Working. Part 17

I have one big irritation. When people see you getting a car and you got two or three pulls-claim checks-and there might be eight people goin', you're trying to pull the easiest cars to make room to get the other people-they think you're not giving 'em service. There's a whole crowd and you might not know either one of 'em, you're tryin' to make it easy all around. There's no need in movin' the same car over to get the car that's easier to move out. They still can't get across the street because traffic is blocked, so what's the cause of all the confusion?

They think you're tryin' to ignore them. You're tryin' to make it easy, but they see you get the other guy and they paid first. When a show breaks up, people panic. "I'm first." "I gotta get home." "I gotta catch a plane." Two men can't handle no fifteen people at one time. Somebody has to wait. A lot of people go get their own car. They may hit a car or scratch it and then they want to put it on the attendants.

You can't go too fast in the parking lot. I once worked five-, six-floor garages. I was much younger then. I'd get in that Cadillac or that Buick or that Volkswagen, whatever is in there, and I'd go around them floors. As you get older, you learn more. There's a lot of young guys drive fast, which I don't do no more. It's a very good feeling if you're a young man.

In my younger days I used to be a wizard, I used to really roll. I could spin a car with one hand and never miss a hole. When I got in a new car, I thought it was my car. It was a customer's car and I was only going upstairs. I know it wasn't mine, 'cause at that time I didn't even own a car. And when I owned a car, I couldn't own over a hundred-dollar car. So it was a great feelin' to drive anybody's new car. When I'd take that car to drive, I thought it was just a dream car.

It is a very big feeling about a man when he drives in with that car and he get out and he might be in his tuxedo. As a younger man, when a customer'd come in, I'd say, "Gee, that's a beautiful car, sir." I'll just go sit in that car, maybe I'll just back it up a couple of times. 'Cause we was never supposed to take the car off the premises, which I never did myself. 'Course, when you got five or six men there, it might be one might go off.

I was sittin' in that guy-with-the-tuxedo car. He got out of it, him an' his girl friend goin' night clubbing. And that car smelling real good with cologne and the windows be up. And I just be looking in that car, you know, the music be up. I'd pull back in the lot, back to the front, maybe I'll go back in the stall. I'd say, "Why can't I be a rich man, get me a lot of money, get me a new car?" 'Cause I rode an old car for eighteen years. The feeling of sitting in that rich man's car, that's a great feeling. Different feeling between the workingman's car and the rich man's car. It's something strong in your mind that someday you may get one. It was a hundred to one that you would get it unless somebody will you something or you would be a stickup man.

As I get older now, a car's a car. I'm drivin' a '65 Pontiac. I know it's seven years old, but it's mine. I have to enjoy it. Sure I'd love to have a new car, but I can't afford it with three babies. I don't need to be dreamin' of a Cadillac which I know I can't get. There's no need of me dreamin' for an Imperial Chrysler which I know I can't get. I used to dream about cars very bad. The last five or six years I haven't dreamed too much about cars. 'Cause I know I got other things to do for my kids.

I used to be a chauffeur and it was a dream for me driving, too. I'd drive him to his office and when I drop him off, the car was mine. (Laughs.) I might not have to pick him up for a couple of hours. If I go south or ride around the Loop, I take the chauffeur's cap off, put my hat on. It's mine. You always feel the chauffeur drivin' the rich man's car is the one really enjoyin' it more than the rich man.

I quit chaufferin'. I make more money in a parking lot with tips and salary. When people ask what I do, I tell 'em I park cars just like any other job. Only thing you got is a white collar, that's okay with me. Working behind a typewriter, that's fine. You're a doctor, that's cool. I got man friends, teachers. We meet sometimes, have a drink, talk. Everything is normal. Everybody got a job to do. My friends never feel superior to me. They'll say, "I'll go downtown and park with Lovin' Al."

After twenty-five, thirty years I could drive any car like a baby, like a woman change her baby's diaper. I could handle that car with one hand. I had a lot of customers would say, "How you do this? The way you go around this way?" I'd say, "Just the way you bake a cake, miss, I can handle this car." A lotta ladies come to you and a lot of gentlemen come to you, say, "Wow! You can drive!" I say, "Thank you, ma'am." They say, "How long you been doin' it?" I say, "Thirty years. I started when I'm sixteen and I'm still doin' it."

All day is my car. I drive my car to work, and when I get out of my car, it's a customer's car. When I leave work at night, I'm in my car. When I get to work in the morning, it's the customer's car. All my waking hours is cars. When I go out, my wife drives. I get in the back seat and play with the kids. I drove all week, I tell her, why don't you drive? If I have an argument on the job, I never discuss it with my wife because she has enough problems, with the kids. And I'm too bushed.

How long would I continue? I would say I would go another four years, maybe five. 'Cause I know I can't continue walking any more. If I ever decide to quit parking cars, I think I could get me a watchman job. Maybe I might be a cashier or pick up tickets at a theater. I know I won't retire in the parking lot, 'cause they don't pay any retirement money. The walking is pretty bad on your feet. Every day, I should say I take a good sixty times goin' and sixty times comin' back.

The way I felt about cars when I was young, I used to love to park 'em. Now when they're comin' in so busy, I say, "Where are all the farmer's goin'?" Sat.u.r.day's the roughest day, because people are comin' in from all angles. Oh, the thrill been gone, oh, fifteen years. I do my work because I know I have to work. Every now and then I have to rub myself down or my wife rubs me down with alcohol. I might last another four, five years at most.

I was so good when I was nineteen, twenty. A guy bet me five dollars that when a certain car came in I wouldn't make a hole. I had one hand and I whipped it into that hole, and I did it three times for him. Another guy said, "You're too short to reach the gas pedal." I said, "No, I can even push the seat back and I can sit and swing that car in with one swing"-when I was younger. I had one customer, he was a good six feet seven and I'm only five feet three. He said, "You better pull the seat up." It looked like I was sittin' in the back seat and I was barely touchin' the brake. I whipped his car in the hole. He said, "You mean to tell me, short as you are, you put the car in that hole there?" I said, "I never move anybody's seat." I may pull myself up and brace from the wheel, but I never miss that hole. I make that one swing, with one hand, no two hands. And never use the door open, never park a car with the door open. Always I have my head inside the car, lookin' from the backview mirror. That's why they call me Lovin' Al the Wizard, One-Swing Al. They used to call me the Chewin' Gum Man. I used to chew twenty-five sticks of gum a day. Now I smoke cigars. (He and I puff away in silence for several moments.) I was one of the best. I didn't care where the hiker was from, you coulda bet money on me. They'd say, "Lover, you never miss." I say, "When I miss, I slip and I don't slip often." (Laughs.) I didn't care how big the car was, I didn't care how little it was, I never missed my swing.

I did it for years, since I was nineteen till I got about twenty-seven. Then I started driving normal, like anybody else. That was my most exciting years, when I was nineteen and twenty. Then I got around twenty-seven, I could sense it. I felt slowing down. I was like a prize fighter, he turn in his gloves at thirty. Car hiker, he goes to fifty, sixty. I intend to quit parking cars when I get to fifty-four, fifty-five. I'm pretty good now and I'm forty-nine. I can still wheel good, yeah, pretty good. Lovin' Al, signing off . . .

The Selling JOHNNY BOSWORTH.

He is one of seven salesmen, working for a car dealer in a middle-cla.s.s suburb on the outskirts of a large city. He is twenty-seven, married, and has a small child. His wife, he implies, comes from a well-to-do family, while "I'm a country boy. I wasn't able to finish school. Our family was kinda big and didn't have the money that most families do."

His hair is styled, his dress is modish, and his mustache is well-trimmed Fu Manchu. In the apartment a hi-fi set, a small TV set, several ca.s.settes, a variety of sound equipment, and a small poodle running about. Though he doesn't drink, he suggested to his guest, who was reaching for Cutty Sark, Chivas Regal. "Until a couple of months ago, I was a greaser. My hair was slicked back. My wife insisted . . ." (She had worked as a Playboy bunny.

He has been a car salesman for four years, though "I've been selling since I was fourteen. Door to door, magazines, pots and pans, anything."

If you hit a person's logic, you've got 'im. Unless you've got a ding-aling. Everybody can sell an idiot. An idiot, Jesus, I wish I had fifty thousand of 'em a day, because you can sell 'em the world. You can sell 'em the Brooklyn Bridge.

I don't stand around on pins and needles like a lot of guys there, afraid to do this, afraid to do that. If I think it's gonna benefit me, I'm gonna do it. You never know unless you try. My office is different than anyone else's. I try to fix it up, to make it look more comfortable instead of like a butcher room, which is what they refer to an office, the closing room, the box. I got a nice desk from Dunhill. I bring my own TV down so customers can watch. I've got radios, different gadgets, trinkets, whatnots. Books, magazines, Playboy. I just try to make it a little presentable.

I'm not really a good salesman. The product sells itself. The only thing that makes me good is I try to put myself in the customer's place. If I was to purchase a car, I know how I'd want to be treated. I wouldn't want to be pushed.

I threw a man out a couple of weeks ago. I just walked in the door and there's a guy standing there. He says, "Hey!" I says, "Excuse me, can I help you?" He says, "How much is this car?" He's pointing to a Dart Swinger. I said, "Let me check the book." He says, "What do you mean, check the book?" I says, "Sir, I don't have prices of all the cars in my head." He says, "All right, check the book." You know, rude att.i.tude. So I checked the book and gave the guy a price. He says, "You gotta be kiddin'!" I give him the price, which is two hundred dollars over cost, which is very fair. I says, "That's what the car costs, sir."

I figured I got nothing with this guy going. There's already a personality clash. I proceeded to the back and get my coffee, and this guy walks back. There's cars all over the floor. He points to another one and says, "How much is that car?" I says, "Again, sir, you mean the car there or one like it? Give me an idea of what kind of car you want. Let me help you." He says, "I didn't ask you. I asked the price." I says, "Okay, if that's your att.i.tude. The price is on the window." He says, "Boy, you guys are all alike, you're a bunch of jagoffs." I said, "What?" He said, "You heard me, you punk, you're all a bunch of jagoffs." So I walked over to him and I said, "Look, pal, all I do is come here and work. I'm gonna treat you like a gentleman as much as I can. You're gonna treat me the same. Otherwise you and I aren't gonna get along." So he says, "You mother-this, you mother-that," started calling me names and everything else. So I said, "Please, go to my boss and maybe he'll fire me." The guy says, "Aaahhh, I oughta punch your head in." When he said that I said, "You got two seconds to hit that door." He said, "What are you talkin' about?" So I grabbed him and pushed him out the front door.

I went to my boss and said, "You heard the disturbance out there. Do what you want to do, but that's the way it is." He said, "You were wrong. You shoulda punched him and knocked his teeth out." I get along real good with my boss. I go play golf with him. This guy has time to be a human being.

A long-haired kid comes in and they don't wait on him because they figure he's a dreck. That's the term they use. "Dreck" means nothing. The Jewish people brought most of the expressions in here. I jump on these kids. I try to sell 'em. Most of the long-haired kids here, their father's a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. They got money. They're not hard to please. If the kid likes the car, all you have to do when the parent comes in is. .h.i.t them with a little bit of logic. The kid usually wants a fast, souped-up car, a convertible more or less, with four-speed engine, all high performance. He wants the car to look real sharp. You go along with him some way, but I try to get him away from the four-speed because it's the worst thing in the world on a car. When you trade the car in, it loses $500 if it's a four-speed. You lose $250 in value if it's a stick shift.

I hit them with a little logic, too. Is your mother and father gonna go for this? The insurance is gonna run a little higher. When the parents come in, you gotta go with them. You tell 'em it's okay to have a big engine, because it's no worse than a six-cylinder. A six-cylinder will go 80 miles an hour, that's enough to get killed. The big engines, they go 100 to 140, but there's no place you can do it in the city anyway. You just try to suit both parties. I learned that from life. You have to bend.

Factory people are much easier to sell. A doctor calls up and he's a little arrogant sometimes. I want this, I want that, my buddy can get it three hundred dollars cheaper, so you better give me a good deal or forget it. They call you on the phone and want you to quote a price and everything else. That's all fine and good, except you know their buddy can't give 'em anything three hundred dollars cheaper. I know the prices of all the cars. That's one of the hardest things to get across to people, that we've all gotta make a living.

The blue collar is easier to sell, not so much because he's dumb, because a lot of 'em are lots smarter than some of these psychiatrists. They're more down-to-earth. They can't afford to take time out and go shopping, where a doctor and a lawyer, he can take off two or three weeks at a time. The guy that works in the factory nine times out of ten, you put 'em in the car that day. If you give him a car to drive home, give him a certain amount of money for his trade-in that he's content with, you've got a sale. He doesn't care about the profit you're making.

If you're a real good salesman, you can put 'em in the car that you want and just forget about the car they want. You can sell 'em the Brooklyn Bridge. Of course, I'm not that type of salesman. I'm not that far advanced. I study people, I'm still learning.

I like people. If it's a hippie, I ask him, "Do you smoke gra.s.s? Do you take dope? Do you like this type of music?" I try to find out things to make 'em relax. I also keep askin' questions that they'll answer yes. Get them in the habit of saying yes. When you say, "Will you give me the order?" they'll say yes rather than no because they haven't said no for a long time. "Do you like baseball? You like the way they play it today?" "Yeah." Whatever it takes to get 'em to say yes. A woman, you ask about fashions. Get 'em in the habit of saying yes.

Would you like to sell the Brooklyn Bridge?

No, because that would be taking advantage of someone. This may be hard to believe, but I don't enjoy taking advantage of people. Most of the salesmen in this business, they tell you it's a cutthroat world, you gotta screw your brother before your brother screws you. I disagree with that. I've been screwed many times myself because I've helped other people. They've turned around and just kicked me in the head. Rather than rebel and say I hate the world, I chalk it up to experience.

Black people, they're the easiest to sell, the easiest in the world. If you can make them think they're gettin' somethin' for nothin', oh, they grab it quick. You give them a sharp car, man, that shines and glistens, make the neighbors think them as really big strong people, rich and all that, they eat it up. You can sell 'em one, two, three.

Worst person in the world to sell is a pipe smoker. Pipe smoker comes in, I let him go to someone else. They'll sit there all day, kill your time. They all think they're geniuses. They think this pipe is a symbol. And they keep asking you all these questions. They picked up a book before they came and they learned a couple of words-you know, transmission or engine or cubic inches. They try to be a professor. I just tell 'em, "Look, did you come here to buy a car or did you come in to match wits with me?" 'Cause I'll match my IQ with Einstein. I happen to have a very high IQ.

And Orientals, they're another. They want something for nothing, for sure. Everybody thinks that the Jewish guy is hard to sell. Sure, he wants a break, he wants everything cheap. But he's realistic. These Orientals and Indians, they want everything for nothing. They want to buy for less than the dealer paid for it. A Jewish person, you say, "It cost me a thousand dollars, I'll give it to you for twelve." They want it for eleven fifty, fine, eleven fifty. But you tell an Oriental, "Here it is, in black and white, it cost a thousand. I'll give it to you for ten fifty." He'll say, "No, no, no. I want it for nine fifty. I want it for less than you paid for it."

The black guy doesn't care what you paid for it. He's concerned with what he can afford. Can you keep the payments for around fifty dollars a month? Can he afford it, that's all. But you know who I'd rather sell to more than anybody? The professional people. It's a challenge, and I like challenges.

"I've always wanted to be the best in whatever I did. I would tell people, remember something as you go through life: Bosworth is Best. I even had cards printed up with that, just to joke with guys at the pool hall. Anything they could do I could do it better. That's why I got into automobiles, the challenge."

Say I've been working at this place twenty years, okay? Most people's jobs, after twenty years you got seniority. You're somebody. After twenty years at this job, I go in tomorrow as if I started today. If I don't sell X amount of cars a month, I've gotta look for another job. It's not because they're bad people, but they're in business. If you got a bad egg, you get rid of it. I don't like it. I'm young, I'm healthy, I'm strong, I can do just about anything. But for my family, I'd like a little more security.

People are out to gain whatever they can. If sometimes it means stepping on someone, they don't think too much about it. I wouldn't say they're necessarily out to take advantage of others. They're just out for personal gain. Me, I don't like to step on people. I've had money. I've had opportunity. I could've been a gigolo. I could've married a Jewish girl, her father is a multimillionaire. I took a pa.s.s. I'm not a goody-goody, because I've been in jail, I fought, I stole.

The only one that could be a threat are the people who can cost you your job. Because that would threaten my family. They can kill me. I could care less if they killed me. I like my work. I have to like it, I must like it. Otherwise I'd be miserable. It's not what I'd like most to do, but I like it. If you're not happy, you can't sell. You have to be ready: let's sell, sell, sell. You're all gung ho.

Most people in the business drink. Mostly they talk about wine, women, and song. In some places they talk about horses, which doesn't interest me in the least. I'm not gonna bet on four-legged animals. Most of my friends-or acquaintances-are people I've known for a long time. We play Monopoly, we go to the movies, go to a play like Fiddler on the Roof. I don't play pool with 'em, cause I refuse to play for nothin'. It took me a long time to get good at that game. If anybody wants to beat me, it's gonna cost 'em money. I like gambling. I like playing cards for money.

Selling cars is a gamble. Every customer that walks in there, they've got a twenty-dollar bill or a fifty-dollar bill in their pocket. It's up to you to get it out of their pocket. The only way to get it out is to sell 'em a car. It's a gamble. If I had more education I'd be a little better at it. I wish to G.o.d I could turn back the clock and go back to school. That's why it's a challenge to sell a man that's been educated, been through college. I can make him come to me instead of me going to him. They see it my way.

Could the world survive without my work? No. There has to be a salesman. Oh, if a man put his mind to it-and I've thought about it myseif-that could all be computerized. All a salesman does is find a car that suits you, which has the best features and which has the worst. All that can be put into a computer and you'd have a questionnaire that people would answer. The only thing that would require a salesman is the price. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people are price-conscious. That's all they care about. You could sell 'em a bag of potatoes if the price was right. You could sell 'em a 1948 Chevy if the price was right.

How do you feel about Ralph Nader?

Pardon me?

How do you feel about Ralph Nader?

We could do without him. He's taken the choice away from the people. He doesn't give them the choice of having head restraints or belts. Or having emission control systems. He took that choice away. Carbon monoxide, all that poisonous stuff, leave that to the manufacturers that know such things and what it would cost to build all that new equipment. I think he's an alarmist. Chicken Little or whatever. He's driving my wife crazy. She's afraid to breathe air and everything, 'cause of him.

Sure, cars could be much better if it wasn't for the oil companies and the gas companies. They could run on air, they could run on water-or electric. There's no end to what they could do right now, but they won't.

My wife's been wanting a Volkswagen for two years and she'll wait two hundred before she gets one. It's an unsafe car. That's why I watch commercials-to see if I can find something I can use in my next sales meeting with a customer. I watch how TV commercials affect people who watch it with me.

I wish the public would realize that I'm a human being, too. You meet some guy at a party and its, "Aw, you guys are all alike." "Watch out for him," blah, blah, blah. I tell 'em, "Stick it in your keester." The public thinks the automobile salesman is a rat. Some of the customers are the real animals. Why must they wait? Why can't they be number one? "How come I'm not getting good gas mileage?" They beat a car to death and they wonder why it doesn't perform for them. All they do is make you eat your guts out. Then they'll go right down the street and they'll do it to another guy and they'll wonder: Is everybody a rat? And they're the rat.

They don't have to be animals. It's the whole system that makes 'em animals. Everybody goes on strike, they want more money. The wife needs more money to buy groceries because groceries are higher because the delivery is on strike, the trucks are on strike, the factories are on strike, everybody is on strike. The car salesman can't go on strike. I have no union. I go on strike, I say, "I'm not gonna do this." They say, "See if they want to hire you down the street."

I've been fired from this place five times because of my mouth. And they call me back every time. They realize they were wrong. You can't hate a man for being honest. Jesus, I feel if you can't be honest, what's the sense in doing anything?

BOOK FIVE.

APPEARANCE.

SAM MATURE.

He has been a barber for forty-three years. For twenty-one years he has owned a shop at the same locale, an office building in Chicago's Loop. "A master barber may have a couple of other barbers that are better barbers than he is, but they call him master because he's the boss."

Long hair is nothin' new. We had some fancy haircuts them days the same as we have today. I did a bit of musicians and they had long hair. But not like the hippie. I have no objections as long as they keep it clean, neat, a little light trim. But you know what gets me? A fella's got a son in college, he's got long hair, which he's in style. Here's the old man, he wants to get long hair. And he's the average age fella in the fifty age bracket. He wants to look like his son. Now that to me is ridiculous. Happens quite often. The fella'll come in and he'll say, "I'm gonna let my hair grow, Sam, because my daughter or my wife . . . " Daughters and women tell their husbands how to cut their hair. The guy's been married for twenty-five years. I don't see the sense in him changing. We still like what they call the he-man cut. Businessman haircut. Not all this fancy stuff. It's not here to stay.

It hurt the barber quite a bit. I know about nine barbers went out of business in this area alone. A man used to get a haircut every couple weeks. Now he waits a month or two, some of 'em even longer than that. We used to have customers that'd come in every Friday. Once a week, haircut, trim, everything. Now the same fella would come in maybe every two months. That's the way it goes.

We used to have five chairs here. Now there's only three of us. We used to have a manicurist here that works five davs a week. Now she works one day a week. A lot of people would get manicured and fixed up every week. Most of these people retired, moved away, or they pa.s.sed away. It's all on account of long hair. You take the old-timers, they wanted to look neat, to be presentable, and they had to make a good appearance in their office. Now people don't seem to care too much.

You take some of our old-timers, they still take their shampoo and hair tonic and get all fixed up. But if you take the younger generation today, if you mention, "Do you want something on your hair?" they feel you insulted them. I had one fella here not too long ago, I said, "Do you want your hair washed?" He said, "What's the matter? Is it dirty?" (Laughs.) A young guy. An older person wouldn't do that.

In the city of Chicago a haircut's three dollars with the exception of the hair stylin' shops. They charge anything they want. It runs up to as high as twelve dollars. We don't practice it. The three of us can do it but we usually don't recommend it. We have to charge a man so much money. I don't think it's considerate, that kind of price for a haircut.

In stylin', you part his hair different, you cut his hair different. Say you got a part and you don't want no part. You comb it straight back, you're changing his style. Say his part's on the right side. All right, you want to change his style, you put the part to the left side. Then you wash his hair and you cut him down and redress his hair over again. That's hair stylin', I actually never went much for that myself.

When I came here twenty-one years ago, I had a separate chair here in the little room, in which I cut all ladies' hair. We'd run about six or seven or eight cuts a day in women's hair. I love to cut women's hair. At one time I won second prize cutting ladies' hair, which was back in 1929. The wind-blown haircut. Their hair was all combed forward. It was like a gush of wind hits you in the back of the head and blew your hair forward. Today young girls don't know what it is. I think it's a lot easier than cutting men's hair. They're less trouble, too.

"Most of your new barbers today, actually there isn't too many taking it up. Take these barber colleges. It used to be three, four hundred students. Not any more. You maybe get five or six there. Not only that, the tuition has gone up so high. It cost me $160. Now it would run you about six hundred dollars or better. Young barbers today, unless they go in for hair styling, it isn't enough money in it.

"So many of them, they get disgusted for the simple reason that it takes too long to be a barber. When I took up barberin', it took six months. Today you have to apprentice for almost three years before you can get your license. You work for a lot less-about thirty dollars less a week than a regular barber would get."

You can't think of other things while you're working. You concentrate on the man's hair or you'd be talkin' to him whatever he wants to talk about. A barber, he has to talk about everything-baseball, football, basketball, anything that comes along. Religion and politics most barbers stay away from. (Laughs.) Very few barbers that don't know sports. A customer'll come in, they'll say, "What do you think of the Cubs today?" Well, you gotta know what you think. You say, "Oh, they're doin' swell today." You have to tell 'em.

Fans today in sports are terrific, hockey, all those things. That counts in bein' a barber. You gotta know your sports. They'll come in, "What do you think of that fight last night?" Lotta sports barber has to watch on TV or hear about it or read about it. You gotta have somethin' o tell him. You have to talk about what he wants to talk about.

Usually I do not disagree with a customer. If there is something that he wants me to agree with him, I just avoid the question. (Laughs.) This is about a candidate, and the man he's speaking for is the man you're not for and he asks you, "What do you think?" I usually have a catch on that. I don't let him know what I am, what party I'm with. The way he talks, I can figure out what party he's from, so I kind of stay neutral. That's the best way, stay neutral. Don't let him know what party you're from cause you might mention the party that he's against. And that's gonna hurt business.

I disagree on sports. Fans are all different. TV plays a good role, especially during ball games, real good. All the shops should have TV because the customer, he wants to look at something, to forget his office work, forget the thing he has in his mind that he has to do. Watchin' TV relaxes his mind from what he was doin' before he came in the shop.

A lot of people sit down and relax. They don't want to have anything to do, just sit there and close their eyes. Today there is less closin' their eyes. We had customers at one time that if they couldn't go to sleep, they wouldn't get a haircut.

Customers call me by my first name-Sam. I have customers twenty years old that call me Sam. I call the customer Mister. I never jump to callin' a man by his first name unless a man tells me himself, "Why don't you call me Joe?" Otherwise I call him mister.

About tips. Being a boss, sometimes they figure they don't have to tip you. They don't know that the boss has to make a living same as anybody else. Most of your master barbers, they don't bank on it, but they're glad to get whatever they get. If a man, through the kind heart of his, he wants to give me something, it's all right. It's pretty hard to keep a person from tipping. They tip a bellhop, they tip a redcap, they tip a waiter.

If bosses in these shops would agree to pay the barber more, I'd say ninety percent of them wouldn't do it. They'd rather the customer to help pay this barber's salary by tipping him. I'm in favor of not tipping. I'd just as soon pay the man ten dollars more a week than have him depend on that customer. This way he knows that he's got that steady income. In the old days you kind of depended on tips because the salary was so small. If you didn't make the extra ten dollars a week in tips you were in had shape.

I'll tell ya, by tipping that way it made me feel like I was a beggar. See? A doctor you don't give him a tip. He's a professional man. You go to a dentist, you don't give him a tip because he fixed your tooth. Well, a barber is a professional man too. So I don't think you should tip him.

When I leave the shop, I consider myself not a barber any more. I never think about it. When a man asks me what I do for a living, I usually try to avoid that question. I figure that it's none of his business. There are people who think a barber is just a barber, a n.o.body. If I had a son, I'd want him to be more than just a barber.

What's gonna happen when you retire?

They're gonna be just another barber short.

"Barbers that work on the outskirts of downtown are different. Outskirt barbers are more chummy with their customers because they're friends. They go bowling, they go fishing, they go hunting together. Here you see a fella, an executive, maybe every two weekends, then you don't see him any more, and you don't know where he lives. The outskirt barber has more authority than we would here."

EDWARD AND HAZEL ZIMMER.

Mr. Edward is a beauty salon in a suburb close to a large industrial city. "She works with me. Twenty years we've been here almost. They demand more from a hair stylist and you get more money for your work. You become like a doctor becomes a specialist. You have to act accordingly -I mean be Mr. Edward."

At a certain point she joins the conversation.

Some people go to a barber shop, you get an old guy, he hasn't kept up to date with the latest styles, newest cuts. They're in a rut. They cut the same thing no matter what's in. A barber should be a hair stylist himself. There's some male beauty shops, they deal more in your feminine men and actors. Most actors prefer going to a beauty shop because a barber might just give you the same old cut and you might look like the janitor down the street or the vice president of a bank. Appearance is importance.

There are beauty operators, there's hairdressers, and there's hair stylists. A hair stylist is more than a beauty operator. Anybody can fuzz up hair, but you ask them, "Do I look good in this Chinese look which is coming in now, Anna May Wong?"-they don't know.

You have to sense the value of your customer. If the jewelry is a little better and she's accustomed to services, such as maids, her husband makes a good dollar. If you're getting a woman with five kids and her husband's a cabdriver-which is no fault in that-she is not the kind that's gonna come in here every week. Or the little lady down the street, who lives with her cats and dogs or even her husband, who doesn't care. They say, "Just set it nice. I can't wash my hair because of my arthritis." They're not fussy. You say to the beauty operator you employ, "You take Mrs. Brown because she's not fussy." You pick out the fussy one that's been around, they've been to Acapulco, Hawaii. They expect a little more from you than the beauty operator. Then you become the stylist. You have to know which customers are for whom and which are not.

The name counts. Kenneth does Mrs. Kennedy's hair-Ona.s.sis. I never saw Jacqueline Kennedy's hair when it looked anything worthwhile. Sometimes she wears a wig. Just because she came to him, this put him on a pedestal. If the Queen of England came to my place, I'd have to hire fifteen more people. They'd all come flocking in. A social thing.

The hairdresser cashes in on some of it. You'll never get this in the smaller beauty shops. You have to be a hair stylist to attract ones with money. A hair stylist can get fifteen dollars for a haircut, whereas the beauty operator, she'll get only three. Now your hairdresser is in the middle.

What makes a man become a hair stylist is different from what makes a woman become one. For women it's an easy trade. They learn this when they are twelve years old, making pin curls at home. But a man, it takes a little different approach. Jacqueline Kennedy, in a book her maid or someone wrote, said, when security police found out that two employees in the White House were h.o.m.os.e.xual, she ordered them fired. She said, "I don't want my sons to be exposed to this type of people because they're liable to grow up to be hairdressers." Not all hairdressers are h.o.m.os.e.xually inclined. Some enjoy the work more if you enjoy women.

The most important thing for a hairdresser, male, he has to dominate the woman. You can sense when you're not dominating the customer. She can tell you, "I want two rollers here." She becomes the stylist and all you become is the mechanical thing with the fingers.

In the field of beauty work, you got to have personality. I'd say one-fifth is personality. Be able to sell yourself. Your approach, your first word, like, "Good morning, the weather we're having." A man has to have a personality where he's aloof. He has to act like-without a word: Don't tell me, I'm the stylist. You expect more from Mr. Edward and you get it. If a woman needs a hair style, he says, "Madame, what you need is a little more color. I will fix it up." He doesn't do it. He will call his a.s.sistant. And he will tell her, "I want curls here, I want this, I want that." And she says, "Yes, Mr. Edward." I don't dirty my hands with the chemicals. I'm the stylist. Your symbol right there, the male. You're giving yourself a t.i.tle. Otherwise, you're gonna be nothing but a flunky. Being a male, it's important you must have this ego.

Everybody expects the hairdresser to be a prototype, to have a black mustache, slick Hollywood-type or feminine. I could spot one a mile away sometimes if they're feminine. On the other hand, I know someone you'd never know he was a hairdresser. He's owned five shops at one time, a married man with a family and he's bald. I'm not gonna hide the point that I'm a beauty operator.

I used to go to a tavern around here. I met this guy. He didn't know I knew he was a cop. He knew I was a hairdresser. He was drunk. He says to me, "You're a queer." I says, "How could you tell by looking at people?" He says, "The way you twist your mouth." I said, "You're drunk and you're a cop." He says, "How do you know I'm a cop?" I says, "Just the way you look and act." Right away, he says, "Aaahhh!" I said, "If you didn't have a gun, how much authority would you pull around here? Anybody can do your job. You can't do mine. It takes skill." Right away he avoided me. He was an idiot. I do a lot of policemen's wives' hair. I always mention that he called me a queer. This other woman's husband says, "Wait'll I see him, I'll bash him in the face."

After an interval in the army he met his wife at a dance. She was working in a beauty parlor. "I said, 'I think I'll be a hairdresser.' She says, 'You wouldn't last two days.' I says, 'h.e.l.l I won't.' " He studied beauty culture. "I had my suitcase and my white jacket. I felt like an idiot. I saw these feminine young men dancing around, and these little old ladies waiting for me. They lay down and undress and you gotta rub their back and around their chest. What you learn in beauty school is nothin'. You don't learn how to handle people. My father-in-law always says, 'You do nothing but a lady's work.' But it's hard work, psychologically hard. You gotta perform a little better than a female."

Hair stylists, even if they're married, are called Miss This or Miss That. They don't seem to go much for the last name. Mr. Alexander of Paris or Mr. Andre. Mr. Edward. That should go over bigger than Eddie's Beauty Shop. It's a little flat, see? Sometimes these young fellas who are on the feminine side lean on a feminine name. He calls himself Mr. Twinkie or something. This fella we had working here, he tried to hide the fact that he was feminine. He called himself Mr. Moran.

HAZEL: The name became important when the male entered the business. They built a reputation on their name. They use it rather than call a salon by some idiotic or nondescriptive name. A woman might call the shop Vanity Fair or Highlight. For a man, it's more important that he retains his name.

What are you called?

HAZEL: Hazel.

EDWARD: She's just called Hazel.

HAZEL: I worked for Mr. Maurice in Florida and all of us were known as Miss. He renamed me Miss Rena because he didn't like Hazel.

Do you feel less when you're called by your first name?