OOOOuch! That was the battle cry of
me and every little "colored" girl who ever sat pressed between her
mother's knees while a comb was being pulled through her kinky hair. If your hand dared inch toward the now sore
spot, you got a rap on the knuckles with the comb.
In my mother's case, that was
because she had four little girls and each of us had enough hair for two or
three other children and she didn't have too much time for gentleness when she
was “breaking up new ground.” We had
hair that would, throughout our lives, be envied and sometimes held against us
out of jealousy.
My mother spent one Saturday a
month in the fall and winter and two Saturdays a month in the spring and summer
"doin' hair." We didn't have
that "good" hair -- it was kinky and required a full day’s work to
get it together for the four of us. We
considered it torture but in retrospect I can only imagine what it was like for
my mother to add this ritual to her already burdensome lifestyle. Bending over the bathtub, scrubbing and
rinsing, towel drying in between cooking, cleaning and ironing, and finally
greasing and sizzling our hair straight with the good old hot comb.
The only thing we enjoyed about
those Saturdays was the fact that dinner was always hot dogs or hamburgers,
pork n' beans, potato chips and Kool-Aid -- because that's all Mommy had time
to fix. The end result was fresh, shiny
slicked-back hair with braids that rested on or swung beneath our shoulders. When we saw ourselves in the mirror
afterward, we asked, "Why can't I wear my hair loose?" The answer was always, "No!" There was no way all my mother's hard work
was going to get sweated out and "napped up." So, we wore braids until we were in junior
high.
There were
a few times -- special occasions like Easter and Christmas -- when my aunt
would take us to Cleveland
to "get our hair done." We
actually flew the 30 miles there because Aunt Mary never drove the speed
limit. We pretty much cowered in the
back seat holding on to each other and still sliding because those were the
days before seat belts and Aunt Mary took corners on two wheels in her big
Packard.
We spent a
long day into the night at a real beauty shop and just before starvation took
us out, we got burgers and shakes and tried not to spill them on the flight
home. Sometimes the holiday hairdo was
created by Mrs. Bea, a close friend of my mother who also was a
hairdresser. Mrs. Bea "did
hair" at her house with all her children underfoot. That always amazed me because her house was small
and her children many, and she could twirl that curling iron like a majorette's
baton.
I
remember enduring the embarrassment of walking to her house with my enormous
rough-dried hair under a scarf. (This
was prior to the 1960s and the realization that I was a black queen and my hair
was indeed my crowning glory). It was a short walk and a long appointment from
press to curl with the twins in Mrs. Bea's belly kicking me in the back of my
head. But the end result was sleek,
shiny, well-greased curls that I prayed would last forever.
One of my
earliest humiliations was when it was my turn to go with Grandma and Grandpa to
the A&P grocery store. A, seemingly,
nice white lady looked at me and reached for my braids as she said, "Oh,
look at how long and pretty your hair is!"
Before I knew it, Grandma shouted, "Will!"
Grandpa had automatically reached for his back pocket, where he carried
one of the longest, fiercest-looking knives, when it was flicked open, you can
imagine. Grandma knew without looking that he would reach for it even though it
wasn't something he routinely did.
But
this woman had broken a cardinal rule.
She was about to touch me as though she had a right to do so -- as if I
was a slave on an auction block. This
was something I wouldn't understand for many years. Grandpa began to bark at the woman,
"Don't chew PUT yo’ han' on that chile's head! Don't chew TOUCH her!"
I was
so embarrassed but years later when I read the Mandingo series of books by Kyle
Onstott that described the torture and degradation of slavery, I loved my
Grandpa more than I ever had. But he was gone and I couldn't tell him.
The ‘60s
had me hot-combing my own hair and burning it much of the time. The ‘70s saw me in all my glory with an Afro
that competed with Angela Davis'. Before
the ‘80s, a crippling, debilitating illness made it difficult for me to lift my
arms and, therefore, an unwitting candidate for the original California Curl --
a brand new death knell to my precious follicles. In the ‘80s, I paid big money and drove many
miles for the grease-free Jheri Curl at a high-end salon, where wine and cheese
was served, initially. But soon it was pack-your-own-lunch ‘cause you will be
here all day. The 90s saw me with extensions intertwined with my own hair to create a regal braided "do" that even impressed my brothers and sisters in The Motherland as I sojourned in Africa.
Eventually, I "relaxed" and that's
where I am today. I don't know what the
future holds for me or my hair but one thing I do know. I thank God for my Daddy's hair gene. Because
of that gene my hair has more than just endured and survived -- it has thrived.
There have been challenges, to be
sure. But like the HeLa gene of
Henrietta Lacks, a descendant of slaves whose cells -- "taken without her
knowledge, were the first ‘immortal’ human cells grown in culture." More than 60 years after her death, they live
on and were vital in developing vaccines and uncovering the secrets to myriad
diseases.
As important as it is, my hair
doesn't define me but it constantly reminds me that like Henrietta Lacks,
because of what God has given me, (to paraphrase the Book of James) I too am
"... perfect and entire lacking nothing."
