Take a Little Time

“It’s a beautiful day, no thoughts on my mind. We should have done this sooner,” James said to me as we shared an hour of our lives with one another.

We have lived in the same building for a year. James lives with his wife, who would smile at me when we walked out of the building together, but one of those smiles that you would not remember if you had to identify it in a police lineup. I smiled the same way back. James and I would at least say a few words, something like “How’s it going?” and “Have a good one.” Generic responses for generic conversation.

Until today.

We sat in the backyard and our 180 degree separation of lives and history converged. “You know, when I was growing up on the West Side of Chicago as a black man, we were just hoping to get to age 30. I’m not saying this for sympathy or for any dramatic effect. It was the motha fuckin truth. For a kid with no money, the first time we put our hands on that shit we finally felt like something. How old are you?”

I told him I am twenty three. His face dropped. “You’re only 23!! And you’re already in graduate school? Shit, I can’t believe it. I thought you at least were 30.”

“Maybe it’s my beard,” I told him, not exactly sure how to respond.

“Most 23 year olds are college dropouts where I’m from, if they are lucky. And you made it straight through. Damn, that’s good shit.” He could hardly believe it.

It was one of those humbling yet uncomfortable moments, where there was nothing to apologize for, but nothing that could really explain my situation either. “I was lucky, privileged, supported,” I responded, “I had no other issues to worry about except college. That was it. College was my only option.”

“We all got that shit, and not everybody gets through college like that.”

It is true—the majority of college students do not graduate in four years. In fact, only 28% of Americans hold a degree at all. But it was never a question for me. For whatever reason.

“You know, I had a different kind of schooling, and I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he told me, very proud of where he is at today. “I own a barber shop. Once I saw money for the first time, I wanted it. I graduated high school and started working at a bank. That’s the job. I started in the mail room, and before long I was a teller. You can move up in that business if you work a little at it. I could have been a personal banker in five years!”

“But I always loved cutting hair. It is like an art, and I guess I just had it. And my dad knew it. He saw how good I was at it, and he told me to go for it. It was hard for me to give up my banking job, but I knew I had to do it.”

James and I lived in the same apartment for a year, and I knew nothing about him. We left the same door, lived our own lives, and really, there was no reason that I should know him. Different ages, different upbringing, different friends.

Unless I need a haircut.

That’s how we think. What can my new friend do for me. What can I get out of him. I think it’s an American thing: new friends are people who can help you out in some way. Nothing more, nothing less.

So James could cut my hair.

“Being a barber is a special thing. We are everything: an artist, a businessman, a counselor,” he said to me. “I never know who is going to walk in that door and sit in my chair. It could be a man who just got out of prison, a gangbanger, or a prominent businessman. People tell me everything. They are looking for comfort. If their wife just cheated on them, if they robbed the shit out of a liquor store and have a search warrant against them, you name it. I’ve heard it.”

But he is there for them. Like he was there for me today, chatting it up, having a good time. Enjoying one another’s company. The same company that we could have enjoyed a year earlier, had we simply made the opportunity. As the cliché goes, “Life is full of missed opportunities.”

We grew up in different worlds, with what originally seemed different goals and options. And perhaps that is true. But throughout the whole conversation, we kept looking at each other and saying, “Why didn’t we do this a lot sooner.” We should have.

It’s true, if I need a haircut James could cut my hair. But if I need a friend, James is there for me as well.