MY BARBER DIED: AN UNUSUAL LIFE
Monday, October 15, 2012 at 11:53AM Walter Czyzyk
Was More Than
Just a Barber
By Lew Marcus
NEPAtoday Magazine Editor
My barber died. For most people, it's just a matter of finding a new barber. But not for
NEPATODAY MAGAZINE Editor Lew Marcus me. Oh, I've already found someone to cut my hair. But that's all they are doing. I'll never replace my barber. Walter Czyzyk was far, far more than someone who cut hair. He was a barber in the ancient definition of the word; when barbers cured you of your illnesses; when they were held with the same esteem as surgeons. Walter is rolling around in his freshly dug grave because I am calling him a barber. He hated it when I called him that. He was astylist. But that is such a limiting word. Walter was a man without limits.
Walter was the only person who cut my hair and my wife's hair for the last 35 years. He was the only person toever cut my children's hair. The bond between Walter and the entire family was so strong that our oldest two children, long ensconced in New York City, would make special dawn trips into Scranton for a haircut. But it was more than wanting that
My Barber, WALTER CZYZYKperfect haircut. Going for a haircut was like trekking to the top of the mountain to ask questions of the guru. You didn't have to ask the guru the question. He knew why you were there. No matter what they wanted to talk to Walter about, it was Walter who set the agenda of the conversation. And my children, as did my wife and myself, would inhale his every word.
Now don't let me fantasize Walter into someone he was not. He was just as flawed as all of us, perhaps even more than most of us. We met in those heady days of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. When I arrived back in Scranton from my days in New York and Boston, the cultural scene was orchestrated by the premier stylist of those days: Lenny Fox. A fragile man of some talent, Lenny presided over a weird menagerie of artistic types and those enthralled by the artsy-fartsy. The apex of that culture was when Lenny bought what is now the Women's Resource Center, turning the first floor into his salon; the second floor into a few shops, like the primoral head shop, Hardly Normal, and the huge formal ballroom as a theatrical and dance space. Lenny, as the doyenne of society, was eventually replaced by Bobby Henkle, whose Henkle and Company was the destination for great stylists and the Who's Who of Scranton in the late 70s and early 80s. If you were someone, Bobby cut your hair.
After Lenny burnt himself out, Bobby started cutting my hair until he weeded out the barber business and just went for the high rollers. I was passed down to the second chair, Bobby's boy friend, Dennis. When Dennis checked into rehab I slid down to the third chair. "Walter," I said, "do your magic and don't forget to trim the beard." "Oh I don't do beards," he retorted.
Walter not only did my beard that day but he did it brilliantly and continued for the next subsequent 35 years until he contracted cancer and retired. We followed him out of Henkle's to Salon 222 and eventually to his last home at The Hair Loft in Green Ridge.
I was nervous the first time he cut my hair after shaving himself bald. He said he was just speeding up the inevitable. I knew he took out his moods, in those years, on the hair he cut. Some years he liked cutting long; others short. For me, it was verboten to express a desire for a certain cut or length. I just sat in the chair and hoped for the best. He rarely disappointed. And I actually never, ever got a bad haircut. His genius was that not only did you look great hopping out of the chair but you looked even better as it started to grow in.
The haircut, the perfect haircut, seemed to be a byproduct of the hour spent in his chair. Classical music would fill the air at 6:30 in the morning. Walter would be on his third cigarette of the morning and his second cup of coffee. The ashtray was still filled from the day before but the flowers in the giant vase were fresh and elegant. Some days the flowers were replaced with bare branches. It didn't matter to Walter. It wasn't the flowers that mattered. It was the shape and the form that appealed to him.
Then, slowly and almost reluctantly, Walter let on that he was dabbling in art; that he was creating. He admitted to me how he was totally captivated by shape and form. But I already knew that from his floral and non-floral arrangements. He told me how he would be enchanted by small figures and pieces of wood. Again form and shape with Walter contributing design. On his counter were countless art books, those huge coffee table collections of great reproductions. It was in one of those books I showed him Louise Nevelson. She, too, was enraptured with shape
WALTER'S MUSE: LOUISE NEVELSON AND HER WALL OF BOXES and form and created boxes. Before long, Walter was containing his art in little boxes, a laLouise. Weird little bald-headed dolls and exotically colored cats-eye marbles. I was happy he had yet another outlet for his creativity. I was happy he was finding pleasure in his own existence. Up to now he had been a silent spectator of life, cataloging all of humankind's emotions and travails in his endless appetite for foreign films. Then, the breakthrough. He sold a few pieces. Then there was the show at a gallery in California. Walter was now a sought-after artist. Still, he cut hair, ever my barber.
If you asked about art, he'd discuss art for the hour. If it was music, so be it. But I think Walter took the greatest delight in talking about people. As the barber to a great cross section of Scranton, he knew everything about everything. I might start the session with, "Walter, tell me what's going on with Mr. X. I see that he closed his business." He knew the story Mr. X was telling. He knew the back story. He knew the undercurrent and then he'd give you his opinion, all the time pulling out of you what you knew. Often, between the two of us we'd solve many a riddle. We just knew too much about too many people.
It wasn't that Walter was into gossip, as are many people in the barbering trade. It was something deeper than that. As in his art, Walter sought truth. He wanted the whole story. And, for him, it wasn't enough getting the story from the horse's mouth. He wanted to understand motivation, history, circumstance. He wanted to understand what created that shape and form. And he was all for connecting shape and form -- even in conversation. Walter wasn't about talking about people. He was about connecting people.
Walter was truly a character, driven by his desire to connect people yet by an equally compelling drive to live a very private and insulated life. He didn't drive so he got around in taxi cabs. He rarely answered the telephone. If he wanted something, he'd call you. He lived and died in the house in which he was born. He dutifully took care of his aging and deteriorating mother, agonizing for months and months about placing her in a home when he just couldn't leave her alone to go to work. He only worked from Wednesday to Saturday and never after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. He was in the habit of taking a month off each year and hiding out somewhere, like Italy. "Oh, Walter's away this month," the receptionist would say, and you'd just wait for his return to get a haircut. You had no choice.
Walter died like he liked to live: quietly and secretly. When the obituary was printed in the newspaper this morning, he had already been buried. He hated crowds. He detested scenes. His motto might have been, "Don't Bother." But for me, Walter was never a bother. I hope I was never a bother to him. He was my barber. I'll never have another one.
Reader Comments (1)
Lew,
This is a most fitting and affectionate tribute to a dear man. I Learned much from Walter and think of him often. Thank you for the memory.
Maria