I wrote about this a week or two ago, about the guy who semi-shouts, “Hello, friend!” as I make the 20-minute walk home after work.

He is one of the men from the subcontinent who sits on the benches along the inner road/parking lot … on the backside of the stadium where the Al Jazira Sports & Culture Club plays its soccer matches. Near the huge building that houses, as I understand it, two of Al Jazira club’s swimming pools. One for men, one for women.

Anyway, today was a day off. I needed a haircut and wasn’t willing to make the trek uptown to the old, busy neighborhood, where I had gone to a Bangladeshi place a couple of times.

I have been walking home, since the move to the Teeny Apartment in suburban Abu Dhabi. And I had seen, numerous times, something called the Silver Saloon for Gents. “Saloon” is local English for “salon” and “for Gents” is self-explanatory. No unisex barbering going on around here, thank you very much.

So, walking up the street, for a change …  and there is my guy, hanging out on the sidewalk. “Hello, friend!” he said.  And I thought, well, yes, this is about where I normally see him, and I said, “hello, friend!” back, at about the same time I saw the storefront for the Silver Saloon.

And one guess what happened next …

Yep. Turns out the “Hello, friend!” guy is a barber. At the Silver Saloon for Gents.

He followed me into the little three-chair barbershop and motioned towards the last chair.

It was one of those moments of confusion. “Has this guy followed me into the barbershop? No. Wait. He’s a barber!”

And it all made a bit more sense … that he would be sitting with a couple of guys on the bench just across the street, at 11-12 p.m. … because the place closes at 11, and the guys probably just go out and sit for a while.

Anyway, the guy is perhaps 30, a bit tubby, has tons of hair (which I like in a barber) is named “Ehtab” (I think; I didn’t write it down, and now I may have forgotten it. Maybe it’s Ehtam?) …

And he also is a good barber as well as a solicitous one. The first thing he did: Tune the TV above his station to an English-language channel. It was showing “The Mentalist.”

Turns out, “Hello, friend” is about the extent of his English. Which is fine. I demonstrated with my fingers what sort of length I was looking for, and off he went.

He gave me the cut (shears, then scissors, then straight-edge around the ears and at the nape of the neck) and then a wash, which I had never before been offered in this country. Nor was it, I think, available at the other two barbershops I’ve been in. The wash, that is.

Guys from the subcontinent (and I didn’t get around to asking him where he is from, but I’m gonna say Pakistan) take their barbering seriously. I am coming to believe it is one of the few luxuries among the Pakistani/Indian/Bangladeshi communities of men working here and sending money home.

The process seems to include a head rub/pounding/slapping, at the conclusion, which is refreshing. And salves and ointments you do not see in the States. Some of the men are in there for full shaves, and that is a long and careful process, as well, that involves hot towels.

Tonight, I got my haircut … and then Mr Ehtab palmed some sort of pink … alcohol? Soap? And rubbed it into my scalp. Can’t hurt, right? He’s got about 10 pounds of hair; he must know what he’s doing.

But then he took several gobs of a heavy gel out of a big tub. I was trying to read the label on it, and the name was something like “Lysol” (but clearly it wasn’t) … and rubbed that into my scalp, too. And it just sort of sat on my head like a helmet. It seemed as if it was fizzing ever so slightly. Meanwhile, Mr. Ehtab busied himself with cleaning up his tools, presumably to allow the goop (“with fruit essences”) to petrify on my head. (I had no idea what this was about; never seen it; maybe they do it at women’s salons?)

Then he pulled out the headrest on my chair and replaced it with a long and wide attachment that turned out to be  a sort of catch-basin for the water and cushion for my head, bridging the gap over to the sink. So, yes, a wash. Lather, rinse, condition.

I was in there for about a half-hour and the cost was 30 dirhams — or about $8.20. I tipped Mr Ehtab one third of the cost — or $2.70 … and now I have a neighborhood barber. We made introductions and exchanged phone numbers. Next time, I can make a reservation.

And when I see him and his friends on the bench at midnight, in a few days … I’ll respond to “my” barber by name. And hope I remember it correctly.