Witch

Dominique is my barber. She dreams she is a witch. “It scares me,” she says. “I look like a witch. People stop me on the street and ask if I’m a witch. It must be my hair.” She fingers her witch-like hair. She lets them know she is no witch. “I don’t like the occult,” she says. “Me neither,” I tell her. “I believe in a spiritual dimension,” I say and she looks at me funny as though she thinks I really am into the occult. “Like full moons,” I say, “that kind of thing.” “Oh, full moons,” she says, reassured. “I go crazy in the full moons.” She shows me a note from a customer whose hair she cut the other day. The customer is a composer and invites Dominique to a performance of his work. It’s a dumb note. He condescends to her, telling how his works (which he says invoke France, her homeland) may bring a tear to her eye. We both laugh. I tell her I attract crazy people and just got some fan mail from a crazy person. “You look like the actor who played Jesus in that Zefferelli movie that was on t.v.” she says. “Yeah, people have told me that.” “I discovered what made him so strange,” she says. “What?” I ask. “He never blinked.” “So maybe I should blink a lot, keep the crazies away,” I say. “Yes. Blink all the time.”