The next morning I got up, put a screwdriver in my purse, and walked into Clarences Cuts an hour before it opened, and I pried up the loose board in the base of the wooden shoeshine chair Clarence built, the one he made me promise never to open unless somebody came for the shop, and what was under it changed everything.
The new landlord in his sunglasses had told me rent was tripling, that the plaza was becoming a coffee shop and a yoga studio and lofts, that old-school barbershops did not bring the foot traffic he wanted, that hed have me out on a technicality because there is always one.
He did not know Clarence had never been a tenant in that plaza at all.
When the strip mall was first built, my husband did not rent his corner, he bought his unit outright as a condominium suite in the plaza, recorded in 1976, which means the barbershop is not a lease the landlord can triple or terminate, it is a deed he cannot touch.
Back in 1976, the developer sold a few of the plaza units instead of leasing them, and Clarence, who did not trust landlords any further than he could throw them, scraped together everything he had and bought his. He recorded the deed and then, being Clarence, he hid a copy under the shoeshine chair he built by the door, and told me to open it only if the wolves ever came.
The wolves came in sunglasses. But you cannot triple the rent on a man who owns his own suite, and you cannot evict a deed. The landlords company had bought the plaza around several owner-occupied units and never read the fine print, and Clarences was one of them.
My lawyer, one of the men who grew up getting his hair cut in that chair, took the case for nothing but the joy of it. When the landlord came back, I did not argue. I handed him the recorded 1976 deed and I said, is that right. My husband owned this shop before your company existed. Theres no lease to end and no rent to triple. Youll build your coffee shop around Clarences chair, and the men of this neighborhood will still be sitting in it, talking, long after your yoga studio closes.
He took his sunglasses off then. First time. The lawyers confirmed it, and the barbershop stayed, an owner-occupied island in the middle of his luxury plans.
Old-school barbershops dont bring the foot traffic we want, he had said. This one brings three generations of men who have nowhere else to be heard, and it owns its own four walls, because Clarence bought them in 1976 and hid the proof in the chair he built. His two barbers still cut hair there. The chair by the door is still warm. And I open it every morning, because the men of Livernois Avenue need it, and because it is ours, free and clear, forever.