Mom stopped me. “Stark McClellan.” She said, “You are not leaving this house looking like that.” And I knew what that meant. Dad glared at me. “You look like a goddamned bum.” I stopped at the top of the basement stairs. Mom came out of the kitchen, holding her backwards cigarette in one hand and the electric hair clippers in the other. A green extension cord dragged behind her. “Take your shirt and undershirt off and go get the broom.” I hated when she gave me haircuts. * * * I stood, stripped to the waist on the front porch, listening to the sound that came around that one side: the insect buzzing of the clippers, fascinated at how Mom could smoke a cigarette without using her hands at all; one hand held my head steady, while the other swept the teeth of the clippers up, up, up—mowing from the bottom of my neck, around that one ear, and over the dead spot on the right side of my skull.
