Barbershop

“Iala, iala ehme!”, my mother would say taking me by the hand. I would get distracted looking at the houses along the way. To be honest I hated when she held my hand. I never liked anyone holding my hand. It made me look like a little kid, and athough I was one, who said I liked that the world knew that?

On this particular day she was taking me to have a hair cut. We went down the Rua (Street) Henrique Sertório and waited to cross at the light on Avenida Celso Garcia. The barbershop was to the left, on the other side of the avenue, at the glass door close to the corner.

I remember that place vividly. The furniture was dark and there were chairs to sit down and wait for your turn. The blows for the shaving cream were made of metal but looked like porcelain with this white paint on the outside. The brush showed signs of the years of use by the curved form it had even when it was just resting on the little bowl, like the people who curve with time. Maybe life is the hand of the barber and we are the brush. It brushes us back and forth, molding us with the white, warm foam of happy moments that are so aromatice, or on the rough surfaces, like the rough face of difficulties. Oh well, I did not think any of this on that day, but it sounded good, come on!

Continuing: the leather strap on the side of the chair was shiny because of the many times the barber passed the straight razor on it for sharpening. The sound of the straight razor hitting the leather strap is something I never heard again. How many time have I watched that razor run on customer faces! I would imagine when it would be my turn to shave! Gedo (my grandfather Issa, or "Seo (Mr.) Luiz" as he wa known) had a straight razor, but I remember when one day he stopped using it and started shaving with a save razor from Gillete. The safe razor had a handle that you would screw to a two piece metal holder for a very thin blade. If he was not cutting himself with that I was sure I would not cut myself either. Good thing I had Gedo to make my calculations!

My mom would not enter the barbershop because it was a place for men. The women would go to the beauty parlor, the hairdresser. “America style, please” she would say. “It´s all right, Dona (Mrs.) Olga, please come back in one hour” the barber would answer. Sometimes it would take longer, but it did not matter how long it would take, to me it was an eternity.

I would stay there listening to politics, soccer and women. By the level of the conversation I knew why she would not stay. And when there was a soccer game going on it was SO boring! I never understood the guy talking on the radio and those men would sit there for hours listening to that thing, all excited with what was going on. My own grandfather had a radio that he would hold very close to this ears and by the expression on his face it seemed like he was in the Stadium seeing it all himself. On my mind nothing was happening. By the way, I will stop talking about barbershop for a while and talk about soccer or my frustration with soccer.