divinity? for 6 dollars.

today was a shit day altogether.


traffic in the morning.

i was late for work.

the car i was supposed to take wasnt there.

i got another complaint from a girl who said i was funny and such in the classroom, but aparently i made her uncomfortable during the lessons. i have a feeling that she may have sucked terribly... and mistaken my rage for people that cant learn simple things for bad vibes. so she came in to complain to the boss. and i heard about it when i got back from work.

i still dont know whether to be mad or not. as of now i dont really care.
and maybe thats the bad part.

so i walked out of the office and got in my shit car, with no air conditioning, and drive toward home.

i decide that i want to get my hair cut, now. i look like a damn hippie after all.

i drive to the barber shop i found years ago, the one with the great atmosphere and barbers that arent full of shit. the kind that dont pretend to care about your life for tips.

i walk in and sit down. the owner looks at me and says that there's newspapers and magazines if i need something to read. i politely decline.

then i notice that adrian himself is the only one there. strange.

i sit and wait for the guy getting his hair cut to leave.. then there's only one more in front of me. a young guy.

he sits down and asks for a medium regular.

my old Marine Corps ears prick up.

he discusses with adrian what it means and that it has to be within regulations.


i can tell he's in the military. ha.

adrian asks him where he's stationed. and he replies twentynine palms. at the sound of him saying that terrible places name i let out a loud "ugghh.. i hated that place."

and i explain that i was there for around a year. i ask the guy what hes doing there.. he says hes a marine. i say, well yeah... but what specifically. he says he's infantry.
i ask him what his MOS is. he says mortars.

i ask him which ones.. like a dumbass... big or small.

he replies the big ones, so i ask... 81's? and he answers yes.

my cousin was a martarman.. in charge of the 81mm mortars. i stop asking questions...

him and adrian the barber continue talking about how long he's been in and whether he will get shipped out somewhere. all the time i am quiet and nostalgic. i wonder if he will be alright.

adrian asks him how long his contract is... he replies 5 years.
then he asks me how long i was in and i tell him 5 years also.

i ask the young marine how he got 5 years, and he says, "bonus."

i laugh and say, me too.

then i tell him that my bonus was 5 grand. and that i was a dumbass kid when i made that decision.
i traded one year of my life for 5 grand.

the young marine says he got 7,500.

i think that still isnt enough.


then adrian gets a phone call, which he answers.
his face lights up as he talks vividly with the voice on the other end of the phone. about different times zones and calling back later. and maybe coming to visit the shop.

he finishes up the young marine and then its my turn. young to old.

i sit down and he asks me what i want. i tell him a 5 on the sides and 7 on top.

i tell him that i didnt know the shop was going on vacation. i just came in.

he says the fliers have been up for a month or so.
i say i havent been here in a year or so.
he says he remembers me.

then he tells me that he also had plans to leave on vacation like the rest of the shop, but they didnt work out. so instead of sitting at home watching t.v. in the heat, he came to work where it's air conditioned and he can talk to people.

he says he's happy at work. that being a barber always seemed like what he wanted to do. and he wouldnt wanna do anything else.

i think. and he talks. more.

he says he thought about opening a dry cleaners, but then decided to go to school to be a barber.

the way he explains barber school to me makes me realize it's pretty intense. he says it takes less time to become a cop than it does to cut hair.

he says that when he went to school he turned out to be really good at it. and that after he finished they asked him to come back as an instructor.

he says that on his first day when he saw the podium his knees were knocking together from nerves.

this makes me remember my first day of teaching. i was subbing for the instructor on a sunday so he could go to church. i was so nervous i didnt go into the classroom for about twenty minutes.

i got more nostalgic. because at one time, i loved my job. and now i dont know anymore.

he tells me that it blew his mind that all these students were looking to him for advice and knowledge. and that they called him mr. zamora. so he told them to call him adrian. cause he didnt wanna be so formal.

that made me laugh. cause a lot of teachers do that. including myself.

then he tells me about the voice on the phone.

he says its this guy who he met one day walking by on the street outside his shop.
the guy stopped into the shop and told adrian that he painted windows for a living but times were tough and that if he traded him a free haircut he would paint an advertisement on the window outside.

so adrian agreed. and gave him a haircut.
the guy painted a huge logo on the window and the phone number of the shop and a big barber pole.

adrian said that after he did that, he got all these phone calls and new business.

he went on to say that the guy ended up painting his windows for years after that. and that they became friends over the course of time.

that the guy would paint a different theme every month to go with the times.
but that eventually he ended up moving to oklahoma. and then his wife and kids followed him. only to end up in a messy divorce. lies and accusations laced with drugs and dont tell the kids.
and eventually the wife just left.

he went on to say that he had a new girlfriend now and that he was gonna come visit california again. adrian described the guy as a tall white guy with blue eyes that loves mexican food. he said he was gonna show his new girlfriend all the ghetto places like compton and east l.a. and we both laughed at that notion.

i found it odd and reassuring that this man would rather be at work than sitting at home doing nothing. i found it comforting that this wasnt just work to him. it was something he loved doing, and would do it regardless of needing to or not.

i wondered if i would ever find something like that. or if i would just float on through life with no real sense of being or worth.

my birthday is coming up and i have little to nothing to show for all the shit i've talked. for all the advice i have given. for all the stories i have shared. i have nothing i can say that i would do whether i had to or not.

all my dreams are exactly that. dreamer talk. wonderful things, if the world didnt exist the way it does.

i went to the barber shop and a man told me exactly what i wanted to hear. after a young man made me nostalgic. the fair is going on right now, and my birthday is coming up. like it used to, back in the 90's.

i paid 6 dollars today for the advice i hadnt found elsewhere. and i left feeling better about leaving work to try something different. another something i have always wanted to do.

i just dont like telling people things i wanna do because i feel like an ass when they dont work out.

you know... all i wanted was a pepsi. just one pepsi.