The Hair Salon by the Side of the Road

There’s always, MORE to that, white-picket-fence and painted on face that you all see! Translated…

The shop was owned and operated by a married couple, the husband works as the barber, the wife worked as a full-time housewife, and they only hired a young woman to help out around the salon, the owner’s niece. The niece is eighteen, very tall, with a long head of hair, and her looks had, attracted the younger male clients.

In middle school, we were poor and couldn’t afford the newspaper subscriptions, and the newspaper subscriptions in the salons became my spiritual food source. Every day after school after I’d done all my chores, I’d gone to the hair salons to read the papers, everything, politics, news in the society, the writing seconds, I’d, gobbled everything right up.

The clients who’d come in, were mostly men in their twenties. The children from the countrysides during that era, they’d normally started working in the factories after elementary school graduation, or to become car mechanics, and so, they’d become, too curious of me, a middle school age girl, and they’d prodded me on, and found things to talk about with me. But, I was so totally, into reading the papers, and so, I could, only smile on all their inquiries, I’d never said a single word to any of them.

The niece of the owner of the salon was like so too, she’d started apprenticing as a barber since after elementary school, didn’t continue her education, and was so envious of how I’d, gone to middle school, and kept asking about what was happening in school with me. On the holidays, as the customers had yet to rush in, she’d, invited me to see her works of art, I was stunned—she’d, never taken any art classes, just started painting and drawing out of hobby, and she’d, created such masterpieces already. Such a talented young woman, were her talents, destined, to vanish, because of the situations in her family?

During the low time for the salon in the summer afternoons, she’d taken me home, the old style mansion diagonally from the salon. There was, a grape vine in the yards, with the few leaves that remained, with a long chair underneath the racks, with an elderly woman on the chair.

The elderly woman was so thinly, with not much hair, with a cigarette in her hand, asked, “Why did you come home?”, without stopping, she’d slurred, “There’s no customers in the shops.”, and she’d, circled around her home with me quickly, then, led me out.

Once, she’d taken me into her bedroom, rolled up the pants, and showed me the whipping marks on her thighs.

I was shocked, and asked her, “Who did this to you?”

She’d replied, “it was my mother.”

That woman who’d look like an opium addict, it was, her mother? She’d told me, that back when her mother was younger, she’d, sold for sex, and four daughters before, and then, she’d had two more sons with the man she’s cohabiting with right now. In order to get her son an education, she’d, forced her daughters to sell their bodies for sex, and now, it was her turn, but she wasn’t willing, and so, her mother beaten her. And, after she got whipped, very shortly, her youngest sister, was forced into selling her body for sex too.

What sort of a mother was she? She’d sold for sex, and forced her four daughters to do the same? Who can imagine, that a seemingly normal family on the outside, had this sort of a tragic tale on the inside?

I’d read the papers in the salons for awhile, then, my mother called me out, grilled me, “What, are you doing in the salons?”, I’d replied, that I was, reading the newspapers, but my mother told, that the landlord’s granddaughter told her, that I’d had bad interactions with men who’d gone into the salons often.

The granddaughter of the landlord was a seventeen year-old, I’d only met her twice, being too young, she was, intrigued with men, and would always strike up conversations with the male clients, but don’t know why, nobody took an interests in her.

I’d not been acquainted with the landlord’s granddaughter, and yet, I’d, gotten SHOT at, and, no matter how hard I’d tried explaining myself, it didn’t work, my mother started, restricting my whereabouts. In order to not get into all the conflicts with my mother, I’d, forced myself, to give up on the spiritual sustenance I’d received at the salons, and avoided going down that street too.

Several years later, we’d moved away, and, I’d, drifted farther, and farther, and farther from the era of reading the newspapers in the salons. As for what’d happened to that girl who’d loved art so much, was she able to, persist as a whitened lotus, living inside the muddy waters? Don’t know why, but, I’d wondered about her more and more.

And so, this, is the TRAGIC tale of how this other woman was being treated, and, this salon by the side of the road, it may have been, more than just a hair salon, as the writer learned of the story of the younger woman who worked there…