I never saw this man’s face when I sat behind him on the train today, but his hair showed me everything I needed to know. It was combed back, closely cut and gelled into a kind of sleek, corporate perfection. It made me think of airport bars and stewardesses and cuff links and soft Hilton Hotel bathrobes and ads for expensive watches and the meaningful heaviness of a platinum American Express card. It didn’t matter that he got on at Kingsgrove and off at Wolli Creek and probably worked in a back-alley pawn shop and drove a beat-up Corolla. With his hair style he had succeeded in semiotics, and in my mind he was going somewhere grand and important.
