I first came across the barber of Balestier some months ago, but he was not at his studio then. He was still nowhere to be found the next few times I passed his salon, which occupied a five-foot way by a shophouse in a sleepy corner of Balestier Road. A single reclinable chair faced a mirror strung on a nail; flanking the centrepieces were good luck charms and a table of stainless steel tools. His trade is no longer a lure, but there was always a little tank of orange platies and green water against the wall, its top secured by a slab of styrofoam weighed down by a clock and cutesy ornaments.
A sign on the wall indicated that Ah Lim rests on Sundays, but it would seem that he clocks in (or emerges from a nearby kopitiam) only when patrons ring him for their regular snip and shave. His primary equipment is little different from those of the Malay gentlemen who cut my stripling hair from a shop now abandoned and falling apart: sturdy pairs of scissors, handy electric clippers and a switchblade that awaits the wet strokes of a stubby brush.
Serendipity struck just a week ago when a stroll in the neighbourhood and the turn of a corner yielded the sight of a taciturn pair; a hoary old man lay on the seat with a white sheet on his chest and foam on his chops, while a younger uncle with a proud mop sharpened his knife on a leather strop. "Don't take my picture!" muttered the customer, who had neither the leverage nor leeway to protest, being constrained by swift movements that stripped his chin of stubbly bits. His vendor was rather more convivial, revealing his origins in a small town by the western coast of the peninsula.
"Have you ever been there?" he asked.
"I haven't had the chance."
"The seafood is good there. Pangkor is nearby too."
He had set up shop in this nook of town about eight years ago, having earned his stripes in other estates while nursing the desire for independence and all its hazards. To another interrogator, he had revealed a life of modest dreams and minimalist goals, the raising of two sons to near adulthood by himself and a spouse who served hotter cuts.
For a while, it had seemed that semi-itinerant establishments such as these had cornered a small but viable niche in the market for a trim, but of late, even outfits in stuffy cubicles tout crops at untenable rates. These apprentices also perform the act at speeds that risk the cutting of throats and hint at the pressures (or paucity of relief) that prevent some from savouring more than a few minutes of crisp, clean clips.
But for now, Ah Lim seemed content to chat as he swung around the chair, blades in hand and eyes wide shut to almost all else but the skin between the teeth of a comb and the touch of a shear. I noticed the aquarium was now dry and stuffed with implements of plastic. What had killed the fish and drained the table of a slice of life that sparkled when their master was wanting? I decided against asking, lest the query raise unsolicited hackles and cause the man on the seat to suffer the pain of quivers that would add salt to his state of volitional infirmity.
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