When I Was the Greatest (9 page)

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I came bopping down the block, swinging a bodega bag. Needles and Noodles were sitting on the stoop, waiting for me. We would just pool all of our money and see how much we had and what we could afford. We knew we wouldn't have enough for fly outfits, but at least we might be able to get haircuts.

I dug in the black bag and pulled out a greasy brown paper one. Then I wiggled a golden beef patty out and broke a piece off. I passed the patty to Needles, who cracked off a corner and then passed the rest to his brother.

“How much you got,” Noodles said, sucking in his breath—the patty was hot!

“I got eleven bucks,” I said. I took my money and held it in my hand like it was a wad. “Here's eight of it, and the rest of it is in change.” I patted my pocket so they could hear the jingle.

“Okay, cool,” Noodles gave his approval. “You?” He turned and looked at Needles, who was sitting on the second
step from the top as usual. Needles put the yarn down and wiggled his hand into his left pocket. He pulled out a few dollars.

“Here you go,” Needles said, happily handing it over.

“One, two, three, four. Four bucks.” Noodles looked disappointed. “That's it?”

“Yeah, that's it,” Needles said, now looking bummed.

Noodles was always coming down on Needles, and it was really starting to piss me off.

“Man, how much you got?” I said.

Noodles looked at me strange.

“I could probably get us a couple of bucks. I just gotta wait for Ma to get back from work,” he said, which meant he had nothing.

“So you got nothing? Not one dollar? Not a quarter? Not a penny? Even bums got pennies!” I knew this would make him angry, and I didn't care. I looked up at Needles and he was giggling. That's all I cared about. “Well, fifteen bucks ain't gonna be enough for all three of us to get cut,” I said.

“Welp, sorry, Needles.” Noodles looked at his brother and shrugged his shoulders.

“Naw, naw, he can get one. I was just gonna get a shape-up, but I can pass.” My hair was in braids. I knew that I could get away with not having a fresh shape-up easier than they could get away with not chopping that Sunday dinner off the tops of their heads. “I'll just get Jazz to braid me up fresh. No biggie,” I added.

“Fifteen still ain't enough to get both of us cut, man.”

“Brother will hook it up. He'll look out because he likes Needles. Should be fine.”

I really wasn't sure if Brother would look out for Needles, but I knew he probably would just because everyone in our neighborhood kind of looked out for him, as long as he wasn't bugging out.

We started heading up the block toward Brother's. Once we got halfway up the street, we realized Needles wasn't behind us. He was still sitting on the stoop. He just wasn't used to ever coming anywhere with us, I guess. It was like his mind had gotten used to us, and everyone, leaving him right there on that stoop, second step from the top. We called out to him, and he looked kind of startled.

“Come on, man!” Noodles shouted, waving his arm.

Needles scrambled to gather his stuff, his yarn and needles, and ran to catch up.

We walked up Fulton like three cool dudes, one of which was holding yarn. For some reason this particular day Fulton Street felt like Broadway, or Fifth Ave, one of those kind of streets. Not because anything on the street was different, because it wasn't. Same old hood shops, and hustlers on the corner. People on pay phones and the smell of burnt halal meat and dog mess. No white people. At least not many. So it wasn't actually like Broadway or Fifth Ave, but in my mind it just felt like we were walking high and mighty like I guessed they did on those streets. Like we were going to do something very important. Get haircuts for a very special event we'd been invited to. An exclusive night at Chateau MoMo.

Once we got to Brother's Barbershop and Pet Store, there was a blue and white sign on the door.
SORRY WE'RE CLOSED
. Closed? Closed? How?

I checked the hours on the sign.

“He's closed Mondays,” I said.

Noodles put his forehead against the glass door and peered in. Darkness.

“You gotta be kidding me. What about the pet store? Brother gotta be in there. People need pet stuff on Mondays, don't they?”

“Guess not.” I stared at the sign as if trying to change it from closed to open. Needles leaned against the wall, quiet.

“Yeah, all barbershops, for the most part, are closed on Mondays, young fellas.” A familiar voice came from behind us. I looked in the glass before turning around. I could see the reflection and knew exactly who it was.

It was this guy named Kendall who lived all the way down at the end of our block. Everyone called him Black. I'm pretty sure he was twenty-something. Definitely not over thirty. He was known for being a hustler but not your typical hustler. His hustle was that he could do a whole bunch of stuff pretty good. He wasn't great at anything, though. Just pretty good. My mother says he's a jackass of all trades, and a master of none. He would hang out on Fulton, and whatever stores were closed, he would lurk around and wait for customers to show up and be disappointed about the store not being open. Then he would offer his services. So if a law office wasn't open on Sundays, Black would just
pop up and say he could represent someone in court. Or if a restaurant was closed, he'd appear out of nowhere and offer to make people lunch for half the price. I guess it was our day.

“But whatever you need done, I'm sure I could hook you right up. And for cheap, too.”

Noodles looked at him from head to toe. Then looked at me. I knew I wasn't getting a haircut either way, because I have braids, so it didn't matter too much to me. And even if Black said he'd braid it, I would've said no, just because nobody does my hair but Jazz. She does it the best, and it's free. I gave Noodles the “why not” face. I mean, we were in a jam. What other options did we have? Sure, we could wait until the next day, but we figured all the barbershops on this side of Brooklyn would be slammed with all the other guys trying to get fresh for MoMo's party, plus barbershops are just generally pretty busy places in our neighborhood. The black man's country club, as they say.

“Aight, man,” Noodles said to Black. He put his tough face on. “What you talking?”

Black smiled a hustler's smile. “What you need?”

“Me and him, caesars.” Noodles pointed over to Needles, who was still leaning against the wall.

Black looked at Needles, and you could tell he recognized him from the neighborhood.

“Oh, cool,” Black said. He took a second to think of a price. It looked like he was punching a calculator in his head. He was counting his fingers, too. It was all very stupid. He knew
what he wanted to charge, he was just stalling to make it seem like he was cutting them some kind of deal.

“Just give me ten and we square,” he said.

Noodles looked over at me. I gave the same face I gave him before. Why not? I mean, the truth is, I had seen Black's work. Not his barber skills, but I saw him fix Mr. Malloy's gate down the block, and he patched a leak in my house one time, for Doris. And he brought me and Jazz bootleg movies to watch. Pretty good. Good enough. Oh, and he put braid extensions in some girl's hair once. I can't remember who, but I remember them looking pretty good, and her bragging about only paying him thirty bucks or something like that. He had proven to be a decent knockoff guy.

In order to get the haircuts, though, we had to go back to Black's apartment. None of us felt like walking back to the block, but luckily, Black had a car. A cab. I guess another of his hustles. We jumped in the backseat and headed back down Fulton.

Black's place was interesting. He lived alone, which was cool and unexpected. I don't know why, but I always thought he lived with his mother. I guess all his hustles were paying off. The walls were painted a cool light blue, and the room seemed brighter than it really was. The living room was the first room you walk into. He had a supernice couch and table in there, and even had a flat-screen TV. A sweet one. They're all sweet, but his was sweet. Black actually had pretty good taste, from what I could tell.

“Come right through here, gents,” he said while leading us toward the back of the apartment.

You know how when you see movies where people have attics in their houses, and that's where they keep all their junk, and sometimes scary things go on up there? That's how this back room was in Black's house. He had welding masks, paintbrushes and empty paint cans, a barbecue grill, a chainsaw, curling irons, a flute, blades from a ceiling fan, old TVs with the wires coming out the back, a mannequin, high-heel shoes, and who the hell knows what else. I had no clue why he brought us back to this room until I looked in the corner. A barber chair.

“Are you serious?” Noodles barked.

“What?” Black seemed confused.

“Why do you have all this crap?”

“This is my office. This is what put that flat screen out there, and this is what's gonna get you and him a haircut for cheap,” Black boasted.

There was nothing anyone could say after that.

Black cleared some space around the barber chair. There was a black box on the seat. He opened it and began pulling out his clippers and his smock, and the oils and sprays and all that. He had the whole setup. If you didn't know better, you'd have thought Black actually went to school for this. He sprayed the clippers down to clean them and then stood behind the chair.

“So, who's first?”

“Needles,” Noodles said with no hesitation. Somehow I knew that was coming.

“Yeah, I'll go first. I don't care,” Needles said.

Needles, yarn in hand, stepped over the mess to get to the chair. He plopped down, and I could tell he was happy. He didn't smile or anything, but I could just tell. It was his eyes. It was always his eyes. They were beaming. Black took the smock and waved it over Needles to cover him, tying it around his neck.

“Y'all can have a seat over there,” Black said, pointing to an old church pew. What the? I didn't even want to know what he was doing with that. Clippers on. The motor inside was buzzing at the exact same level as the fridge in Noodles and Needles's house. Black started with the back, moving the clippers up Needles's neck in sweeping motions like he was painting. He looked pretty pro.

Still, I had to warn him. “Black, be careful,” I said. “Needles sometimes has a tick. Don't want you to put a bald spot in his head. That wouldn't be cool.”

“Gotcha,” he said. “Trust me, I've cut enough babies to know how to handle that kind of stuff.”

“Needles ain't no baby,” Noodles said, tough. I understood why he said it, but I think he misunderstood what Black was saying. Black didn't respond. Noodles just smirked.

“I'll try not to budge, Black,” Needles said.

“You aight, man, no worries. I gotcha.”

The clippers buzzed and buzzed, and hair fell from Needles's head like ash. Like thick black snow. Black told us about how he used to watch Brother cut when he was younger. How he would sit with his mom waiting for a cut, watching everything Brother would do with the clippers.
How he would hold them when he was cutting, and even how he would whisper to himself, “Against the grain,” or “Go with the grain.” I never knew what Brother was saying, but he's always mumbling something. I guess that's what it was. Against the grain. Or go with the grain. Black said that's pretty much how he learned everything he knew. He learned to braid hair from watching his mom get hers braided. He learned to fix things by watching his mother's boyfriend. He learned to cook by watching his mother in the kitchen. Then he told us how he didn't really do well in school because no one was ever showing him anything, so he couldn't quite understand most of the subjects. He said teachers were just talking. Not showing. And he was a show-don't-tell kind of guy. Black said he probably could've been a scientist or a doctor or a lawyer if his teachers had got that he was different. I agreed. He probably could've been. I told him that I bet he could be a teacher, though. He laughed.

Right when he was finishing up Needles's haircut, there was a clicking at the front door. Someone was coming in. We could hear the door swing open and tap against the wall. Then close. Lock. The click-clacking on the floor made it clear that it was a woman. She peeked into the back room and tapped on the wall to get Black's attention.

“Hey, babe, what you got goin' on in here?”

“Not much. Just cutting these boys' hair.” Black cut the clippers off and stretched out to give her a kiss. “Fellas, this is my girl, Kim.”

Kim smiled. “Hey, guys.” She shook all of our hands,
classy. “Kenny, I'm gonna be out here on the couch. Gonna try to catch a quick nap before work.”

“Okay, we'll keep it down.”

Kim wasn't bad to look at. She was tall and slim but not skinny. She had super white teeth and she wore glasses, which I liked. From that short interaction, she seemed so sweet, which made her look even better. It was sort of amazing that a girl like her was with Black. Not that he was a bad-looking guy, but he was Black: jackass of all trades, master of none. But I was learning as we were talking that he wasn't so bad. Still, I couldn't believe she was Black's girl. Pretty good.

Black didn't really say too much about Kim when she left, just brushed off Needles's neck and forehead, then sprayed the stuff on his head to make sure it had that shine. He pulled a hand mirror out of the black box and held in front of Needles's face. Needles smiled big. I did too. I looked over at Noodles. He smiled too. I have to say, the haircut was fresh.

“Next,” Black said while taking the smock off Needles and snapping it in the air. Hair went flying and slowly falling to the tops of everything on the floor. Noodles jumped up, now excited since he'd seen that Black actually was a decent barber.