Philadelphia Haircut: Part Two

         Philadelphia Haircut: Part Two

    “I don’t know what to do with myself. On my day off I just wander around. Take the subway. Ride downtown. Ride back again. One day I stop at Horn and Hardart’s for a sandwich. It’s so crowded I can’t find a place to sit down. In one corner I see this table. Lady sitting there having coffee and a sandwich just like me. I ask if anybody sitting there. She says no. So, I sit down and begin to eat. I see lady is not eating. Just sitting there. Tears in her eyes like she’s crying. ‘What’s a matter, lady?’ I ask her. ‘Nice young lady like you shouldn’t be crying.’ She just looks at me. Then she tells me what’s wrong. Her brother is in the hospital. Doctor says he has fifty-fifty chance. Gotta have an operation. She tells me hospital is right around the corner. She too upset to wait. Come here to get a sandwich. She tells me that and then starts crying again. I tell her not to cry. Tell her I understand. I just lose my wife.

     “She stops crying. Finish her sandwich and coffee. When I get up, she gets up too. So, I ask for her check. Had’a nice talk with the lady figure I buy her lunch. She says no. She not let me, a stranger, pay for her meal. When I walk out she walks out with me. She acts like she don’t want to leave. So, I ask her, ‘You a married lady?’  She say no. Not married, got no boy friend.

     “Well, I get to thinking. Nice looking lady. Not married. Maybe we go for a walk. We walk and she still talk about her brother. Still worried. I tell her not to worry, everything will be all right. Soon it’s time the operation should be finished. I tell her call the hospital. See if your brother is all right. We find phone booth. Doctor says operation looks good. Brother gonna pull through. Big smile lights up the lady’s face.

     “ ‘See. I told you everything be all right.’ We walk a little more. Come up on the movie theater. I ask her if she wants to see a movie. She says O.K. After the movie, I ask where she lives. She lives way on the other side of town. Me, I never have no car. Too busy cutting hair. I started cutting hair when I was eleven years old. She lives way over in Cheltenham. I tell her it’s too late for a nice looking lady to go home by herself. I ride home on the subway with her. When we get off at her stop, I walk her home. She gives me her phone number, and we say good night.

     I think about her all the way on the subway ride home. I don’t call her right away. Too busy with the shop. She lives so far away. Then a few weeks later Sunday morning I got nothing to do. So, I say, ‘Why not?’ I give her a call. She must’a been sitting right by the phone. I ask her if she wants to meet me downtown, go to a movie. She tells me her brother’s O.K. now. She’ like to go to the movie. After, I ask her if she wants to go for a drink. She says she don’t drink. So, we go get something to eat. I ask her if she wants a cigarette. She don’t smoke. I tell her its hard now a days to find a girl who don’t drink or smoke.

     ”We keep going on like this for five or six months. Then one day I take her to a friend of mine. He’s a jeweler. We look at the rings. I let her pick out the biggest one he got. And we get married. Everyone is happy.”

     That girl is one in a million. She don’t go anywhere or do anything without me. She goes to the store and tells me everything she bought and how must it cost. Gives me the change. I tell her she don’t have to do like that. She should go out and have some fun. She don’t want to do anything without me. Fine girl. Don’t find many girls like that today…”

    “Man, that’s something. A chance meeting,” I told Tony.

     “It’s a good thing for me. Now, I don’t be lonely no more… How you like your hair?” Tony asked stepping away from the mirror.

     “Very nice,” I said after a quick look.

     “I told you Tony is the best barber in Philadelphia,” C.C. said.

     “You head back to California, soon?” Tony asked.

     “Yea, in a week or so,” I answered.

     “Someday I come out to California. I always wanted to see California. Someday I close up shop and head for California,” Tony told us.

     “Well, you’ll love it out there. California has everything,” I said with a big smile.

    “Very nice meeting you, Jack, “ Tony said and gave me a firm handshake. “Charlie always talking about his brother in California. See you later Charlie.”

     “See you, Tony,” C.C. returned.

      “ So long,” I said.

     Out on the street, the sun beat hot and bounced off the sidewalk. We blinked our eyes as we adjusted to the painful glare. “You wa… wa.. wanna stop up the corner for a beer before we go home? C.C. asked.

    “No, this hair down my back is starting to itch already, I need a quick shower. Maybe later… This heat is killing me,” I told my brother.

     Combing my new hair cut after the shower, I noticed that the barber left one side burn about two inches longer than the other. I couldn’t believe it as I touched my face and turned my head. “He must’a done it on purpose. An old time barber couldn’t make a mistake like that. Why? Why would he a done that?’ I asked myself back then some forty years ago.

    And, today, I think that I answered, “Maybe he wanted to put one over on that smart ass hippy from California.” But, I’m not sure if that’s what I really answered. I remember that I had been growing my hair longer and working on my sideburns for at least a year, and was in a dilemma over what to do about it, “If I cut the longer one to make them even, it’ll take months to grow back again,” I told myself back then. And, none of the Trivia crowd had seen my new look.

    I didn’t say anything to C.C. and I don’t think he ever noticed it. I never did go out with him for the beer either, and I wish that I had done that, now.