Barbers
Share Article Inside a Bursa barber shop at 9:30 a.m. TV wall news blasted Kabul heavy alliterative artillery literary fire.
Dust explodes. Images flood the consciousness - trains filled with tanks, armored cars, firefights in Iraq and Syria, suicide bombers, machine guns, rata-tat-tat-tat, expose yourself for a flash of sight, aim, fire, reload, as smiling wealthy diplomats shake hands for the cameras and media propaganda value.
They gesture peaceful intentions. We agree to disagree.
Smile.
An old man gets a close shave. The barber is short, white haired with trim black mustache in a white smock, brown loafers, working the silver blade down elastic cheeks erasing yesterday’s growth. The old man closes his eyes, feeling steel blade sensations as lather evaporates his existence in a calm, gentle way.
A small bell rings as a man pedals his portable mango and pineapple fruit cart along a dirt road in Cambodia. Does the sound come to the ear or does the ear go to the sound, asked Rita.
*
One morning Tran and I located a street barber in Saigon. He’s on the corner of Noise & Confusion, a main drag through the heart of a swirling mass of mobile humanity. Beep-beep.
His place was bare bones marketplace essentials. He works a small corner of a cement box surrounded by a wire fence. One old comfortable broken barber chair, a lopsided table and a cracked mirror completes the ensemble. Cheap blades, electric trimmer, a straight razor, comb, and brush.
Cut black hair spills out of a green plastic bag near the gutter waiting for someone to recycle stuffing stuff.
The Dark Years
It was curious seeing the Cambodian barber open on the last day of Khmer New Year. The river town was dead quiet. Merchants and families slept in shuttered shops behind metal gray accordion sheets. A tropical afternoon sun beat down. White cumulus clouds billowed in the east. The barber had a customer. A white haired war veteran. He’d fought against Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, Death and his Ghosts.
He didn’t talk about it. He survived. Silent conversation was his destiny.
He sat in a solid steel chair staring at his reflection. He saw a long thin serene brown face and wavy white hair. A long mole resembling an inverted Buddhist pagoda hung down from the left side of his chin. The mole saved him from Khmer Rouge executioners. They were superstitious peasants. They believed he was the Devil. They released him.
He and the barber conversed in French. The thin barber had thick black parted hair. He’d lived here all his life. He survived four genocide years by killing his dreams and hiding with his family in mountains where the French later constructed and abandoned a post office, hotel and casino. All bets are off. They were The Dark Years. No one talked about The Dark Years.
The old man closed his eyes. Besides gardening and playing with his grandchildren, savoring blade sensations and ointment aromas with small talk were his simple luxuries.
Using small steel clippers the barber trimmed hair. It fluttered to a cement floor meeting piles of black hair. Electric trimmers with old frayed wires collected dust on a narrow wooden table under a fractured mirror. Hello Beauty.
After trimming neck hairs he adjusted the chair, easing him back. The old man meditated on miracles and impermanence of life.
The barber extracted a thin razor blade from a small piece of paper. He severed both ends into a soda can. Clink. He opened a wooden handled straight razor edging the blade in.
He sprayed water mist around the man’s head. Moisture refracted light prisms and dust. He trimmed microscopic hairs around the outside edge of an ear lobe before shaving above sideburns angling the man’s head with his left hand. The razor slid from temple to temple across the scalp line rasping skin.
He was quick, silent and efficient. Smooth artistic hands shaved skin fast and light. Short, fast and deadly. The blade danced on skin under the eyes. He wiped the blade on a white towel lying on the man’s chest. He shaved lower sideburns. He returned the man to a sitting position. The man smiled at his reflection. Hello Beauty.
The barber snapped the towel across shoulders removing dead cells. The man eased out of the chair. He removed a roll of money hidden near his waist. He peeled musical notes to the barber.
Merci. Au’voir.
He shuffled out. His son waited for him on a motorcycle. He tried to swing his right leg over the rear seat. He hesitated. He couldn’t manage it. His left hand reached for a shoulder. His frail contorted right arm was useless. The executioners broke the Devil’s arm. They wanted to hear the Devil scream.
Bursa barber. Cádiz barber. Hanoi barber. Cambodia barber. Faces shaved, haircut, clip, clip scissors, storytellers all.
All vocal music, choral tales of imaginary love, kindness, forgiveness, journeys, beauty, creativity, travel, adventure, risk, authenticity, truth and maladaptive trust with barbers.
