God Ain't Through Yet (7 page)

N
othing was more painful to me than to see one of my loved ones in such a hopeless manner like Pee Wee was in now. I hadn't even seen him look or act this hopeless at any of the many funerals we had attended together.

I placed my hands on his shoulders and began to massage him, but I stopped almost immediately because that only made him moan even louder. “Why don't you take a few weeks or a month off, baby?” I said gently. My hands were massaging his shoulders again. “Go down to the Bahamas and kick back on the beach and watch the sunrise. Go to that little bar Rhoda and Otis took us to that time, and drink so much rum that you'll be able to fly back to Ohio without the plane. Just enjoy yourself until you feel better. I know Muh'Dear can arrange it with the Jacobs for you to stay at their beach house for free. Think of all the fishing and all of the kicking back doing nothing that you can do. Unfortunately, as much fun as that sounds, it'll only be a temporary solution to your frustration. You'd eventually get bored with that, too. I can assure you that you will be glad to get back to Richland and your boring life as a barber. I'll call Muh'Dear and tell her to call somebody in the Jacobs family right away and see if their beach house is available. It's a good thing I made you renew your passport last month.”

“Will you come with me?” he asked, turning to face me. “It wouldn't be no fun if I went to a paradise like the Bahamas by myself.”

I let out a loud breath and returned to my seat. “I wish I could. But things are so busy at work now, I don't think Mr. Mizelle would let me take off even a few days right now.” I lifted Pee Wee's hand. It felt like a piece of dead meat. A cold piece of dead meat at that. It made my fingers tingle. I shivered and released his hand with my fingers still tingling. “Pee Wee, there is something you're not telling me. Now if we want to work as a team to resolve any issues that will affect us both, I need to know everything. I find it hard to believe that the only thing wrong with you right now is that you are just bored being a barber after all these years. If there is something else going on, I want to know and I want to know now. If we can discuss things like…uh…what happened last year, we can discuss anything.”

“What happened last year? You mean that cancer thing?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah…” I replied. For some reason the thing that happened last year that danced around in my brain the most was that awful affair I'd slid into. But I was glad to know that that was not the case with him. “Cancer. If we got through that in one piece, we can get through a little bitty thing like you being bored, Pee Wee.”

He let out a great sigh and cocked his head to the side. I looked at the one side of his head, noticing how much more gray hair he had since the last time I paid attention to his appearance. Normally, I would have mentioned it and offered to trot over to the Grab and Go to get him some of that Grecian Formula hair dye for men, but his gray hair was the least of my worries at the moment.

He shifted in his seat and released another moan, but this one sounded more like a rumbling growl. I didn't know if I was gaining or losing ground, because he didn't seem to be feeling, acting, or looking any better. If anything, he looked even more depressed than he did before we started this unpleasant conversation.

He shifted some more and cleared his throat, honking into a napkin. “There is more to it than me just bein' bored. I'm feelin' the sting of competition. I've never had to deal with it on this level before, Annette.” He balled the nasty napkin and flipped it across the room, where it landed in the trash can by the sink.

I gasped. “What competition? You own the most successful black barbershop in town! That's always been the case.”

Pee Wee blinked and gave me a pitiful look. “Annette, you women don't always know what's goin' on with us men. I am not just bored, I'm pissed off, too, see.”

I gave him a curious look. He was in no hurry to offer me any more information. “Well, are you going to tell me about it, or am I going to sit here and try and pull it out of you?” I snapped. “We've been having this conversation long enough, and to tell you the truth, it's beginning to get on my nerves. And I'm just as bored and pissed off as you—because of this conversation!”

“You know Henry Boykin?”

I nodded. “Who doesn't?” I said with disgust. “He's one of the younger boys in that rough family who owns that big white house on Pike Street, right? A real asshole?”

“That's Henry.”

I glanced toward the doorway to make sure Charlotte was not lurking about again before I spoke once more, whispering this time. “You used to buy weed from his uncle. The uncle that got killed by some drug dealers up in Cleveland a few years ago.”

“Well, Henry took up where his uncle left off. But he's such an asshole, I'd rather buy my weed from the Klan before I put a nickel in his pocket.”

“You don't need to be buying weed or any other stimulant from anybody. I've told you about that more than once, and I hope it doesn't keep coming up.”

Pee Wee snapped his fingers and gave me a dismissive look. “Can we stay on the subject?”

“Exactly what is the subject now?”

“I'm tryin' to talk to you about Henry!” he yelled.

“Then talk to me about Henry!” I yelled back, stomping my foot.

“Anyway, that punk Henry Boykin got out of the drug business after he got busted and now he's runnin' Soul Cuts barbershop over by the skating rink.”

“Oh yeah, that's right. I had almost forgotten about that because nobody ever mentions him to me.”

“Well, they mention him to me. Every time I run into one of my former customers, they go on and on about how happy they are to be goin' to Henry! He is takin' away all of the young business that I used to have,” Pee Wee complained. There was a worried look on his face, but there was also one on my face now, too.

“Oh? And how is he doing that?” I asked, feeling his pain and frustration. One thing about my relationship with my family was that when one of them was in pain, I felt it, too. And in some instances, it seemed like I felt their pain more than they did.

“Well, for one thing, he's young. Twentysomething. The kids can relate to him. And you seen his shop lately?”

I nodded. “I went by there with Daddy the other day when he got his bald spots oiled.” I shrugged. “So what?”

Pee Wee's face froze and he just stared at me with his mouth hanging open like a gourd. Then it dawned on me why he was doing that.

“Oh! Um…see, Daddy only went there because he couldn't get an appointment with you!” I said quickly.

“Your daddy went to my competition? He had to get his bald spots oiled so fast he couldn't wait on me? And me havin' a full schedule never stopped him from comin' to me before. The last time I had him come by after hours.”

“I didn't mean to tell you about that,” I admitted, bowing my aching head. “Please don't tell Daddy I told you.”

“You don't have to worry about that. If my own father-in-law don't want to do business with me, I can't do nothin' about it.”

“You know how mad Muh'Dear gets when she hears about us going to dinner at Antonosanti's instead of eating at her restaurant,” I reminded. “I guess that's no different than Daddy going to Henry's barbershop instead of yours, huh?”

“I guess not.” Pee Wee waved his hands in the air in frustration. “Don't tell your daddy I even mentioned him goin' over to Henry's place. I don't want him to know how disappointed I am….”

“I won't tell him I told you,” I mumbled. “Anyway, what all is Henry doing to lure your customers away?”

“For one thing, he tryin' to be like all of them uppity barbershops on every corner, in every black neighborhood in Cleveland. He got that big-screen TV settin' up in a corner—right next to a condom machine and a calendar with a woman in a string bikini on it! I tell you, some people ain't got no shame! You would think he was runnin' a tittie bar instead of a barbershop. He doles out free peanuts, provides free bottled water and free sodas, and he has the nerve to run raffles for free haircuts every now and then. I got a good mind to have the law check him out and make sure he ain't breakin' no laws.”

“So you think that all of that's the reason he's able to woo away some of your customers?”

“It must be! What else could it be? Shit. Your own daddy done jumped ship, and I had been cuttin' his hair for over ten years! But the other day when Otis didn't keep his appointment to get his dreads trimmed, that was the last straw.”

Otis O'Toole was Rhoda's Jamaican husband, and one of my husband's best friends. We had all attended high school together. It was bad enough that my daddy was giving his business to my husband's competition, but I was more than a little disappointed to hear that Otis was doing it, too. I couldn't wait to talk to Rhoda about it, and I was surprised that she had not already mentioned it. She told me everything else.

“Henry spent a lot of money to make his shop so attractive to folks,” Pee Wee lamented. “I wish I had proof that he got his money to take over that shop with drug money. I wish I could prove he's dealin' again. He'd be cuttin' some warden's hair for free for the state of Ohio.”

M
y husband was a smart man, but there were times when he said something so stupid I couldn't believe my ears. This was one of those times.

“Do you know how ridiculous you sound? Would running Henry out of business and sending him back to prison make you feel better?” I asked. Pee Wee just gave me a blank look. “You're still doing well. Lack of business is not the problem. Well, it's not the main problem. You still have enough customers to stay in business. And look on the bright side, you can retire in a few years. Between the two of us, we'll be very comfortable in our golden years.”

Pee Wee looked terrified for a few seconds. Then one of the most hopeless looks I'd ever seen appeared on his already tortured-looking face. You would have thought that I'd just told him he had a terminal illness. I was immediately sorry that I had made the “golden years” remark. It was too close to “last years.” And because of that serious medical situation that he had faced last year, a male-related condition that could have ended his life, his mortality was one subject we both avoided. Even though he'd beaten the odds and was now as healthy as I was, he still didn't like to discuss it.

“Retire?” he said, making the word sound so obscene I almost expected him to spit it out and honk it across the room. “Re…tire?”

The second time he said the word it sounded so bad I wanted to spit it out and honk it across the room myself.

“Uh…yeah,” I stammered, wishing I could take back what I'd just said.

“I don't want to retire. That's the beginnin' of the end! What in the hell would I do with myself if I retired? Sit around the house every day waitin' to die?”

“There are a lot of things a retired person can do!”

“Like what?”

“You can go fishing more, fool around with other retired men, and relax more, lots of things.”

“All that shit is part of the reason I'm bored, woman! What's wrong with you? If you think I'm in bad shape now, I don't even want to think about how bad off I'd be if I retired early!”

“Yes, you're bored now, but if being bored is your biggest complaint, you need to do something to change that.”

“Don't you think I've given that some thought? Do you think I'm discussin' this for my health? I've been thinkin' about makin' some changes for a long time.”

“Thinking about doing something and doing it are two different things. Look, honey, Henry's shop is so popular because he's giving his customers what they want. Men like looking at a big-screen TV while they are waiting to get their hair cut. Especially when some stupid ball game is on! And all those damn free peanuts, free sodas, and raffles for free haircuts? So what! If that's all Henry's doing, why can't you do something like that?”

Pee Wee's facial expressions changed so rapidly from one moment to the next, it was like he was changing masks. There was a soft, thoughtful look on his face now. It was a huge improvement. The look that he had displayed a few seconds before, a long, melted jaw–looking grimace, had made him resemble a dachshund.

“You sayin' that if I can't beat 'em, I should join 'em?”

“That's not what I'm saying, but since you brought it up, why not? Yeah, Henry probably got his money from dealing drugs. But you've made a nice little fortune over the years. We've got a mighty big nest egg sitting in Richland First National Bank. Use some of it to spruce up your place. Get a big-screen TV and some peanuts.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Pee Wee said. I didn't like the fact that he was being resistant. “Having the same things in my shop that Henry got in his might not even work. If I can't do all of that and a little somethin' different, somethin' that will attract more business and liven things up, what would be the point?”

I gave my husband another thoughtful look. So far I'd given him so many “thoughtful” looks that my eyes had begun to burn. And if that wasn't enough to make me want to conclude this conversation, the sides of my face felt tight and constricted. I tried to clear my throat, but the lump that had lodged itself there refused to move. When I spoke again, I had to lift my chin and breathe hard to clear the passageway in my throat enough so that I could hold back the bile that was threatening to erupt. That was how frustrated this conversation had made me. “You know that white barbershop across the street from my office? The one owned by Maury Klein?” I didn't wait for Pee Wee to respond. “You would think he had strippers working for him the way his customers line up outside. Maury doesn't even have a big-screen TV.”

Pee Wee stared at me with a disappointed look. “How would
you
know? Please don't tell me that you been goin' to the Jews to get your hair trimmed. I heard that a few black folks were goin' there. Lord have mercy on my soul! If I got to compete with the
Jews
—who own most of everything successful in this town already—I may as well retire and crawl into a hole right now. I guess the next thing you'll be tellin' me is that my black customers, and you, will start goin' to the synagogue, too, huh?” He looked at the telephone on the wall. “Where you put Reverend Upshaw's phone number? I'm sure he'd want to know that he got to compete with Jews now….”

“Now don't you start bad-mouthing the Jews. Mel Lowenstein has been your accountant for over twenty years, and he's one of your closest friends,” I reminded Pee Wee. “Last time I checked, he was still Jewish.”

“We ain't talkin' about Mel. We're talkin' about Maury and you goin' up in his shop to do business with him.” Pee Wee growled under his breath. “What else have you been doin' behind my back? If you can run to Maury to get your hair trimmed, what else will you do?”

“Be serious. You know me better than that. If I don't get my hair trimmed at your shop, you know I go to Claudette's beauty shop, not Maury Klein.”

“Why are you bringin' up Maury Klein anyway?” Pee Wee sounded so tired and defeated I was surprised that he was still engaged in this conversation. “Maury ain't the one runnin' me out of business.”

“Maury's got a manicurist in his barbershop. A lot of men like to keep their nails looking good.”

“So?”

“So that's one thing you might want to consider doing,” I pointed out. “If it works for Maury, it could work for you.”

Pee Wee gave me an impatient look and then rolled his eyes. “What's wrong with you, woman? I don't need a bunch of sissies comin' up in my place. You know how black folks behave when it comes to things like that. Remember that sissy preacher they ran out the pulpit at New Hope Baptist church last year? My business would drop off sure enough if I started caterin' to a bunch of fags.”

“I wish you wouldn't use words like
sissies
and
fags
,” I said, looking away. “You know I don't like it when you do.”

“I'm sorry, baby. I know you hate them words because when we was kids, everybody thought I was one.”

“Uh, that's right.” He was right. The fact that he'd been accused of being gay when we were kids was one of the reasons I hated words like
fag
and
sissy
.

There was another reason, and it was more recent and more painful. Pee Wee, and just about everybody else I knew, had implied that Louis Baines, the man I had cheated with, was gay. Pee Wee had been so adamant about it that he couldn't use Louis's name without including one of those derogatory terms in the same sentence.

I didn't like the way this conversation was going at all, so I knew I had to lighten it up or end it immediately. But from the look on Pee Wee's face, ending it didn't seem like the best option.