BARBER TALES

JUNE 1999

Customer Service and Fellatio: a spontaneous verbal assault and the creation of an important barber metaphor.

"Don't let the door hit you in the ass"
(Tony, barber and shop owner, to a man who simply walked into the shop, asked the price and then turned to leave).

In 1966 Pope Paul VI named St. Martin de Porres as the patron saint of barbers, and received an audience of 1000 barbers and beauticians who no doubt kissed his robed ass up and down for the honor [where did they find so many barbers? With that many barbers in one place, the whole Vatican must have stunk like a fuckin men's locker room]. At this affair, he praised these workers for their "proverbial courtesy and kindness" to patrons. Well, no one ever accused the Pope of being overly in touch with reality anyhow.

A story that's maybe a little more informative is one that took place in Pleasantville, New Jersey in 1950. A six year old girl had accompanied her eight year old brother to the barber shop with neither of their parents along. Though she didn't intend to get a haircut, she was approached by the barber who cut off two pieces of her hair, each around a foot long. Why? In his words, because she complained that it was in her eyes. At this point apparently she started crying and he gave her some candy to appease her, or as he said later in court, because she said she was hungry.

The barber was charged with malicious injury to personal property and released on a $500 bond. In light of the seriousness of the charge, and the fact the girl's mother would take it to court, my guess is that he did a fine job of screwing up the kid's hair. It's a shame we can't see a picture.

This story illustrates three elements of barbering, that all barbers take part in: screwing up, never admitting that you screwed up (no matter how royal the screw up) and blaming the customer for the problem -- a common barber reaction. The barbers are quite a subject; despite how stupid and individually messed up they can be, they're often so predictable.

Oscar
It's probably the best testament to Oscar's personality, the fact that several other barbers hated his guts. He was unusual in that he wasn't a drunk, and did not seem at all screwed in the head. Oscar had dark curly hair and looked a lot like Richard Simmons but without the effeminate voice and mannerisms. He took the barber business seriously, rarely bad mouthing either it or the customers. This alone was enough to make him disliked by the barbers, but his reserved manner, good treatment of customers, and attempts to be professional about his work ensured certain barbers would despise him. It was probably his professional attitude about work, particularly his extreme pampering of his customers, that most got to the others, competitive, cutthroat men who'd sooner see someone dead than getting bigger tips than themselves.

Oscar had a girlfriend "Pat" whom we never saw but who would often call the shop, usually with some problem the nature of which Oscar didn't really share with any one [this was a common barber problem -- constant fighting with one's wife or girlfriend]. Oscar would get on the phone and right away you knew something was wrong. He'd speak low but you could still hear him, usually it was "Oh Pat....oh Pat..." in a kind of weary exasperation. Once he said "Oh Pat...you're a nightmare Pat." This immediately became a catch phrase, existing in the shop for years after Oscar quit.

Once he brought this plastic donkey in to work. Cigarettes went inside, and when you lifted the tail, one was dispensed out the thing's butt. Oscar found this endlessly hilarious, laughing till he was red in the face. He told me, when I first started working there, that he used to have several black customers, but the other guys had "scared them away." I never heard more on this, and never asked the others about it so I have no support for his claims, though I believed it at the time. Over time I'd see so many customers drift away for other reasons, mainly the shop's mean attitude, that race probably wasn't much of a factor. How was a black person to know that we despised all customers?

Harry
Harry drove a decrepit VW bug, lived in a room somewhere and ate off a hot plate. He wasn't happy about his poverty, something brought on apparently by his ex wife and her lawyer. His ex wife was someone he really wasn't happy about. Having to make the occasional court appearance over support/alimony always left him enraged, swearing all over the place about his damned ex, giving you an earful whether you wanted it or not. "That God damn cunt...that fuckin cunt...," he went on and on. It was like -- O.K. Harry, we get it -- your ex wife is a cunt. Can we talk about something else now?

Anger was a constant with Harry, the subject of his ex wife being only one of many things that could get him going. The best was when he directed his anger at the barber business; this I really enjoyed listening to -- here was some common ground. He was cynical and would always bash the barbers, the customers and the whole business, saying how if was all such stupid bullshit. It was easy to get him cursing about any of this. In an observation that I found interesting, he gave Beauticians credit for bringing more status and professionalism to the haircutting business -- increasing prices with the times, etc. -- and considered the barbers idiots for their constant criticism of beauticians. This was unusual coming from a barber, the norm being to take relentless cracks at the beauty business.

Harry couldn't hide his hostility toward the customers, his anger always coming out quickly with them. If he was working on someone and the slightest thing went wrong, he'd shake his head or make some slight noise to indicate it, and his tone of voice was very short. If he was really mad, he'd slam his tools loudly down on to his stand right in the middle of a cut. He'd do it over and over -- it was hilarious. One time he was cutting a kid's hair as the mother hovered around giving various directions. She wanted a little more off here, then a little more -- I can't remember how much of a pain in the ass she really was, but at one point she offered even more instructions, causing Harry to throw his arms up and say "Jesus lady, would you make up your Goddamn mind?"

Whenever he'd throw the tools down, John and I would exchange glances like -- What the hell's up with this guy? We couldn't help it; you'd be there quietly working and all of a sudden this guy's throwing things and having a tantrum. Harry picked up on the fact that we found him amusing and once accused the two of us, "you and your buddy John," of thinking everything was a joke. I'm sure he felt like an outsider, and I'm sure he wasn't too crazy about us. He was right too -- we did think everything was a joke.

Oscar and Harry
It was inevitable that these two barbers would clash -- Oscar, the committed barber with his little pretensions and professionalism, and the miserable Harry who despised, well, basically everything Oscar represented. The tension between these two was palpable, apparent right from the beginning. Not long after coming to work there, Harry would be bad mouthing Oscar, and soon took pot shots at him.

Before going out for lunch or to the nearby grocery store, Oscar would look at himself in the mirror, primping, touching his hair, tucking his shirt in, checking the profile of his stomach. He had a sense of humor about this and could laugh about it, sometimes mentioning how he should lose weight or get in shape; it was no big deal. To most of us, that is; Harry hated this little act. Oscar's preparation in front of the mirror combined with his attention to the customers drove Harry crazy. Oscar would leave the shop and Harry would start on how much of a piece of work the guy was, how he was a bunch of bullshit; who the hell did Oscar think he was?

On one unforgettable occasion Harry could not contain his disgust for Oscar's personal style. Conditions were perfect: Oscar had just finished a customer and was at the mirror going through his beauty routine and no other customers were in the shop. Harry started in on Oscar, not addressing him directly but speaking out loud to no one in particular.

"Look at him over there, making himself beautiful, getting ready to go next door...like he's a fuckin movie star or somethin."

Oscar looked a little tense but didn't respond, didn't look at him.

"Look, it's fuckin show time," he went on, "...he's on parade when he goes over there...putting on a God damn show." At this point he had gotten louder, standing up, motioning with one outstretched hand the way he always did when going into an angry rant. Oscar muttered something under his breath, but mostly ignored him.

Harry segued to Oscar's treatment of the customers, accusing him of pampering them and kissing their asses all over. Charlie's posture was very hunched over and his dark hair and mustache made him look slightly criminal.

Things were building to a crescendo. "It's sick," he said, now standing in the middle of the shop shouting at Oscar, "the way you treat those people, falling all over them...you stroke their damn dicks...you BLOW those fuckin people!!"

Oscar walked out of the shop. I tried to contain my laughter. Harry continued bashing him.

And so it was done -- the phrase "You blow those fuckin people!" instantly became an indispensable part of barber shop language. Any one showing the slightest attempt at service could be accused of "blowing" the customer, the phrase eventually warped in myriad disgusting, graphic descriptions of sexual contact with the patrons. It would also become an important component of the barber-as-prostitute metaphor, a frequently used comparison/insult thrown around the shop.

This confrontation, retold over and over again, was so historically important to the shop, it's kind of a shame Harry will probably never know how much he contributed to barber communication, fighting and fun. I wonder if he was as important an influence at any job(s) he worked after that one, wherever that might have been.

 

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