Barber Shop
by Charles Keortge (2011)
The town barber shop has long been know as a place to swap stories and to light-heartedly complain.. Two years ago after moving to a different house I found myself still in need of a new barber. I set about looking for a new person who could meet or exceed the minimum standards that I had set.
I tried a franchise shop. Hair Choppers, or something like that. I think I went three times. It was operated by young women with pink and purple hair who, in less than five minutes turned me around and pushed me out the door.
I saw what I thought was a more traditional place but when I finally found him open I also found him basically disinterested in cutting hair. Just as the soldiers from WWII whose photos hung on his walls were now disinterested in fighting a war. Who could blame him after 60 years?
My hair got long and I kept up the search. Then I found Get a Hair Cut. Where are you going? I’m going to Get a Hair Cut. It took me a while to catch on. The first time I went was in October and I found it decorated in rubber heads with plenty of fake blood. But I got a good hair cut at a fair price and so I returned. I tried all of the three barbers and I settled on the tall one with the pony tail and tattoos. He is one of the nicest barbers I have ever been barbered by. He is pleasant, intelligent, knows how to listen, and knows how to talk. He has to be excused for not using a razor but then no one does with AIDS lurking around the slightest scratch..
I always wait for him even it means 20 minutes extra. I tip him more than most. I enjoy my time. Read a few magazines and listen.
Today was my day at the barber shop
When I arrived the place was full. The three barber chairs were humming and clipping. The waiting customers wondering if they would get called in the order they had arrived. I did what I usually do. I found a chair next to the magazine rack and looked for something to read. To my left was a young woman with sun glasses who didn’t look up. On my far left was a man I really didn’t notice.
But then it all changed.
The barber chair to my right finished with a little boy and the fellow on the left who had been on deck was up to bat. As he moved toward his appointed place I couldn’t help but notice that he was a thin young man who seemed to be stripped of his muscles and that he was pushing a walker. He climbed up in the chair and the woman manning the station
listened while she went to work.
In a few minutes he was telling her, and that meant all of us in that small shop, about how he had found out that he had Lou Gerhig’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He moved chronologically from when he first had trouble moving and how he fell out of the bed of his pick up truck and finally went to the doctor and ended up in a research hospital and that he had about six months to live and that he had a wife and children. He joked about how he had a celebrity’s disease but was no celebrity. I had left my cap in the car and so he glanced at me and commented that he would much rather be bald than to have ALS. I tried to smile back and said that I agreed. It was a weak smile. He made his way down from the big chair and walked his walker out the door. His neighbor who had provided transportation stayed behind and told the barber that his friend was not expected live much more than two months.
The barber, who suddenly realized that she was one of the main actors in this drama, playing to a small audience, explained to us that we had missed Act One and that the young woman who had been sitting next to me, whose boy was in the chair immediately before the walker man, had given her a $20 bill in a shop where only $10 is required. Peering from behind her big dark glasses the mother had thanked the barber for her patience with her young son and that the hair cut she gave was for the boy to wear to his daddy’s funeral tomorrow. She had been crying throughout her son’s hair cut.
What I didn’t say was that I thought I knew the identity of the deceased father, a young man whose obit I had read in yesterday’s newspaper. The cause of death was not given. Later in the day someone had called me and told me about it and said that he was told it was a death by suicide by hanging.
Then it was my turn to step up. I patiently waited while my barber swept the floor and cleaned the chair and at last gave me a welcoming smile. We chatted about the guitars hanging on the walls and how he thought they were like art even though he was a drummer. I said that I liked guitar music, especially acoustical. He gave me a mirror and I complimented his work and gave him the usual tip.
It had been my day at the barber shop.
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