Pieces Of A Man

Pieces of a Man The barbershop chairs were high and intimidating; dark pleather seats that were old and cracked with bits of foam gushing out like toothy grins from the blackness. I was ten, sitting in the chair and squinting around the small Haitian barbershop since I had to take off my glasses for the cut. The smell of hair grease mixed with the stench of alcohol was thick in the shop, while drunken exaltations in a language I didn’t understand came roaring from the back rooms where the men played dominoes and argued politics. I remember wondering why I was there, why I couldn’t be in a regular American barbershop that was closer to our house and had gum ball machines instead of carts full of beef patties. Everything was hazy and strange with my glasses off. Colors blended and figures faded into shadow. As I looked I finally settled on what seemed like two glittery black orbs floating in one of the chairs. They were eyes. My father’s eyes. He sat close enough to me that I could see his face clearly if I squinted, but in truth even if I was completely blind I would know that look. It was a look I had come to know and hate, a look that filled me with unease and caution, yet was just as magnificent for being so strange. I can paint the picture pretty easily: His 5’11’’ frame was still slender from years of working on farms and in forests, only just beginning to show a paunch associated more with years than inactivity. He leaned back easily in the seat, his right leg crossed smartly over his left. His manner was both lackadaisical and predatory, unconcerned but nevertheless watching carefully. His right arm was folded across his stomach while his left rested on the folded arm. His chin was placed in his left hand and the hand covered his mouth so only his eyes were visible. Even with his mouth covered, I knew that the right side of his lips curved upwards ever so slightly in a manner that was neither smirk nor smile. It’s an expression I saw on his father the one time I met him before he died. It’s one I regularly catch myself doing before I chastise myself and squash it into a frown. I never asked him what he was looking at for fear of the answer. We let each other stare at each other, our minds far apart. I knew, even then, that I was too quick to judge. Here was a man I lived with my entire life, but knew nothing about. My father was notoriously tight-lipped and infamously succinct. The only way I learned about my father’s past was through a patchwork of stories he either told me or was telling other people that I happened to overhear. These stories were years apart, took place at shifting times in his life, and were often small details that somehow fit into a larger whole. His life was a 30,000 piece puzzle strewn haphazardly on the floor of a poorly lit room. But as I learned more, began to put the pieces in place, my youthful derision gave way to awful understanding. It may take another twenty-one years to learn him as a whole, but for now at least I have a sliver of insight into the meaning behind his mysterious stare. “Take more off de top Reggie, I don’t want ‘im looking like one of dese vagrants off de streets, man.” His voice was deep and rumbling, a mishmash of dialects both Islander and British from his years studying abroad. Dad was obstinately sure of his assessment of what the “vagrants” looked like and did everything in his power to make sure I didn’t become one. I would’ve roll my eyes if he wasn’t watching. “But Burkie, dat’s de style de young people have dese days, high on de top and tin on de sides. De boy looks fine!”

“I nah tellin’ you twice, Reggie.” And that was that. To my father, the barbershop was calming; a hypnotic lull of sounds and smells that made him think of better times. Simpler times. He would sometimes close his eyes and envision the happier times of his youth, hanging around the bars and restaurant areas the dockworkers liked to frequent after a long day of moving shipping crates or fishing. To him they weren’t just sounds and grunts, or a cacophony of voices and languages rising and lowering as some shouted and others whispered conspiratorially. No, to him they were the songs of men: a chorus of jokes raising cheery laughter and stories of love and woe told to close friends. The clink of glasses hitting one another in a fraternal salute. To him, it was the language of those who rewarded themselves after a day of hard work. And if there was anything in this world my father firmly believed in, it was hard work. The first thing Dad did when he initially came to America was to find a Caribbean barbershop in the neighborhood. Luckily for him, South Florida has whole cities devoted to Caribbean markets and commerce. He sought out this ideal barbershop like a man possessed, absolutely certain that the correct choice of one would have far-reaching effects on him and his family. And it was truly for his two young sons, my older brother and me, that he sought out this cultural beacon. For even though he had only been there for a few weeks, America was showing him things he didn’t expect and didn’t understand. I remember hearing how he’d taken a walk around the neighborhood to become better acquainted with the area, taking in the sights and the sounds but mostly taking in the people. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, he knew that, but he also knew what tough neighborhoods really looked like, drawing on some of the poorer places he’d lived and visited in the Islands. Here food was abundant; one just had to have the money to buy it instead of having to grow it like back home. Here families limited shower time but at least the shower wasn’t a lake shared by the whole neighborhood. You turned off lights to preserve energy here, but at least you had them. The South Florida streets had their own set of problems, but it was the youth Dad saw that actually shocked him. There were hundreds of young boys, none older than 16, who roamed the streets vagrantly without a rhyme or reason. They watched him as he walked by, shouting insults at him and puffing out their chests in a pathetic attempt at youthful bravado, all the while flashing various gang symbols and making movements as if to call attention to concealed weapons. My father was taken aback, not by their threats or insults, but by the sense of reckless abandon these young men carried. Theirs was a world devoid of discipline or doctrine, empty and meaningless without a moral compass or sense of cultural obligation. The America he was bringing his two young sons to seemed alien and strange. And so he found his little barbershop, went there religiously every week, being sure to bring my brother and me so that we may learn an aspect of our culture we may never have seen otherwise. When he went he often stared at us while we were getting our haircuts, content in studying our faces and realizing how much we looked like our mother. He knew he probably wasn’t the best father, knew he wouldn’t be since the day his own father kicked him out of the house at the age of fifteen to live with two Catholic Nuns. He had done nothing wrong to warrant this expulsion, only that he was the eldest son and the financial strain of raising 11 children through the profits of a banana farm proved too great a burden for his parents.

My father vividly remembered the day grandpa unceremoniously packed what little he had into a small suitcase and had it sitting on the front porch when he came home from school, confusing and angering him at the same time. His father did not readily explain why he was leaving, never actually told him, but left the reason open for interpretation. The day Dad left to live with these two elderly white Nuns whom he had never met before, his entire image of his father and father figures became eternally slanted, distorted and broken into sharp fragments that would cut him if he ever tried to examine them closely. As he walked into the taxi cab with his one suitcase, his brothers and sisters came pouring out of the house to watch as he went. His mother came out as well, holding back tears and waving emphatically to him. All were present except his father, who didn’t seem concerned enough to watch what could potentially have been the last time he would see his eldest son. From that day forward, Dad knew he was on his own. The Nuns were there to watch him, not to raise him, and every dollar he would receive would be one he earned; every thing he would get would be something he bought. Through his own hard work and dedication he got jobs, went to school in England, opened his own successful forestry business, and even held an office in local Parliament. Nothing was simply given to him and without help from his family or the Nuns, Dad became his own success story and brought that work ethic with him to America so many years later. And so it’s with those eyes that had seen so much, that my father would watch my brother and I as we got our haircut; noting subtle changes in our faces and attitudes as each week passed. He saw as we changed our hair preference from high-top fades, to parts that extended all the way to the back of the head, to the short cropped brush cut that exposed our natural wavy textures. Watched as with each passing week and each passing year our facial hair would grow, our features matured, and aside from his characteristically wide nose, gradually looked less and less like him. I’m sure it didn’t bother him at all. Beneath the hazy glow of the fluorescent lights, amidst the multilingual catcalls and drunken shouts from the back area, and seated comfortably in front of his sons, watching them grow, my father found his America.