{"id":2031,"date":"2018-04-26T15:23:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T19:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=2031"},"modified":"2018-05-03T17:10:39","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T21:10:39","slug":"tight-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2018\/04\/26\/tight-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Tight Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tools of the Trade, Tight Cuts barbershop. (Photos by Fatema Al Darii)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

by Fatema Al Darii<\/p>\n

When I lost my favorite hat to the James River, I went into mourning for a time, and then decided to get a haircut.<\/p>\n

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Michael B. Lemon, owner of Tight Cuts.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

That’s what brought me to Tight Cuts Unisex Barbershop on First Street in Jackson Ward on a chilly Tuesday afternoon in April. Tight Cuts was relatively empty that day. The sounds of the TV mixed with the buzz of clippers, filling the place with a happy, tranquil noise.<\/p>\n

Everyone struggled with my name.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay it again?\u201d<\/p>\n

“Fa-teh-mah!”<\/p>\n

Fits of laughter. Yes, it’s awkward to be called Fat-Ma, but I always appreciate the effort people make to pronounce my name correctly. Michael, the barber, tried until he got it right.<\/p>\n

Originally from Church Hill a few miles away, Michael B. Lemon, the shop’s owner and lead barber, is a native of Richmond who moved to Jackson Ward years ago to open this business.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually my father is a barber,” he said casually. “I picked up the trade from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Including Michael, there are four people who work at Tight Cuts: A man in a bright orange shirt with a white barber coat, whom I first met outside the shop, sitting on a stool smoking a cigarette; a friendly looking women in a black apron; and another lady who was absent at that moment.<\/p>\n

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A regular customer of Tight Cuts sits for a touch-up.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

After Michael cut my hair, I struck up a conversation with the woman with the black apron, who was sitting on the far side of the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you spell it?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cK-I-A, like the car,\u201d she answered.<\/p>\n

Kia has been working at the barbershop for about a year. It’s not a long, drawn-out story, how she got here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked by one day and saw that they needed some help. I lent them a hand and that\u2019s how I ended up working here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with her female colleague, who hadn’t yet returned, Kia’s services are what makes the barbershop “Unisex.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI did Michael’s braids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe barbershop is a community,” she went on. “It gets crazy but everyone who comes in here is friendly. You know, they’re here to get their hair done.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a peaceful afternoon, with Michael and Kia and stool man and the woman who never came back, and the TV and the electric clippers.<\/p>\n

Today I noticed that my sideburns are uneven. I’m thinking to go back to get them done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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by Fatema Al Darii When I lost my favorite hat to the James River, I went into mourning for a time, and then decided to get a haircut. That’s what brought me to Tight Cuts Unisex Barbershop on First Street in Jackson Ward on a chilly Tuesday afternoon in April. Tight Cuts was relatively empty Read more about Tight Cuts<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2605,"featured_media":2091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[85512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-doing-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2018\/04\/IMG_9197-1-e1525242721806.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-wL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}