J.D. and the Great Barber Battle
Page 6
“Little J, you obviously have talent, and you know what kids want,” he said. “I have to admit, I don’t. And now everybody knows it.
“But what I do know is how to run a business. I can offer you a chair in my shop on weekends. Kids’ haircuts are seven fifty a head and you can give me twenty-five dollars a week in chair rent. If you get good enough to cut adult hair you can charge more. You can even keep all the tips you make.”
I looked around for a sheet of paper and a marker.
I was pretty good at math.
Home
20 heads per day x $5 = $100
$100 x 4 Saturdays = $400
Hart and Son
20 heads per day x $7.50 = $150
$150 x 4 Saturdays = $560
Monthly chair rent fee
$25 per week x 4 weeks per month = $100
$560—$100 =$460
I’d make sixty dollars extra a month working at Hart and Son.
Plus I wouldn’t have to worry about my grandmother complaining about kids coming in and out of the house, using her bedsheets as capes, and birds eating hair out of the grass.
Finally, Henry Jr. was speaking my language. Could I convince my family to let me do it?
CHAPTER 23
Off to Work?
At dinner the next night after choir practice, I told my family about the details of Henry Jr.’s job offer.
My mom gave me a blank stare, her fork of greens paused in the air near her mouth.
“J.D., I don’t know . . . can we talk about this later? That seems like a bit much,” she said.
I shot a hopeful look over to my grandmother to see if she would support me. Mom took a lot of her parenting cues from Grandma and Granddad.
“Veronica, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for J.D. to be down there getting in grown folks’ business,” Grandma said.
Not the answer I hoped for!
“Yeah, J.D., who is going to take you back and forth to Henry’s!” Vanessa added.
“I have my bike, Vanessa.”
Why did she have to butt in?
My last chance for support was Granddad. If he said no, it would be three against one and I definitely couldn’t do it.
The next afternoon, instead of going to Jordan’s house, I went home to try and catch my granddad before he started his burial insurance meetings at three o’clock.
I snuck up on him in his armchair and hugged him from behind like I always did when he was alone watching The Young and the Restless.
“That Victor Newman is still so smooth,” I heard him say to himself.
“Granddad, I really want to go cut hair at Henry Jr.’s. I’m good at it! This way I won’t even need an allowance.” I made my case all in one breath.
At his core, Granddad was a businessman. He had been the boss at JCPenney and now he was his own boss.
“I will be like you,” I said. “A working man!”
A smile spread across Granddad’s face. He didn’t make a sound for a long while.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I will encourage your mom to let you try it, but just don’t forget where you come from. Don’t embarrass me or your family when you are there!”
So that’s how I became Hart and Son’s first non-family employee.
* * *
»»««
The night before my first day at Hart and Son, I packed all the essentials: my video game console, my jar of candy, and a set of photographs of current hairstyles to put up on Henry Jr.’s wall. I didn’t exactly know who’d come in for a cut or what it would be like to work beside Henry Jr., but I was about to find out.
CHAPTER 24
My New Competitor
The only thing I didn’t like about my first day at Hart and Son was that it felt like work. There were adults around, so we kids had to be respectful and not goof off so much. I couldn’t take breaks to play my own video games. And forget about turning on cartoons!
My feet hurt so much worse than anything I had ever felt after football practice.
I couldn’t wait to sleep.
But all the money I made put me in a good mood. I cut ten kids’ hair at seven fifty a pop and made eleven dollars in tips.
10 kids x $7.50 = $75.00
$75.00 + $11.00 in tips = $86.00
I was good at what I did, and my cuts were making kids all over the neighborhood feel good about themselves. What could be better? There was one kid who had come in because his mom gave him a bad haircut, just like I’d had, and he was so happy when he left.
As I walked up to the back porch, it looked like the lights were on in my room.
Everyone in Meridian kept their doors unlocked. We were all polite enough to never just walk into someone’s house without asking!
Was I being robbed?
I tiptoed up to my door and heard the sound of a bunch of giggling girls.
I turned the knob and saw the last thing I’d expect: Vanessa and a group of her friends had taken over my bedroom!
There were hot curlers, bobby pins, gel, brushes, and a big ol’ hair dryer with a bonnet. I even saw nail polish out, something Mom never let Vanessa wear.
Where’d she get that?
Jessyka was sitting in MY chair that I’d been using for haircuts and Vanessa had twisted her hair so she looked like a grown-up warrior.
“Hey, J.D.!” Jessyka said. “Guess what? My mom said you could give me bangs. Are you up for the challenge?” she asked.
A grin spread all the way across Vanessa’s face as she turned to me.
“Well, J.D., since you’re out working on Saturdays, I thought I’d try doing my own thing in here. Kids’ track-and-field is over until spring. You know I’m good at doing hair. Plus, Mom said it was okay.” MY room, MY setup, and MY chair?
Why did she have to copy me . . . didn’t I have the idea to do hair first?!
“By the way, why did you decide to go work at Henry’s?” Vanessa asked. “You could work with me and we could keep ALL our money in the family.”
Working with my sister? That didn’t sound like the best idea.
We were really different.
The last project we worked on together was the Sunday School Bake Sale, and we argued over whether to make cookies or cupcakes. We ended up putting both in the oven at the same time and burned everything to a crisp. Mom was super annoyed that she had to take us to the grocery store to buy ready-made sweets.
Now Vanessa wanted us to do hair together? She would have every girl in the city in my room!
I had gone from teased to the best kids’ barber this side of the Mississippi. Henry Jr. had tried to shut me down—even my clippers stopped working during the competition—and that didn’t stop me, either! Did I need to help HER with her dream, too?
But one thing I knew about Vanessa is that once she got an idea stuck in her head, she never let it go.
I knew this wasn’t over!
Acknowledgments
Thanks to: Michael for bringing my first concept to life; Akeem S. Roberts for doing an amazing job with the art; Joanna Cárdenas, and the Kokila Team; and last but not least, to Christina Morgan for making me go more in depth to create an amazing book. Thank you!
About the Author
J. Dillard (known as the "Barberpreneur") is a former managing partner for ConAllegiance, a consulting firm based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He is a master barber, a certified consultant, and an industry leader who started cutting his own hair at the age of ten. After many trials and tribulations, he began cutting hair professionally in 1999 and became a shop owner while attending college at Tuskegee University in Alabama. He travels the country with his clients as a personal barber and calls Atlanta home. This is his first book series for children.
Akeem S. Roberts is an illustrator based in Brooklyn. H
e works as an in-house animator for Holler Studios and contributes cartoons regularly to The New Yorker. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina. When Akeem is not working, he likes to eat food (who doesn't?), drink coffee, and make comics about his day-to-day life on Instagram.
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