Dino is from small, neighboring town. “I’m just here for hair,” he says. “I’m not into all of that nail and facial stuff.” Dino is lean, fair-skinned and dark-haired. With his short sharp haircut and his clean-shaven face, he could be captain of the basketball team, or the all-star pitcher. He has a lot of nervous energy. He skids and skips along the checker-tiled floor in his topsider shoes and they go squeeeak, squeeeak. This makes him laugh a goofy laugh. He usually tries to sneak in under the radar, hiding out in the bathroom, reading the paper, or dashing out to check his BMX bike or skateboard, depending on what he brought with him to school.

“See, my buddy in town, his family owns a barber shop. I started hanging out and after a while, I was doing little things to help – sweeping up hair, straightening the magazines. And I started to think, ‘Hey, maybe I should be a barber.’ I mean, it’s pretty cool listening to the old guys telling their stories. Like, you can just hang out all day with guys!” He laughs a little nervous laugh. “Too bad I have to come to bee-yoo-tee school,” he says. “I mean, why can’t there just be a barber school?”

Adam, the third boy of beauty school, is mostly bored. “I could have gone to any college I wanted,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I had a four-point-oh and did lots of activities. But here I am, wasting ten thousand dollars to do stuff I already know how to do.” Adam is a chameleon. One day his hair is jet black. The next it is platinum. One day he wears clam diggers and white Adidas sneakers with baby blue stripes. His calves are smooth and tan between the hem of the clam diggers and the edge of his ankle socks – too tan for February. Another day, he wears a fabulous denim patchwork suit – trench coat jacket, bellbottom pants, a black fisherman’s turtleneck and black platform boots. He always has perfectly curled and lightly mascara-ed eyelashes. He looks doe-eyed and dreamy all at once. “I mean it’s such a waste of time! I have friends at really good salons here in town and I can learn so much more just hanging out with them.” He raises his upper lip in disgust as he looks around at A’ Art. He puts his hand on his hip. “I’m just here ‘cause I gotta get a license. I already know what I’m doing.” And as he wields his shears and passes over a head of blonde hair with the Redken heat set, I believe him.

BOBBIE WILLIS (LNF/ UO 2001) is an award-winning essayist and a staff writer at Eugene Weekly.