From a very early age, I never cared or worried about my hair. Like all young boys, I enjoyed the outdoors. My friends and I swam in ponds, hiked through nature, and played hours of outdoor sports. None of these were conducive to keeping little afros looking civilized.
My appearance usually took a back seat to adventure. I don’t know when or how my hair became a project for my sister. On many occasions, she fried, dyed, and tortured it with no remorse.
On any given Saturday, she called me to the kitchen for my impromptu hair appointment I never made. Her makeshift salon was a vinyl chair sitting next to a stove with the burner on high and an iron comb resting on top of it.
Back in the day, the iron comb was a standard household item in our neighborhood. Along with gobs of hair grease, it helped coarse hair become straight or manageable. Today it’s called flat ironing.
So there I sat: twelve years old, wide-eyed, nervous, and scared. On the counter were hair grease, a wet towel, a pink comb and the radio tuned to our favorite RB station.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see smoke rising from the hot comb as it began glowing red. The anticipation of unavoidable burns was gut-wrenching.
“Be still boy, hold your ears, and don’t move,” said my sister, grabbing the hot comb off the burner. As it passed about three inches from my face, I felt intense heat. My feet began rising from the floor and body stiffing up.
“Please get past the ear, don’t burn my ear,” I prayed. My brain, sensing danger, would attempt to move my body out of the path of the hot object. My sister snatched me back to a straight-up position using big sister strength.
She grabbed a section of hair and began combing at the root. I would hear the sound, “KA-CHEESE,” of grease melting with every stroke. The smell of burning hair engulfed the kitchen. My happy nappy hair would fall, straight and lifeless, to the side of my head.
No matter how still I set or held my ears, I always got burned. I screamed, “Ouch! Girl, you are burning me!” She’d respond, “If you sit still and don’t move, you won’t get burned!”
We had many more of these sessions until I was too big for her to boss around. Other than church, I don’t remember once going to any particular events afterward.
The iron comb is still around today. Some are gold-plated and heat without the need of a burner. When used, one thing is sure, it still burns the neck and scares the hell out of little children.