#Middlebury #Veterans
I pushed through the coffee shop’s back door and found the attic dormitory crowd in the kitchen. Sarge had arranged for the lady who gave free haircuts at the senior center to come in and “neaten up” the homeless veterans, as he’d expressed it to her, before they went on job interviews.
She breezed through the door with a plastic tarp for the floor, fancy salon wraps for their shoulders, a hand mirror, and a bag of scissors, combs, razors, sprays and gels, plus a stack of cosmetology magazines from which each veteran could choose his preferred hairstyle. All just opted for “something shorter.”
For one of the veterans, the one with long, tangled hair past his shoulders and a full bushy beard and mustache that covered half of his face, the “something shorter” turned into “more, please” as she cut.
“Hello again,” he quietly said to his image in the small mirror, touching his chin and cheek after the haircut and shave. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” He handed the lady a few bills, even though he didn’t need to pay, and then trotted up the street to the drug store, where he bought a pack of disposable razors and shave cream.
Seeing this, Sarge made arrangements for the lady to come back twice a month for trims and cut her a check that she refused to take. Standing outside under the streetlight after the haircuts, Sarge was subdued. “Did you see how his eyes lit up, seeing himself in the mirror like that? All trimmed and shaved? And all of them confident now about finding jobs?”
He quietly muttered an uncharacteristic string of profanities, then spun to face me. “We have to do better for them. The VA has to do better. Towns have to do better.”
As he stared off across the parking lot, I pointed out that he’d singlehandedly changed the lives of these four men by opening the dormitory.
He faced me again and said, “Well, I’m not done yet.”
© 2021 King Features Synd., Inc.
You must be logged in to post a comment.