“I
feel dirty!”
"I’m a cheater. I
need a shower. Should I call and just confess to what I’ve just done? But it was just one time. I’m never going to do it again!”
“But it was so AMAZING,
so good I think I need a cigarette and I DON'T EVEN SMOKE
SQUARES! I gotta call again and go back. People
will never know!”
That’s what I told myself back six months ago and now I’m in
deep. Every two weeks I shoot a
text and less than five minutes later, I get a reply to come through.
I’m finally ready to admit it and let the world know….
I’ve been cheating
on my longtime barber and I’ve decided to leave him altogether and get my
haircuts from another man.
Started harmlessly enough, I had driven past the barbershop
near my home every day since it opened.
Had no interest though. I was loyal to my hometown barber
and I had no intention of changing.
This guy had been cutting my hair since High School
Parties, football games, wrestling meets, homecoming, prom,
whenever I came home from college; he made sure I looked fly every time.
It’s a very difficult process trusting someone with your
hair when they’ve never worked with it before.
However, one crisp, fall evening, I get invited to some
party last second and I definitely did not look appropriate from the neck up.
The amount of time it would take for me to get out west to the burbs, coupled with the wait time would be way too long and I needed a quick fix…
Took a gamble, hopped in my car and drove the couple blocks
to the shop and walked in.
Five barbers, all with someone in their barber chairs. Two twenty-somethings in the waiting seats.
A nice flatscreeen TV mounted in the corner showing “Belly,”
a late 90’s “hood flick” with DMX and Nas for the uninitiated.
Finally, a hustle-guy in the back near the exit selling cookies, candy
and socks.
Basically, every barbershop I had ever been in. I can work with this.
I sit down and study the barbers: the key was to see who
moved the fastest and who was really about the business of cutting hair.
You go to some places and younger barbers like to clown
around because men go to barbershops to hang out just as much they do to get cut up.
Get out of the house and shoot the shit-type deal.
Sometimes conversations between a couple guys can turn into
a shop-wide argument and that’s precisely what happened…
The topic? If
the acquisition of Dwight Howard meant the Lakers were pretty much a shoe-in to
face the Heat in the NBA Finals come June...
Screw Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, if you want
to hear a real debate about sports, go to any black barbershop. Shit gets heated.
Despite the whole scene, the young guy near the door was the only one not really getting involved and still continued to cut. In
fact, he started his client while the rest were in the middle of theirs before
the argument broke out and had already finished.
Our eyes met, he looked down at his chair and said
“you up?”
Got in, introduced ourselves, and he got to work.
I’ve never been a real chatty type of client once I’m in a barber’s chair and I especially wasn’t
today. I don’t know this guy and
frankly, I’m a little pissed that I’m actually allowing an unfamiliar set of
hands to operate a pair of clippers around my dome.
The kid didn’t
seem to be much of a conversationalist either outside of giving me his name
(“E”) and asking how I was doing. Perfect match.
“E” Had me finished in about 30 minutes. Very timely and
that’s good.
He gives me the mirror to look at myself and…DAMN, I LOOK
FRESH! Excellent.
What happened next blew my mind…
E: That’ll be $20.
Me: Wait, what?
E: That’s $20 man…
Inside my head:
SHIIIIIITTTT! I’ve been paying $28
plus tip in Oak Park!
Me: Here’s $25 bro!
Guess I’ll be sending old barber a gift certificate to
McDonalds or something thanking him for all his years of service!
-WST
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