THE CONFLICT OF JACK'S BARBER SHOP

So in our last blog, Joey is determined to find a job so that he can be ‘the man’ for Esperanza - or at least he hopes so. But it isn’t as easy as he would have thought!      

  Desperation finally wins out though, so I resignedly trudge into the shop. They’re all there - The Barbershop Quartet. Jack, Mr. Coogan, Gustav and Mr. Krokowski. Drinking Maxwell House coffee, smoking Pall Malls, and listening to Perry Como on the radio. As they read The Daily News, they pontificate on world and local events, the outcome of their debates surely deciding the fate of the free world. Nobody notices me.

“Hey, Jack.”

Finally, he looks up from the customer he’s working on, eyes me with a mixture of suspicion and disdain, and goes back to cutting. Silence.

  “You come for a haircut Joey?”

“ Um… not really… I came to ask if you had a job, like, y’know- um- sweeping up hair or something?”

Jack shakes his head slowly and sadly, as he continues his work.

“Joey… you know I know your father a while now, right?”

 I nod.

“He’s always been a good customer, a good man, and I would always tell him what a fine, respectful young man you were and all, but now… (his voice trails off, as he shakes his head slowly again.)

Look at ya - you look like some kind of beatnik or something”.

I knew it. I knew it. He’s mad that I haven’t been up for a haircut in a while. I bet he remembers the exact date of my last haircut, too.

  What happened to you - with that crazy hair and scraggly mustache, and all? You look like that goddamned Mooglie the Jungle Boy, for the love of Pete, like the riff-raff that’s been coming into town, lately.”

“Riff-raff”, grumbles Mr. Coogan, from behind his newspaper. 

Jack points over to one of the 1950s- style haircut posters he has plastered all over the barbershop.

“Now, that’s a haircut.”

I grimace.

“Well, Joey, if you don’t like that style why don’t you at least try this new stuff I got in – Vitalis. It’s the latest craze.”

New stuff? Vitalis has been around for, like, at least ten years. What is he talking about?

“I tell ya, Joey, it’s what all the hep cats are using these days. You use this, the girls’ll be chasing you all over the place! You’ll be the cat’s meow, the cat’s pajamas!”

The cat’s pajamas? Was Jack trying to be cool, or something? He must notice the look of horror on my face, because his demeanor suddenly changes.

“Hey, Joey, how many girls you given the old salami to?!”

He totally catches me off guard.

“Wh-aa-t?”

“You know, how many girls you slipped the old Ambassador, huh? He makes a pumping motion with his fist.

This is ridiculous. What is Jack asking me these questions for? I feel the heat turn up in my face.

“Um- I don’t know-two... three…

“Two or three, huh?” Jack smirks.

“C'mon, Joey, I bet you haven’t even got a peek at the ole’ weezer yet, huh? C’mon, I’m right. Right?”

“No- no, I’ve been with - y’know- a couple- “

“Aw, Joey, you don’t gotta lie to me, how old are you now, what, fifteen?”

“Fifteen and a half.”

“Geez, when I was fifteen I had more homeruns than Hank Aaron, for godsakes.”

They all broke up, the old-timers. It was like a room full of laughs from one of those old Ronald Reagan films.

I just stand there - red and stupid. And boiling.

I MUST SAVE ESPERANZA!!

                                        So after that last visit to the Tijeras de Oro - I know Esperanza is in some kind of trouble - I just don’t know exactly what. But I gotta do something.  I mean, I just can’t stand by and do nothing, right? I gotta get a job - I need money. Money is POWER. It’s the only way I can help, and the only way she is gonna take me seriously; not think I’m just some dorky kid or something. With that, I go on a massive job search all over Roselle!

     After a week of rejection and frustration though, I am ready to do the unthinkable. I really don’t want to go to Jack’s Barber Shop, to ask for a job. I mean, I’d been going there on Saturdays once a month with my father for like the last four years- and every time - he gives me the exact same Wild Root haircut! The same one he gives the corny Holden brothers. The same one he gives EVERYONE!

“Look at that, Joey! You could be in the movie pictures, you could be the next Cary Grant,” he'd say, as he held up a mirror to the back of your head.

Lastly, he’d always give you a piece of Bazooka Gum and say – 

       “See ya in the funny papers.”

And he and my father would always laugh. What was that supposed to mean anyway? See ya in the funny papers? Why would anybody laugh at that?! Especially, after Jack had repeated it like sixty-seven times already? I’m sure neither of them think it’s really even funny. But it’s, like, they feel they have to laugh. Like they’re supposed to laugh. It’s a fake laugh, too, because they don’t know what else to do.

Embarrassing.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!

So, in our last blog, Joey goes up to the Tijeras de Oro on a Saturday morning with a gift for Esperanza, but is dismayed by both her faded, lackluster expression - and the enormous number of ladies there to get there hair done! I pass the time away sitting in the salon and listening to the fast paced chatter of the Puerto Rican beautician ladies and their customers.

What incredible drama! I become so fascinated and absorbed by the whole scene that I barely notice the hours ticking away. I feel like I am being exposed to some kind of secret society. An exotic ritual, that no man has ever been privileged to see before.

So, this is what Puerto Rican ladies do when they get together! Maybe all women do the same thing!

Finally, miraculously (after about six hours have passed by), Esperanza is down to her last customer. This is going to be my shot, my chance to have an audience with her, even if only for a minute! I steady myself, preparing for a unique and sophisticated opening line that will catch her attention. I hope. Maybe, I could feel her out to see if there was any possibility she would, perhaps - go out with me? Where could I take her? I don’t have any money! I can’t just take her to like, Jack N’ The Box for a taco, or something! She’s an older woman, a woman of the world, who’s used to the finer things in life! Ok, ok. Calm down, you jerk, just breath. At that precise moment, the phone rings, snapping me out of my panic attack. Whew. One of the other ladies answers it.

“Mira, Esperanza - telefono!”

She’s only on the phone a few seconds when that look comes back again. That dreaded look. Like she’s battling between falling asleep and crying.

“Si...si.” she keeps repeating, quietly.

She turns her back to everyone, and listens to the voice on the other end, then silently places the receiver down, dragging herself into the back room. A minute later, she emerges with her pocketbook, totally withdrawn and quietly whispers something to Lydia, the hairstylist next to her chair. She then walks right passed me, not even casting a glance. I don’t know what to do or say.

“What -Esperanza…what’s-what's the matter?”

No reaction.

“I can’t talk now,” she finally responds, emotionlessly, as she sleep-walks out the door.

I just sit there for like about five minutes, embarrassed and perplexed. I have just spent my whole Saturday here. Lydia comes over, puts her hand on my shoulder, and gives me a sympathetic smile.

 “You come back. Try next week, baby, ok?” she says, in heavily accented English.

I plop out the door despondently, moping all the way to the bus stop. What a hollow, helpless feeling. What could I do? I mean, how am I supposed to react to this kind of situation? Conflict storms through my brain waves, my gut. Who am I trying to fool? I’m in way over my head. I’m just some goofy kid. She’s so beautiful, she probably has, like, a hundred boyfriends. She can have anybody she wants. Any guy. I don’t even speak her language.

Yet, a part of me feels an excruciating sadness, a pained empathy for her. That look. That look on her face when I first came in today, then again after the phone call, it just skewers my heart. What was that phone call about? Is she in trouble? What the hell is going on?!

WHAT HAPPENED?! PART 2

So, this is a continuation of my last blog where I come up to visit Esperanza at the Tijeras de Oro - and she just looks ‘out of it’. I don’t know why, and it really pains me…I’m thinking this might be the next chapter in a budding romance! I had even gone out and bought her a pair of earrings at Malins - the local department store.

Esperanza?!”

I cringe at how awkward I must sound. She checks me out again, for a second or two.

“You look nice, papi…I like your shirt.” Thank God, at least she notices my black clothes, even in her disengaged state. She lets out a slight giggle, and points to the hoop earring she had given me, I had just put it in my ear before I entered.

“Oh... yeah! I-I been wearing it… uh – everyday.”

She smiles a little, then crinkles her nose. Oh man, that was so cute – so sexy the way she did that. It was the same way Elizabeth Montgomery did it on Bewitched! Especially when she donned that black wig and played her free-spirited cousin, Sarina. And I had been in love with Elizabeth Montgomery, since I was, like, nine years old.

Um...sorry… I uh, haven’t been able to come up - y’know, for a while – but…”

Another slight giggle emerges from her mouth, as she shakes her head a bit.

Uh-oh. What does that mean? Why did she shake her head like that? Did I say something stupid? Shit! My face burns crimson.

“I-uh- um…I just wanted to thank you for that haircut you gave me! It was - um…great!”

I hand her the little box with the earrings in it from my pocket. She seems puzzled as she opens the box.

“Oh, baby, they are so cute… tu eres tan dulce- aye- you so sweet.”

She holds them up next to her ears as she peers at her image in the mirror.

“Mira - Lydia.”

She shows the lady working the chair next to her.  They both look at me and smile.

 “Gracias, papi.”

I allow a touch of pride to creep in among all the angst I am feeling.  Have I scored a small victory? The lady whose hair she’s cutting, smiles and clears her throat.

“Oh, permiso mami! Mira, listen papi, why don’t you go sit down for a while, till I can take my cigarette break, ok?”

I obediently take a chair and wait. And wait. She’s backed up. I guess Saturday isn’t a good time to visit. She’s real popular. Ladies come in especially for her, young and old. Every time I think I might get a second to talk to her, another lady plops in the chair. And they’d be off into that rapid-fire Spanish dialogue again. Damn. I remember that kiss from the last time I was here, and I want to experience that again. Who knows? Maybe even more? Occasionally, she glances over and gives me a little smile, and my frustration is temporarily quelled again, or my heart fills up with hope, but then she goes back to cutting and yapping again.

I occupy myself observing the crazy ebb and flow of the almost musical conversation that abounds between the ladies in the salon. Both the hairstylists and the customers. I can’t really understand anything that’s going on, but once in a while they slip a couple of English words like, “Louie? Her husband? Con esa puta?” Then they roar back into Spanish. From the rhythm of it, it sounds like one of the husbands had cheated on somebody with a kind of whorish woman (puta sounded like the Italian word for slut -putan). Then there’s a whole lot of that clucking of tongues, and gasps, and a repeated mantra of “Dios Mio!”

It is so lively. It seems to me like they are all a part of their own little village or tribe, where everybody all knows each other, and they all share openly. It appears to me that every day is like a party for Puerto Rican people.