Looking Out: The mystery of the bloody barber

“This is making me a little nervous,” I say to my barber, Pete Polka.

“What? Getting a haircut makes you nervous? Or is it the jokes I tell?” he replies as he snips away.

“Jokes?” I say. “Jokes are funny. I’ve never heard you say anything funny.”

Such a putdown is part of the old-time barber shop tradition, just like old magazines and four-part harmony.

“So other than your lack of a sense of humor, what’s bugging you?” asks Pete.

“It isn’t that every time you cut my hair it gets grayer,” I say.

“Not my fault,” says Pete. “So what’s making you nervous?”

“The whole history of barbering,” I say. “And the barber pole I’m looking at.”

“Ah, yes!” he says. “Great history, very interesting.”

“Sure,” I say. “If you like gore.”

“OK, fair enough,” he says, turning to look at the barber pole as it spins its spiral stripes.

“So,” I say. “Let’s hear your version.”

“Sure,” he says, turning off the clippers.

“Back in the old days, barbers also pulled teeth, set bones, did surgery and bled people back when they thought removing blood would remove illness,” says Pete.

“The early barber poles actually had a brass basin on the top to represent the leeches they used as part of the bleeding,” he explains. “The red stripe represents blood, the white stripe represents bone and teeth and the blue stripe meant we were open for business to cut hair and trim beards.”

Pete spins me around in the chair so I can get a better look at the barber pole.

“One other thing,” says Pete. “The pole itself represents the device the patient clung to while he had his blood removed, his broken arm set or his teeth pulled.”

“And after telling me all that, you’re wondering why I’m a little jittery?” I say.

“That was a long time ago,” says Pete. “You have nothing to fear. Hey! Did you hear the one about the dog, the horse and the turtle who walk into a bar and …”

“Stop,” I say. “This is no time for true stories.”

“Good point,” says Pete, running a comb through what’s left of my hair. “But you still haven’t told me why you are feeling unsettled getting a haircut.”

“It’s this black nylon apron thing you have wrapped around me,” I say.

“What? It’s to keep the hairs off your clothes,” he says. “Mostly gray hairs. They’d really show up on your flannel shirt and blue jeans.”

“Be quiet about the gray hairs, will you?” I say. “This is serious.”

“OK, I give up. What is it about the black cape that is bothering you?” he asks.

“The blood, of course.”

“Blood? What blood?” he asks.

I point to a drop of bright red blood puddled next to a few gray hairs over my left leg.

“The question is,” I say. “Is it MY blood?”

Pete looks where I’m pointing.

“Oh, my gosh!” he exclaims. “It does look like blood.”

He grabs a tissue and wipes it off the nylon bib.

“It is blood!” he says. I see him taking a glance at my ear.

“It’s your elbow,” I say, noticing another drop of blood about to fall.

Pete looks at his elbow, wiping it off with the tissue.

“I’ll be darned,” he says. “I must have cut myself shaving.”

“On your elbow?” I say.

“I banged it on the door coming in this morning,” he says, fetching a piece of tape out of a drawer and covering the little nick.

Mystery solved, and life goes on, gray hair and all.

I can guess the story Pete will tell the rest of his customers today.

— Jim Whitehouse lives in Albion.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Looking Out: The mystery of the bloody barber