By Bruce Bouchard and John Turchiano
Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard is former executive director of The Paramount Theatre. John Turchiano, his friend for 52 years, was formerly the editor of Hotel Voice, a weekly newspaper on the New York Hotel Trades Council. They are co-authoring this column to tell short stories on a wide range of topics.
We all have memories from early childhood, and one that I remember so well is the neighborhood barbershop. I can smell it now, the Lilac Vegetal permeating the air around me. And the buzz. I remember that buzz. The electric hair clippers and the constant conversation combined to make the barbershop’s sound resemble a beehive.
To a precocious kid wanting to grow up fast that buzz was music. The barbershop was less than 100 feet from my house, and I didn’t have to cross any streets to get there. Because of this my mom allowed me to go there by myself starting when I was in Kindergarten. She would watch me walk there and one of the barbers would watch me walk back home. If I had to sit and wait to be called for my turn, I didn’t mind. There were magazines to look through. Even if I didn’t understand what I was “reading,” I could act like I did. There were some magazines that were stored on a high shelf that youngsters like me couldn’t reach. I later learned those were the magazines the men looked at for their pictures, if you know what I mean.
Our barbershop had two Italian-American barbers, Mario and Vinny, and a third, a man named Abe, who was Jewish. All were really nice guys. It was easy to tell how friendly they were because they chattered away as they worked.
Three languages were spoken: Italian, Yiddish and Brooklynese.
Mario once pointed through the shop’s large storefront window to a woman walking across the street and said, “Well, get a load of Miss Earl.” All the men chuckled, so I did, too. But I later asked my father about it. Dad had to think for a minute and then he laughed and speculated that the woman Mario pointed out was probably very skinny because Earl was how people from Brooklyn pronounced the last name of Popeye’s girlfriend, Olive Oyl. All three barbers spoke a form of Brooklynese, and to this very day I distinctly remember Vinny saying that Bill, a regular customer, was in the hospital and unfortunately had taken “a toin for the woist.”
I particularly liked that while Abe, the Jewish barber, called me Johnny, Mario and Vinny called me “bello,” an Italian term that my grandmother used in addressing me. I knew it meant “handsome” and it was a crushing disappointment when I later learned that Mario and Vinny called all the young boys “bello.”
The stories I heard in the barbershop concerned baseball, the war, politics, the war, the neighborhood and, of course, the war. Many of the men were veterans and they spoke of World War II like it was yesterday. I heard nicknames like Old Blood and Guts, Desert Fox and Vinegar Joe, and sometimes I heard the men speak in hushed tones about neighborhood guys who didn’t come back. There was also a lot of talk about the Dodgers and Giants, two beloved New York baseball teams, as if they had not abandoned the city that had strongly supported them since the 19th Century. And, yes, the barbershop was a hotbed of gossip, but that didn’t interest me as much as baseball, at least not until I was older.
Listening to that barbershop talk led me to believe that communism was a menace, flat tops and D.A. haircuts should cost extra, and the name of the team owner who moved the Dodgers out of Brooklyn was S.O.B. O’Malley. At the time I didn’t know what S.O.B. stood for, so I asked my mom. She said it was a dirty expression, and my father agreed with her. My dad said, “Don’t use that kind of language, John.” He then added, “Even though O’Malley really is one stinkin’ S.O.B.”
There was one story from the barbershop that I had actually forgotten until my father told me about it when I was in high school. It was of the sad news that Abe the barber, who had retired a few years earlier, had passed away.
My father began, “Do you remember your first Holy Communion?”
Now let me tell you, every Italian remembers his first communion. It was a big deal. White shoes, white pants, white jacket, white shirt and even a white tie. You had to walk down the church aisle with your arms folded in prayer, heel to toe, heel to toe, and hope you didn’t lose your balance. You received your first communion after you had reached age 7, what the Church considered to be “the age of reason.”
It was important, too, because a big party was held at your house and all the relatives and neighbors came bearing gifts in the form of cash-stuffed envelopes. You weren’t allowed to open the envelopes. Instead, you had to give them to your parents so they could see which people were generous and who the cheap bastards were. If you were lucky your parents let you keep $10 or $15 from the windfall.
This was such a tradition in Italian families that when there was an adult who was frugal or, as they said in Brooklyn, “one cheap S.O.B.,” it was said of that person, “Oh, that guy? He still has his communion money!”
My father told me that the day before my first communion, a viciously hot and humid Saturday in June, he and I went to the barbershop together, as we both had to look our best for the big event. When my turn came it was Abe, the barber who spoke Yiddish as well as Brooklynese, the man who called me Johnny. As my dad sat and talked with the other men, Abe, a very kind man, engaged me in conversation, something I so appreciated because it made me feel more like an adult than a kid.
Not many homes and shops had air conditioning in those days. Everyone just had electric fans that blew the hot air around and always seemed to rattle. Because of the muggy atmosphere the barbers wore short sleeve shirts instead of their customary barber jackets. According to my dad, this apparently led me to notice numbers tattooed on Abe’s arm. I was a curious kid, and since Abe and I were making conversation I asked him why he had numbers tattooed on his arm. My father told me that my question brought the barbershop buzz to a halt. Everyone cringed. Silence prevailed, as everyone waited for Abe’s answer. It took the friendly barber a few seconds, my dad said. And then Abe kindly looked at me and asked, “You don’t know, Johnny?” He then explained. “I have these numbers tattooed on my arm . . . in case I ever forget my phone number.”
My father said I accepted this explanation and a difficult moment eased instantly as the barbershop buzz resumed. How nice a man was that to answer an innocent 7-year-old’s question that way? Rather than telling me the tattoo was a ticket to death stamped on his arm by the Nazis in a concentration camp a quarter century earlier, Abe chose a diplomatic way to save everyone from an uncomfortable situation. And my father told me something else. He told me that when my haircut concluded Abe refused payment and a tip, and instead handed me two dollars, an absolute fortune to a 7-year-old, and he said, “For your communion, Johnny. Mazel Tov.”
That’s the kind of community in which I grew up. This story has always dwelled inside my head since my father told it to me. I have grown to realize what an extraordinary man Abe was, a survivor who was appreciated and admired, a man who was a real asset to the neighborhood. Today, I’m sure the two dollars he gave me was spent quickly, probably to buy friends sodas, milk shakes and sundaes. There’s a reason I’m sure about this. You see, by the time I was 7 years old I had already firmly decided that for the rest of my life no one would ever be able to say about me, “Oh, that guy? He still has his communion money!”
