Main Entry:- soul patch
- Function: noun
- Date:1991
- a small growth of beard under a man's lower lip
I had the same stylist for 10 years until she retired. Hannah was an Amazon woman with a thick German accent whose fingers were yellowed from a half-century of smoking non-filtered cigarettes. Once she quit cold-turkey, she was never quite the same. Her routine that was once ruled by cigarette breaks, was no more, and she became blind to the hands of time. I would often wait longer than it would take my hair to be done. Most times, I would schedule a wax session before my cut to make the time pass more quickly, if not more painfully. For $35, the French-trained estheticologist would slather-on uncomfortably hot wax upon my upper and lower lip as well as my eyebrows, then she'd cut and place strips of cloth on each area, all the while, the wax was hardening. Then zip, rip and tear in a nano-second. Why I paid for this torture, I have no idea. But I do know that I love the feeling of having a smooth face where bristles once took over.
The last time Hanna cut my hair, she used the wrong number on the clippers. In order to compensate for her mistake, she just kept going with the same number, leaving me with a crew-cut in the back and an Alpaca-looking poof up top. I drove around for hours before going home to show off my new doo, which was met with sobbing laughter. When Hanna retired, my head was handed over to the owner of the shop on a silver platter for inspection, where she declared she'd take me on after careful evaluation of my scalp, follicles, color and texture. I lasted about two years with the owner. I don't really know why I stayed. It was just a habit and I was used to shelling out $50-$75 bi-monthly for a trip to the salon.
When I moved to the other side of town, the salon became an inconvenience, and I guess I finally realized that I really wasn't the salon type. The more I went there, the more I loathed the element it represented. My new neighborhood has nothing upscale. Strip malls are cluttered with Super Cuts and Pizza Huts. There are Latin coffee shops and bodegas on every corner. Family owned jewelry stores are speckled here and there and mom & pop eateries are peppered all around. Then, there's the sign advertising $8 haircuts, and I took the bait.
No concierge needed. Instead, I walked into a seating area with black folding chairs lined up in three small rows and took a number from a deli-style red ticket dispenser. A Vietnamese woman in a loud, high-pitched, nasal sing-song voice yelled to me.."Hello friend, welcome to Kimmy Hair! You want coffee, missy? Free! Pot is ovah there by door. Help self and take ticket." There were five stations, and a good portion of the clients were men getting fades. The waiting area was full with families and kids sitting on the floor playing with trucks and race cars. I took my number, stood by the door since it was standing room only, and got an eye-full. The greeter, was Kimmy herself, the owner. She smiled and chortled in Vietnamese non-stop to her employees, and welcomed everyone by saying things like "Hello my friend! I glad you come back see me! How your wife? Where your dog today? Or, "How come you no see me in long time? Your hair too long now, you look like hippie." It seemed like everyone knew the routine. Come in, get a ticket, watch and wait. Even if the seats were all full, they had a system. Kimmy had the main chair, her two daughters had their own stations along the wall and there were two others who alternated between cutting, washing and sweeping the floors with a 2-foot homemade broom and a make-shift dust-pan. Hair was not just cut here. Heads were slowly massaged with conditioners and gels, eyebrows were neatly trimmed, cowlicks were laughed at and cut out, questions were asked and answers were carefully listened to, so much so, that I realized that it wasn't the $8 haircuts that brought people back cut after cut after cut, it was the culture of Kimmy's. This was my new "salon".
I've been going to Kimmy's for about 6 years now and every time I go, I come home with more than just shorter hair; I come home with a story. One time, I went in and Kimmy said.."You need color, missy! I can make you look 20 year younger. Too bad I can't make you look 20 pound thinner!" And then she laughed and laughed her long song-like "hehe he heeeeeee" and smiled kindly at me. I didn't take offense and laughed along with her because I knew she wasn't being intentionally rude. That would never have happened in my old salon!! And, I really didn't care. Kimmy was honest. Kimmy never fails to ask how you're doing..."How teaching? You still go there every night? You busy, my friend, you vedy busy. Sit down, relax and have coffee."
Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and knew it was time to visit Kimmy. Suddenly, my hair was growing width-wise, and I don't know who I resembled more, Elvis for my thick side-burns or Omar Sharif for the thin shadow of a mustache I had growing. I also had a dire case of mono-brow and a small blonde soul patch neatly positioned under my bottom lip. I've always had this little tuft of fuzz there. It's like my personal worry stone. I stroke it unconsciously when I'm thinking, reading, or playing at the computer. I'd never get it waxed because it's always been a part of my Jewish-Italian uniqueness. My plan at Kimmy's was just to get a cut, since it was 6pm and closing time.
Kimmy greeted me..."My old friend here again! You need color to get rid of ugly gray hair! You want me for to color you today, missy?" I told her not today, that I was beginning to like my gray hair. I took a ticket and sat down. She was finishing up a man's cut by rubbing cream into his scalp. If he were a cat, he would have purred. Since it was closing time, there was only one other man in the store who came in just after I arrived. Kimmy asked.."You sure, my friend? I stay late just for you - make your face look younger!" I thanked her and said maybe next week. Kimmy finished up her client and then disappeared into the back. One of the other stylists came out and called the man instead of me. I figured Kimmy would be out in a minute to do my hair, when I heard a sudden outburst of what sounded like angry Vietnamese coming from the back. Kimmy apparently told the stylist to take me instead of the man. I felt stung and realized I should not have protested the color and that I probably hurt Kimmy's feelings. She didn't come out of the back until my hair was almost finished. It turns out she was finishing up a color for a very old Vietnamese woman, and wasn't mad at me at all. Momentarily, I felt better.
She approached me with another one of her employees, Tammy, who usually waxes my eyebrows. The two were chirping away in Vietnamese. Kimmy said to me..."Missy, you need wax today! I can't see wrinkle on forehead because you have one brow! You have long blonde hair coming from eyebrows, and you have one long black hair here on cheek! Tammi get rid of that for you today. And mustache, too. You have dark mustache one side, blond mustache the other side. You get wax one time a year not good enough!" Then she reached out to my face and grabbed my soul patch between her thumb and index finger and tugged on it while wagging it back and forth saying....."And what this growing here? I can grab it, it so long! Tammy wax off!" My tongue slipped out of my mouth and the tip of it caressed the soft little bushiness under my lip. I reached up to see if I too, could grab it between my thumb and index finger, and I could, but just barely.
The next thing I know, I was whisked off into the back room with a hand in the small of my back steering me in the right direction. Before I knew it, Tammy had warm, lightly scented wax painted over my eyebrows and around my lips. She expertly positioned my head like a chiropractor and ripped off the strips of cotton in four carefully choreographed moves. She slathered wax under my chin from jaw-to-jaw, pressed a cotton sheet against my throat and tore from left to right. She tapped me and said, "See, see?!?" It looked like she had just waxed the back of Wolfman Jack. Then she tilted back my head to the light, dabbed the soft warm wax on my soul patch and removed my worry stone with one swift rip. "Done." Tammy said..."Oh miss, you look beautiful! So clean. You must take care of yourself more than once a year! You're a college professor - people stare at you all day!" She smoothed the sweetest smelling cucumber-coconut cream on my naked soul patch and then massaged my face until I almost fell asleep. At that point, I had no worries and no stone to rub.
When I left Kimmy's everyone said how beautiful I looked. Kimmy came out from behind her chair and hugged me, then said..."You come back next week, my friend. I color for you and you look even more younger and more pretty." Then she laughed her shrill happy song which stuck in my head all the way home until I looked in the mirror. There, I laughed at myself for no longer having a worry wart on my chin.
