Sexy and Spiky

Photo by Getty Images

 

“I need to get my purple hair shampoo,” Alice announces to all of the women in the shower. In the Kennedy High pool locker room, after a surprisingly calm swim for a Sunday, I am trying to get warm, letting the hot stream of water cascade over my back.

            “Does it really turn your hair purple?” I holler after Alice as she shuffles back with the large plastic bottle, which is indeed, purple.

            “It’s not really purple,” she chuckles. “Well, you know…like it’s blue, you know what I mean?”

            I think of old ladies, their grey hair tinted blue. Have I seen this? Or is it just from the movies?

            “My hair used to turn green,” I comment to L, another swimmer to the left of me in the shower.

            “Oh, I loved it when the boys had green hair!” she exclaims. “It was all sexy and spiky.”

            I nod, laughing, thinking how my own green hair was just slimy and shiny. Sexy? I doubt it, but who thinks they’re sexy at 14? How can I even remember being 14? But I do remember the green hair. How in order to get it out, we’d have to douse our heads with tomato juice. Pouring thick red goo on to our heads. Me and my sisters giggling and laughing. “EWWWWW! It smells so bad!” “Nah!” my sister, P, would refute. “It’s like our heads are pizzas!” “Gross!” our little sister, L, would wrinkle her nose. Not having blonde hair, she didn’t have to undergo the tomato sauce regime to remove the chlorine sheen.

            Tomato juice was used for other untoward situations. I remember one of our dogs getting sprayed by a skunk. The stench was hideous. Potent and nauseating. The dog, of course, had just been chasing the skunk, but the skunk as skunks will do, hadn’t cottoned to this. Hence the spray. We’d take the dog into the shower, my mom drenching it with tomato juice, emptying cans and dumping them on the dog. Rubbing it in. Then rinsing. Repeating this several times. Then, after all the stench was removed (as best it could be), it was time for the Suave Green Apple shampoo. The dogs loved the results afterward. Prancing around the house, the odor of green apples wafting throughout the house.

       

     “Do you want to try some?” Alice asked another grey-haired woman in the shower.

            “Sure,” she said.

            “Aren’t you afraid of having purple hair?” I asked.

            She shook her head, “That’s okay.”

            My shower mate grinned, “I once tried to dye my hair, but it was too dark. We bleached it first, but still it wouldn’t take. I always wanted blue hair.”
            “Blue is my favorite color!” I exclaimed.

            “Exactly!” she said, turning off the shower, wringing her suit, gathering up her various hair product bottles, long toothed comb, and razor.

            Rinsing out the shampoo, I thought about the green hair of my youth. Swimming was an everyday activity. Green hair just went with the territory.

            Now?

            I wring out my hair, feeling the slimy wetness of it, glancing down at the ends.

            No green anymore. But maybe some blue? Or purple?

            “Hey, Alice,” I say, before leaving the shower area. “Do you bring your purple shampoo everyday? Maybe I could try some next time.”

            She laughs. Hearty and amused. “Of course! You’d look so cute with purple hair!”

Nodding, I think, she’s right. I would look cute with purple hair. I stand in the middle of the locker room, toweling off, listening to the chatter of the women. 

"Are you going to the march on Saturday?"

 "I'm thinking about it, are you?"  

"Swimming makes me so hungry. I'm ready to have me some Chinese!"

"Mmmm....you said it girl, let's ...."

Grinning,  I open my locker, pull out my clothes, and start to get dressed.