The Barber Shop

I’ve always been a sucker for the old style barbershops. I don’t know quite how to put it; there’s just something about the places that I love. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of haircut either. When I walk into an old musty place I get the feeling I’ve suddenly stepped back in time, back to an era long before the fast-paced technological short-speak corporate strip mall world we now live in, back to a time when just sitting around and telling stories meant something, when the second hand on the clock wasn’t even a passing thought. I don’t really ask much of this life; just give me an old barbershop on a hot Saturday afternoon and I’m pretty happy.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not necessarily preaching the glory glory hallelujah of all the old barbershops, because believe me, I’ve been to a few that I probably wished I’d never set foot in. Take for instance the time I saw a boy of five be given a mullet cut and a duck tale, on his free will mind you, as his camouflag-toting father watched the news and said, “Hey guys do you know why there’s no A-Rabs in Star Wars?” Blank stares all around. “It’s because they’re not in the fuuu-ture!”

Yeah, let’s give it up for modern man. I mean, you never know what you’re going to get, but personally, I’d rather take my chances with the old guys than pay fifteen bucks to have me hair cut in a teeny-bop mall by some depressing middle-aged woman who goes by the name Bumpy.

Anyway, the other day I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, it’s time man; you’re starting to look like one of those terrorists on the infamous most-wanted Iraqi deck of cards. Since I had recently moved to New Orleans I had no idea where to go. After about an hour of driving in what seemed like an endless maze of winding streets (If you’ve ever spent any amount of time trying to navigate the city outside the French Quarter, you know what I’m talking about), I lucked out on a place over just off of Oak and Carrolton. I saw the blue-white-red spinning rod and a sign that read “The Family Barber Shop.”

Inside there were three other men waiting in chairs in a small room. There was one chair and one hunched over bald barber cutting another old-timer’s hair. A few flags were stapled to the walls, but besides that the place was pretty plain.

“Say, Bud, I came by here Wednesday and you weren’t around,” said the guy getting his haircut.

“Oh yuh’, closed on Wednesdays now. Gradually workin’ ma’ way towards closing the shop. Next it’ll be just Fridays and Saturdays. Yuh’ know.

Bud had one of those deep Southern drawls, the kind you’re more likely to come across in the small towns of Mississippi and Alabama. His eyes were big and round and the wrinkled skin sagged down onto his cheeks. Each time he talked you could see his leathery skin flab around. Slowly he trimmed the man’s hair, occasionally glancing up at the television that was showing the latest turmoil in the world.

“That girl not around no more?”

“Nah,” said Bud. “She jus’ up and left. Don’t understand it. Not a word. Jus’ startin’ to work out too. Was givin’ her forty percent of what the shop was takin’ in. Hell, on them real slow days I jus’ gave it all to her. Her momma’s been callin’ up, askin’ if I seen her. She says the girl don’t want nothin’ to do with her now. I’d understand if she had some problem, if she’da let me know, but to jus’ up and leave. Now I can’t understand that. Dunno if it’s drugs or drinking or what.”

“Yeah, that’s a shame Bud, she seemed like she was going to work out all right.”

“Ya’ jus’ never know. Hell, I’m gettin’ too ol’ for this.”


About an hour and a half later Bud called me up to the chair. I’d been sitting off to the side going through the old Times magazines and watching the lazy flies move about. Maybe a lot of folks wouldn’t stick around that long for a haircut, but down here, life moves along a little slower than it does in other parts. It’s not to say anything bad about the people, it’s just the way it is. I figure, we’re all going to die either way, so what’s the rush?

“How ya’ wahnit?” Bud asked me.

“Just short, but not too short, not a crew cut or nothing,” I said.

Bud started to work away at my hair with a buzzer and through the mirror noticed me staring up at a framed Army certificate hanging on the wall.

“That’s from when I was in the Pacific. I was twenty. Remember every single name of the eight other guys in my unit: Jimmy, Frank, Leonard, Ray, Joe, Bobby, Dave, Vinnie. Yah’ know, lotta’ of them didn’t make it out alive. Lotta’ times I didn’t think I would either. Leonard was only eighteen. Jus’ a kid. Not a day goes by I don’t think about those guys.”

Bud trimmed the hair hanging over my ears, every now and then stopping and staring off into blank space, as if the thought was too much for him.

“Got back when I was twenty-two. Four years latah’ I bought this shop. Eighty now. Hell of a long time.”

I pondered all the heads of hair he’d come across during that time.

“I wish I could tell some of those fella’s, hey, at least you didn’t have to see yourself go bald.” Bud let out a quiet laugh and tapped the top of his pale-skinned head.


“My wife was always convinced she was gonna’ die young.” Her mother died at fifty-two, heart attack got her and my wife didn’t think she’d make it past sixty. And now you oughtta’ see her. Seventy-Eight. Jus’ went ta’ the doc for her check-up and he said she’s as clean as a whistle. Well, the way I figure, it ain’t really up to us. The guy up there,” said Bud, pointing his scissors towards the ceiling, “decides how long we stay or go.”

I don’t put a whole lot of faith in religion, but the way Bud put it made sense.

Sitting in the chair in front of me was an old, frail man. He looked to be Bud’s senior by a good fifteen years. He was all bones and his shirt and pants were three sizes too large. Poor guy looked like he was going to drown in those clothes. His eyes were squinted as he tried to read a magazine. For some reason I couldn’t stop staring at his foot. He had these sandals on and wasn’t wearing any socks. Purple, varicose veins were shooting every which way and running up under his pants. As Bud cleaned the back of my hair, I sat there thinking about the mystery of age, how the body wilts away.

Eventually, Bud pulled away the apron and said, “How’s that?”

I glanced at myself through the mirror. To be honest, the cut was a little lopsided and I looked like I now had an unwanted pompadour. But I didn’t say anything. I said it was good, got up from my chair, and paid Bud eight bucks and left him a couple for a tip.

“Next.”

The old man attempted to get up without his cane, but he fell back into the wall. Bud and I each took an arm and walked him over to the chair and boosted him up.

“Hey, what you say Larry?”

“Hey Bud.”

“How goes it?”

“It goes. You hear about Frank Jippers?”

“Nah.”

“Had a stroke last week. Got out of the hospital yesterday. All paralyzed from the left part of his body. In a wheelchair now.”

“Ah, too bad. So you wahn’ it the same Larry?”

As I was walking out the door and into the hot New Orleans afternoon I heard the old man say, “Yeah, Bud, same as always,” as he brushed his hand through what little hair he had left.