Barber shop offers a cut and slice of life
said.
“Magic word,” Mr. Paris said.
There’s a thing about barber shops that attracts men, even if they aren’t getting a haircut. It’s an excuse for a social session that a lot of guys don’t carve out for themselves otherwise, but, as Mr. Paris said, “the aesthetics alone make this place worth it.”
I’ve always been the only female waiting for a haircut there, and it’s a fair assumption that the few females who go to barbers would say the same. We are few, but we are smart.
On a friend’s recommendation, I went the first time, tired of paying much more for a trim of my very short hair than men pay for theirs, and have been back for every subsequent trim.
Mr. Richards used to be a barista at The Vault, a cafe in a former bank building in Brighton Heights. It closed around 2008.
“I was always looking for a traditional barber, but so many had died or retired,” he said.
He decided to be the barber he was always looking for. He left his job at The Vault to go to barber school.
Mr. Richards uses a barber chair from 1932, in a shade of green that isn’t found in nature, with an iron foot rest that rocks like the treadle of an old sewing machine.
Paul Barnard was sitting in it when a song came on that gave me a teeny-bopper flashback.
“Hey Brad,” I asked, “What’s that song?”
Affecting an announcer’s tone, he said, “‘When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door’ by the Monkees.”
And I thought my playlist was all over the map.
While waiting for a haircut last year, I listened in on a conversation the barber had with a nearby resident about his garden. Another time, I eavesdropped on a conversation about a guy’s family, and, most recently, discussions about Las Vegas and a customer’s upcoming job interview.
There was a group discussion about what society is going to do about fake information, a musing about which Monkee was singing lead on that song. More coffee offered, more poured.
When Mr. Kovach finally got in the chair, I was talking to Mr. Paris.
“I used to go to salons for the color,” he said. “I’m a regular here now, but not as regular as I’d like to be” because of the limited hours. “I wouldn’t care if someone charged $5, I’d still come here. It’s the people.”