Barbershop
by
Jared Carter
“Oh
no, the old hotel’s
still up there,”
he said. “They
haven’t
torn it down yet.”
I was back in
Somerset for the
day, to consult
the newspaper
files in the library.
I had decided
to stop by the
old barbershop
for a quick trim.
No one else was
waiting.
I
sat down in the
padded chair.
The ceramic arms,
the metal pump
handle that raised
the chair an inch
or two, the gulping
sound of the oil
cylinder –
everything was
the same. This
was the barbershop
I had known as
a child, where
my father had
taken me for my
first hair-cut.
It
was a different
barber who had
greeted me a few
moments ago, not
one from my childhood,
but he was an
old friend, someone
I had known for
many years.
“You
mean the place
we explored in
the Seventies?”
I asked. He drew
the red-checked
sheet around my
shoulders and
pinned it to my
shirt collar.
“I thought
it came down when
they took out
the Pennsylvania
tracks,”
I said. “I
thought all the
original hotels
in town were gone
now.”
“No,
that one’s
survived,”
he said, attaching
the band of white
paper. “Still
up over the Cum-Back.
You get the key
from the bartender,
like we did before.”
With scissors
and comb he began
to snip away.
I closed my eyes,
and thought about
that earlier visit.
We
had let ourselves
in through the
front door with
the bartender’s
key. The stairway
was stacked with
empty whiskey
boxes and beer
cartons, and the
long wooden railing
was coming loose
from the wall.
We went up carefully.
During the Twenties
and Thirties,
this was where
all the traveling
salesmen spent
the night.
Later,
in the Forties,
the pipeline crews
stayed in places
like this. When
they came into
town on Saturday
afternoons, they
would get rooms
here, and then
go out drinking
and raising hell.
The next morning
they would wake
up completely
hung over, with
the church bells
ringing. They
would look around
and see the peeling
wallpaper and
the cracked mirror
on the back of
the dresser.
On
the second floor
the place looked
as though a series
of flash floods
had swirled through.
The hallway was
knee-deep with
wastebaskets and
bent lampshades
and telephone
books and faded
curtains wound
around bent, rusted
rods. The calendar
over the main
desk said 1972.
There was dust
everywhere.
People
had gotten in,
over the years,
and tried to steal
things –
iron beds, wicker
end-tables, chests
of drawers. They
had lugged these
items into the
hallways, but
were unable to
drag them through
the clutter, and
had simply abandoned
them. We climbed
over them and
went on.
Some
rooms still had
a pair of rusty
bed springs or
a cigarette-scarred
coffee-table with
one leg missing.
In others, even
the windows were
bare. They were
narrow Victorian
windows, counter-balanced
with hidden cast-iron
weights, but the
ropes were gone,
and the windows
were painted shut
now, and impossible
to open. Patches
of plaster had
fallen from the
ceilings. From
one window we
looked down on
the brick alley
and the grassy
place where the
Pennsy tracks
used to be.
“I
got laid in this
room once,”
he said, “right
after the war.
My discharge from
the Merchant Marines
had just come
through. The town
was jumping in
those days. She
was some gal I
had gone to grade
school with. This
guy came home
on leave and she
married him right
before he shipped
out for Okinawa.
He never made
it back. She had
pretty much gone
to hell. Never
saw her again
after that night.”
We
wandered on from
room to room.
A second flight
of stairs took
us up to a laundry
room at the far
end of the third
floor. There were
bulky, zinc-lined
vats, their drains
clogged with lint,
and thin wooden
racks suspended
from the ceiling.
A few old rags
hanging from the
dowel rods had
bleached to the
color of a wasp
nest.
It
was like a pilot’s
house, jutting
above the tarpaper
roof. The windows
gleamed with late-afternoon
light. We could
see out to the
countryside beyond
the town, where
the fields began.
There were stands
of hardwood trees
where the cows
gathered to wait
out the long summers.
It all seemed
so far away.
The
clicking of the
scissors stopped.
He drew off the
red-checked sheet
and began whisking
snippets of hair
from my neck and
shoulders. “They
say John Dillinger
stayed there once,”
he said, as though
understanding
where my reverie
had taken me.
“If we knew
which room it
was, we could
put a plaque on
the wall.”
Slowly
he spun the chair
so that I could
look at myself
in the mirror.
It was the same
mirror, in a gilded
ormolu frame,
the mirror into
which I had gazed
when I had first
come there. But
I looked different
now. I was no
longer a small
child. The room
behind me was
indistinct, and
half in shadow,
but it was still
the same room,
with its stark
black-letter calendars
and framed pictures
of draft horses.
The afternoon
was coming to
an end.
“How
about the Knights
of Pythias building?”
I asked, getting
to my feet and
stretching my
arms. He brought
out a battered
dustpan and began
sweeping up the
wisps of hair
that had fallen
around the base
of the chair.
“No, that’s
gone now,”
he said. He dumped
the hair in the
wastebasket.
I
held out a ten-dollar
bill. “They
took it down about
five years ago,”
he said. He opened
a little drawer
in the glass-fronted
case, put in the
bill, and counted
out the change.
“You’ll
just have to remember
how it used to
be.”
He
clasped my hand
for a moment,
then turned to
wink at a new
customer who had
just entered through
the front door.
“Next!”
he called out.
©
2007 by Jared
Carter
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