The Inner Circle

73

"That your pop or your granpop?” the muscular white kid with the laced-up army boots asked as the barber mowed the clippers up the back of the guy’s head.

“My dad,” Laurent replied, not even looking up at the crisp black-and-white photo of the soldier in full army uniform that was tucked next to the shiny blue bottle of Barbasol. In the photo-posed to look like an official army portrait in front of an American flag-his father was turned to the camera, a mischievous grin lighting his face.

“Those bars on his chest?” the client asked, trying to look up even though his chin was pressed down to his neck.

Laurent had heard the question plenty of times before-from people who wanted to know what medal his dad was wearing on his uniform.

The amazing part was, despite the photo, the barber rarely thought of his father as a soldier. As a strict Seventh-day Adventist, his dad was a pacifist, so committed to his faith that he refused to have anything to do with military service. But three days after Pearl Harbor, when the country was reeling and his prayers weren’t bringing the answers he needed, his father walked into the recruitment office and enlisted.

He told his sergeants he wouldn’t carry a weapon or dig ditches on Sabbath. They made him a cook, and of course let him cut hair too. Years later, after he returned home, Laurent’s father remained just as committed to his faith. But the lesson was there-the one lesson he forever tried to drill into his children: Sometimes there’s a greater good.

“He was actually a kitchen man,” the barber said to his client, pointing the clippers back at the photo. “The medal’s a joke from his first sergeant for being the first one to catch a lobster when they were stationed in San Juan.”

The client laughed… and quickly rolled up his sleeve to reveal a crisp tattoo of a cartoony Marine Corps bulldog that was flexing his biceps like a bodybuilder and showing off his own tattoo, which read Always Faithful across his bulging dog arm.

The barber felt a lump in his throat, surprised by the swell of emotion that overtook him as he read the tattoo. No question about it, there was a real power that came with being faithful.

But.

He looked up and stole a quick glance at the photo of his father. At the miniature lobster that was pinned to his chest. And at the mischievous grin on his dad’s young face.

There was also something to be said about the greater good.