J.D. and the Great Barber Battle

by J. Dillard

  I knew I could meet up with Jordan again at lunch and maybe the lunch ladies would let me keep my hat on while I ate.

  No such luck.

  Because Mom was still a student, I qualified for free lunch. School didn’t offer the most exciting food in the world, but since it was the first day, there was pizza and tater tots.

  “J.D.! Good to see you back in school!” Ms. Carol said. She was a lunch lady with a close-cropped gray haircut. She smiled and scooped up a handful of tater tots for me. “Now take that hat off, you know it’s not allowed.”

  Unbelievable!

  As I made my way to the lunch table to sit next to Jordan, it seemed as if the whole world was slowing down and everyone was looking at my hair.

  The first thing I noticed when I sat down between Jordan and Xavier was all the new Marvel character lunch boxes. The few times a year my mom packed my lunch, it was always in a brown bag.

  “The food inside is the same, isn’t it?” my granddad responded whenever I tried to complain.

  Sitting between Jordan and Xavier, I quietly put a piece of pizza into my mouth. I wasn’t in the mood to say much to anyone.

  Jessyka sat across from us.

  “I won my race again this weekend, J.D.,” Jessyka said. “I’m going to be the best wide receiver our team has ever seen!”

  “I bet you’re right,” I replied. “I’m still getting used to switching from offense to defense.”

  “Hmm. It’s probably better for you not to get hit all the time,” she said.

  Wait, what was that supposed to mean?

  Jessyka brought out the newest edition of Spider-Man. Last year she was Gwen Stacy for Halloween.

  She started to read the comic and then stopped, looking up at me.

  “You know, J.D., you should let Xavier’s dad cut your hair next time,” she said. “I like how his hair looks.”

  Jordan and Xavier couldn’t stop laughing.

  If this was going to be every day of third grade, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to take it.

  I needed a plan, and maybe my mom’s box of hair supplies could help.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jordan’s Magical House

  Like I did every day after school, I went straight to Jordan’s house from the bus.

  It was amazing because everything I didn’t have, Jordan did!

  Here’s a list of everything I loved about Jordan’s house:

  His multiple video game consoles.

  Junk food.

  Cable television and central air.

  No curfew.

  Peace and quiet.

  Best of all, Jordan came from a family of Creasters— they only went to church on Christmas and Easter—so he had plenty of free time. The only things my family allowed were school, sports, and church.

  Dinner at Jordan’s house was always prepared at the same time and his mom, Mrs. Mathews, who owned a cleaning business, just said, “J. D., make yourself a plate!” and let me stuff myself with macaroni and cheese and homemade cornbread. Jordan’s dad, who was retired, spent most of his time at home and would eat with us, too.

  Jordan had just gotten the newest version of Madden NFL. Since we both did peewee football, we loved playing against each other, calling our own plays and fake coaching our own squads.

  “Got you again,” I said as my quarterback scrambled for a touchdown.

  “Maybe we can start playing for money and I can save up enough to go get a haircut from Hart and Son,” I joked.

  I looked down at the cover of Madden NFL 20. Patrick Mahomes was on the cover. I picked up the box and slammed it against my forehead.

  “If only I could get my hair to look like his!” I yelled out.

  “Well, that ain’t happening at Hart and Son,” Jordan said. “You know they only cut Caesars, baldies, and fades. They don’t even know who Patrick Mahomes is. Plus, you have to sit there all day.”

  Jordan was right.

  There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Meridian, so sometimes I tagged along with a friend who was going to the barbershop.

  Hart and Son were exactly that—a father and son, Henry Sr. and Henry Jr.

  Henry Sr. was a tall, skinny old man, maybe older than the Earth. Imagine a tall blade of grass with square oversized glasses, a small, neat Afro, and cargo pants held up high with a belt. That was Henry Sr.

  He rarely stayed in the shop for a long time, only for a few hours in the morning to cut the hair of his grown-up clients.

  Henry Jr. was in charge of keeping the shop going, and was a lot shorter and rounder than his dad. But since there wasn’t any competition in town, he could run things however he wanted, no questions asked.

  There was no sign-in sheet, and make-ahead appointments were not allowed. Henry Jr. would just take a headcount and go from there—first come, first served.

  A kid’s haircut cost seven dollars and fifty cents. There were no pictures on the wall to choose from, and Henry Sr. definitely didn’t know any famous people under the age of fifty.

  “I want to look like Odell Beckham Jr.,” I heard a kid say one day.

  “Junior? Who the heck is Odell Beckham Jr.?” Henry Sr. said.

  It was hopeless. You just had to sit, and sit, and sit, and sit for hours until it was your turn.

  When you have that much time to sit, you take notice of how the Harts ran the shop—from how clean Henry Jr. kept everything to how long it took him to complete each haircut. One time I was there, I even saw salespeople come into the shop with new haircutting gadgets and styling products.

  Folks felt so comfortable around the Harts that they often dropped their kids off at the shop and left while they ran errands.

  I didn’t know the Hart family well, but every now and then I’d see them during fellowship at church. Henry Sr. and Jr. were always getting awards for doing things like giving out free haircuts to people in need and working in soup kitchens. Henry Sr. even got something called the “trailblazer” award because he’d been cutting hair in the same spot for fifty-eight years!

  “Well,” Jordan said.

  “Well, what?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” he asked. I guess I hadn’t. “Why don’t you just take your mom’s clippers and shave your whole head bald? It’s better than what you have right now!”

  I thought about what Jordan said as we finished our last game of Madden. I was so desperate, his idea didn’t sound half-bad.

  Well, not the bald part.

  But hey, Michael Jordan was bald, and so was The Rock.

  CHAPTER 5

  Another Bad Hairstyle

  By the next Sunday after church, I knew I had to do something. Jordan and the rest of the kids at school would never run out of cracks.

  The thought of going back on Monday and taking in another week of insults made me not want to get out of bed.

  I had seen my mother give herself a “relaxer” out of a box about once a month. It was a white cream that made her hair stick-straight, and she kept it short like some actress named Halle Berry.

  “This hairstyle was so popular back in the day, and I liked short hair when I ran track, plus everyone said I had the right head shape for it,” Mom said when I asked her why she never changed her hair.

  “I guess back then I just thought it was easier. But one of these days I’m going to stop relaxing it,” she’d say. “I just don’t have time right now.”

  Mom wasn’t the best stylist. She would wash Vanessa’s hair every weekend and put it into a single braid going down her neck, but Vanessa would always take it down and redo it. She would spend hours twisting her hair before taking the twists out in the morning and tying a headband around her head.

  Sometimes Vanessa would stand at the mirror snipping at her hair with a pair of scissors. Her hair always looked better after she
was done fussing with it.

  I thought back to what Mom said about making her hair “easier” to do.

  My friend Xavier’s hair was kinda straight—maybe it would be easier to cut my hair into something cool if I relaxed it.

  I knew my mom kept her relaxer next to the clippers under the sink in the bathroom.

  So, after everyone went to sleep, I crept in there and read the box.

  The instructions were followed by the words:

  WARNING: Contains alkali. CAUTION: THIS PRODUCT WILL CAUSE IRRITANCY REACTION WHEN IT COMES INTO CONTACT WITH THE SKIN.

  * * *

  »»««

  Then there were a million more long words, some I did not know, but the warning also said the product could cause blindness if it got into my eyes and that I should wear gloves when handling.

  Well, I had no plan to put it in my eyes, and my mom used it in her hair.

  How bad could it really be?

  I followed the instructions and kept the white cream on my head for fifteen minutes and washed it out before I got into bed. That night, I thought about the warning label and all the things that could go wrong.

  The results the next morning weren’t, uh, exactly what I was hoping for. My hair was kinda straight, but not completely, and I had a small burn at the back of my neck. I ran a brush over it and slicked it back. I put my Bulldogs cap on before going down to the breakfast table.

  Granddad didn’t even have to say a thing this time. His look alone told me he wasn’t pleased.

  I took off my cap, and Vanessa gasped loudly.

  “Did you perm your hair with mom’s relaxer kit?” she asked.

  “It was a mistake,” I told her. “I won’t use it again.”

  “Well, good—don’t. What you did looks worse than what Mom did,” Vanessa said. “Too bad it’s going to take a MONTH for it to grow out.”

  A MONTH?

  What had I done?!

  * * *

  »»««

  The next whole week at school was even worse than the first one.

  During lunch, to take my mind off my hair, I pulled out my sketchbook. I didn’t even eat. I just turned my head away from my friends and put it down on the table as I completed my latest masterpiece—Thanos turning all the kids who had made fun of my hair into dust.

  “You know, my parents showed me a video called ‘Thriller’ over the weekend,” Jessyka told me as she sipped from a fruit juice box. “You look like that singer in it.”

  “Yeah, your head looks fried,” Xavier said.

  I couldn’t even think of anything to say back to them, so I kept my head down and finished my drawing.

  The only happy memory I had from the first two weeks of third grade was seeing Ms. Scott every morning in Reading class. She worked at a beauty counter inside JCPenney for her second job, and she looked different every day. When I used to visit my granddad at the mall before he retired, I always asked him to take me by her counter so I could get sprayed with cologne. When Ms. Scott saw how bad my hair looked, she let me keep my hat on the whole class.

  The teasing continued at Bible study, at football practice, and even at home with Vanessa.

  The last straw was when I was forced to sing at choir on Sunday with my head exposed, standing there looking ridiculous clapping and swaying in front of the whole congregation with my semi-straight hair.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I had to do something about my hair.

  CHAPTER 6

  Me vs. the Clippers

  Mom prepared our post-church meal early in the morning before we left so we could eat together before we all scattered. My grandmother usually taught a private ceramics class after church on Sundays, for example.

  “J.D., can you watch Justin for a little bit?” my grandmother told me before she left. “Granddad will be in the living room doing some paperwork.”

  “Why can’t Vanessa do it?” I asked.

  “She’s going with your mother to the beauty supply store, since you used up your mother’s perm,” Grandma said. “They’ll be back in a bit.”

  Ugh. They knew I had tons of homework I needed to finish before school on Monday. How was I going to do it if I had to waste time watching Justin?

  I told Justin to come with me to my bedroom.

  As I looked over at him playing with his race cars on the floor, I thought back to what Jordan had told me during our last game of Madden.

  Maybe I should just take my mom’s clippers and shave my head bald.

  But I had never cut hair before.

  I looked down at Justin. He had plenty of hair.

  “Justin,” I said. “Do you like your long hair?”

  Justin pulled at the tip of one of his braids and paused. He scrunched his nose.

  “No!” he yelled. I took that as a sign.

  “Let’s go into the bathroom for a little bit,” I said. “I want to teach you a new game. It’s called Barbershop.”

  Justin looked up at me and smiled like I had just invited him to the Meridian Bowling Alley. Mom was an expert bowler and it was her favorite way to blow off steam.

  She even had her own ball with her initials engraved on it.

  “If I bowl three hundred one more time, I’m going pro!” she’d yell after each strike.

  The bowling alley had rides and games for kids, too. Justin loved going.

  I sat my little brother down in the bathroom, put a bedsheet around his neck, and spun him around in front of the mirror.

  I grabbed my mom’s clippers and turned them on. They buzzed.

  There were eight different sizes of guard in the box, and I used the same size guard my mom used on me, a size two. I knew the larger numbers were for straighter hair. If no hair came off, then you used a smaller number. I steadied Justin’s head and I cut his hair into a fade.

  Tradition be gone! Cornrows no more!

  It didn’t look half-bad. Plus, Justin was only three, so what did he care?

  “Hey!” he said when he checked out his hair in the mirror. “Looks like Spider-Man’s!” he yelled out as he walked around the bathroom pretending like he was shooting webs out of his hands.

  I couldn’t believe I did it.

  And Justin looked so happy with how it all turned out.

  Making Justin happy with something I did filled me with a warm feeling. Like I’d just finished a plate of fried fish and French fries that my mom made every Saturday in the summer.

  This was proof that I could fix my own hair.

  “Now watch this, Justin,” I told him. “I’m going to cut mine.”

  I knew I could do it. Art was my thing. One time, I drew Black Panther, and my grandmother displayed it in the living room for everyone to see.

  Hair was the same.

  An art.

  I took the clippers, looked in the mirror, and thought about how everyone would react once they saw my sick fade.

  I turned them on with the size two guard, the same size I used on Justin.

  I was going in the direction of my hair, starting at the crown of my head.

  “You are great,” I told myself. “You are dope. You are cutting your own hair.”

  I was the man.

  I looked in the mirror as my mountaintops became a flat field. I finally DID look like Michael B. Jordan!

  My heart pounded as I waited in my bedroom with Justin for my mom to get home.

  As soon as I heard the door open and Mom and Vanessa come inside, I put baseball caps on both my and my brother’s heads. I was afraid she’d be SO angry at me.

  Justin burst out of my bedroom.

  “Mom!” he said as he hugged her. My Bulldogs cap almost covered his whole tiny head.

  “Where’s J.D.?” she said. At least that’s what I heard as I hid
out in my room.

  I had cut Justin’s hair without permission. Would I be grounded? Would this mean no more staying over at Jordan’s house? Would Granddad make me read him more dry books? Or worse, would my mom tell me no peewee football this year?

  I came out from my room slowly and sat down next to Justin on the couch in front of our only working TV.

  Granddad had finished his paperwork and was watching reruns of Jeopardy!

  “What is The Color Purple?” He yelled out the answer about a category named “The Oscars.”

  “J.D., now you got Justin wearing a hat, too!” he bellowed. “Boys, take those off!”

  I did as I was told. When Justin didn’t respond, I pulled off his hat.

  Mom and Vanessa joined us next to Granddad on the couch. My mom’s mouth dropped open when she saw my and Justin’s new haircuts.

  “Wow,” she said, in shock. No one made a sound for a really long time. Then finally, she continued, “I wish you had asked me if you could cut Justin’s hair first.”

  I knew it. I might as well start collecting books to read to Granddad.

  Then, Mom’s face got softer.

  “But Justin’s hair does look pretty good, J.D. Your hair looks good, too,” she said.

  She looked at Justin and rubbed his cheek.

  “Do you like your hair, baby?” she asked.

  Justin burrowed into my mom’s side and giggled.

  “I think that’s a yes,” she said. “If you’re this good at cutting your own hair, then that’s one less thing I need to do every week.”

  I couldn’t believe it!

  “Your hair looks way better than before,” Vanessa added. “Now you might not get put on punishment for using Mom’s perm box.”

  My shoulders relaxed and I turned my attention back to Jeopardy!

  That night, I went to sleep eagerly awaiting the school day on Monday. Now NO ONE would have anything bad to say about my hair.