“So what are the plans for tonight?”, he asks me, wet­ting my hair in the wash­basin before work­ing the sham­poo into my scalp.

“Nothing much. My flat­mate has a friend over from back home, so we’ll prob­a­bly head out lat­er. Maybe the Honest Lawyer.”

It was a com­plete lie. Trolley was telling me about being at the Lawyer the night before, so it was the first thing that came to mind. Kate’s here, sure enough, but there were no plans.

Even though we share the same name, we live in dif­fer­ent worlds. Jeff looks like he’s been carved out of mar­ble, shoul­ders exag­ger­at­ed­ly broad with a stiff­ened super­hero gait. His facial hair is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly gruff but hand­some, always trimmed in way that shows he takes care of his appear­ance. The styl­ist who always has some form of colour in his hair, whether it’s spikes or high­lights or chunks, and looks like he could pass for any­thing between 20 to 30.

Once, after walk­ing me over to the hydraulic chair, one of the slim­mer ones that are found in salons instead of bar­ber­shops, we start­ed to dis­cuss the lack of decent met­al bands from Canada. I told him that I was look­ing for more Breach Of Trust songs online (Jeff has the two first albums), which prompt­ed him to ask, “You have a com­put­er?”, with­out a sin­gle pause of the sheers.

The ques­tion left me dumb­found­ed. It took me a few moments to real­ize that not every­one has a com­put­er, my bias com­ing from the fact that my friends all have one, being a grad­u­ate of comp sci. Almost every­one I know is also in an eco­nom­ic class to be able to afford such a lux­u­ry, with a lifestyle to actu­al­ly have a use for one.

Last time, he told me about run­ning out of dis­pos­able dish­es, not own­ing more than a pair of plates he received as a tip once, and a tea stained mug, both of which have fall­en into desue­tude. “I’ve nev­er liked to do the dish­es”, he flat­ly stat­ed.

In a reac­tionary man­ner, I asked him, “You don’t have a dish­wash­er?”, regret­ting the words the moment they came out of my mouth. “Oh god no”, was his insou­ciant reply, as if he’d have no use for it, even if he had one. As soon as I asked, I real­ized the insen­si­tiv­i­ty of my ques­tion, that not every­one would want a dish­wash­er, as strange as it seemed at the time. I’m at a point where I’d have a hard time liv­ing with­out one now, and an even hard­er time bring­ing a girl home, cook­ing a meal, and serv­ing it to her on paper plates. A dish­wash­er has become a neces­si­ty for me, sim­ply based on lifestyle, much like a com­put­er. Sometimes it seems like I spend my life on my com­put­er, and Jeff’s a per­son who lives com­plete­ly with­out one. If I told him I did­n’t have a car, I’m sure he would find it just as strange.

It was a star­tling real­iza­tion. I don’t know many peo­ple with­out a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty degree, with­out a long-term career or fam­i­ly plan. I don’t know any­one still liv­ing the bach­e­lor life, hap­py to go out every night, and eat off dis­pos­able dish­es. Jeff seems like a great guy, reserved until he feels out his clients, but friend­ly. I don’t know any­one like him, although I’m sure that there are many just like him.

And every time he cuts my hair, at the start of every appoint­ment dur­ing the rit­u­al wash­ing, he asks about my plans for the night. Usually I tell him the truth. Nothing. It’s a week­night, and I just worked a full day. That’s when he lets me know about his own plans, which gen­er­al­ly con­sist of going out and drink­ing in some form or anoth­er.

But that day, I lied. It was a Saturday, and who does­n’t have plans on a Saturday night? I only feel guilty about it now, after being able to under­stand where he’s com­ing from. It’s only fair that I’m as hon­est with him as he is with me.

Even if we do live two total­ly dif­fer­ent lives. Even if he may not under­stand.

A cou­ple emerged from two heavy doors at the National Arts Centre (Human Resources entrance) as I was on the 95 today, pass­ing down the Mackenzie King Bridge. One was a woman, very slen­der, who looked as if she was in her ear­ly thir­ties but was prob­a­bly in her late thir­ties. The man was what some­one would con­sid­er an appro­pri­ate match, being slight­ly taller than her, and dressed in the same half-casu­al jeans-with-over­coat style.

For a moment, they stood out­side the doors, appro­pri­ate­ly adorn­ing their shuf­fled coats and scarves accord­ing to the late win­ter weath­er. They looked as if they had emerged from the res­o­lu­tion of an emo­tion­al fight, or some very guilty sex in a broom clos­et.

Their first steps were almost lan­guid, but I could tell that it was­n’t a phys­i­cal exhaus­tion. They were pac­ing each oth­er out, wait­ing for the oth­er per­son to talk first, and their foot­steps were how they sub­con­scious­ly spoke to each oth­er. It was as if they both knew that they had done some­thing wrong. Whether it was inten­tion­al or not was unclear, but it was cer­tain that nei­ther per­son was more at fault than the oth­er.

They con­tin­ued walk­ing togeth­er, west­bound, with that slight dis­tance between them that’s reserved for cou­ples who are either try­ing to hide their phys­i­cal long­ing for the oth­er or try­ing to express their angry emo­tions. I could tell that the silence was com­fort­able, as nei­ther of them spoke, because there weren’t any right words to be said at that moment.

I watched them in fas­ci­na­tion as they con­tin­ued down the street with their hands in their own pock­ets. Each of them under­stood exact­ly what the oth­er was think­ing, but were hes­i­tant to say any­thing before know­ing how the oth­er felt first. When they spoke next, it would be in one-word sen­tences. Their faces showed how much they had been through togeth­er, and how much was at risk at that very moment.

But it was how their silence spoke vol­umes of how well they knew each oth­er that made me won­der if I would ever feel the same.

So, what I meant to say was that I got a hair­cut. Due to a series of bad expe­ri­ences, I gen­er­al­ly don’t trust women to cut my hair, but Josée is dif­fer­ent. She’s sar­cas­ti­cal­ly fun­ny, she’s cute (Trolley thinks her eyes stand out the most), and she does a great job with tex­ture. I also feel com­fort­able sit­ting in her chair, talk­ing or not, and don’t have to wor­ry about her think­ing that I’m try­ing to get in her pants (a wor­ry, due to yet anoth­er series of bad expe­ri­ences) because she’s not stu­pid­ly fuck­ing self-absorbed like so many oth­er girls are.

What I real­ly want­ed to talk about, though, is the dis­count she told the recep­tion­ist to give me. The dis­count came in the form of stu­dent rates, although I’m not a stu­dent any­more, and she knows this because we dis­cussed it dur­ing the tex­tur­iz­ing process. I’m not sure if she did it know­ing­ly and I don’t like to take advan­tage of any­one, but I also don’t want to men­tion the fact that I don’t deserve the dis­count in case she did it on pur­pose. I thought about it for a few days, and even­tu­al­ly decid­ed that she most like­ly act­ed out of gen­eros­i­ty, and the next time it hap­pens, I would leave her an extra tip so she could share in that gen­eros­i­ty.