I was having my hair cut when a woman came in and asked to have her ears pierced. She sat down on the seat next to mine. I was staring straight ahead, looking at myself in the mirror, while the hairdresser went at my hair. So I couldn’t see the woman. She didn’t say much. The other hairdresser, the piercer, was humming a tune.
I had never seen anybody being pierced. But I remember that, when I was younger, it was the focal point of a huge amount of controversy. In the 1970s, guys were just beginning to get their ears done. My mother told me that, if I did it, my life would effectively be over. Nobody would give me a job. And if I took the earring out, potential employers would still see the scar. So I’d never get anywhere. I’d die a pauper’s death. Also, had I thought of the fact that I might get blood poisoning? Or that I might be one of those unlucky people whose ears became misshapen and never looked the same?
The hairdresser got a piercing gun out of the cupboard. I carried on staring straight ahead. I wondered if the woman would make any noise as the bolt pierced her flesh. She did not. All I could hear was the guy humming. The woman paid and left. It made me wonder what would have happened to me, if I had had my ear pierced. If it would have made any bloody difference at all.