The Good Men Project

By: REGIE O’HARE GIBSON

I am nine. It’s a typical Chicago summer, hot and urban, with the smell of barbecue and hot sauce spanking the air as though it were a disobedient three-year-old. My younger brother, Ron, and I are in Mother’s beauty shop, Gibson’s House of Styles. Today is Saturday, the day she sculpts the heathen heads of women into shapes God will accept in church tomorrow morning. Today my mother is a conjure woman, hard at work on her customers’ illusions. Her eye of newt and toe of frog? Sulfur 8 and lanolin shampoo. Her wool of bat and tongue of dog? Dark and Lovely and #8 black rinse. We watch as hair, once as unreasonable as a slumlord on the eighth of the month, surrenders to the merciless teeth of the black straightening comb––instrument of torture, agent of beauty.

I can remember every one of these women’s names: Miss Dorthee, Miss Moshell, Miss Dareese… They are every sepia shade imaginable. Some are as wide as a Sunday-morning church hat. Some are as skinny as they swear they will make their men’s wallets come Monday.

You damn right, I’m my own woman! I don’t need no man to take care of me.

I know what you mean girl! I’d do alright by myself too, and believe me my man better know it! And my man know that he better be payin’ for what’s on this head if he wants what’s in these pants…

Their collective laughter is fever-pitched in the blow-dried air. Livening their mouths are momentary glints of gold or silver teeth, giving away the Mississippi they came from.

If a man don’t wanna put clothes on your back then you don’t let him put you on yours!

Girl, you sho’ is right about that! Some say it’s what’s up front that counts, but if a man ain’t got dollars then bein’ with him just don’t make no sense.

I look up at my mother’s hands. They are busy hexing a head of hair. I look at myself, look over at my brother. He is staring at the television, lost in Saturday morning animation. But I am living the cartoon.

Is this what women really think, or are they just saying these things to get a laugh? Is this the way it really is between men and women? Did any of the men know this? Oh no, is my mother like them?

So how have these childhood memories and experiences affected me as a man and, subsequently, my relationship with women?

I can understand if you’ve drawn the conclusion that I don’t have a very high opinion of the women in the beauty shop. But that’s untrue. These women always treated me well. They were both formidable and kind. They handled their homes and children well, and despite their weekly reaming-of-the-man ritual, most of the women took care of the men in their lives in a loving, albeit heavy-handed, fashion. Still, I’ve been distrustful of women, fearing that one day a woman might give kisses on the face and on another day a knife in the back, and that women are materialistic and selfish and are only out for what they can get.

However, my closest friends have been women. Perhaps my confusion over what I call my “beauty-shop moments” has caused me to seek out genuine friendships with women. When I have related some of my fears to my women friends, more than a handful have said that they have sometimes felt the need to reduce a relationship to things monetary to compensate for a relationship’s lack of intimacy, communication, and simple courtesy.

So I have learned to conduct periodic “relationship check-ins” with the women in my life––whether the relationship is familial, romantic, or platonic. I don’t care what a man says; if he is honest, he will admit that a large part of his self-image hinges upon how he is perceived by the women around him.

And I have learned a few things about becoming a better husband, father, and man. I have learned the importance of preparing my home to receive a woman; this shows respect for her and for myself. I have learned to ask questions at least as much as I make statements, to be careful about raising my voice in anger—far too many women have experienced yelling as a prelude to violence—and to show strength and sensitivity. That is, to be respectful of women but not a fool for them. Yes, this might be fortune-cookie stuff, but it’s still good advice.

Confronting the question honestly has become part of a psychological journey that has been delightful and disturbing, nostalgic and nasty––but also necessary in my ongoing quest to understand this ever-shifting thing called manhood.

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Regie O’Hare Gibson is one of the thirty-one original author/contributors in The Good Men Project anthology. A poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator and educator, Gibson and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film Love Jones, which is based largely on events in his life. His poem “Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)” is on the movie’s soundtrack and is performed by the film’s star, Larenz Tate. In the film, Gibson performs “Hey Nappyhead” with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, who wrote the score for the musical The Lion King.