“Sometimes I think this is why people think I’m too harsh,” he said.
He swiped at the spot of my head that had been bothering me for the past two weeks. I normally didn’t like to wait too long in between haircuts at the risk of uneven growth. But on a day hotter than usual, it only meant the wait was worth it, like a hard fought trek through the desert to stumble upon an oasis.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
I humored my guy. It helped that I looked up to him. Easy coming from a guy with the blade to skin, but he spoke up with an assertiveness that I had not seen anybody who looked like me would do. Even if I had been silent for the past 15 minutes, struggling to come up with anything that didn’t sound stupid, my ears had perked up. The barbershop wax poetic was about to begin.
“Your a teacher, you’d get it, man.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I wasn’t really a teacher. I was just some guy, a really stupid one that had a knack for getting into situations that somehow lended me pedagogical value moment to moment.
“I just think what’s the point if we say what we mean, and say it without reservation. You might not like it.”
“I hear you.”
“Our friends. Our families. They may be too nice to say it to us straight. But coming from a human like me, I’ll just give it to you straight.”
Now was my time to put myself out there. That dumb, selfish thing that I had been shoving down was now coming up.
“Could I challenge you then?”
“Of course man.”
“How do I let go of the book I had written for the past five years? The one that I thought was going to get me somewhere. The one that had been the one I worked really hard on and took serious.”
He paused. He held up the clippers and comb. The reflection of him in the mirror with his hat backwards was a still life of a man who had the knowledge stored in that record box that he kept close to the bed. Like a jockey that had the sleight of hand, he pulled out the answer like a rabbit from his lid. We locked eyes in that mirror in front of us, my head an almost finished piece of art that was missing just a few strokes from the brush. I saw him, and he saw me. In my gut, I knew where he was going.
“What if that book was meant for just you? What if was meant just for you to write? That is all that it is. The book is for you and only you.”
The heat in the streets had spilled in as another customer came in. I could feel it on my skin. The sight of the other barbers zoned in. The barbacide wafted up into my nose. My throat was parched, and I needed a drink of water. My barber held up the mirror to show my the back.
“How does that look?”
“That looks great to me, man.”
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