Jón Gnarr - The Pirate

The next day I went as usual to the meat counter in Glæsibæ. Of course, I took off my punk outfit before I arrived at the meat counter; I wore my rubber boots and put on my white apron. My hairstyle immediately attracted great attention and curiosity from the meat workers. People were surprised and asked why I had gotten my hair cut like this; many thought it was out of order while others laughed and thought it was funny. Before I knew it, Guðmundur, the store manager, turned up anxiously at the door. He stood in the doorway, and it was like he had totally lost any expression. I smiled happily at him.

“I got myself a mohawk.”

Guðmundur was clearly not as happy with my mohawk. He asked me to come back and talk to him.

“Why have you done this with your hair, Jón?”

I tried to explain to him that I was a punk, and it was a normal part of being a punk, that it was the fashion overseas; I tried to explain my case by saying that there was also a punk in Reykjavík who had a mohawk and that he was called Bjarni the Mohawk. I tried to point out that there wasn’t anything unusual about the situation. It was just fashion, and he was an old guy who didn’t get fashion. I was confident that I could explain it to him, but he just didn’t get it. I brought up various examples, told him about the singer from The Exploited and Wendy O. Williams, the Plasmatics’ singer. Guðmundur was silent and just listened indifferently to me. I finally fell silent. The silence became embarrassing. Guðmundur looked at me almost as if he felt sorry for me.

“Isn’t it okay?”

“Isn’t it okay?” he groaned. “Jón, Jón. What do you think the old ladies who have been shopping here for years, for decades, will say when they see you at the meat counter?”

I hadn’t thought about that. Would they care?

“Uhh, I don’t know.”

Guðmundur shook his head with a sorry expression and then went away. After that, I was taken off the meat counter and put behind helping the meat industry men. After lunch, I was moved down to the warehouse, where I was put moving boxes of bananas around. At the end of the day, Guðmundur asked me to come and talk to him in his office. There he sorrowfully announced that he could not have me at work anymore because of my hairstyle and so he was forced to get some other person to take over my job. He said he was sad about all this, but he made it very clear that he could not justify having me there anymore. This totally flattened me. I didn’t expect it. I always thought Guðmundur was a cool guy and so had thought he would just understand. But he did not understand in the slightest.

“You don’t need to come back, Jón.”

This was a huge disappointment. I’d been fired once again. And I had enjoyed it so much there and felt so good. I had even started to ponder whether maybe my path lay in the meat industry. It was a huge shock. I went away sobbing, got changed into my punk clothes and walked home, stooped down. I was totally devastated. I regretted having shaved my mohawk, and I knew full well that Mom would get angry. But then I also felt that Guðmundur was being unfair and annoying. I was extremely sad and depressed by it all. When I got home, my dad was sitting inside the kitchen listening to the radio and drinking tea. He was in high spirits and said:

“Well, well, how are you?”

After all the disappointment and tension, I broke down and began to cry. My dad was quite taken aback.

“My dear child! What is the matter?”

“They fired me from the meat counter at Glæsibæ,” I sighed between sorrowful sobs.

“Now, now, why?” he asked, surprised.

“Because of my haircut.”

Dad looked at my haircut but didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with it.

“Because of your haircut? What is it about your haircut?”

“They feel that it just isn’t okay,” I answered and wept.

My father had often said and done things that seemed strange to me and was probably the strangest man I’ve ever met in my life. But what he did next, I have always felt was the weirdest thing he ever did. He stood up and said:

“Clean yourself up and come with me.”

He got his coat on, and we went out in the car and he drove me out to the Suðurver mall. He had clearly already decided on a plan but didn’t tell me what it was. He killed the engine right outside, opened the door, and told me to come with him. He went straight into the hair salon. The hairdresser came over to us with a curious expression.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. Don’t you have a wig for a kid like this?”

The hairdresser looked at me.

“Yes. What happened to your hair?”

I explained mohawks to her and punk and everything. She had me sit in a chair and brought over a few wigs on plastic heads. Dad chose a thick, reddish brown wig with heavy and large curls.

“This is exactly what his hair was like!”

The wig was nothing like my hair. The hairdresser put the wig on my head and combed it. My father was delighted, but I was skeptical. He was so happy on the way back he hummed the whole way. He felt he had apparently solved the problem very well. Maybe this wasn’t such a stupid idea, after all? Maybe this was absolute genius? This way, I could continue to work at the meat counter, but also be a punk. I would definitely reconsider things; Dad had grown in my opinion. The next day I turned up at Glæsibæ undeterred and revitalized; I went right into Guðmundur’s office with the wig in place, excited and full of expectation. Guðmundur was sitting at his desk and looked up when I walked through the door:

“Hi, isn’t this good?”

Guðmundur looked at me with amazement and sadness in his eyes. After a while, he said:

“Poor Jón. And I had such high hopes for you.”

So ended my career as a meat industry person.

In the spring it came out that I hadn’t been going to the school and hadn’t learned a thing. Mom had talked to the principal.

“Why don’t you attend school, Jón?”

I hated that damn school. I hated the building and everyone inside it. I hated the whole damn group. The principal was hateful and the teachers all idiots. I was apprehensive about going there. When I walked onto the school grounds, I got a knot in my stomach. I felt like I was suffocating. Most of all, though, I despised the Morons who always hit me and bullied me. I’d rather die than go to school. I feared school more than anything else. I felt like there was nothing for me at school. It wasn’t there to teach me anything I was interested in learning, and what I was interested in wasn’t taught there.

“They’re always teasing me,” I muttered. It meant nothing to my mom. She didn’t get it.

“Just stop talking to those kids.”

Stop talking to them? I never spoke to them. They just followed me upstairs. I intended to never go there again.

“I’ll never go back to that damn school,” I said, resolutely.

“What do you plan to do, then?”

I wanted to go away — anywhere at all, far away from everything — to start over where no one knew me.

“Can’t I go to some boarding school?”

“A boarding school? What boarding school?”

I had met a few kids who went to Laugarvatn. It seemed like an extremely enjoyable school.

“I always wanted to go to Laugarvatn.”

Mom shook her head.

“You can’t go to Laugarvatn. It’s too close to Reykjavík.”

I didn’t know anything about it. I had no idea where Laugarvatn was, whether it was near the city or not. It could very well be out west or far east. But the kids who went there were happy, and no one beat you up.

“Whatever, I’ll never go back to this crappy Réttarholt School. I hate it. Can’t I just skip school?”