The Hope That Is Not Hope

Does this non-story continue?  A hapless man, beginning to suspect a genetic connection to poor Estragon, waits without hope for a rapping at the door, for an envelope to drop through the mail slot, waiting, waiting for the thing that will not come.  But Estragon's heir is alone, unlike his distant uncle who had Vladimir to berate him.  I am luckier than that, he thinks, preferring for now the solitude.

Yes, it is true.  I come home and sneak around my house like a criminal about to be caught in the act looking for something that might be missed.  It used to happen.  It used to occur.  A note left on the seat of the open Jeep, something fragrant and thrilling.

But creep as I may, there is only the rubble of a once interesting life.  I look around me and notice the things left unnoticed for so long.  What hope is there, I think, of ever restoring things to their former glory.

But life goes on in its usual way.  Last night, I kept my appointment for a hair cut.  "Look at me," I exclaimed when I walked in, "am I not beautiful?  My hair is so rich and lovely, don't you agree."

"Yes, it is wonderful.  You are lucky," said the petite Russian Jew who has been cutting my hair for years.  She was working on another client, so I lay down on the awful bench that invites you to go elsewhere.

"So. . . what have you been up to," she said in that beeoootiful voice that I so love.

I find myself telling her the story I have been telling you, but with a storyteller's dramatic pauses and inflections and the innate ability to feel how well the story's going and to make the subtle changes needed to hold the listener's interest.  And with each woebegone turn of the tale, whenever I became my own luckless victim, there was appreciative laughter.  I felt good and warm there lying on the bench with two small pillows bunched up beneath my head.  And tale told, I was quiet and listened to the chatter that resumed about me.  It is as near heaven as I get, lying on that bench half-forgotten listening half consciously as I begin to relax until I truly fall asleep.

"Wake up, it's time to cut your hair."

I always worry that perhaps I have been snoring as I wipe my mouth to see if I have drooled.  Sleepily, I follow her to the back room to sit in the tilting chair before the sink.  I hear her testing the water temperature, then feel the warm wetness that is so chilling and erotic.  And now it is her turn to talk as she shampoos my hair like a mother washing the hair of a child.  She tells me about going to see a Chelsea Lately concert with her husband and being surprised that the tiny Asian girl sitting in the seat next to her laughed so hard during jokes about oral sex.

"I thought she was a child," she says.  "You know, you cannot tell the age of Asians."

I love ethnic talk with "others."

We talk about looking Jewish.  She is dark, but she thinks of Jews as having red hair.

"Really?" I say.  I have dated several Jewish girls.  With one from a very prominent family, I played "Jew or not a Jew" from the old Saturday Night Live skit.

"Oh, yes, I play that with my husband.  He does not believe that I can pick out who is Jewish or who is Russian."

"That's easy," I say.  "My old girlfriend upped the ante and would identify them by region.  'Boston Jew, Philadelphia Jew.'  Picking out the Russians is easy.  Can you tell other middle-eastern peoples from Israelis?"

"Oh, absolutely.  Palestinians I can tell right away.  My dentist is Palestinian.  I love her.  But when I asked her where she was from, she said, 'Jerusalem.'  A Jew would say Isreal.  Palestinians have a different nose."

"How so?"

"You know, they have the big hump in it."

"I thought that was Jewish?"

"When I was young, I used to tease my sister that she had a big nose.  She would always tell me my ears stuck out.  But as I got older, she began to tell me, 'Look, your nose is growing, your nose is growing!'"  She looked at me and laughed.  "It is difficult for me sometimes to tell an Italian from a Jew," she said.

Now I can pass for either most times being dark and having a prominent nose myself.  I am German and Dutch (what the hell's the difference), but you know those Moors made their way up and had their way for quite some time.

"Why don't you date Russian women," she asked me as if I had some rule against it.  So I played along.

"Too mean," I said.  She laughed because she knows the truth in that.  "Nordics are too cold," I continued.

"What do you want, some romantic woman?"

"Yes," I said as if I couldn't believe she needed to ask.

"What culture is that?"

"The ones that aren't so pretty," I said, and she squealed and gave me a high-five.  The gay fellow in the corner got up and began to do a little dance.

"I don't know what love is," he said to me.  "I only have self-love."  Since I am not aware of his situation, I didn't know if he was saying that because of a broken affair or if he didn't believe in love.

"You have to be practical," said the Russian Jew.  "Love always ends badly.  It is painful.  You have to think of other things, too."

"I'm going to see a Moslem women on Wednesday," I said.  "She's from Africa, but she is Indian."  For some reason this seemed to throw everyone for a loop.

"What does she look like?"

"Indian."

"What color is she?"

"You know."

"Is she dark?"

"Sort of."

"From Africa?"

"Yea, but she's Indian."

"Seems like she would be dark."

"She's not really Moslem," I said.  "Her family is."

"There," my hair dresser said, pulling my cape away.  I looked into the mirror.  I am always terrified of haircuts.  It seems I always get the odd ones when it is most important to look good.  I want to look good over the holidays as I hold out hope (oh. . . ) for some miracle.

The hope that is no hope.  I'll tell you about that sometime.  But now I must get ready.  It is the weekend.  Anything might happen.