Barber Antwain Booker stood dressed in a matching sweatshirt and sweatpants. His son’s face, Antwain Booker Jr., printed on each. It’s the fourth anniversary of his son’s shooting death and he wears the outfit each year. Booker Jr. was only 19.

It’s always a sad day, Booker says, but on this day he believes his son was with him. The day a simple smile turned his spirits around.

With a mask on and ready for a haircut, Ja’Karr Ashley sat near Booker in a chair in front of a TV. A game console controller in his hands kept him busy. He’s 12 years old and waiting on a heart transplant at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

Inside Ashley’s small heart center room, Booker snapped open his golden briefcase containing all his barbering brushes and clippers. He throws a cape into the air and down onto Ashley’s shoulders and begins to trim.

Booker is glad his traveling barber service could come in handy for the family but not lost on him is the parents’ fight to keep their son alive and bring him normalcy. Booker says he’d give anything to fight again for his son.

Through games, small talk, jokes and sincere conversation the time passes and the trim is over, just in time for a mirror check.

“He took that mask off, and he just started to smile, my whole day changed, man,” Booker said. “I looked up to the sky and told my son, ‘Thank you for bringing me to that little boy. Because I know you did this.”

Cutting hair at 13

It wasn’t until Booker moved to Indiana from Oklahoma at age 13 that he saw his first barbershop, and he was in awe.

Trims typically came from his father who bought a pair of clippers to cut barbershop costs.

“Every time,” Booker said with a laugh. “It was a single-length, all-even cut.”

For hours Booker would watch his barber, Rick, at Rick’s Clip Joint on the south side of Chicago. There was something about the way he treated his customers like family, the conversations he held and the attention he commanded.

Soon Booker would take his father’s clippers and begin trimming his own hair. By age 14 he was trimming the neighbors’. By high school, he was cutting for the football team. It was fun and the money wasn’t bad, either.

As an Indiana State Sycamores student, Booker made fliers “Kuts by ‘twain” to garner business on campus. Players on his football team shortened his name to Kuts which he still uses today.

Before finishing school, Booker Jr. was born and Booker moved to Indianapolis where he started at Kenny’s Academy of Barbering to pursue the career he truly loved. He finished in 14 months and earned his certification.

Soon Booker found himself at Craig’s Creations in Broad Ripple but he had no clientele. He gave the shop five years before jumping to another but booth rent was cutting into profits. He decided to cut hair from home.

As a now single father, Booker saw periods of homelessness, living out of his car with his then 2-year-old daughter.

That’s when a client told Booker about a job at Indiana University Health that changed his trajectory. March marked 15 years at the hospital for Booker, but no one knew he was a barber until that recent appointment with Ashley.

Bus idea

Booker found himself on a seven hour road trip alone after visiting his father in Oklahoma. He kept the music off so his mind could wander. He was ready to follow in his father’s footsteps and start his own business. But what did that look like?

The lightbulb moment came somewhere in Illinois — a mobile luxury barbershop. He’d run the idea past some friends who implored him to give it a try.

Soon he purchased a truck and transported it to Atlanta to get custom built. By May 2020, his RV was ready to roll but the COVID pandemic was in full force.

The same month he returned from Atlanta with his new mobile business, Booker lost his home in a house fire. In September, his grandmother died. By October he was getting the business started but on Dec. 11, 2020, he received a call no parent dreams.

“My son was dead,” Booker said. “It was just a total blow for me, man. He’s my first born. He was junior.”

With a daughter to focus on Booker pushed forward, working at both IU Health and inside his mobile shop on nights and weekends.

And though it started slow, business has picked up quickly. He’s brought his services to the NFL Scouting Combine, high school football games, nursing homes, rehab facilities and local schools where he talks to students about life choices in his son’s honor.

“I just hung in there, man, and I had so many opportunities to quit,” Booker said. “I just want people to know that despite all of your downfalls and setbacks you can keep going.”

Contact IndyStar photojournalist Mykal McEldowney at 317-790-6991 or mykal.mceldowney@indystar.com. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X.