TOPLESS BARBER SHOP AN IDEA WHOSE TIME JUST HASN'T COME

Here's a goofy deal. Two entrepreneurs in suburban Chicago want to open a topless barber shop.

One question: Is this necessary in our lives?

Ronald Edwards and Edward Kurtz seem to think so. They know of no one else who has tried such a venture and admit to knowing nothing about hairstyling.

Their speculation centers on the successes of topless car washes and topless hot dog stands. They plan to charge $25 a clip, hire a bouncer to keep things under control and serve only men 18 and older.

Drop the top and there's no way to flop, they figure.

Figured wrong, according to me.

Hairstylists who have answered their vague employment ads have been either cool or red-hot (as in angry) when they learn the nature of the enterprise. Still, they will no doubt find a couple of women of acceptable skills to accept such positions.

Likewise, they will find a clientele of men whose taste for this type of novelty supersedes their desire for a nice trim. Going bankrupt while playing to the lowest common denominator is usually a tough trick.

Consider too that the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation might have something to say about the establishment and the remote chance it will adhere to licensing law provisions on "morals and decency."

All this aside, though, there is a fundamental flaw in the concept. It has to do with the nature of the hair business.

My hair is cut these days by a nice woman who tolerates my infrequent visits and endures my teasing sarcasm. We discuss mostly the tribulations of parenthood, never politics, religion or topics that might lead to arguments or hard feelings.

The nature of our relationship is not wholly different from what a person might have with a thoughtful bartender. You sometimes seek solace, sometimes empathy, always reliable service at a reasonable price. Only you don't want any drinks being served when well-honed blades are flying past your ears.

The key to this hair-cutting business is a customer's capacity to submit themselves to the control of some authority, and for that authority to understand they have the upper hand in the situation.

Though the customer holds the money, a hairstylist holds the scissors. The customer can withhold the money, but the hairstylist can goof up your head for a long time.

Nothing strips a person of their assurance more than ... well, stripping them. Who wants their hair in the hands of someone with flagging self-esteem?

If I owned a beauty school, here is the proverb I would affix on each diploma: Coiffure Equals Confidence. It would be my small contribution to the cosmological arts.

The barber shops I frequented as a child were nightmarish establishments where small-town conformity was sanctioned by the proprietor's limitations. Haircuts were administered on dual levels, short and shorter; all heads in the community looked essentially the same because they all passed before the same set of hands.

A maverick in those days wore a crew cut, which the barbers could pull off, but not gladly.

I think back on those days now in the way I think back on detentions and bad illnesses, musing queasily on the thought of being on the receiving end of some "cowboy tonic" and having an old guy who smelled of talcum rub the stubble that rose from my scalp and tell me, "Yer dun."

And enhancing this melancholy, if that is possible, is the image I now have, one that may disrupt my slumber in nights to come, of what these barbers would have looked like with their shirts off.