As I locked my bike outside Peace House, the peace was already broken. Voices raised. Words harsh. Brain chemicals choosing fight over flight. A fellow to whom I gave a haircut last week (schizophrenic, someone whispered) yelled at a woman who objected to his disrespectful way of reminding her she owed him money.
He had been fine on the barber stool. Appreciative. But he went off on others, especially, it seemed, women.
A Peace House regular stepped in when the man threw something at the woman. He's a good and helpful community member, but today his defense took up the tone of the offender.
(As Sun Tzu said, "Choose your enemies well, for you will come to resemble them." Or was it Nietzsche? Or Mark Twain or Anonymous?)
Now, they were toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose, ancient grievance-to-ancient grievance. Fists raised. M******F******s exchanged.
Funny. My meditation topic for the day was going to be about confronting a former adversary and finding peace.
I have gained distance from my enemies. This comfort zone is why I am more relevant to our community when I do haircuts instead of when I philosophize.
Today was a record. Eight customers—all but one from a tradition of haircutting different from mine.
No one had asked for a haircut, so I was out on the sidewalk checking my messages when Ali walked up and asked me to prune his scalp. After that, the floodgates opened, and I was busy for more than two hours.
Toward the end, a young guy asked if could give him a cut. Early on after telling me what he wanted, he flinched. I asked him what had happened. He showed me his blood-encrusted ear. He had fallen asleep at the bus stop and hit his head when he fell off the bench. He wrapped his fingers around the ear to protect it, which made the cutting difficult.
Then the Observer emerged from the restroom. He proceeded to tell me how I should cut the young fellow's hair.
It's okay. The passage to the restrooms gets a lot of traffic and I endure a lot of comments intended to be funny. But the Observer wanted to give a critique. He, too, cut hair and, as an African-American, surely had more experience in relevant barbershops than I. He wanted to tell me how I should be doing the taper ("Have you done a taper before?) and how to follow the natural hair line.
Duh, but okay. Please move on.
He continued giving advice on which clipper guide to use, questioning why I trimmed the neckline the way I did.
Peace.
Then he told me how I could not possibly taper the sides to the top. I offered him the clippers. He waved them off. I offered again after more critique. He waved them off again.
Near the end, the young man was laughing. He was happy with his haircut because I had taken it slowly, showing him each step of the process until we reached the result he wanted.
Then I sought out the Observer.
"You did not listen to me," he said. "I know how to cut hair."
"No disrespect to you," I said, "but when I am cutting, I only listen to the person on the stool."
"You did a good job," he said.
"Thank you," I said.
Noise is better than blood. Respect is better than noise.
