Solidarity

March 24, 2000

Sitting in the chair of my Sicilian barber the other day, I noticed in the mirror an olive-skinned man of about 75 eyeballing me from his seat.  In his hands was an open copy of Penthouse.

After more staring, he finally asked, “Are you a Polack?”

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“You look like a Polack.  Are you?”

The barber tensed up and shot the man a dirty look.

“Actually, my dad’s side of the family is Ukrainian and Slovak.”

“Whatever,” the old man replied.  “You know, I wouldn’t be embarrassed about being a Polack.  They’re a hard-working bunch.  Not the brightest bulbs in the ceiling, but hard-working till the day they die.”

In Italian, the barber barked at the man to shut up. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized dramatically, “Don’t pay no attention to Johnny.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I assured him.

“I didn’t mean any offense or nuthin’,” Johnny volunteered.  “The Polacks are good people.”

In English this time, the barber snapped, “Johnny, enough with the Polacks!  Let it go.”

“Fine, fine.  Whatever, whatever.”

A few moments of awkward silence passed.  The quiet must have been unsettling to the old man.

“At least he’s not a Jew.  He don’t look it anyway.  You ain’t Jewish are ya?”

“That is it!  Basta!,” the barber commanded as be slammed down his clippers.  “Get out of here now, Johnny!  Go find someplace else to hang out today.”

“What?  Whad I say? Everybody’s so goddam sensitive these days.”

The old man hobbled out of the barber shop.  The bell hanging from the handle clanked and rang as the glass door swung shut behind him.

“I’m so sorry, sir.  So sorry,” the barber said pleadingly.  “He an old man.  He come here ‘cause he ain’t got many places to go.”

“It’s no big deal,” I said.  “It was kind of funny, really.”

A bit of silence followed.

“Good thing I’m not black,” I smiled.

“Yes sir.  Yes sir, it is,” he said with no expression as he continued to snip and snip.  “Good thing you’re not black.”

That was an odd reply.  Not knowing whether or not he’d picked up on my sarcasm, I changed the subject. 

“I see Italy almost won the America’s Cup.”

“Yes, sir.  Yes sir, we almost did.”

He exhaled audibly, a clear indicator of both his patriotic disappointment and of his relief that we had moved off of the previous topic.

Then I added, “I heard the Polish team got disqualified for sailing in the opposite direction.”

Broadway Jim Sosnicky