Barber Shop Blues
“ . . . a barber’s razor . . . ”
Ezek. 5.1
Six nights of preaching at the Faith for Living seminar in the Roseville Christian
Centre had been tiring for the visiting speaker, the Reverend Bob Clement. It was
nearly midnight when he arrived back at the hotel room. He showered quickly and flopped
into bed.
“Honey,” said his wife Darlene, “we’ll have to find you a barber. Your hair’s curling
over your ears.”
“Uhuh,” said the Reverend Clement sleepily. “Suppose I was to take a Nazaritic vow?
I wouldn’t need a barber then.”
“Listen here, Bob Clement. I know you don’t like barber shops but you’re not going
to get off that easily. Your strength isn’t in your hair – at least I hope it’s not.”
She tickled him in a special way that normally evoked a response.
“Besides, doesn’t St. Paul say that nature teaches long hair is a shame to a man?
I’ll ask the lobby clerk tomorrow if he knows of a barber. Okay honey?”
But the Reverend Bob Clement was already asleep.
Next morning, the Reverend Clement asked the lobby clerk if he could recommend a
barber.
“You’ll want Mr Hamid,” said the clerk. “He’s a very good barber. He cuts most folks’
hair round here. I’ll call and let him know you’re coming.”
The directions he gave the Reverend Clement were somewhat complicated. Leaving the
hotel, the Reverend Clement walked two blocks, turned left at the Baptist Church,
and found himself in a maze of shabby streets whose existence he would not have suspected
in a town like Roseville. The narrow, unpainted houses huddled together as if to
prop one another up and the streets seemed to have been designed for donkey carts
rather than cars.
He passed several shops but the doors were shuttered and bolted. Peering into one
dimly lit interior, he made out what appeared to be rows of clay pots.
Just as he was wondering if he had wandered by mistake into an abandoned movie set,
he saw a shop front with the familiar red, white and blue striped pole.
The sign over the door was written in Hebrew. Although the gilt lettering was faded,
he could just decipher the name – Hamid’s Barber Shop. A bell jangled as he pushed
open the door and entered.
Mr Hamid was a swarthy, portly middle-aged gentleman in shirt sleeves. He had a towel
draped over one arm. He bowed very slightly as he introduced himself.
“I am Hamid. I have been expecting you. This is a great honour for me. My son too
wishes to meet you. I am teaching him my humble trade.”
Young Hamid was swarthy like his father and also bowed slightly as he shook hands
but he did not speak.
“Please be seated,” said Hamid, indicating a low wooden bench. “You will have your
usual cut?”
“Yes, please.”
“It is the special cut,” said Hamid to his son. “Get the bowls ready.”
The Reverend Clement was sweating. Dentists’ chairs held no fears for him. Barbering
was different. When he was a boy, his father had cut his hair, using a pair of hand-operated
hair clippers. On Saturday evenings he would sit in the kitchen with a towel round
his neck while his father set to work, referring every now and again to the pictures
in the instruction manual propped open on the table.
Invariably he would take too much hair off one side. He would correct this on the
opposite side and start over again, gradually working his way towards the crown of
his son’s head. The clippers operated by gripping the hair firmly and tugging it
out by the roots, rather than snipping it. It was an eye-watering procedure.
Young Bob Clement had the shortest haircut ever seen in Tulsa. The pastor’s son had
looked more like a candidate for the Buddhist priesthood than for the Grainge Bible
College.
He had resorted to sabotage, secretly removing a knob on the screw that held the
hand-pieces together. When next his father tried to use the clippers, they fell apart
and the springs and gears dropped onto the floor. His father had tried to reassemble
the machine but without success, and the pieces went into a kitchen drawer where
they lay for years among the cutlery.
Meanwhile preparations for the Reverend Clement’s haircut were complete.
“We are ready to begin,” Hamid told his son. “Observe and learn from my instructions.
“I take the sharp knife, the barber’s razor, and cause it to pass over his head and
beard, as it is written in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, chapter five. See, it
passes over the head.”
The Reverend Clement felt his eyes watering as the hair was tugged and hacked from
his scalp.
“Gather up the hair as it falls, my son. Let not one hair drop. Now we take balances
to weigh and divide the hair. Place a third part in each bowl, my son.”
Young Hamid arranged the piles of hair in the bowls.
“We take a third part and cast it to the wind. Open the shutters my son and cast
it out. Well done, my son – but close the shutters before it blows back inside.”
Young Hamid retrieved a few hairs that had fallen on the floor and slipped them between
the shutters.
“Now we take a third part and smite it about with a knife. Don’t prod at it, my son,
smite it about. Imagine it is a Goromite head!”
Young Hamid slashed at the hair vigorously until it was reduced to fine powder.
“Now we take a third part and burn it with fire. Take matches, my son. Spread the
hair out or it won’t burn.”
Young Hamid struggled with the matches but succeeded in setting the hair alight.
The shop filled with acrid smoke. “My son is learning,” Hamid said, beaming with
satisfaction.
He opened the shutters and fanned the smoke out with his towel. Then he inspected
the bowl of ashes.
“Thereof shall come forth a fire into all the House of Israel,” he said.
He removed the towel from the Reverend Clement’s neck.
“It is always an honour to cut the hair of a prophet.”
“But I’m not a prophet,” said the Reverend Clement, running his hand over his roughly
shaven scalp. “The Lord called me to be a pastor and a teacher.”
“Not a prophet?” said Hamid ominously. “Not a prophet?”
“He is an imposter,” young Hamid muttered. “A Goromite jackal.”
“So,” said Hamid, his eyes narrowing. “I will cause this sharp knife, this barber’s
razor, to pass across thy throat, from thy left ear unto thy right.”
Desperately the Reverend Clement struggled to raise himself from the chair but, shorn
of his hair, his limbs were powerless. He knew now how Samson had felt when woken
by the Philistines after his disastrous hair cut.
“Honey, honey!”
“Darlene?”
“Wake up, honey, the maid’s brought our coffee.”
“Praise the Lord!”
“Amen,” said Darlene. “Say, while you were asleep a lady from the Christian Centre
rang. She owns a beauty parlour and she’s offered to do my hair. She said it would
be a great honour to cut your hair as well. I’ve made an appointment for us both
at 10 o’clock. Isn’t it wonderful how the Lord always provides?”
“Amen,” said the Reverend Bob Clement.
