The Battered Client

I help run a barber shop in an odd little suburb of Birmingham Alabama. I never choose a position of management, it just always ends up choosing me.
It never works out in the long run. I'm too fair. I care too much.
And that wears my soul down.

Next to the strip mall our shop is in, there's a motel where people down on their luck pay cheap rent and live in squalor. I see them pass by with their bags of booze and cigarettes.
They rarely come in unless they want their hair washed. All they can afford because keeping up with habits ain't cheap. Even the one prostitute who occupies a room there, doesn't make the kind of money that would pay for a cleaner lifestyle.
They don't bother me. I've lived on the streets a time or two.
And I never put myself above any of them just because I chose to fight harder to get away from homeless life.

Yesterday two of them came in. It put my crew on edge, though they were not there to beg, and are not the dangerous kind. The man has been in once before, but the woman...
I've never seen her. She's young and could be attractive, but the black and blue on her face, distorts her features. I smile and greet them the way I would anyone, but I can already feel the weight of the situation. He smells to high heaven of liquor and she's strung out.
I know he's not the one who did this to her, but I also can tell he's taking advantage of a woman who has no one else to turn to.
He turns her round, and her hair is in the worst matted clumps I've ever seen, short of being dreadlocks. She's crying. Ashamed.
She doesn't want to lose her long blonde hair. I tell the other barber to take the man. It's my job as manager to do the harder stuff, but this job requires someone with a kind of skill they can't teach in school, if you know what I mean.

"My Baby-Daddy did this," she says. I don't ask about the children. Not yet. She needs to feel she can trust me first. The man tells me her assaulter is in jail now. "He won't hurt you anymore," the man tells her. But I know that's a lie. He'll be out in two days.
By the looks of her hair, I know she's going to be in my chair a while. This thing will take all my patience, and I won't be going home early like I'd planned. I know I'm too sick to stay. I know I'm still running a fever. But I'm going to do this.

The time ticks away. One hour after the other. I let her have a couple of smoke breaks, and send one of the girls to buy her a Cherry Coke.
Her face gets so red it frightens me. "High blood pressure," she says, "But I can't get medicine to treat it."
I ask her why she's not in a shelter for battered women. The man has paid for her haircut and left, for now. But he'll be back, to try and kiss on her with his booze smelling breath, repeating his promises to take care of her now.
I tell her she needs to get away from him. Call a place that helps women like her. I know she won't. She needs a fix soon. But I look in her eyes when I speak to her, hard as it is for me to do. I want her to see these aren't just empty words I'm saying.

Three hours in and she can tell me more of her story now. Not two months ago she gave birth to twins; a girl and a boy. The girl died last week. She was born with a defect. I ask her where the boy is, knowing the answer. Protective services have taken him away now.
They want to accuse her of foul play in the death of her child, though the coroner's report shows the death was natural. I believe her. Though many probably wouldn't. But even if she's covering up the truth, I'm not going to judge her.

I only got paid for thirty minutes. The girls are now having to take all other clients as I work on this one for free. I know the company will have something to say about it, but I'm not going to worry about them.
They can't see what I'm seeing, and they haven't been where I've been.
The knots in her hair are merciless. I know she has chlorine built up in it. She probably washed it then left it tangled, and passed out after a fix. Baby-Daddy, then drug her around by it during his attack.
I have to leave my body to get through this but four hours in and I'm starting to hurt bad. "Not as bad as her." I keep telling myself. I tell her a bit of my own background. I need her to hear me say that I had to decide to fight for my own life or end up dead at the hands of him.
I chose myself.
I know she's not going to hear me right now, but she's listening. I'm planting a seed. I'm showing her a small kindness to give her hope in humanity. A little ember to burn in her dark place. When we finally get through the last knot, I take her back to wash it.
I buy her a good shampoo and give her a good scalp massage. The man is back, promising to pay more tomorrow, but I tell him I don't need it. I didn't do this in the hopes of a reward. I did it because it was the right thing to do.

She tells me I'm amazing. Why? For not turning her away? For not giving up on her? I know I'm not saving her life. But her hair meant her dignity, and I wasn't about to take what little remained.
Before she left, I took her into my arms. I don't hug strangers. I barely hug the people I know. But I felt like we were bonded now, her and I. And she needed a hug that didn't come with strings.
Tonight I'll burn a candle for her and hope she'll be back to see me as promised.

But even if I never see her again, this story is out there now. Other strangers know she exists and maybe one of them needed to read it because they're in a bad place too.
I know I didn't save her life today but that's OK. She's in God's hands. All I can do now for her, is keep living. Keeping telling my story and fighting for those who can't find the words.