Stephen Vasciannie, Contributor
THE PROFESSION of barbering is almost certainly counterintuitive in Babylon. Many denizens - both male and female -- proudly flash their locks, and would heap brimstone and fire upon those who fail to see the virtues of long, uncombed hair.
Other inhabitants of Babylon quietly equate high hair with masculinity; and a third set, openly defying the warning from Samson Agonistes, will accept haircuts only from their wives and significant others. In effect, this leaves the barber in the wilderness, or at least, in a very hairy situation.
Last week, after a break of about five years, I and I found I self in front of a mirror in a barbershop in Babylon. The barber was competent, courteous and calm: unlike some of my friends, he did not snicker when I said that I only wanted him to take off one-half of what was there. Nor did he ask any effete questions about the Napoleon style or the crew cut: this was "a work", and professionalism was required.
SCALP POLISH
Much to my surprise, this establishment, dedicated to the lopping off of high hair, did not seem to have fallen upon hard times. Across the way, there was a man having his scalp polished, not with lyrical coconut oil to be smashed until it is dry, but, rather, with some concoction designed to keep the bald head looking as shiny as a new cricket ball: the new secret of youth, one presumes. And on the other side, there was a man having his bimonthly constitutional, so to speak: "see you in two weeks time", his well-groomed hairstyle seemed to whisper to the happy head-hunter.
Things in this pleasantly appointed, upper crust type of place brought forth a flood of memories that cannot fairly be described as barbaric. Well do I remember the barbershop at the then Brooks' Shoppers' Fair on that Saturday evening in September 1970: afros were properly in style, and yet, when the barber finished with my head it was badly in need of follicle stimulating hormone. Unfashionable, unradical, and undermined, is what I would have thought had I known those words at the time; but the next day, my Grade Six primary school teacher rubbed my little head and commended me on my trim - since then, she has had a friend for life.
I remember too the travails of the black man having his hair cut in Cambridge. "Oh, you will have to go to Mill Road for that", an acquaintance had said snootily. My pilgrimage to Mill Road took me to a small shop with no other customers. A young man started on my head, chopped off the overgrowth (so to speak) and then called out for his "dad". Daddy, tottering at about 70, came forth from behind the shop, smiled, and took over where the 'prentice had pulled up. It seems that cutting black hair in Cambridge was a specialist occupation, requiring years of familiarity.
RED HILLS ROAD
Then there are the memories of the Red Hills Road barber, and of Ivan Smith, just behind Simon Bolivar's statue at the intersection of Stephen Street and Town Moor (Heroes' Circle today). The Red Hills Road barber believed in reading: in his establishment, at what later became Havenbrook Supermarket, he kept antediluvian English magazines. Some of these magazines must have contained the Albion equivalents of Hottie Hottie in today's Star, but others were more edifying; well may I have read the name Profumo there for the first time, while waiting to be propped up on the wooden crossboard that brought my six-year-old head up to the level of the mirror.
Mr. Smith's establishment served as a kind of non-alcohol-driven community centre for men: I am sure that the 1967 Central Kingston elections, in which Michael "Sounds and Pressure" Manley prevailed over E.K. Powell by 43 votes, or some such number, could have been decided right there in Ivan Smith's shop. The debates were sometimes strong and political; unlike the owner of today's Jack Spratt Restaurant, however, Mr. Smith had no occasion to complain about guns being drawn in his shop.
In the days of the unnamed Red Hills Road Barber, and in the days of Mr. Smith, barbers were not endangered by competition, or by men with guns. Miraculously, though, barbers prevailed through the 60s and 70s, so we can expect them to survive today, when the afro dons of old now have grey hair, or confidently receding hairlines. Let's lift our tams and nod our aging heads to the barbers in Babylon.
Stephen Vasciannie is a professor at the University of the West Indies and a consultant in the Attorney-General's chambers.
