The Renegade Age

Back around (in a sort of way) after my birthday weekend. I am now old enough to only have a couple of candles on my cake. I am old enough to check a different box on retail surveys and sweepstakes entries. And I am now the age of the women that used to fascinate me when I was just a young sh*t-job worker. They were in their thirties but young I guess, young because they were single or single moms, or young because they had nearly the same job I did in my teens and early twenties. I liked hearing their detailed stories about frightening things like chest hair and cheating ex-husbands during our lunch breaks. They seemed liked outlaws, complaining about things (like their children) that people too afraid of god would never mention. 

A big blonde ex-hippy used to work across from me at a small parts factory and tell me about the tv she watched the night before and the Led Zeppelin concerts she used to go to and the twenty-five cent raise that the manager promised her months ago. And then there’s the crew of partying smoked-out waitresses at the highway restaurant (where I worked hours that later got the manager cited for child labor infractions) that constantly talked about putting their lazy children to work on house and car repairs. So many repairs!

But my favorite was the twitchy bar-weathered hairdresser at the mom-and-pop salon where I answered phones and stocked shampoo. I think the owner hired her because they needed another pair of hands for back-to-school cuts. After overhearing a few of the stylist-to-client conversations, I knew she was not a good fit for our salon culture. This was a place where gentle senior ladies from the surrounding towns came in on Thursdays and Fridays to get their hair set. Teresa, actually her real name now that I think about it (and I have to use it because it might be the most descriptive detail I have about her) anyway- Teresa would slip kids a bit of Manic Panic on the way out the door even though their parents brought them in specifically to look as conformed as possible because there were SCHOOL PICTURES coming up and everyone knows school pictures are meant to document the influence your mother had on your style over the years. Teresa came to work late every day – like clockwork, had a boyfriend that never called her, didn’t particularly know how to cut hair (I saw more than a few botched Rachel cuts), wore faded black cotton clothing, and got these facial peels (more exotic than you can possibly imagine for the area) that would make her look like she was on fire in the face nearly all the time. Truly. Like she had been pulling pizzas out of a 800 degree oven and using her cheeks for oven mitts. Skin would hang off her face and she would pick the bits off between clients and tell me about her “newer, fresher skin” that was about to appear. She called me at home one day and said that the salon owner had fired her. She wanted to talk about it and I was so shocked and flattered that I did. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about but looking back I am appalled and embarrassed (for her) that she used me for information. It was no different than the kind of endless repetitive gossip-tinged analysis that I’ve been participating in since kindergarten, so I count that moment as one of many. I never got to see her newer, fresher skin because she never showed up again. And that is what I was fascinated by, being someone who grew up in a town where people stayed and stayed the same - these chicks were ghosts, shapeshifters, renegades.

I can only hope I am old enough now to impress someone with a life as unglued as my face.