I just have to keep pretending I don’t think about that night all the time, that my body doesn’t crave another and another.
“It’s a good tree?” I ask.
“It’s huge,” Kassim gushes.
Of course it is.
“He owns one of those Christmas tree farms. He asked Mom if we still needed one and brought it over.”
My steering wheel won’t survive any more talk about the wannabe congressman.
“So we keeping it simple today for this haircut?” I ask. “Or you want some of them lines and arrows?”
He laughs like I knew he would and describes a pattern he and Jamal agreed they’d try next time they went to the barber. When we pull up to Preach’s shop, The Cut, I’m proud of how well my friend has done. We both graduated with business degrees and knew what we wanted to do. Well, Byrd and Yasmen conceptualized Grits, but I knew I didn’t want to work for anybody else. Preach cut hair out of his dorm room and then his off-campus apartment all four years. He paid his dues working in other shops and doling out booth fees until he could afford to open The Cut in Castleberry Hill, which, last I checked, has one of the largest concentrations of Black-owned businesses in the country.
“’Sup, fam?” Preach smiles a greeting over the hair he’s cutting. “Look at all that hair, Seem. You been avoiding me, li’l man?”
Kassim grins and leads Otis over to the corner where he always curls up and behaves himself. I take the empty barber’s chair in the station beside Preach’s.
“You up, Seem,” Preach calls, brushing hair from the neck and shoulders of the customer he just finished.
Kassim settles into the seat and describes the pattern he and Jamal came up with. Preach sets the clippers in motion, his smile indulgent.
“Missed you at the gym yesterday,” Preach says.
“Sorry I didn’t call.” I stand to select a magazine from the stack on the counter in the station where I’m sitting. “I was out of town and been catching up ever since. Lot going on.”
“We won…again.” Preach smirks and glances up from Kassim’s hair. “Where’d you go?”
“Uh, we’re reconsidering that Charlotte expansion.” I flip through a few magazines on top, trying to keep my voice casual because this dude’s spidey senses be tingling. “So Yas and I went and scoped a spot.”
The questions and commentary practically pop up in bubbles above his head, but with Kassim in the chair, he settles for a speaking glance that demands details later.
He ain’t getting any.
I need to put what happened in Charlotte behind me, not explore it. I block out the questions in my head and tune in to the customers chopping it up. The conversation skids from the Falcons’ chances this season to the usual GOAT debate: MJ versus LeBron.
“Bruh, you gotta give it to ’Bron,” a customer getting his locs trimmed asserts. “All he do for the community.”
“What the hell that school he set up got to do with that rock?” Rick, the barber beside Preach, asks. “He ain’t got that killer instinct like Mike and Kobe.”
“I put Kobe over ’Bron,” the guy in the last chair on the row says.
“Shiiiiiit.” Preach shakes his head as he finishes shaping up Kassim. “Rest in peace to Mamba, and he in my top five, but not over ’Bron.”
“Who you got, Kassim?” Rick asks, smiling encouragingly.
“Um…” Kassim looks panicked, like he’s taking a pop quiz and is afraid he might give the wrong answer. “Jordan?”
I lean forward and fist-bump him, winking. “That’s my boy.”
Kassim beams and sits up taller in his chair. It’s crazy how he flourishes under the slightest praise I give him. His confidence is so easily bolstered. I guess that’s what a father’s unconditional love and acceptance should do for a boy. My father was a military man and a hard-ass, but I had his love and acceptance until I was eight years old. According to Dr. Musa, maybe I never got over losing it.
“Whatcha think?” Preach asks Kassim, giving him the hand mirror so he can check out the back of his hair.
“Wow!” Kassim grins. “I bet Jamal’s won’t look this good.”
I pay Preach and pat my leg. “Otis, come on.”