Afternoons With Pete...

By JUAN DAVIS CARRANZA
The Paz Files

SAN BENITO, Texas - Cano's Barbershop is a little place in the alley behind the infamous Stonewall Jackson Hotel. Pete Cano is the owner and only barber. He opened the shop in the 1950s and has a clientele of aging customers.

Old Man Cano learned to cut hair standing on a box in his father’s shop in Matamoros using only scissors, a comb and a straight razor. Pete started using electric clippers in the 1930s. He still has a red plastic attachment, for flat-tops, which he bought in 1954. Pete only cuts men and boys’ hair and frowns on mothers accompanying their sons into what he considers a manly realm. His language gets a little salty at times, so maybe that is a good thing.

As with many barbershops, Pete has a rack of hunting, fishing and shooting magazines out front, and a few old issues of Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy in a closed drawer - for men with discerning taste. At 95, Pete no longer has an interest in looking at the girlie magazines, claiming, "Why, I would have to hold them so close to make out the pictures, folks would think I was sniffing at the girls."

Unlike most barbershops, Pete keeps a bottle of Sauza tequila hidden behind the cash register. This he has on hand for himself, favored customers and to dab on little nicks and cuts. The walls of his shop are decorated with photos of athletes, mostly boxers from the 1930s, from a time when he was as a fighter in Mexico. A poster of men’s hair styles, with a copyright date of 1957, is squeezed between an autographed photo of Fidel LaBarba and a faded fight card advertising Baby Arizmendi vs. Henry Armstrong, circa 1934. The mirrors behind his barber chair, and on the opposing wall, are arranged to give the customer an ever-decreasing view of himself, front and back, into infinity while seated.

Locals remain faithful to Pete because he gives a real man’s haircut. No feathering, blow drying or styling gel ever enters into Pete’s philosophy of what a man’s haircut should be. He offers Vitalis bottled hair oil, and, for "foo-foo water," as he calls it, Pete has Aqua Velva. On one shelf, he has a round tin of Butch Wax, but he hasn’t had a call for it, or the red plastic flat-top attachment, for some time. Pete’s vision is starting to go and his hands are not as steady as they once were. However, until recently he continued to cut hair better than most. Although age has dimmed his eyes and loosened his grip, he always has an interesting story to tell. As a boxer, Pete was a lightweight, but fought against welterweights on the Tamaulipas circuit.

Pete came to the states 1934 and soon joined the Navy to gain citizenship. While stationed at Pearl Harbor, he was the Pacific Fleet lightweight champion. When not competing, Cano was the personal assistant to an Admiral’s wife, and a "very personal assistant" when the Admiral was at sea. His fondness for fighting and women, not surprisingly, resulted in many disciplinary transfers during his 23-year naval career, serving aboard 19 ships, from reefers to aircraft carriers in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets; and, at one time or another, visited every cathouse from Hong Kong to Athens.

Today, Pete regales his regulars with a story about a lady with a tattoo, long white gloves and a glass eye. They had heard it before, but never tired of hearing how he ended up with the glass eye as a gift from the grateful woman. He keeps the glass eye in an old jelly jar and lets "good little boys" see it up close if they sit still while in his chair. He had the jelly jar, containing his keepsake, full of tequila on the shelf behind the chair. He was taking frequent nips to, as he explained, "Steady the hand and clear the eyes." In that, his hands shook like he was holding a paint mixer.

An older gent, almost as old as Pete, collapsed into the chair for a trim. Perhaps from the drink, or perhaps from age, Pete got a little close with the clippers on one side of the man's head taking it down to the scalp. Then, deciding to balance things out, he went ahead and sheared the other side, leaving the old man with a thin and wispy Mohawk. After brushing on some talcum, Pete was happy, and the customer, unable to see any better than Pete, was too.

The next guy in line had little hair left to cut on top, but a bountiful amount sprouting from his ears, nose and eyebrows. Pete picked up the scissors he has owned from childhood and started in on a quick trim, declaring, "This will take twenty years from your appearance." Everything proceeded smoothly until Pete miscalculated a tad and opened up a two-inch cut on the man’s left eyebrow. The customer was startled at the sight of blood, quite a lot of blood in fact. Pete grabbed the jelly jar of tequila and dashed the entire contents into the man’s face, then jabbed a styptic pencil in the cut telling the man to calm down. A panicked look crossed Pete’s face as it dawned on him what he had done. Pete yelled out, "Oh Crap! Esmeralda’s eye was in the jar. Someone has to find it before I step on it and blind her for life."

In short order, one of the regulars found the unblinking orb staring out from the blood and tequila soaked centerfold of a Playboy magazine on the victim’s lap. After Pete secured the love token to its rightful place in the jelly jar, he paused to reminisce.

"Every fool knows a cut on the eyebrow looks a lot worse than it is," he goes on. "I was cut almost this bad in a bout with Armando 'El Assesinato'Ariza in 1932. All my corner man did was dab it with black axle grease and cigar ashes, and look, the scar ain’t no bigger than a woman's little finger."

The man with the Mohawk holds the styptic pencil in place while Pete dashes off to get an aluminum ice-cube tray from his freezer. "This beats the hell out of that fancy enswell Freddie Roach used on Manny Pacquiao. Now hold still, I have to use a lot of pressure," he said, whacking the dazed customer across the nose and mouth with the tray. Later, when the bleeding was staunched, Pete charged the wounded customer his standard five-dollar rate for a trim and two-fifty for first aid. Pete explained, "It would have never happened except you were squirming around in the chair like a kid full of pin worms."

Next up was the bleeder’s son, and, undaunted, he took the chair. He had his combed hair straight back to cover up a growing bald spot. Pete started by combing out the younger man’s hair, and, in the process leaned, in real close to see what he was doing. He leaned in so close that he wiped his nose on the man’s shirt collar. This caused Pete to sneeze, and, to cover his embarrassment, Pete reared back and asked, "When did you start wearing you hair like a hippie? You want to look like John Lennon or something?"

Grabbing his clippers, he promptly cleared off all of the hair covering the bald spot, and then some. This new victim yelled out, "Ay! Viejo, you’ve made me bald!"

Pete quickly retorted, "Made you bald, my ass. Mother Nature and sleeping on your back made you bald!"

Then, turning to the shelves, he said, "Here, let me smear some Butch Wax on your bald pate to keep it from getting sunburned..."

- 30 -

[Editor's Note:...Here is the Bio Mr. Davis Carranza sent via Email: "I was born in southern Indiana to Paul Davis and Justina Carranza. My mother’s family claims to indirectly go back to the family of Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, revolutionary and former president of Mexico. My father’s family was Appalachian dirt farmers with a convoluted family tree. We followed the crops from Maine to Arizona and settled for awhile in Ohio. That was after my father was convicted of bootlegging, and sent to the correctional facility at Chillicothe. We later moved to Texas after he was transferred to Seagoville. I graduated from Rio Hondo, then joined the Air Force. At age 43, I retired and returned to the Valley, where I have resided for the last 20 years. My oldest grandson plays for the San Benito Greyhounds." As we'll say to all who submit stories, we take the writer at his word that all reporting is factual. Mr. Davis Carranza can be reached at juandaviscarranza@hotmail.com]