In 1968, after his oldest son commits suicide, a neighborhood barber befriends Danny, a middle-school boy who visits his shop, in hopes of redeeming himself from mistakes of the past. But as Danny goes down the same path as the barber’s son, boy and barber learn how dangerous redemption can be. 

SYNOPSIS:

What do you call a man whose eldest of two sons commits suicide as a young adult, saying to his father before he dies, “I’ve had enough of you”?

Who hopes to redeem himself by befriending Danny, a boy who comes to his barbershop and reveals that his father’s anger has always made him feel worthless?

Who gives Danny a job cleaning the shop--sweeping floors and washing windows, and teaches him how to drive, and takes him golfing?

And listens as the boy plays piano on the unheated porch across the street where he practices in January because his father doesn’t want the piano in the house.

Who tells the boy he’s talented and buys a piano to practice on in the back room of the shop.

And gives the boy a 1962 Chevy wagon to drive to middle school?

Who asks the boy to leave the shop when his friend arrives with the haul of cigarette cartons he’s boosted for the barber’s customers--to protect the boy from bad influences?

Who reassures the boy that his dad loves him even though he doesn’t know how to show it?

And when the boy reaches high school, buys the boy a mattress so he can invite girls over to play hide the salami?

And tells customers who grumble at the boy’s faltering piano playing that they’re welcome to visit the barber up the street?

Who panics when the boy nears high school graduation and says he’s applied for a job at a restaurant, and discovers that the restaurant manager is gay and has eyes for the boy.

Who stops making him leave the shop when his friend stops by with cigarette deliveries.

Who hopes that driving the cigarette thief on trips out of town will earn the boy so much money that he’ll want to quit the restaurant job.

Who follows the restaurant manager late at night to learn where the manager lives.

And tries again to keep the boy close by teaching him how to cheat at poker, and takes the boy out for lobster dinner to show him how to get away with leaving without paying the check.

Who punctures the restaurant managers’ tires.

Who gets drunk with the boy one night and tells him about his son who committed suicide. The last thing he said to me, he tells the boy, is “I’ve had enough of you.”

“I’m no father,” the barber says, in tears.

And the boy says, “You’ve been a father to me.”

Who follows the boy to the restaurant manager’s apartment and waits overnight until he sees the boy leave the next morning.

Who can’t ask why, but if he could, would ask the boy what he sees in this restaurant manager, and the boy would tell him: “He’s so sophisticated and worldly--and he likes me?”

And instead of asking, leaves a note for the manager to stop seeing the boy.

Who worries when he learns the boy is drinking and smoking pot--because that’s what his son had done in the months before he killed himself.

Who drinks heavily with the boy while they’re out for dinner. Plays it cool when two cops approach with a photo of the cigarette thief.

And denies knowing the man.

And shows the boy his gun after the cops leave.

And then tells the boy to get the car.

Before he leaves, the boy says, “You’re going to pay the check, right?”

“Just get the car!”

The boy panics in the parking lot and hits a pickup. The cops have been waiting to see where he and barber go when they leave the restaurant, so they arrest him on the spot.

Hours later he is released to the custody of...his father... waiting with the barber in the police station. Father and son drive in silence on the way home.

The next time the boy sees the manager, the manager tells the boy he doesn’t want to see him anymore, that the boy is damaged goods. That the barber has thrown a brick through his windshield.

When the boy says the barber is just worried, protective, the manager says, “He’s not protective, Danny--he’s jealous.”

When the boy confronts the barber, the barber says, “I love you, Danny. I’ve wanted you since the first day. But I never acted on it. I never said anything. To protect you.”

“You have to stop this,” the boy says.

“I was afraid,” says the barber.

“I can’t do this,” the boy says. “I’ve had enough.” The life drains from the barber’s face and never returns.

At the barber’s funeral just a few years later, Danny gives a eulogy about how much fun they had together and how the Barber’s love had saved him. The barber’s younger son looks like he can’t imagine who Danny is talking about.

Danny narrates: The barber had all but abandoned his second son—spared him some serious craziness but left him without a man to be grateful to. I hoped that the barber’s son would be as lucky as I was to have a man in his life who could be a better father to him than his father knew how to be.

What do you call him?