Return to St. Stephen & a Haircut from the Mafia

Part 1 of an adventure begun on October 24th, backdated from a week later

DuPont Circle, 1:00pm

I'm sitting on a bench in DuPont Circle - in it; the actual circle is a park - where I've just finished my lunch. Now, while I let my food settle, I'll take some time to write, people-watch, and report on this month's adventure so far.

I had intended, as I often do, to go to the 10am Latin Mass at the Cathedral this morning, but as has always been the case, decided that I didn't want to get up at 8:00am to catch the [annoyingly infrequent] Metro up. One of these days I'll actually do it - perhaps not after a night spent up late doing, of all things, chores. [Incidentally, I just found out yesterday that the archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl (pronounced "whirl") - remember him? The one who ended the archdiocese's adoption programs because DC legalized same-sex marriage? - has just been awarded a cardinal's hat. I'm not making excuses for this one.]

In any case, I went back to St. Stephen Martyr, because it's close to a branch of the salon where I got my hair cut last month and I needed another trim (I promise it's not as trippy as the website would suggest). St. Stephen, it turns out, has barely changed: the same languid cantor, the same hymns - I swear, if I hear "Eat This Bread" used at communion one more time I'm going to break something - different priest but same sort of forgettable sermon; in fact, I've forgotten it already. It may be the best plainsong in town (although I'll bet I can find better), but I don't intend to make this a regular thing.

After Mass I went to find the salon and discovered it closed, much to my disappointment (I understand that stylists need a day of rest too, but could it please not be one of the two days when all the rest of us actually have time to get our hair cut?), so I wandered up 19th St., resolving myself to no haircut and intending to skip ahead to the next step - the eating of lunch. But as I walked along, through a neighborhood of glitzy office towers with little lunch places on the first floor - all closed since it's Sunday - I kept my eyes peeled (ew) for a stylist. Then I spotted one, nestled in between a restaurant and a row house, with a bar in the basement. It was in one of those tall brick row houses that used to dominate the area, a bit crumbly around the edges. I climbed the stairs to the first floor (basements here are not real basements, they are English, which means fake or only half-submerged, depending on your dialect) and peered inside to case the joint and all of a sudden it was 1920. See?

Not my picture - I stole it from their website, although the Christmas decorations were not in place, for obvious reasons.  (Warning - this sit has music on it, so once you get there scroll down and turn it off if ambient website music bothers you as much as it bother me.

The salon, called Daniel's, has high ceilings and hardwood floors and high ceilings, dark wood walls with mirrors and old-style lamps hanging down and emitting golden light. After determining that a haircut here would set me back no farther than what I had originally intended to spend, I was handed over to an old Italian gentleman who assessed my hair ("eet ees verra straight, your hair") and gave me a good, clean haircut using a real razor, and wanted to know if I going to watch "da game" (Redskins vs. Bears; probably not). All around me I heard more Italian accents and wondered if perhaps I had stepped into mafia front, in the best way possible. "You go to school here?" my stylist asked. No, I told him, I came here for work. "You'll like da city," he assured me genially and clipped away. His next appointment, a boy in his mid- to late teens, came in and they greeted each other. "Where's your father?" the stylist asked, running a razor up the back of my neck. "Parking the car," the boy replied. "OK," the old man answered. "Go upstairs and get your hair washed." It felt like I had stumbled into the neighborhood barbershop from a mafia movie.

Of course, it wasn't, and this wasn't even close to the Italian church (Holy Rosary, on the other side of Chinatown, which I intend to attend at some point - maybe even one of the Italian-language masses), and when the stylist gave me his card, I discovered his name was Simon. I was kind of hoping it would be Beppe.

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UPDATE (November 8th): In the course of my November 7th, I stumbled across Daniel's again, and got a picture of the outside - in a crumbling rowhouse, like I promised:

Daniel's is the one with all the green awnings.  A hole in the wall, really - but a cozy, Italian hole in the wall!