The King of 56th and Chester

I would step over that threshold every other Friday, afraid that I would get Moody Joe, the sulkiest brother in the place. You see, Moody Joe had some major hangups, and one of ’em was anybody who didn’t have much to say. Moody Joe liked a good conversation, even if it was contrived just to make him happy. I guess he could afford to be that way, Moody Joe could, on account of he was the only barber worth anything in the place. Don’t get me wrong. The other guys could give you a cut that people wouldn’t laugh at, but Moody Joe could put you on the map. Unfortunately I was a shy-ass brother who couldn’t put two words together without stuttering. So I kept my mouth shut, and I worried about Moody Joe. Every other Friday.

One time I went into the barber shop (I don’t remember the name — it had that kind of character to it) and it was wall-to-wall brothers, and even a coupla sisters. I always liked it when the sisters was there cuz it reminded me that the place said on the sign that it was a barber shop “and salon”. It was classy when the sisters was waiting to get their hair done too. Anyway, it was mid-summer so it was hot as hell in the place, the door was propped open by an old barber chair (that also made it harder to get inside) and Moody Joe was holdin’ court in the far right corner. Talking nonsense as usual. It was always tough to get a word in edgeways when you was talkin’ to Moody Joe. Ironically enough, Moody Joe really only had three topics he would always go back to in any conversation: 1) The Sixers. Damn, that man knew all the stats from way back, and he could quote every point guard that ever started for ’em. 2) The #34 Trolley schedule. As boring as this was for a topic, he would always be going on and on about how it was the only trolley in the city to constantly be late, and it was always some racial explanation for it (forget the fact that all the drivers of the #34 was black). 3) The Good Ol’ Days. Whatever those were. To listen to Moody Joe tell it, there was some kind of black renaissance I must have just missed out on that went on for decades. I would always look out the window at the graffiti and crackheads on the corner and wonder if he really knew what he was talking about. I mean, how could everything change so suddenly and so drastically?

Anyway, so he was holdin’ court in the far right corner with his special barber chair. It was plush leather with rhinestones in it. I swear the rhinestones came from some pimp coat he had stripped and superglued to the chair. They hurt like hell every time you sat down on ’em but Moody Joe said they kept people alert so as no one was fallin’ asleep when he was cuttin’ their hair. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep anyway. Moody Joe scared me like no one before. Once he just looked at me and I fainted. Serious. Dropped right there on the barber shop floor (and damn, that floor was always dirty). Woke up with a major headache and dust all over my clothes. As if someone would have helped me out or anything. Anyway, he was on topic #2 and really going on and on, and I realized something. If the barber shop was to close right then and never reopen, Moody Joe would have nothing. Absolutely nothing. If 56th and Chestnut became just a little more of a warzone, Moody Joe would have nothing at all. That was kinda sad, I thought. Not sad enough to make me want to spend time with the guy, but enough to make me reconsider some of my thoughts about him.

I mean, Moody Joe was kinda pitiful. He was a king in one place, the quintessential big fish in a small pond, but what would happen if he was dumped out in the ocean? He would get eat up by the sharks. Sad thought. So from that day on I made sure to keep Moody Joe in my prayers (yeah, I prayed every night) and I even asked for him one time I was at the shop. The whole time I was sitting on those rhinestones I wondered what I was thinking, but that was how it was over on 56th and Chester. That was as close to a throne as I would get, so why not pay a little homage to the king of the corner?

Drove by there the other day. Whole block tore down. And I wonder what became of the king of 56th and Chester.

Sam