We Don't Want Your Kind Around Here.

Brian asked for a haircut today. He wanted a trim, the back and sides faded up to just below where his scars are.

I've cut his hair before but never asked about them. For some reason, I thought the scars on his head and down his neck were from a bad motorcycle accident.

No, he said.

The divots in his scalp came from a college brawl. Some guy wielding a shovel handle came up behind him and knocked him out. I saw stars, he said, and that was it.

Brian's hair is Indian black, but as I carve away, grey hairs appear. The scars hidden under the long hair on top are white.

The reddish scar on his neck looks like it should have been fatal, a long, twisted gouge from his ear down to his collar bone. 

He was walking with a girl friend along the river. A man with a knife came up and said, we don't want your kind around here.

I was lucky he stabbed down instead of slashed, Brian said. The knife caught his external jugular and he was able to pinch it off. Help arrived quickly and soon he was being stitched up in the ER.

Did they catch the guy, I asked?

They didn't even look, he said.

I pulled off the drape and shook it out. You look like an anchorman, I said.

He did. An anchorman who'd been through a war.