. "No clippers, no titties," he affirmed.
"No problem, no problem," Xavier signaled, knowing full well the request entailed quite a mission.
"Must pay American money," Xavier insisted, straightening up and dusting off his oily, gray coveralls. Every US dollar, he told us, went toward bribing customs officials on his few visits home, to Quetta. However, by doing business with us, he risked being deported penniless or, worse, ending his livelihood by judicial amputation.
Noon prayer was about to begin. A Muslim trucker parked his cargo and kowtowed to the southwest on a carpet beside the load.
"That's about all the kind we got, Chief," Cam said, returning to the matter. Like many imported workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Xavier was Christian and didn't bow at the five appointed times daily.
"These palm-tree nickels ain't worth much to me either," Cameron continued. He tried jingling a pocketful of Riyals, the sound muffled by thick camouflage fabric.
I handed Xavier $20, hoping he wouldn't let us down. I could make an awful lot of money selling high-and-tights in my unit and to those camped around us. Dark greens, as black Marines are called, said they felt cooler in Afros. But light greens were fainting left and right under their overgrown mops.
For greater assurance, I appealed to Xavier in secret. "Think of your mother and sisters, please," I whispered. "I have family to care for back home, too." He winked and smiled honestly, showing off large white teeth and several gaps in between.
Within a week, Xavier returned with the prized item -- a barely used Norelco, complete with graduated combs. He also slipped me a prayer card of the Virgin Mary. How he got the stuff he wouldn't say but pledged to get us anything else we wanted from that point forward. Cam added pornography to the trades but was keen not to exhaust his stash of Playboys and Hustlers.
For my part, I brought Xavier plenty more business over the course of the Gulf War. One time, it was cocoa powder for a Red Cross worker who couldn't stand preserved, boxed milk; another time it was a string bikini for a radio operator, assigned to guard a recreational facility's swimming pool.
Xavier showed his gratitude with special treats. He returned from one of his longer disappearances with a 220-volt hair dryer and a 110-volt converter for use in our trailer-cum-barracks. The crude appliance -- a red, plastic "L" with a single-speed vent -- dried and warmed my head and feet through three weeks of relentless monsoon weather.
By Ramadan, when we evacuated, each of us had accrued a substantial wad of cash: me, from hundreds of $5 barbershop offerings, and he, for obtaining the far-fetched knick-knacks people asked of him.
Upon our departure, Xavier vowed to take his wife and children on a pilgrimage to Karachi on my behalf. "I will ask Virgin Mother to find you husband, cousin Meri, so you stop warring to feed your parents."
I thanked him and grinned. And, having at last outlived the need for the obsolete hardware he'd supplied me, I chucked the sand-choked clippers and the hair-clogged dryer once Xavier was safely out of sight.
("Buzz Cut" is Lisa García's first contribution to the magazine. She lives in Miami, Florida.)