Sonny’s chair was the one all the way in the rear of the shop next to a wall that he decorated with dirty postcards from places such as Mexico and Barbados and pictures ripped from nasty magazines: naked and smiling women in inviting poses. I wonder if my father ever thought twice about bringing me into Sonny’s. I’d hate, for instance, if my brother brought my nephew into a place adorned with pornographic images, but it was a different time and no one ever talked about the pictures on Sonny’s wall. I used to discreetly glance over at them every chance I could get away with, but my favorite part of the haircut was always when he spun the chair toward the wall to work on the back of my head and I could stare at the pictures without hiding, storing them in my mind so I could access them later.
Our father took us to Sonny’s after our mother became tired of Dad cutting potholes in our heads. Maybe it wasn’t so warm and inviting, as all my memories involve not wanting to be there. Such as the time, shortly after Marvin Gaye was killed, when I sat next to a fat man who overflowed from his chair. The fat man started speaking, unprompted, of discipline, which was a recurrent theme in the shop. My children, he said, ain’t never gon’ to be too old to get it.
It was a crowded shop that day, and everybody met his sentiment with nods of approval. I was seven, maybe eight.
My daughter’s twenty, the fat man said, and she tried to talk back the other day, I knocked her ass down. Man, I tell you, if I can’t get ’em, the nine millimeter’s gonna get ’em. Like Marvin Gaye.
I flinched and eased from him, just slightly, involuntarily. This time the fat man was met with a silence that carried throughout his haircut.
Sonny gave the fat man the most exquisite cut, one that seemed far beyond his range at the time, one that allowed everyone to glimpse his greatness. And as the man left, Sonny wished him a good day. He pointed to me and I climbed into his barber’s chair. Sonny leaned into my ear and in a voice just above a whisper he grumbled, That guy’s a fool.
An eruption of conversation and mockery overflowed all around the shop.
Sure is a fool, ain’t he?
When that dumb nigga get arrested for killing his kids, I’m testifying like shit.
I’ll buck ’em down like Marvin Gaye’s dad, ’cause I’m a tough guy.
I settled into the seat with the calming din of laughter and conversation all around and let Sonny cut my hair. If I remember correctly, it was a mediocre haircut. The fat man, I imagine, was the last time Sonny unleashed the full power of his artistry.
Sometime in my teenage years, Sonny brought his son into the shop to cut heads. I had seen him before, sweeping and taking out trash. This time, though, he was a barber, occupying the chair right next to his dad. Sonny had a look of pure satisfaction on his face watching his son cut. People tended to compliment Sonny on his son’s work, saying things like, Man, you taught that boy well, and Sonny would nod and hide a smile, but even he was astonished at times by the things his son did with a pair of clippers. You could tell by the brief widening of his eyes.
All the young customers flocked to Sonny Jr., and as word of the young barber spread throughout Cross River, the wait became longer and longer. Once I remember a man with a West African accent sitting in the shop. He talked excitedly and smiled broadly. Said he came all the way from Nigeria to be cut by the finest barber in the world. I swore he was bullshitting, but the way this man cut…
His name was Sonny Beaumont Jr., though in those years we all started to refer to him as The Barber, and when you said it, everyone knew immediately who you were talking about. To call him anything else was absurd.
Sonny always looked on in pride until, one day in my late teens, his son left to open his own shop on the Southside. Cross River Cutz he called it, and Sonny would look grave and shake his head the few times I heard him mention it. Sonny didn’t smile much or laugh after that, but truthfully I don’t know that for sure, because it wasn’t long before my brother and I left Sonny’s for Cross River Cutz.
Sonny died during his son’s golden period. This is the time people talk about when they speak of The Barber’s genius. The son’s response to his loss was to chase greatness in each cut so that his dead father could look on in pride. He’d stare at a head for several minutes before starting. Then he’d pace back and forth like a lion sizing up his prey. Soon he’d be moving his clippers over the contours of a head like God moving across the formless void to make a world. Around that time he brought in a guy to sharpen his clippers after every fifth cut. Those things hurt, but that was the price of a perfect haircut and I got a few of those before his decline. In the height of his artistry The Barber renamed his shop Sonny’s II.
Young apprentices swept the floor for free. Several, it was said, even saved some of the fallen hair to study. His fellow barbers, those who rented neighboring chairs from him and competed for his meager overflow, would watch and discuss The Barber’s technique when they weren’t cutting.
All those barbers eventually deserted him for other shops, or the most disillusioned left haircutting for good. The chairs next to him now sat empty.
While he shaped up my hairline that day, The Barber stopped to take a phone call and started back on a different side. I wondered if he’d lost his place.
Maybe it was our silence or the clipper’s buzzing or the television’s droning, but I spoke: Man, people are saying you lost your touch.
As soon as I said it, I heard the click of the clippers switching off. The television still droned, but The Barber said nothing. I remained frozen.
After a moment he switched the clippers back on and started cutting, and then he stopped again, spun the chair next to me, and with a sigh collapsed into the seat.
My man, he said, I’m tired as shit. If you wasn’t a regular customer, I would have told you we was closed when you came in that door.
Sorry, man.
No need to apologize. I ain’t just talking about today. I’m talking in general. I’m tired, jackson, tired as shit. I know what people be saying about me. You ain’t the first dude that said it straight up. I am slipping. It happens to every barber. You start slipping, slipping, and then one day new kids come and take your place. I told myself it wouldn’t happen to me, but I was fooling myself.
But you’re so young. Your skills shouldn’t be fading yet.
I don’t feel young. I had like four, five, six careers, as many heads as I’ve cut. Made me a nice living. I was just too good. I ain’t saying that to be arrogant. I should have raised my prices to protect my talent like folks told me to do. Them people kept coming like zombies or some shit. My man Phoenix Starr offered me nearly a hundred G’s a year to go on tour and be the official barber for him and his crew. I turned that man down. I had to be amongst the people. I won the Golden Clippers award so many times they said I couldn’t compete no more. I didn’t care. All I wanted was a little shop of my own on the Southside.
You know, he continued, my dad had me practicing on my brother when I was just a little guy. I was cutting all the kids in my neighborhood after a while. For years I used to cut them neighborhood dudes for free, even after I got my own shop. Carlton, that cop that got murdered, he was the first dude besides my brother that let me cut his head. First to notice I was slipping too. He ain’t say nothing. Just got himself a perm. All them dudes I used to cut found new barbers. Even my brother.
He chuckled bitterly and let his head drop.
I know better than anybody that I’m slipping. Shit. Ain’t even as close to my customers as I used to be. People used to tell me they was having babies before they even told their parents. My cuts was the reason they even got to lay down with a woman in the first place.