Tag Archives: hair

Legend of the Lost Follicles

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They were curly. They were jet black. They were about 4inches in length when stretched. At the tender age of ten I was quickly able to manipulate their direction by harnessing the power of the Comb; and so, like sheep to a shepherd they obeyed my every command. Back then I could boast having over a billion in my possession. Now I have barely a million left. What happened? Was this some kind of curse? Was this the evil work of my arch-enemy, Genetics? Today the silence is broken as I embark on a quest to discover what really happened to the follicles that once crowned my fertile scalp.

 From my second year at primary school I was the Lord of the Afro. I had a few worthy competitors but none could keep theirs as rounded and silky-soft like mine. I understand now why girls spent a long time in the bathrooms. I would admire my curly black locks and think, ‘Mirror Mirror on the wall/ Whose is the fullest fro of them all?’ And my imaginary response from the mirror was, ‘Yo dawg! You sport the meanest, bad-ass, afro on the f***ing planet!’. However, something went terribly wrong in my sixth year. It was an accident at the barbershop and it was an experience that I will never forget.

After school one fateful day I was escorted by mum to the guillotine. How I wish it was my head that was chopped off – that would have been quick and pretty painless. I sat in the black leather chair and watched as the female hairstylist cleaned the clippers she planned to execute my beloved possession. I remember my mum giving her specific instructions: ‘Make it low but not too low’. Ok, perhaps this could be likened to the How long is a piece of string – dilemma. It was a conspiracy and I think my mum and the hairstylist were in on it together. The mirror was so high up that I couldn’t see what the f*** she was doing. She was having some mindless gossip session with her colleague and I just watched chunks of fluffy black follicles rain down before my eyes…and the chunks got smaller and smaller until…my mum eventually came to my late rescue shouting, ‘WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON?’ I went from Gary Coleman to ‘Scary Old-man’ in 10mins flat. My mum said it wasn’t that bad but when I beheld the horror in the mirror I looked pretty much like…a dick, to be brutally honest. I found one of my dad’s golf caps and I tried it on to hide my baldness – now I looked like a dick with a cap on.

The next day at school would be a real test of my guts. Could I get away with wearing a cap throughout the day without being confronted by any of the teachers about it? Fat chance. I barely made it through the first hour of Mathematics when the teacher told me to take my cap off. I hesitated. He repeated it and promised to flog the living daylights out of me if I didn’t (and believe me, that guy could flog a dead horse back to life). I slowly reached for my cap and I after I took it off nobody really paid attention to the Long Division Technique on the blackboard. My classmates were jeering and pointing at my perspiring, glowing head. I don’t think I looked at anybody in the face for more than 3seconds that day. I didn’t go for recess, but that didn’t help. Some just stayed back to pick on me even more. I was called all sorts of names. It was the giggling and whispering amongst the girls that really pissed me off. I was a 4ft walking microphone…with arms.

Alas, my tale is far from over. My head would not remain a shiny, opaque crystal ball forever. My hair would grow back like Samson in the bible (and then I‘d push the pillars of my school building apart so that the concrete came crashing down on all those who mocked me!!! – nah, not really). I would regain my crown and join the big leagues again with Soul4Real, Craig Mack, Undercover Brother and The Nutty Professor…

Junior High – 2nd year…

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I.S.I (International School, Ibadan) was where I first learnt how someone could be under constant pressure…just about every single day of his/her secondary school life. And I’m not talking about pressure to excel above the pass mark (which, then, was about 40% in all subjects)…no, I’m talking about the pressure to be cool, ‘bam’, ‘hard’…if you were linked to any of these accolades back in the day then your ‘rep’ was off to a good start…supposedly.

 

Now the problem I had was that I didn’t fit the bill particularly. I had a small tennis-ball afro which wasn’t cool enough, overly smart shoes which weren’t ‘bam’ enough, and a group of friends I rolled with who were not ‘hard’ enough. As a ‘day’ student (i.e. a student who doesn’t reside in the school’s hostels during the term) I was already screwed because the ‘boarders’ (those students who do reside in the school’s hostels…) were automatically catapulted into ‘hard’ status. I don’t think I’ll ever know why.

 

Maybe it was because you’d see one guy wear a different pair of ‘pumps’, moccasins and Tims for 2 straight weeks – I was baffled! How could one kid have close to 14 pairs of shoes? But I soon learnt that boarders had a sharing culture – they exchanged just about everything. So of course you could seem to have so many clothes, shoes, schoolbags…oh my God…I just remember I had a hideous schoolbag.

 

It was called a ‘U.S army bag’ – Trust me, it didn’t look as cool as it sounded. It was the size and shape of a 14-inch box TV – perfect for those tons of textbooks which I carried but would hardly have to read. Mine was black with all the different colorful badge prints and miniature flag images. It even had an ID number, yet I didn’t feel anything close to being a boy scout. Instead, as I walked around the school grounds with the crushing weight of my backpack I felt like Quasimodo – the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

 

My cousin (the eldest of the three, who was in JSS3 at the time) used to make fun of me – at home and at school. We didn’t quite get on initially but during my stay at his mum’s place I started trying to emulate his style as much as I could. He was like the big brother I never had. He would help guide me through this transition from Pee Wee Herman to ‘Cool’, from Inspector Clousseau to ‘Bam’, and from N-Sync to ‘Hard’. First stop – the barbershop.

 

My cuz and I went to the local barbershop and said hello to the natives. I was corrected abruptly. Hello = Not cool. Hi = cool. What’s up = cool. How far! = Razz but way better than Hello. Anyway, I got into my chair and looked up at the charts to see what was on the menu. Skinned (Oh, HELL no!), Bobby Brown slant (not brave enough), The Punk (hmm, now there’s an idea!) It was a kind of square-cut with a puffed top (View pic: Kadeem Hardison a.k.a \’Dwayne Wayne\’ in teen comedy, \’A Different World\’ ). It was one of those I-love-my-mama-but-she-don’t-tell-ME-what-to-do haircuts. It commanded respect. I loved it. I got my first pair of Reebok pumps too. I even started wearing cologne (with a cologne-drenched handkerchief in my top pocket just for good measure).

 

I was ready to re-enter I.S.I with new a found sense of courage. At break time it was ‘cool’ to be seen having lunch with a (pretty) girl. After managing to save up a decent amount of pocket money I asked a girl to lunch, she agreed, and we took a pleasant stroll to the kiosks to get our soft-drinks and snacks. As I sat on a ledge with her I was excited because I could feel eyes on me…not hers, my peers. They were filled with awe and probably a little jealousy. I savoured this moment. But mid-way through my conversation I felt like either I had coughed up a fur ball or Barry White’s ghost was trying to use me as a medium to convey a message. Perfect! Just as I was trying to break my way into the ‘In-crowd’ my voice decided to break its way into Puberty.    

 

..xTx..