Sound exploded out. Music pumping from speakers mounted in the corners. ESPN on a flatscreen TV mounted on the wall showing First Take with Stephen A. Smith yelling about something. The smell of hair products and cologne and something cooking in the back.
Three barber chairs lined the left wall, all occupied. Guys getting fades, getting shape-ups, getting braids redone. The barbers worked with clippers and scissors and combs, their hands moving with practiced ease.
Four more guys sat in chairs along the right wall, waiting. They all looked up when Marcus walked in with Jordan.
The music dropped in volume. Stephen A. Smith's voice faded to background noise.
Everyone stared at Jordan.
"Aye!" one of the barbers called out. "What's good, white boy Ricky!"
Jordan froze in the doorway. "My name's not Ricky."
"It is now," another guy said, laughing.
Marcus pushed Jordan further into the shop. "Y'all leave him alone. Kid needs help with his hair and I said we'd take care of him."
"Shiiiit," the first barber said. He was working on a fade, his clippers buzzing against a client's head. "Look at that disaster. What you do, man? Bleach it yourself?"
"Box dye," Jordan admitted.
The entire shop erupted in laughter and groans.
"Box dye!"
"Why though?"
"Who told you that was okay?"
Marcus guided Jordan to an empty chair in the back corner. "Sit. Let me look at this mess."
Jordan sat. The chair was worn leather, cracked in places but comfortable. Marcus moved around behind him, running his fingers through Jordan's hair with the kind of clinical assessment the expensive salon guy had done.
"Yeah, this is bad," Marcus said. "But we can work with it. How much you trying to spend?"
"Honestly?" Jordan pulled out his phone and checked his banking app. "Two hundred is my max."
"Two hundred." Marcus nodded. "Aight. I can do a color correction, get you back close to your natural color. Won't be perfect first session, might have some brassiness we gotta tone out. Then a cut to clean up the damaged ends. Sound good?"
"That's two hundred total?"
"Yeah, man. I got you."
Jordan felt something loosen in his chest. "Seriously?"
"You see me laughing?" Marcus met Jordan's eyes in the mirror. "Sit back. This is gonna take a couple hours."
Jordan sank into the chair. The TV switched from First Take to some show about Hip-hop and love. The music turned back up. The shop returned to its previous energy, conversations overlapping, clippers buzzing, someone's phone ringing with a Future song as the ringtone.
Marcus disappeared into the back room and returned with a mixing bowl and various bottles. He started sectioning Jordan's hair with clips, muttering to himself about color theory and oxidation.
"So what made you come all the way out here?" Marcus asked, painting something cold onto Jordan's scalp. "Got salons all over the city."
"They were all crazy expensive," Jordan said. "Google Maps showed this place had good reviews."
"Google Maps brought you to the hood?" One of the waiting guys laughed. "You brave, white boy."
"Or stupid," another guy added, but he was smiling.
"Maybe both," Jordan admitted.
That got more laughs. Approving ones this time.
Marcus worked in silence for a few minutes, covering sections of Jordan's hair with product that smelled chemical and strong. "You in school?"
"Pacific Crest," Jordan said. "Second semester freshman."
"Oh shit, rich boy university."
"It's not that fancy."
"My cousin pays thirty grand a year to go there," the barber working on the fade called out. "It's that fancy."
Jordan didn't have a response to that. His tuition was forty-five thousand a year, covered by his parents. He'd never thought about it as fancy or not fancy. It was just school.
"What you studying?" Marcus asked.
"Business Economics."
"Making that money, huh?"
"Trying to." Jordan watched in the mirror as Marcus painted more product onto his hair. "Right now I'm just trying not to fail my classes."
"Feel that," one of the waiting guys said. "I dropped out sophomore year. School wasn't for me."
"Nothing wrong with that," Marcus said. "Different paths for different people. Long as you're working toward something."
The conversation drifted. Basketball came up. Someone mentioned the Lakers game from last night. Arguments broke out about whether LeBron was still elite or washed. Marcus set a timer on his phone and draped a towel over Jordan's shoulders.
"Forty-five minutes for this to process. Don't touch your hair."
Jordan nodded. The shop's rhythm continued around him. He watched Marcus move to help another barber with a difficult blend. Watched guys come in and dap each other up with complicated handshakes Jordan could never replicate. Watched the community that existed in this space, loud and profane and somehow welcoming.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Daily Quest: Path to Becoming Adonis - Social Objective: 2/3 beauties contacted (2 minutes minimum).
Wait.
Jordan pulled out his phone. The notification still glowed on his screen.
Two out of three? He'd only talked to his neighbor earlier. Who was the second?
Then he remembered. The woman at the third salon. The one with the champagne and the white shirt. They'd talked for at least three minutes about his hair situation.
The System counted her as a beauty.
Jordan stared at his phone. The quest didn't care about his intentions or his nervousness or the fact that he was sitting in a barbershop in the middle of the hood waiting for color correction that might not even work.
The System just tracked progress.
One more conversation with a woman. Two minutes minimum. Then his daily quest would complete and he'd get three more quest tickets.
The timer on Marcus's phone went off forty-five minutes later. He guided Jordan to a wash basin in the back corner, laid his head back, and began rinsing out the product. Cold water hit Jordan's scalp. Marcus's fingers worked through his hair, scrubbing and rinsing and checking the color.
"Better," Marcus said. "Not perfect, but better."
He toweled Jordan's hair dry and led him back to the chair. Jordan looked at himself in the mirror.
His hair was lighter. Still not his natural dirty blonde, but closer. The weird muddy brown had lifted to something more caramel colored.
"Now we cut," Marcus said, picking up his scissors and comb.
The next thirty minutes passed in a blur of snipping and buzzing and product. Marcus worked with the kind of focus that didn't require conversation. He cut away the most damaged parts, shaped what remained, blended the sides shorter.
Jordan watched his reflection transform. The fried ends disappeared. The awkward length that had made him look like a failed wannabe musician got replaced with something clean and intentional.
"There." Marcus stepped back, holding up a mirror so Jordan could see the back. "What you think?"
Jordan turned his head left and right. His hair looked... good. Not perfect, like Marcus had warned. There was still some brassiness that would need toning. But it looked like hair a normal person would have instead of evidence of a mental breakdown.
"It's good," Jordan said. "Really good. Thanks, man."
"Two hundred even." Marcus dusted hair off Jordan's shoulders with a brush. "You need to come back in like two weeks for a tone treatment. Another fifty for that. But you're good for now."
Jordan reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Faded leather, cracked from neglect just like everything else in his life lately. He flipped it open, counting the bills inside. Three twenties, some ones, not enough.
"I'll have to pay with card," he mumbled, reaching for the card slot.
That's when he noticed something strange. A metal white card sat in the front slot of his wallet. He didn't remember putting it there. The card gleamed under the shop lights, perfectly pristine, with a small infinity symbol etched into its center.
"Huh, weird..." Jordan pulled it out, turning it over in his fingers.
"That's the one," Marcus said, nodding toward the card. "That new fancy credit card? Rich kids got all kinds of tech these days."
Jordan stared at the card. He'd never seen it before in his life. Had it been in his wallet this whole time? No way he would've missed something this distinctive.
The system. It had to be.
"Yeah," Jordan said, handing over the strange white card. "Let's try this one."
Marcus took the card and swiped it through the reader. The machine beeped cheerfully.
"Appreciate it, Ricky."
"My name's Jordan."
"I know." Marcus grinned. "But white boy Ricky is funnier."