The Barbers of Torremolinos

Shortly after we arrived in Spain our son Eric and his friend, Victor DeGroot, stormed into the maid’s quarters, a tiny room of our house where I had set up my writing shop. It was a good room in which to write. It was so small you couldn’t do anything else. You’d bark your knuckles shaking martinis.

The two boys were livid, enraged. They verbally fell over each other trying to tell me their sad story. It seems that they had been riding a motor scooter the wrong way up a one-way street. Something junior high school boys do all the time. Suddenly the cops stopped them. The boys expressed their indifference to receiving a ticket but were taken aback when the cops expressed their indifference in writing them one.

They said writing a ticket to the children of rich foreigners was pointless because their foolish fathers would simply pay it for them. Instead, the police said that if they caught Eric and Victor being bozos again, they would CUT THEIR HAIR! And no razor cut hair style, either. Buzz cut.

The boys both sported shoulder length hair. Eric’s was straight and blond. Victor’s was dark and curly. Both boys were outraged. They were sure their civil rights were being violated. I wanted to point out that as foreigners living in Spain, we didn’t have very many of those, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Finally they paused for breath. “Can they do that, Dad?” Eric asked.

“Do it?” I replied. “I’ll help them. I’ll sharpen their scissors.” The boys stormed out in anger and resentment. That was good. The cops got the boys’ attention. Let’s hear it for anger and resentment.