Shear haven

At these barbershops, everyone lingers to chat

(Erin Baldassari for The Boston Globe) Marc "Mizza" Tarver (above) applies aftershave to Tyson James.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Perfect Cuts on Dorchester Avenue was filled with men from the neighborhood. Most of them were just hanging out, long after their haircuts had ended.

"We're neighborhood people. People come here to be who they want to be, who they are," said Marc Tarver, who cuts hair there. "There's no judgment here."

No topic is left untouched in the barbershop - sports, politics, religion, and women are among the most popular.

"A customer comes in and we have to listen about his ex-girlfriend who got away because he's feeling bad for himself," Andre Peres, owner of Perfect Cuts, joked. "Some people have psychiatrists; people around here got their barber."

Maya Rodriquez, owner of Universal Hair Salon and Barber Shop in Fields Corner, put it another way, "We're like priests who are given confessions, but we can't give pardons. We just listen. And we have to keep their secrets."

The scene is the same at many of the barbershops in Dorchester. Here young folks interact with older members of the community. And in a neighborhood that has historically seen more than its share of violence, barbershops are one of the few places where loitering is not only allowed but encouraged.

If customers find solace and companionship at their local barbershops, Marc Tarver has found, in the barbering profession, an alternative to a life on the streets.

He laid hands on his first pair of clippers when he was 12 years old. More than 20 years later, he's still holding onto them.

It hasn't always been that way, said Tarver, who like many young men in Dorchester, found the temptation of easy money in the streets hard to resist.

"I always liked the streets," Tarver continued. "I didn't have to sell coke, marijuana, carry heat, but that life becomes really attractive. Fast money - you'll get attracted to that real quick."

Like many Dorchester barbers, Tarver got his start early, learning how to cut hair in the basement of his mother's house long before he took up the trade professionally.

Tarver admits that while his home life wasn't free of financial struggle, both of his parents kept an eye on him.

"There aren't a lot of other kids from around here that have a family like I did," Tarver said. "People would envy us for what we have."

The pull of the streets, however, proved too strong for Tarver, who began selling drugs out of a Dorchester park with a cohort of guys from the neighborhood.

"I was working down over at the Stop & Shop," said Tarver, but he hated it. "My friends would roll through and mess with me, make me take their groceries out to their car, just messin' with me."

Tarver also made money from cutting hair on the side and from hustling in the street. But with a fast life came consequences. After a police raid on their operations landed several of his companions in jail, Tarver said he distanced himself from the group.

"I was working a lot of other jobs, at a bank, a hotel, and cutting hair on the side," said Tarver. "Then people started asking me why I didn't go to school for it, so it just made sense."

Becoming a barber offered Tarver the opportunity to set his own hours and to eventually own his own shop. On Saturdays, the barbershops around Dorchester are teeming with clientele. Kids from the neighborhood get work sweeping floors. Fidal Young, 13, works after school at Final Touch Barber Shop on Dorchester Avenue for a little extra money and possibly a free haircut.

Scott Mercer, one longtime client of Mattapan's Finest Barber Shop on Blue Hill Avenue, said the barbershop provides a social network and a way to stay connected to the community.

"Everyone comes in, if it's the mothers with their children, or fathers with their children, brothers, everybody stays a bit. You get people from all economic levels, all family structures, and all professions," said Mercer. "I come in and stay for a few hours just because it's engaging."

Erin Baldassari is a junior at Tufts University and wrote and photographed this story as part of Exposure, the Tufts Institute for Global Leadership's program on photojournalism, documentary studies, and human rights. In January, Exposure students worked with photojournalist Jim MacMillan to document aspects of Boston's urban landscape.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, barber Marc Tarver's name was misspelled in a March 8 article about Dorchester barbershops.