The Accidental Mullet

Part V

“Short back and sides. Thanks.” Danny took his baseball cap off as he sat in the barber’s chair.

The barber ran his fingers through is hair and flicked it around a bit.

“No, no. I give you, business at the front and party at the back. Better on you.” The barber finally said in a heavy accent that Danny could not pick and struggled to understand.

“Pardon?” Danny had no idea what a business at the front and party at the back hair style was.

The barber shuffled off to the back of the store and came out with a book containing examples of hair styles.

“Dis.” The barber pointed at a picture.

“Oh, you mean a mullet.” Danny replied. “No, no I don’t think so. A mullet is not for me. Too 80s not my style.”

“80s no, no. How you kids say. All the rage.” The barber made the inverted commas gesture to emphasize his statement.

“No, no, just a simple short back and sides please. Nothing fancy. I work in an office.”

“Ok, ok. You customer.” The barber shrugged his shoulders, pulled out his clippers and scissors and started cutting Danny’s hair. Danny didn’t want to make small talk, so he opened the magazine in front of him and started reading.

“You like?” The barber asked with a rising intonation rather than a question word. Danny looked up.

“It’s a mullet.” Danny said with surprise.

“You like?” The barber asked again. Danny had been so engrossed in his magazine that he had not noticed that the barber had cut his hair into a mullet.

“No!” Danny shrieked.

“No panic, no panic. I fix.” The barber started up his clippers again and was just about to take the back off Danny’s mullet when the evacuation alarm started to sound in the building. The barber put the clippers down.

“We must leave.” The barber walked out the barbershop door, onto the street. Danny followed behind. The barber did not seem to care about customer evacuation best practice.

“No panic, no panic. Alarm happen, all time. Soon we go back. I fix.” The barber slapped Danny on the back just as a fireman walked up to the pair.

“I’m going to have to ask you two to leave the immediate area. We have a mains gas leak which has broken into a fire. It’s very dangerous to stay in the immediate area. Go to the barricades over there and the police officer will direct you further.”

Danny and the barber walked over to the barricades and were ushered out by a police officer. Their attempts to find out more information were lost in the panic of people running everywhere trying to either escape the situation or control it.

“Excuse me.” The barber tried to get the attention of an officer who was trying to hold the media back. “I need to get back in barber shop.”

“Nobody’s going back in tonight.” The officer said in a gruff voice.

“You come my house, I fix.” The barber shrugged his shoulders at Danny.

“I don’t have time now. It’s already after five and I need to go pick up my little brother. I’m taking him to the rodeo tonight.”

Danny was a big brother mentor at the local Brotherhood group. He knew what it was like to lose a father young, so he volunteered to help young boys who didn’t have a father figure in their lives.

“You come tomorrow, then Mr. Rodeo. All this mess gone.” The barber was pretending to lasso a fire hydrant near them.

“O.K.” Danny shook the barber’s hand and headed off through the crowd. He cut through Baden Park and on to the street his little brother lived on. He knocked on the front door, after a few minutes his little brother answered.

“Why’re you late?” before Danny could answer, Cody burst out laughing. “What is that for a haircut?” Cody was pointing at Danny’s head and doubling himself over in an exaggerated laugh. “That’s too street for a fancy office man like you.”

Danny made a fake laugh smile and wiggled his head sarcastically at Cody then grabbed his bag from him.

“Come on. We’re late.”

“That’s what I just said man. Not my fault.” Cody slammed the door behind him which prompted a half-hearted scold from his mother who was lurking somewhere inside.

“Wasn’t blaming you.” Danny tussled Cody’s hair.

“Don t’ touch the hair man.” Cody flinched away. “So why are you late? It better be good man. A kid like me has trust issues, I can’t handle being let down.”

“Gas leak in a building where I was getting my hair cut. We had to evacuate before the barber could finish. Hence the half-done haircut.” Danny pulled some gum from his pocket and offered Cody a piece.

“I got stuck on the wrong side of the evacuation scene and had to walk all the way round. Cost me 10 minutes.” Danny added. Cody’s body relaxed from his defensive position after hearing the explanation.

“Is that what all those sirens were about?” Cody asked.

“I guess so. There were a lot of cops and firemen around.” Danny pulled his car keys out of his pocket and opened the door for Cody. Cody got into the car and immediately changed the radio station to some gangster rap.

“We aren’t listening to that for an hour.” Danny changed the channel back to the classic station. “My car, my station choice.” Danny cut off Cody’s protest.

“I’m living amongst dictators.” Cody joked.

Danny and Cody spent the next hour talking about the rodeo they were going to see and other incidental life anecdotes and before they knew it, they were pulling up into the rodeo carpark.

The rodeo was amongst trees and shrubs in the middle of nowhere which added to the country feel and atmosphere. Men, women and children were dressed in cowboy hats and boots. Cody felt like he had stepped out of the car into a different world.

“I’m hungry.” Cody said as the smell of hotdogs and chips made his stomach gurgle.

“Let’s get a hotdog.” Danny walked over to a hotdog vender’s cart. “Two hotdogs please.” Danny fished around in his pocket for some lose change.

“Hello, what an honor to have someone of your caliber visit our little rodeo.” The hotdog vender said to Danny. Danny looked up puzzled. “Which events are you entering in today?” The vendor handed a hotdog to Danny.

“I’m just here to watch.” Danny replied, paying the vender as he took the second hotdog.

As Danny turned and handed one of the hotdogs to Cody, he noticed he was attracting a lot of attention from both the women and men folk. Cody shoved almost the entire hotdog into his mouth at once.

“You’re welcome.” Danny prompted. All Cody could manage was a mouthful of undecipherable mumble.

They walked over to the wooden fence of the bull riding ring, they lent up against the fence and watch several bull riders come out of the gates on wildly bucking bulls. Most of them didn’t last very long on the backs of the wild beasts. Occasionally, the crowd went wild as a rider managed to hold on for more than a few seconds. Suddenly, Danny felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see a large plump older lady smiling at him.

“Why I’ll be. It’s Billy Bob Bunt.” Before Danny could say anything, she had encased him in a vice like hug. “We’re so honored to have you at our little rodeo.” Danny looked confused. “Are you going to ride in an event today?”

“No, I hadn’t planned to.” Danny was trying to explain that he wasn’t Billy Bob Bunt, but the lady had already dragged him off to the riders’ yard.

“Look you all, who I found.” She yelled at a bunch of men milling about the yard.

“Oh, my Lord, it’s Billy Bob Bunt.” An older man took Danny’s hand and shook it.

“And he’s not going to ride!” The plump lady looked exasperated as she shared the information with everyone around her.

“Oh no we can’t have that. You have to ride lad. You can’t come all the way down here to our little rodeo and not ride for us.”

Danny was being carried along by a small crowd of men that had gathered around him and before he knew it, he was up on the bucking chute with a bull underneath him. Then to his horror they let the gate open, and the bull took off with him on top.

Danny held on for dear life, but his effort was not good enough. Bang he was on the ground with a pile of dirt kicked up in his mouth. Through his daze, Danny could vaguely hear the crowd around him screaming.

“Get up. Run.”

It was too late. The bull had lanced Danny in his rear end with one of his horns. Danny screamed in excruciating pain. A rodeo clown came out and distracted the bull long enough for two men to come out and help Danny scramble over the fence to safety.

Danny looked down and saw a blood-soaked rip in his jeans. The two men that helped Danny scramble over the fence helped him to the first aid room. A nurse came running over to him and ushered him to the examination table.

Danny gingerly laid face first on the table.

“What have we here?” The attendant started poking and prodding at Danny’s jeans and wound. “I’m going to have to get you to take your jeans off.” Danny carefully stood back up and delicately took his jeans off and laid face first on the table again.

“Ooaa, a little bit nasty but not too bad. I can patch that up. You’ll live but I recommend you go see your GP in the next couple of days just to make sure it’s healing nicely and there is no infection.” The nurse started cleaning the wound which made Danny squirm in pain.

“Oh my God. Did you see that? You were brilliant. That’s the best thing I have ever seen” Cody had popped his head through the door of the first aid room and chattered with excitement.

“How on earth did I end up on that bull?” Danny spoke through gritted teeth.

“No idea. It all happened so fast.” Cody was still buzzing with excitement.

“It’s like they mixed me up with someone else. Who’s Bill Bob Bunt.” Danny was still gritting his teeth.

“Only the most famous rodeo rider this country has ever seen.” The nurse interjected. “Now you mention it, you do look a little bit like him.” The nurse was covering Danny’s wound. “There done you can put your jeans back on.”

Danny stood up and put his jeans back on. He looked at the nurse. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was speechless. The nurse showed Danny and Cody a picture of Billy Bob Bunt.

“I don’t look anything like him.”

“I think it’s the mullet.” Cody said.

“That’s it, the mullet is going first thing in the morning.”

“I like the mullet it looks good on you.” The nurse replied.

Danny smiled as he thanked the nurse and started to leave but then he turned back. He stood there for a moment trying to build up the courage to ask her for her number. After everything that had happened, he was too embarrassed and left without asking.

“You should’ve asked for Lisa’s number.” Cody bumped Danny as they walked towards the car.

“Who’s Lisa.”

“The nurse.”

“How’d you know her name?” Danny enquired.

“Her name was on her nametag.” Cody smiled.

“Lisa” He whispered to himself. “I know.” Danny sighed looking at himself in the car’s side mirror. “I think, I’ll keep the mullet. It does look good.”

Back to Part I..............Back to Part IV............Continue to Part VI