Storyville Stories: Brandy Hines Jackson

“I had gotten into a little bit of trouble and my father suggested that I go to cosmetology school because he was a cosmetologist. I didn't want to do hair. I wasn't interested in doing hair. I didn't play with dolls growing up, I put together model cars and I've always been a tomboy. I played basketball, I played soccer, I played hockey, I did everything that the girls didn't do. And he was like, ‘Well, why don't you try barber school out?’

In barber school, you do 2000 hours. They teach you the techniques of cutting hair, you learn the chemicals, the shaving method, you have to learn the anatomy of the body and the do's and the don'ts.

I did it and I loved it. I only knew of a couple of female barbers when I was growing up. But now it's more common; like my daughter cuts hair now and I know a couple of other female barbers. You'll see that more often now than way back in the day because it was a man thing.

People tried to get me to stay in Detroit to cut hair. But I always told them, ‘No, I'm going back home to open up a barber shop’. I finished school, came back home and walked into the Bearinger Building because there was a barbershop in there and the owner was selling. I ended up getting it for $1,050. A whole barbershop, complete! All I had to do was go in there and paint! That’s the only thing I did was paint. It was a great start. An easy start, actually, starting a business for $1,050.

But right around that time, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer with only nine months to live. Nothing people can say can prepare you for losing your mom like that. She passed away when she was only 49. Only 49! I just lost hope.

I started self-destructing. I was in denial. I didn't care about anything because I didn't know how to live without my mother. I turned to drugs and things got bad.

I tried to hide my feelings and act happy for my kids who were young at the time. I cried every day in the shower for a year so my kids wouldn’t see me. I started taking care of my little sister, who was 12. I raised her, took custody of her, and just tried moving forward but still hurting every day. But it really was hard because I never knew what it was to live without my mom.

It wasn't until 10 years later while I was incarcerated to finally accept her passing. February of ‘06.

Being incarcerated is a world inside a world. You have to turn your lights off when they tell you, you have to lock down when they tell you, you have to ask to use the restroom, you have to eat at a certain time. You have to walk everywhere you go. You’re under the control of someone else: if they say, ‘Get down on your knees’, you had to get down on your knees. If they say, ‘You can't eat’, you can't eat. If you want to ask to go to the bathroom, they tell you ‘No’, guess what? You can't go.

But it’s also what you make it. I made it make me a better woman. Before my being in prison, I had lost who I was. But while I was there, I was able to find myself–who I had lost. It made me stronger as an individual and helped me to appreciate and love freedom. To see what I really had.

I don’t wish prison on nobody. But there in prison, I found myself again and got my life back.

“It was September 18th of ‘08 when I walked out of prison. It was a blessing, but I had nothing. My husband left me while I was there and I only had enough money to buy me some toothpaste and a toothbrush. When I walked out, God let me know ‘You don't trust man. You don't put your faith in man, you put your faith in me’. That hit me like a ton of bricks, and so I stopped putting faith in man and gave all my faith to God, that he was gonna show me the way. I left prison and went to go live with my grandparents because I had nowhere else to go.

I was there for six months and then started looking for a more permanent place to stay. Eight months later, I found my location on Court Street. It was God’s doing because I found a place to restart my business and a place to live because there was an apartment on top of the shop. So me and my children moved there and I started the business downstairs.

Six months after opening that, I was blessed with another shop, not even looking for it! A man came in, he was like ‘Don’t you want another shop?’ I was like ‘No’. He asked for a meeting, and I met with him. We talked and he asked what I could afford for it, and he says, ‘Well, can you afford $900 a month?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not’. And mind you, after I opened I had been out a year, I'm steadily trying to build. And I say, ‘Well, $500?’ He says ‘$600’. I said, ‘Well, okay, I can do that’. And then he said, ‘Well meet me at the bank so I can give you your key’.

So that's how I got shop number two.

Shop number three was downtown.

I was working at the psychological place in town. I was doing some counseling as a life coach. I came out of work one day, and there was a sign outside of the building that said ‘For Rent’. I looked in the window, I was like, ‘I need another shop’. And a guy came out. The owner of the building, actually. He was like, ‘You can see it right now!’ So I stepped in the building. It was so huge, it was like a block long and I was like, ‘Wow!’

I told him my situation. I'm like, ‘Well if you do a background check, you won't rent to me. I'm a felon’. And he was like, ‘Oh, no problem! Everyone does something’. We just chit chatted and I was like, ‘How much do you want?’ He said, ‘$400 a month’. I’m like, ‘Why not?’

My initial plan was to never move out from my grandparents and never to get another shop. I'm just gonna rent and just save. I was even planning on moving. But that was my plan, it wasn't God's plan. It wasn't meant for me to go anywhere. God has to be where he wants me to be. Because every time I try to move or try to do something different, it doesn't work.

I only have the shop on Court Street now, but the experience taught me to get in tune and in line with your higher power and listen to God. You have to pay attention because sometimes things happen in our life for a reason. Sometimes God wants us to be still. With me being incarcerated, that was my time to be still and learning to listen.

It was a lesson learned, but I won’t ever go back.”

- Brandy Hines, Unique Cuts & Massage, Saginaw, Michigan