Bare Crowns

The buzzer on the dryer went off at 6:42, which meant Marcus would be at the door in eighteen minutes, and I still hadn't decided what to do about Dev's head.

I stood in the bathroom with the clippers in one hand and a towel in the other, staring at the four bottles lined up on the sink like soldiers. Lavender oil for Marcus. Tea tree for Jun. Nothing but water for Eli, because Eli claimed everything else made his scalp itch. And for Dev, the one I'd bought three weeks ago and never opened, a bottle of rosewater I'd found at the co-op on Delaney. It cost eleven dollars. I don't know why I bought it. I do know why I bought it.

The apartment smelled like the cornbread I'd made that morning, which was a mistake, because now the whole place felt like a Sunday when it was only Thursday. Jun was on the couch with his feet up, reading a paperback with the cover torn off. Eli was in the kitchen eating the cornbread straight from the pan with a fork, standing over the stove like he expected someone to take it from him.

"You're gonna burn those clippers out," Jun said without looking up. "You've been standing in there for ten minutes."

"Nine," I said.

"Same thing."

It wasn't. Nine minutes was thinking. Ten was stalling. There's a difference, and Jun knew it, which is why he said ten.

I came out and sat on the arm of the couch. The clippers were warm in my hand from being held too long. Outside, somebody's car alarm went off and then stopped, and a dog barked twice at nothing, and the city did what it always did in the late afternoon, which was hum to itself like it had somewhere to be.

"He's in a mood," Eli said through a mouthful of cornbread. "Dev. He's been in the bathroom since four."

"I know."

"You know why?"

I didn't answer. Eli wasn't asking because he didn't know. He was asking because he wanted me to say it out loud, and I wasn't going to give him that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Here's how it works in this house. Four of us, plus me, and every other Friday we do the heads. It started two years ago when Marcus got tired of paying forty dollars at the barbershop on 9th and said, why don't you just do it, you've got steady hands. Then Jun wanted in. Then Eli, who'd been growing his out since before I met him, said he'd let it go if I did it right. And then Dev, last, always last, because Dev does everything last, like he's checking the temperature of the water before he steps in.

They call me Master when we do this. It's a joke. It's not a joke. I don't know how to explain it except that when I've got the clippers in my hand and one of them is sitting in the chair with a towel around his shoulders, something shifts in the room. The air gets thicker. Nobody talks over me. And when I'm done, when I run my palm over a fresh scalp and feel the heat coming off it, I feel like I've done something that matters, even though it's just hair.

Marcus is easy. He likes the lavender oil and he likes to talk the whole time, about his job, about his sister, about the guy at the bodega who shorted him a dollar. I shave him down to the skin, slow, and he leans into my hand like a cat. Jun wants it fast. He wants the clippers cold, no oil, no ceremony, and he watches me in the mirror the whole time with this flat look, like he's daring me to mess up. Eli wants it uneven. He says a perfect shave feels like a lie. So I leave a patch at the back, always the same spot, and he runs his fingers over it afterward and nods.

Dev is the problem. Dev has been the problem since the day he moved in, which was a Tuesday, which was raining, which I remember because he stood on the porch with two bags and no umbrella and didn't ask to come in. He just waited. And I opened the door and he walked past me like he'd been there a hundred times.

Dev doesn't have a method. That's the thing. Every other Friday I ask him how he wants it and he says, whatever you think. And I say, that's not how this works. And he says, it is now. And then he sits in the chair and closes his eyes and lets me do anything, and I hate it, because I can't read him. I can read Marcus in a second. Jun I can read from across the room. Eli I've known since we were kids. But Dev sits there with his eyes closed and his hands folded and I have no idea if he's happy or bored or somewhere far away, and it makes me want to shake him.

The bathroom door opened.

Dev came out with his hair wet and pushed back, and he was wearing the gray shirt, the one with the hole at the collar, and he looked at me and then at the clippers and then at the chair, which was empty, waiting.

"Ready when you are," he said.

Jun turned a page. Eli set down the fork.

"Give me a minute," I said.

"Take your time." Dev sat on the floor with his back against the wall and pulled his knees up, and he didn't look at me again. He never looks at me again once he's said he's ready. It's like he's decided the conversation is over and the rest is my job.

I went back into the bathroom and picked up the rosewater. Eleven dollars. I unscrewed the cap and smelled it and it was too sweet, the way roses are when they're dying, and I put it back down and picked up the plain water instead.

"You okay in there?" Jun called.

"Yeah."

"You're doing the thing."

"What thing."

"The thing where you stand in the bathroom and don't come out."

I looked at myself in the mirror. I'm not a big man. I'm not a small one either. I've got a face that people trust, which has gotten me out of more trouble than it's gotten me into. My mother used to say I had a face like a closed door, which I never understood until I caught Dev looking at me one night across the kitchen table, and I realized he was waiting for me to open.

I came out with the water and the clippers and the towel. Dev stood up and walked to the chair and sat down, and I draped the towel around his shoulders and tucked it in at the back, and my fingers brushed his neck, and he didn't flinch, he never flinches, and that's the worst part.

"How do you want it," I said.

"Whatever you think."

"Dev."

"Whatever you think."

Jun closed his book. Eli wiped his mouth. The room went quiet the way it does when everyone knows something is about to happen and nobody wants to be the one to say it.

I turned on the clippers. They hummed in my hand, and I put my other hand on the top of Dev's head, and his hair was still damp and warm from the shower, and I stood there with the blade an inch from his scalp and I thought, this is the last time I ask.

"Rosewater," I said. "I bought you rosewater."

Dev opened his eyes. In the mirror, he found me. And for the first time in two years, he didn't say whatever you think. He said, "Why."