I Gotta Guy

Gino was born in Sicily and came to Chicago when he was 13.

At the age of 24, he started cutting hair. Now, Gino is 51. He runs a one-man shop in a northern suburb of Chicago. The town has many Italians who came to America in the first half of the 20th century to work in the trades and raise their families.

On a Thursday morning, he finished cutting the remnants of a bald guy’s hair.

Gino hated combovers.

After getting paid, he shouted, “NEXT!”

Only a lawyer named Stan was waiting, but Gino always bellowed, “NEXT!”. No matter how many people were lined up.

“Stan, you look like a meatloaf someone left on the counter for a week. How’s business? How’s the family?”

“Business is excellent. God bless the morons who fall at Walmart and the idiots who get rear-ended by beer trucks. Every concussion and ouchy neck is money in the bank. I am buying 40 more billboards next month.”

“What about your family?”

“Stella wants a divorce.”

Just then, the phone rang. Gino picked it up and screamed, “GINO’S!” He did that every time the phone rang. He said something about a gun rack he was trying to sell and hung up. Gino was always selling something. It could be a Jeep, Bears tickets, or a cemetery plot.

Gino said, “Stan, you married Stella, but you should have talked to me first. Wait. Weren’t you flying the twenty-three-year-old paralegal to the northwest twice a month for extra training?”

“When Stella found out, she called the young lady my ‘Idaho.’ I had to fire the 2020 runner-up for Miss Boise.”

“Hold on. Wasn’t Stella sleeping with your daughter’s wackjob roommate? Was her name MoonBeam or Waterspout or Dew Claw?”

Her name is Shadow Dancer, and yes, I caught Stella and Shadow dancing nude in the hot tub last January.”

“Gino, Stella sleeps all day. She’s had more plastic surgery than all of the Real Housewives of Orange County combined. She emotionally abuses the kids. She is addicted to Xanax and placed her parents in the cheapest retirement home in the state. Their bedsores have bedsores. She runs three charities, and she’s the primary beneficiary. Stella needs an unfortunate fatal accident.”

“Stan, you don’t mean it.”

“I do. She’d clear over $45 million in the divorce. The world and I would be better off without her.”

Gino and Stan stopped talking.

While cutting the hair of his next customer, Gino heard about the guy’s teenage son, who was ditching school and making significant mistakes. Gino talked about his daughter, who was also a problem. 

Gino asked, “Was your son born in ’02?”

“Yep.”

“So was my Annie. That was a bad batch.”

Another customer sat in the chair around one. Two of Gino’s friends were hanging out, sipping espresso from the machine Gino kept on a shelf. A third guy stormed in the door. The new arrival and the espresso drinkers began arguing in Italian. They exchanged insults and accusations. Eventually, a truce occurred, and the three visitors left, talking like nothing had happened minutes ago.

Later that same day, Gino shouted, “NEXT!”

Gary (the only other person in the shop) struggled to get up and slowly walked to the chair.

Gino had been cutting Gary’s hair for 15 years. He thought Gary was a good family man, a master mechanic at the BMW dealership. Gino knew Gary had a gambling problem.

“Gary, what the hell is wrong?”

“Everything. I’ve got stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The doctors say I have at most a month left.”

“Shit on a stick, Gary. That’s awful.”

“No shit, it’s awful. I have no money, a massive mortgage, medical debt, and I owe your bookie buddy 20k. Thanks for introducing them. Maria and the kids will be on the street in two months.”

Gino commiserated with Gary and refused payment for the haircut.

On the way home that day, Gino made a plan.

Two weeks later, Stan was in the chair. Gino asked him if he wanted to meet for a drink that evening.

Stan and Gino slid into a quiet corner booth at Murphy’s Tavern that evening. Gino had wine, and Stan had an old fashion.

After a few rounds, Gino said, “I have an idea about the Stella situation, but it will cost you.”

They made the deal. Stella would have a bad day, Gary wouldn’t need to worry about money, and Gino would wet his beak. Stan was ecstatic. He paid for the drinks, and Stan never paid.

Gino and Gary met for breakfast at The Happy Bagel two days later. Gino had a meat-lovers omelet, but Gary couldn’t finish his bagel.

Over the weekend, Gino introduced Stan to Gary,

Stella lost control of her two-day-old  760Li Sterling Edition BMW the following week. Satn paid $1.4 million for that car. It spun out on a dangerous curve, plummeted over a bluff, and landed upside down in Lake Michigan. The police forensic team found nothing wrong with the car, although the airbags failed to deploy.

Stella was gone. 

Stan sued BMW and the dealership. He settled for $8 million.

Gary’s family became financially secure.

Gino had enough money for a trip to Sicily. He regretted what happened to Stella but considered how he could do some good going forward.

Later that summer, Gino had a beer with his shady oncologist customer, who dyed his hair Superman black. They made an arrangement. 

In the next fifteen years, a pedophile parish priest died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Elroy, an abusive husband, got shot in his coconut while cleaning his rifle after a successful deer hunt, a drug dealer minus his nose was found stuffed upside down in an open manhole, a psychopath who cheated his elderly wealth management clients out of their retirement savings fell through the ice. Somehow, he broke his legs before taking a dip.

There were others—all folks who mistreated one of Gino’s customers. He did not accept every opportunity he learned of. Some miscreants weren’t awful enough.

But a few horrible people needed to get gone.

In each case, a cancer patient left something extra for their survivors, and Gino’s wallet got a little fatter.

Life does not always go on.

Epilogue

While hanging out at Gino’s shop in the winter of 2024, Gino said he wanted me to write a book about a barber who arranged for terminal cancer patients to perform hits on deserving people. I could never write a book, but I did write this story. The plot and the title are pure Gino.

Before I left the barber shop, I asked Gino if the plot was fictional. He said, “We’ll never know.”