All of this
started years ago at Troy Wilson's house in response to a young lady by the
name Geraldine Hopkins. She was the catalyst that started a series of events
made especially for today's home digital movie cameras. Once upon a time, musicians,
pimps and other denizens of the night were the primary wearers of processed
hair. Others avoided it thinking it made them look greasy or shiny, a cardinal
sin for black folks in those days. Later it became a symbol of trying to look
white, but that's another story.
Because of Geraldine Hopkins, one of my best friends
decided to get a process as conks were commonly known. The first problem came
when we could find no barbershop in the general vicinity that did processes of
any type. Kansas City was the nearest city that offered processed hair. It
seemed as if there was a shop on every other corner there, but $50 was a lot to
pay for a fancy hairdo. Fortunately, none of us had to pay it, so it didn’t
matter, but for “Cool Breeze” Wilson, the price was too steep. Secondly, congolene, was difficult in our area.
That's when James 'Peanut' Franklin stepped into the
picture saying that not only did he know how to do it, but he would do it for
only $20. Peanut did his own and by looking at his “do,” it was apparent. So, Peanut
had experience, but none of us especially Troy knew that it would make
difference in the split-second sequence of applying a process. We all went with
Peanut and Troy to get the necessary tools for the job and were surprised that
the only things we recognized was a comb. The rest of the tools were chemicals
(lye, eggs & potatoes).
We were in Troy’s kitchen when Peanut’s house of conk
opened. With a seeming expert’s touch, Peanut whipped together the ingredients
into a thick paste, which he would apply to Troy’s scalp later. After about ten
minutes he began to applying the before applying the home made conk to Troy’s
hair. Peanut let it sit for almost 10 minutes before he even thought about
using it. That’s was it! Or, so we thought.
Peanut explained that the paste would straighten Troy’s hair and the
more he combed it through his hair, the smoother it would become until his hair
would look straight as Elvis Presley’s. It all seemed straightforward to us. We
watched as Troy, dishtowel wrapped around his neck, sat while Peanut combed the
pasty concoction through his hair. It was quite boring, at least for the first
five minutes, then, everything changed.
“Nut, it’s starting to burn,” Troy said.
“Yeah, it’ll do that for awhile. That’s why I put that mineral oil in
your hair to keep it from burning your scalp.”
“Burning my scalp? You didn’t say nothing about burning my scalp. Shit.
It’s burning man. You gotta get this this shit off of here,” Tray shouted.
“We have to leave it in just a little longer if you want it to get
straight,” Peanut said.
We watched with full smiles on our faces as Troy squirmed and fidgeted
trying to tough it out. Sweat was pouring from his brow and the laughs were
seeping through our lips.
“Ooh goddam. I’m about to piss on myself,” Troy said.
“Just 30 more seconds,” Peanut said.
Finally, it was over; or, it seemed like it was over. We could hear
Troy shouting from the bathroom all the things he was going to do to Peanut if
he survived.
When Troy came out of the bathroom, his hair was laying across his
ears—straight as a bone. It worked! Of course, none of us, including Troy or
Peanut knew what happened later. No one mentioned sores in the scalp or being
unable to comb your hair. It was all quite comical to us, but Troy and Peanut
almost lost friendship over it.
Eventually, it all worked out and pompadour Wilson came into being.
None of us liked the way it looked, especially Geraldine Hopkins, but if any of
that bothered Troy, he never showed it, but that was his last “conk.”
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