THE JOB SEARCH COMES TO AN END!

         The Fox Hole. Even the sound of it is intriguing. Scary. All the rest of the night I mull over the possibilities of maybe going there to look for a job. This place was a kind of a legend in Roselle, like The Jersey Devil. You’d hear all kinds of spooky stories about it over the years.

Supposedly, the guy that owned it was some kind of big Mafia don, sort of a belligerent madman, who'd actually crushed people’s skulls with his bare hands. Some of whom had even worked for him. His whole family ran the place, and they were allegedly just like him. They lived in Newark, in a section called the North Ward, which was infamous for gangland shootings and rubouts. Apparently, during the riots in the late 60s in downtown Newark, him and a bunch of other Mob type guys blockaded off The Ward from the rampaging black onslaught with their Cadillacs, and rifles, and just started dropping the rioters right there. No questions asked.

 The Fox Hole is another place that none of the kids I know have ever ventured. And with good reason. It’s all the way over by the border of Linden, the next town over, in a creepy, forbidden industrial zone, that’s mostly deserted after five o'clock.

     The next morning, I make up my mind that I’m going to set out for The Fox Hole after school. I have a vague sense of its whereabouts and check the Yellow Pages for the exact address. When three o’clock rolls around, I don’t want to be around anyone - I need to go into myself, be totally alone, like I did when I first took that bus ride to the PAL in Elizabeth. I walk down Chestnut Street to Young’s Chinese Kitchen, by myself an egg roll, and lock myself in the bathroom. Concentration. I gotta summon the guts to overcome the jitters. I need silence.

After five minutes, Mrs. Young starts banging on the door.

“Hello! Hello! Why you stay in bathroom so long? You no make dirty in there! You no throw up, ok? Hello! Hello!”

I soon realize there will be no refuge in this bathroom. I finish my egg roll, wipe the grease off my lips with the toilet paper, and move out. I’m ready to begin my latest odyssey. With great determination, I march down Chestnut Street, make a right onto Fifth Avenue, past the familiar sights of St. Joseph’s Church, and the Knights of Columbus building, and up four more blocks till I reach Poplar Street. Re-energizing my focus, I head the three blocks towards the boundary of boundaries, St. Georges Avenue. The dividing line between Roselle and Linden. Almost immediately you can sense a distinct change in landscape, in feeling. Foreboding and grey. The goosebumps rise on my arms, and that energizing rush starts to kick in again. I’m really starting to dig that sensation now, in a weird sort of way. Soon, I come upon the Romerowski Brothers factory, where about six or seven years ago they had had this horrifying fire, and the workers there, mostly immigrants, were jumping out the window because there were no fire exits. Until like twenty-one of them had perished. But here it is, still going. A gloomy testament to desperation - and they still probably have no fire exits. A group of frumpy looking women in kerchiefs, are gathered around a silver lunch truck parked outside the windowless factory, conversing loudly in Polish or Russian, or whatever. Eating these greasy kielbasa sausages. It’s weird for me to actually see a place, of which I had only read about in the newspaper.

After that, it’s just block after nasty block of check-cashing places, boarded up warehouses, bail-bond storefronts, White Castles, and more fast-food chicken restaurants than I had ever seen in my life. Either a Kentucky Fried Chicken, or a Popeye’s on every block. You could literally smell the accumulated grease for blocks.

At one point, I think I’ve been propelled into a parallel universe. Because on one block, there appears a Harrison’s World of Liquors, Willie’s Barbershop, and Thompson Hardware, all lined up in the exact same sequence as their counterparts - Coogan’s Liquor’s, Jack’s Barbershop, and Gustav’s Hardware, on Amsterdam Avenue! What an eerie replica. In front of Willie’s, sit three old black guys with those old time racing track kind of hats, perched on milk crates, slurping down pint cans of Olde English 800, debating each other animatedly in gravely, raspy voices. As I pass by, the conversation abruptly stops, and they all stare at me.

“Hmm… you know that - that mo’fucker don’t be livin’ round here - hmm.”

They all break up hysterically, then go back to their debate. What is it about barbershops and me?

 I square my shoulders, pretending I don’t hear them, and stride onwards. A couple blocks more and it becomes slightly more residential, a couple of rather ramshackle houses scattered here and there. Finally - there it is. The fabled Fox Hole. Actually, it’s nothing like I imagine it would be, not at all grandiose. In fact, it’s kind of ordinary looking.

The one singular thing that really distinguishes it, are the three flags flying in front of it. An American flag, an Italian flag, and a black MIA flag. And a statue of the Virgin Mary, enclosed in a glass case. I find it amazing that nobody in this area had broken it a long time ago. Well, I’m here. Forty-five minutes into the unknown I have journeyed. I made it.So, there I was - I had just walked out on Jack the Barber’s insidious offer of a job - there was nowhere else to turn! Nowhere else, that is, except for the MOST forbidden place in ‘The Forbidden Zone’ - the FOX HOLE

JACK THE BARBER IS A DICK!!

In our last blog, Joey was trying desperately to find a job - with no results. Finally he is forced to turn to the one place he doesn’t want to go - Jack’s Barbershop!

“Hey Joey, don’t worry, me and the fellas are only joshing ya. Listen, I got a deal for you… I’ll give you a job, say one or two hours after school every day, and I’ll pay you two dollars an hour. Two dollars an hour, Joey. That’s more than the minimum wage! But you gotta do one thing for me, one thing to live up to your end of the bargain, OK?"

Uh-Oh.

You gotta let me give you a nice haircut, the kind you used to get. Make your father proud. You use some of that Vitalis, gives you that smart, clean look.”

A disenchanted frown crosses my face.

“After all, Joey, you’re gonna be representing my business. I got to have someone that looks respectable, right? Deal?”

He puts out his hand to shake.

I want the job. Actually, I need the job. Esperanza. Black clothes. I do want to make my father proud, at least on some level. But it feels wrong. I mean, I love my hair. My new look. It’s opening all these doors for me.

Shit, shit, shit… why does everything have to be so hard?

His hand is there right in my face.

“Um… no. I-I can’t do it, Jack.”

His face instantly alters from this victorious, almost condescending, expression, to one of complete puzzlement.

“Whataya mean, you can’t do it, Joey?”

“I-I just - can’t do that haircut thing, Jack, I- “

“I’m offering you a job here, Joey! Two dollars an hour. C’mon, don’t tell me you can’t use that?”

Now he’s really angry.

“Hey Harry, he yells over to Mr. Coogan. I’m offering Joey a job here for two dollars an hour, and he won’t take it because he doesn’t want to put a little Vitalis in his hair.”

Mr. Coogan looks up over his glasses, from his newspaper.

“Tsk,tsk,tsk…shameful, shameful.”

“Let him go hungry for a couple of days, Jack, like we did when we were kids, you’ll see how fast he changes his tune. Yup.” Mr. Krokowski adds.

“Look, Joey, don’t be so damn selfish! I know your old man is having a tough time right now, being out of work and all.” Jack snaps.

How the hell does Jack know that? My father is completely paranoid about letting anybody know. He hardly even leaves the house, because he doesn’t want the neighbors to be suspicious.

“Geez, you’d think you would want to help the old man out, for crissakes. All I’m asking you to do is get a respectable haircut.”

Tension. Pressure. I feel like my stomach’s going to explode.

“Hey Joey, Gustav interrupts the interminable silence, I know you for a long time, right? I’ve fixed your bike I don’t know how many times, we’re buddies, right? My advice to you, Joey? Just take Jack’s offer.”

“C'mon Joey, this is a no-brainer here! Take the job already.” Jack continues to pressure me relentlessly.

I’m just standing there, paralyzed with sickening conflict. All the faces are staring up at me reproachfully, waiting for me to make the right decision. I want to cry and kill them, all at the same time. Jack keeps pumping his hand, waiting for me to shake. I start to raise it, ready to succumb.

“I-I can’t- I can’t- I’m sorry, Jack.”

I turn, run out the door and down Amsterdam Avenue as quickly as I can, sucking in the air in deep, heavy breaths. The air of freedom.

THE CONFLICT OF JACK'S BARBER SHOP

So in our last blog, Joey is determined to find a job so that he can be ‘the man’ for Esperanza - or at least he hopes so. But it isn’t as easy as he would have thought!      

  Desperation finally wins out though, so I resignedly trudge into the shop. They’re all there - The Barbershop Quartet. Jack, Mr. Coogan, Gustav and Mr. Krokowski. Drinking Maxwell House coffee, smoking Pall Malls, and listening to Perry Como on the radio. As they read The Daily News, they pontificate on world and local events, the outcome of their debates surely deciding the fate of the free world. Nobody notices me.

“Hey, Jack.”

Finally, he looks up from the customer he’s working on, eyes me with a mixture of suspicion and disdain, and goes back to cutting. Silence.

  “You come for a haircut Joey?”

“ Um… not really… I came to ask if you had a job, like, y’know- um- sweeping up hair or something?”

Jack shakes his head slowly and sadly, as he continues his work.

“Joey… you know I know your father a while now, right?”

 I nod.

“He’s always been a good customer, a good man, and I would always tell him what a fine, respectful young man you were and all, but now… (his voice trails off, as he shakes his head slowly again.)

Look at ya - you look like some kind of beatnik or something”.

I knew it. I knew it. He’s mad that I haven’t been up for a haircut in a while. I bet he remembers the exact date of my last haircut, too.

  What happened to you - with that crazy hair and scraggly mustache, and all? You look like that goddamned Mooglie the Jungle Boy, for the love of Pete, like the riff-raff that’s been coming into town, lately.”

“Riff-raff”, grumbles Mr. Coogan, from behind his newspaper. 

Jack points over to one of the 1950s- style haircut posters he has plastered all over the barbershop.

“Now, that’s a haircut.”

I grimace.

“Well, Joey, if you don’t like that style why don’t you at least try this new stuff I got in – Vitalis. It’s the latest craze.”

New stuff? Vitalis has been around for, like, at least ten years. What is he talking about?

“I tell ya, Joey, it’s what all the hep cats are using these days. You use this, the girls’ll be chasing you all over the place! You’ll be the cat’s meow, the cat’s pajamas!”

The cat’s pajamas? Was Jack trying to be cool, or something? He must notice the look of horror on my face, because his demeanor suddenly changes.

“Hey, Joey, how many girls you given the old salami to?!”

He totally catches me off guard.

“Wh-aa-t?”

“You know, how many girls you slipped the old Ambassador, huh? He makes a pumping motion with his fist.

This is ridiculous. What is Jack asking me these questions for? I feel the heat turn up in my face.

“Um- I don’t know-two... three…

“Two or three, huh?” Jack smirks.

“C'mon, Joey, I bet you haven’t even got a peek at the ole’ weezer yet, huh? C’mon, I’m right. Right?”

“No- no, I’ve been with - y’know- a couple- “

“Aw, Joey, you don’t gotta lie to me, how old are you now, what, fifteen?”

“Fifteen and a half.”

“Geez, when I was fifteen I had more homeruns than Hank Aaron, for godsakes.”

They all broke up, the old-timers. It was like a room full of laughs from one of those old Ronald Reagan films.

I just stand there - red and stupid. And boiling.

I MUST SAVE ESPERANZA!!

                                        So after that last visit to the Tijeras de Oro - I know Esperanza is in some kind of trouble - I just don’t know exactly what. But I gotta do something.  I mean, I just can’t stand by and do nothing, right? I gotta get a job - I need money. Money is POWER. It’s the only way I can help, and the only way she is gonna take me seriously; not think I’m just some dorky kid or something. With that, I go on a massive job search all over Roselle!

     After a week of rejection and frustration though, I am ready to do the unthinkable. I really don’t want to go to Jack’s Barber Shop, to ask for a job. I mean, I’d been going there on Saturdays once a month with my father for like the last four years- and every time - he gives me the exact same Wild Root haircut! The same one he gives the corny Holden brothers. The same one he gives EVERYONE!

“Look at that, Joey! You could be in the movie pictures, you could be the next Cary Grant,” he'd say, as he held up a mirror to the back of your head.

Lastly, he’d always give you a piece of Bazooka Gum and say – 

       “See ya in the funny papers.”

And he and my father would always laugh. What was that supposed to mean anyway? See ya in the funny papers? Why would anybody laugh at that?! Especially, after Jack had repeated it like sixty-seven times already? I’m sure neither of them think it’s really even funny. But it’s, like, they feel they have to laugh. Like they’re supposed to laugh. It’s a fake laugh, too, because they don’t know what else to do.

Embarrassing.