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Francine Witte, Poet and Fiction Writer

Thaddeus Rutkowski

Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of two novels, Tetched and Roughhouse. Both books were finalists for an Asian American Literary Award. He teaches fiction writing at the Writers Voice of the West Side YMCA in New York. His chapbook, "White and Wong" has just been published by BoneWorld Publishing.

For information about ordering books or hearing Thad read in person, visit his web site at www.thaddeusrutkowski.com.

From Roughhouse (Kaya Press)

ON MY HEAD

My first haircut was a flattop. I got it below street level, in a decrepit barbershop my father took me to. Outside, there was a kinetic red-and-white signpost. Inside, there were cast-iron chairs with leather strops hanging from their sides. The whole place smelled like scalps.

The barber used electric clippers on my head. Behind my ears, the clippers made my entire skull vibrate. Then the barber applied paste that made my head look like a bur. When I stroked my scalp, I felt fuzz, until I fingered the tuft in front.

I used a comb on my head, along with a large dose of goop. When I was finished, my head looked like a skillet.

Later, my mother gave me a trim. When she was finished, I looked like I was wearing a helmet that had failed to stop a grazing bullet.

For a long while, I stayed away from barbers of all stripes. My hair grew until it reached my back. I looked like Tonto, but I didn’t call anyone Kimosabe.

One day I saw some boys with Mohawk cuts. But these boys weren’t Mohawks; they weren’t even native Americans. They were just a couple of white boys trying to look like native Americans. Even so, I decided to get a brush of my own.

One night I went into a convenience store, and the cashier asked me, “What are you?”

I’m a boy,” I said, “I guess.”

“Seriously,” the cashier said, “I can’t tell.”

Using a mirror, I hacked my hair with hand shears. When I was done snipping, my face was uncovered, my ears were half-covered, and the back of my head supported a flip.

For my high-school graduation, I didn’t get a haircut. I let my black locks stick out from under my mortarboard hat. On seeing me, one of my teachers said, “That’s our young hair-raiser.”

One time, at a border between countries, a guard looked at my passport and asked, “Who is this? Is this a little girl?”

“It is not time for jokes,” I said in the guard’s language.”

“For me,” the guard said in my language, “it is always time for jokes.”

On another occasion, I walked through an airport and was stopped by two plainclothesmen. “Do you take acid?” they asked. “You look like you do.” They escorted me to a windowless room, where they searched through my pockets and shoes, but they didn’t find anything mind-bending.

I decided to let the hair on my face grow. Nothing sprouted, except for a line of stubble on my upper lip. Even so, my friends started calling me Stash, or Stash Man.

Later, a girlfriend talked me into getting a layered style and a body wave. After I got them, she said, “You look so good I want to have sex with you right now.”

Later still, I was invited to a “clipping party,” where men with short hair were getting their hair cut even shorter by a barber wearing Army fatigues. The sergeant/barber buzzed the clip-ees’ heads with electric shears. A man with a razor hanging from his belt stood nearby. He said his name was Bic. I flipped through a scrapbook of boot-camp photographs, but I didn’t sign up for a haircut.

One time I met a performer whose hair was shaped like a cylinder. The cylinder was about twelve inches high. I spoke to him, but our conversation had nothing to do with appearance. The next time we met, the cylinder was gone and he was wearing a hair net.

These days I go to a cutter who has hair that resembles my own. When he asks me what I want, I say, “I want my hair short in places but long in others. I want it long enough for a ponytail, but I also want to see bare scalp. I want words scored in the stubble. I want to wear ceremonial hair gear. I want to be stopped by cops. I want to be on television. I want groupies. I want a style among the top one hundred. I want to meet relatives. I want to be photographed with family.”

From Tetched (Behler Publications)

BELIEF SYSTEM

I believed that when I saw trees shake, I was seeing the force that made the wind blow, and that when the trees swayed faster, they pushed the air harder.

I believed that, with a piece of string, a dry chicken bone and an open range, I could be a cowboy with my own personal horse.

I believed that I was immune to electrical current, natural gas and solar rays, so I spent hours at outlets, at the stove and in the sun.

I believed that when I saw people shot on television, I was witnessing actual killing, and the actors must have been paid a lot to die.

I believed that I could parachute from a shed roof to earth, using only a cloth napkin held by its four corners to slow my fall.

I believed that I had to imitate my father and be different from my mother, because my father looked like the people around me and my mother came from a different tribe.

I believed that when my mother told me about children chasing, cornering and killing a red fox in the town where she grew up, she was trying to tell me what not to do.

I believed, when my father told me never to say, “Holy cow!” that I could avoid his wrath by saying, “Holy cats!” instead.

I believed that I would never learn how the other half lived through church services or Sunday school.

I believed that it would be tragic for my father to be executed for assassinating a political leader, his close friends or his immediate family, even though he often said he had to do so.

I believed that I had to choose between my parents, that I had to decide who was my favorite, in case one upped and left.

I believed that I should not ask for things, because invariably I would not get what I asked for.

I believed that if my penis turned out to be comparatively small, I could compensate by letting my hair grow long.

I believed that if my hair were long enough, I could hide behind my fringe and speak very little, if at all.

I believed that I was not tall enough to function normally in my given society, but that if I moved to Nepal, I could play on a basketball team.

I believed, when I was stoned on dope, that there was nothing more interesting than the concept of arm, save, of course, for the concept of leg.

I believed that I should refrain from heavy petting, because my sex cells were so potent they could travel through denim.

I believed that if anyone was making someone else’s life hell, I was not the one doing it.

I believed that I could enter a place that was warm, safe and suited to the reptilian part of my brain through self-suspension, self-flagellation and self-deprecation.

I believed that I could get along best with someone who had been assaulted as a child, but that, if I couldn’t find someone who had been, I would just have to go out and assault someone.

I believed that I could live with someone who did not sympathize with my obsessions, as long as I loved that person deeply enough, but I was totally wrong.