Elias King learned to cut hair while serving as a gunner’s
mate on a destroyer in the Pacific during World War II. When I met him in 1982, he was planning to
retire and sell his barbershop. After
getting my hair cut a couple of times in his shop, I could not believe Elias
would ever retire. In the days before talk radio, he was the local source for
the true conservatives that were the core clientele of his shop.
He was loud and funny and had opinions that the John Birch
Society might think were too far right.
He did not think women should work outside the home unless they were
widows and their families abandoned them.
For Elias, the Soviet Union was the enemy, forever. America needed to
stop them everywhere.
I got a hair cut there once a month just before my Army
Reserve weekends. I was close to thirty
years old at the time, and by age, any of the customers and barbers could have
been my Dad. Elias liked me because I
served during the Vietnam War, then Cold War West Germany and was a tank commander in the Army Reserve. “Too many young
cowards won’t serve the country anymore,” he said.
King was against divorce and sex outside marriage in any
way, especially any gay way. He was against welfare, government
programs, government regulations, and he knew the federal income tax would
destroy the country. But he was also
self-deprecating and funny when he stepped off his conservative soapbox.
In May 1984, I came in for a haircut just before the shop closed. I told Elias it would be my last haircut for
a while because I was leaving the Army Reserve. I did not tell him I was going to grow a beard and let my hair grow out. He was about to close up, which he did promptly at six because, “Mother
(his wife) has dinner ready.” But he stayed to give me the haircut.
He told the other barber he could go. It was just Elias and
me. Before he started cutting my hair he turned the barber chair so it faced
away from the mirror instead of toward it. He was talking, but I could not see
his face. He had never talked about the war before, but today he started
talking about fighting off air attacks at Leyte Gulf and what it was like when
his ship got hit. But then he abruptly switched
to talking about a long Pacific cruise to visit liberated allied ports just
after the end of the war.
“I do believe the things I say about marriage,” he said.
“But that cruise was, it was, well, the best days of my life.”
He said they stopped at Singapore and “Mamasan was waiting
at the bottom of the gangway. She had a baby on her back and would suck your
dick for four bits (50 cents).” He described wild sex with women across Asia.
“I love the wife, but even when she was young, she was not…” he stopped
talking. The scissors stopped. “I never
strayed once, young fella,” he said.
“Near forty years, I still think about that cruise.”
After he finished my haircut he started sweeping up. I took
out my wallet. He waved me off. I thanked him. It was years before I saw him
again. He was retired by then. I saw him outside the shop. I stopped and said hello,
but am not quite sure he recognized me.
I liked Elias King. He died a few
years ago. There was a big obituary about him in his local paper. It mentioned
his war service and the victory cruise after the war. “…the best days of my
life,” said the young gunner’s mate who learned how to cut hair.
[Elias King is a pseudonym]
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