THE MOD SHAG AFRO
Remember - this is July, 1976. Elizabeth, NJ
I have just revealed (told) to Esperanza that I am, indeed, Sicilian - not Puerto Rican.
Suddenly, another loud clatter emerges among the ladies in the salon, and this kind of tongue rolling sound.
“Oooh - Siciliano! Mafioso...muy peligroso! Cuidado Esperanza!”
I feel my face flush - really red - and hot. Esperanza laughs, and shushes them.
“Oh, pobracito! El esta muy nervioso.”
She touches my face, caressing it with her fingers.
“ Ay, so smooth... you don’t shave yet, papi?”
“Um - yeah! I mean - I shave...I just shaved this morning!’ I shoot back defensively.
More tittering from the salon ladies. Esperanza is smiling, looking me up and down. I feel my knees buckling.
“What did you say your name was, baby?”
“Um - Joe-”
“Oh - Joe! You mean like - Jose, right? How old are you, Jose?” She purrs.
“Um - seventeen”- I blurt out, even though I just really turned 16 about three months ago.
“Oh, Dios Mio! Diecesiete?! Tu eres saltacuna, Esperanza! Cuidado!”
Esperanza looks amused, as she pinches my face.
“Hmmm....you sure you are seventeen, Jose?
I just stand there - not knowing what to say. I’m busted.
“That’s ok - you got a cute face.”
I just gulp and get redder.
“Jose? You want me to give you a haircut? I’ll make you look so good.”
I just smile. What could I even say? This is developing into some kind of fantasy now.
“You don’t got no kind of style wit’ your hair, baby.”
She’s right. My hair is just a formless mess of crazy curls, which had suddenly transformed from straight hair in the past year.
“C’mon, Joselito, I’m gonna fix you up.”
She takes my hand and leads me to a chair, then takes off my glasses. The hated Benjamin Franklin glasses that I’ve been wearing since sixth grade. How embarrassing! I can’t see now - I’m nearsighted. I’m at her mercy! She cuts and shapes and runs her fingers through my hair, talking to me quietly, as I sit in the chair in total disbelief. She bends over - and her tits - are in my face. Gulp. I just melt into a melange of scents, sounds and touch, until after what seems like a long time, she puts down her scissors. She fluffs up my hair here and there. She declares she is finished.
“Oh, Jose - muy guapo.”
She turns the chair around so all the other ladies can see. The chatter resounds like a tropical jungle.
“Le gusta?”
“Oh, que lindo…”
“Si, muy caliente…”
“Ohh, muy bonito…”
I am holding my breath - I still can’t see what I look like. She looks again - but decides it needs one final touch, and takes a gold hoop earring - the clip-on type - and puts it on my ear.
“Now papi - you be hot!”
She gives me back my glasses. I fumble with the Benjamins, anxious to be able to see again. I cannot believe what I then see in the mirror. I look totally different. Better. Cool.
A shag afro. A mod afro shag. My first mod haircut. I am cool.
Man, I gotta get some contact lenses.
THE MAGICAL MEETING
The time has come...the moment that I have both feared and desperately longed for - for quite some time. She is so beautiful. I’m talking about Esperanza - at the beauty salon Tijeras de Oro in Elizabeth, NJ. I can’t even look at her - she is so breathtaking.
She has finally busted me. I’ve been peering at her through the picture window of the salon for at least two weeks now - trying to jump out of view when she looks my way. I’m 16 years old and it’s 1976. She continues to look my way with a smile and wiggles her finger for me to come in. I want to turn and run. I want to make up some excuse about having to go - yet I yearn to go in there too. Paralyzing conflict knots up my whole body. I feel like I’m the Scarecrow from The Wizard Of Oz. My body is jerking all over the place. My left foot headed away, my right foot headed towards her - what a mess!!
I somehow orchestrate my extremities into making it to the front door, as she opens it up to invite me in. Instantly, it’s like I have crossed the threshold into another dimension. A strange, exotic, secret world. The first thing to rock my senses is the distinctive aroma filling the air. A sultry mix of hairspray, perfume, and cigarette smoke. The powerful hint of alcohol stings my olfactory senses. A feeling of awe and reverence fills my body, making me feel even more lightheaded. There are lights everywhere. Bright bulbs surround the mirrors in front of the barber chairs. Rapid-fire chattering in Spanish, loud tittering, clicking heels, snapping gum and blaring Puerto Rican music congeals into an enchanting, yet insanely intimidating cocktail.
Then I notice everyone in there smiling and laughing with anticipation.
These are women - not girls. They smell differently - each bearing their own particular scent and perfume. I gulp as I look around wide-eyed, trying to force some moisture into my depleted mouth and lips.
“Ay papi, come te llamas?” She asks in a lilting tone.
“What?”
A second of confused silence.
“No hablas Espanol? Papi?”
“Espanol? No...um...I don’t ...speak Spanish….”
“Oh baby - I thought you was Boriqua…”
“What?”
“I thought you was Puerto Rican - no?”
“Where you from, papi?’
“Um….here.... well...I mean, from Brooklyn…”
“Ay - what are you - Italian?”
“Yeah. Sicilian.”
THE ERADICATION OF ENORMO - THE HUMAN BUTT
It was gone! Finally. Hopefully vanquished forever. I’m talking about ‘Enormo - The Human Butt - aka’ -’Amazo The Trained Butt.’ In the past year or so, my butt had grown to enormous proportions - courtesy of a heavy diet of stolen Ring Dings and Three Musketeers bars. The rest of me was still fairly thin - with the exception of my butt. An unimaginable hell.
But in the months preceding my 16th birthday, and my later head-over-heels-discovery of the exotic Esperanza - something mysterious had happened. Everything had changed! It all started as I inexplicably took command of Daniel Webb’s ( yes, the same kid whose house me and Skinny break into every week to eat all the raisins out of his Raisin Bran) new set of weights. I storm over there every other day and lift maniacally in his basement, virtually claiming ownership - then run a couple of miles on the other days. Months pass, and not only does Enormo practically disappear - but I acquire an entirely new physique! Muscles sprouting everywhere - I am mesmerized - and cannot stop flexing in the mirror several hours a day! Not only that, but somehow, my entire appearance changes at the same time - and I suddenly look Puerto Rican! My mustache, formerly just a sparse collection of scraggly hairs - has now transformed into quite the beauty, surpassing even that of my sister Karen! A goatee now grows on my chin - where before there had been just a few stray whiskers! With a new found self-confidence, I decide I will no longer continue to get beaten up by the black kids at school anymore - and start learning how to box at the Elizabeth PAL - which was heretofore unheard of in these parts! And this is what leads to the fateful passing by of Tijeras de Oro on Broad Street - the workplace of the mythical Esperanza! Still, I am forced to wear the hated Benjamin Franklin glasses, however, and even more horrifying, facing the dreaded prospect of the second hand picnic pants once I return to school in September - but all this is about to change rapidly!
ESPERANZA
BLISTERING heat...the kind of day that the air is so thick with humidity, you kinda feel like you’re swimming, y’ know? I mean, even the flies buzzing around me are dragging ass - that’s how freakin’ brutal it is. I’m doing my best to mop up the ever-streaming torrent of sweat spewing down my forehead with my trusty bandana, as I trudge lethargically down Broad Street, Elizabeth, New Jersey. The year is 1976.
Suddenly - hoooly shit!! Wow! What is this - a fuckin’ mirage?! I wipe the sweat from the lenses of my hated Benjamin Franklin glasses, thinking perhaps they might be altering my vision - and put them back on. No, no it’s not an illusion at all! There, standing right on the other side of the picture window of the Tijeras de Oro beauty salon, cutting hair - is the most breathtaking creature I have ever encountered in all of my 16 years on this earth! The sheer essence of femaleness...an older woman too, maybe 19, 20 years old.
I cannot move...cemented in my tracks - unable to look away.
Caramel colored skin, long brown curly hair, tinted blonde - AND the most AMAZING full lips. Pink lips. I don’t know if they’re just naturally that color or it’s her lipstick - but they are perfect. Even all that, however, pales in comparison to her truly major asset - hazel green eyes. Hypnotizing green eyes. How could that combination even be imaginable?! It should be against the law - that’s what it should be!
As if this wasn’t all enough - her body is as if it had been invented by a group of mad scientists at the Playboy mansion! On top of that - she is wearing these incredibly tight white jeans - with red stiletto heels - to match her pink halter top.
Whew!