'Heartbreak Haircut'

Ricky Garni

When I broke up with Leona, my hair was short, over the ears.

When I broke up with Tina, my hair was really long, and I put it in a pony tail. Sometimes I was a little embarassed about doing that!

When I broke up with Angie, my hair was in a little bowl cut. This nice lady cut it that way for me–she was a Marine and carried a gun everywhere, even when she cut hair. I haven’t seen her in a while. Her name was Angie.

I did not break up with Ginger. She died. She was my dog. I miss Ginger.

When I broke up with Susie, I was completely bald. It’s easy to explain why–I decided it was a time for a new beginning.

Walking through the thicket, and hearing the honking sound of the geese as I looked at the crimson maple leaves as they fluttered down into the lake is what I did when I broke up with Sally, my Sally.

When I broke up with Ginny I dyed my hair the color that Egyptians used to color their hair: red. I called her ‘Virginia’ because she really hated that, Ginny did. Virginia did. It’s funny how some people hate things that aren’t really worth hating–life is too short to hate! Suck it up, Virginia.

When I broke up with Angel I ran as fast as I could with my golden hair flying in the breeze until I finally got to my apartment and then I put a big dresser up against the door because I knew that Angel loved to kill people with knives.

When I broke up with Susie. Oh wait. I already told you about that.

When I broke up with Christie my hair was in little ringlets like Marie Antoinette. It’s astounding that I broke up with Christie and that she didn’t break up with me because of my ringlets.

When I broke up with Eleanor my hair was cut in the fashionable ‘Beatle’ mop-cut of the day–wait–I never went out with Eleanor. It’s the Beatles on the radio. I always hated that Eleanor Rigby song that everybody else in the world seems to love. I bet Virginia loves it. It’s a dumb song and it does not pull at the heart strings of me.

I will never forget the look of Susie’s eyelids as they covered her eyes when she slept which was a time that I could stare at her for hours. I will never know why I broke up with Susie.

When I went to get my haircut, it was so short that it did not go in my eyes when I broke up with Cathleen at dinner when I threw a glass of water in her face which I did as a joke, but she said I meant it, you never know.

It is only perhaps true that ‘Virginia’ was named after the Native American ‘Wingina.’

Life is too short. Speaking of which, I think in another life I dated a woman named Lucy. The thing is, what is interesting is, we never broke up. We both died. I wrapped my hair around her, silky smooth and leonine, and she wrapped hers around me, luxurious in length and blondish, and we floated into space the way people do in eternity throughout galaxies of stars that seemed to swirl around us in a conveyance of surreal indigo swirliness.

When I broke up with Susie–who am I kidding? Susie broke up with me.