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Hair tells family secrets, like lips and skin:
my chestnut1 curls and waves that intractable thicket—one month‘s tropical growth— Mamá called maleza de manigua, jungle scrub. What will the neighbors think? Locked in the bathroom, I brushed hard against the grain—pig bristles2, nylon quills3, chrome needles, nothing tamed my guava bush, not even the wire brush I rubbed sores with Mamá‘s alcohol bottles to disinfect the house of ghosts)。 Prune6 this wild boy, Mamá told the barber as she pulled my hair, grimacing7, red fingernails drawing blood. Cajoling the cranky pedal with grease, Luis el barbero pumped up the chair he‘d bought at a Hialeah junkyard, strop stained by rain; la barbería squeezed between a butchershop and cigar factory— "America, Love It or Leave It" macramé nailed above hooks where viejos hung canes8, Panama hats. I slumped9 angrily, shoe kicking foot rest, hands clenched10 under white shroud11, plastic Virgin12 Marys scowling13 at me for hating Mamá。 Luis thinned the bush with toothed shears14, straight razor hacked15 outer growth as Mamá reminded him my abuelos were Spaniards—her Catalan father‘s eyes between gray and blue, Roman nose, his brother‘s hair just like mine, curlier even. Tío Octavio looked Semitic, Mamá said, you‘d think he was Henry Kissinger. Fat and bald, back hairs brushed up like cockatoo‘s crest16, Luis shook his head, eyebrows17 raised, smiling like someone who‘s heard this before. Any hair‘s better than none, se?ora, any hair 点击收听单词发音
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