Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(11)

What?

I said, Who cuts your hair?

Mother.

I thought your mother moved out. I heard she moved into that little house over on Chicago Street.

They didn’t answer. They were not surprised that he knew. But they didn’t want him talking about it in his barbershop on Main Street on Saturday morning.

Isn’t that what I heard? he said.

They looked at him and then quickly at the boy sitting against the wall. He was still watching. They kept quiet and stared at the floor, at the clippings of men’s hair under the raised leather-backed chair.

Leave them alone, Harvey.

I’m not bothering them. I’m asking them a question.

Leave them alone.

No, Harvey said to the boys again. Think about it. I buy your papers and you get your haircut from me. That’s how it works. He pointed at them with the scissors. I buy from you and you buy from me. It’s called commerce.

It’s two dollars and fifty cents, Ike said.

The barber looked at him steadily for a moment and then turned back to the man’s hair. They stayed at the door watching him. When he had finished with the scissors he folded a scrap of tissue paper over the man’s collar, over the striped cloth at back, and dabbed rich soap on the man’s neck, then he took the razor and shaved the back of his neck, scraping down exactly from the hairline, wiping the lather and hair on the back of his own hand each time, and finished that and removed the scrap of paper and wiped the razor on it and threw the dirty paper scrap away and cleaned his hand, then he wiped the man’s neck and head all over with a towel. He shook out pink fragrant oil onto his palm and rubbed his hands together and massaged the oil into the man’s scalp, then with a thin comb he parted the man’s hair scrupulously on the side and formed a stiff wave of hair between his fingers over the man’s high forehead. The man frowned at himself in the mirror and reached up out of the cloth and flattened the fussy wave with his hand.

I’m trying to give you some sex appeal, Harvey said.

I can’t use any more, the man said. I’ve got too much already.

He stood up out of the chair and the barber unpinned the cloth and shook it out onto the tile floor and snapped the cloth, making it pop. The man paid and left a tip on the marble counter below the mirror. Pay these boys, Harvey, he said. They’re waiting.

I reckon I’ll have to. If I don’t, they’ll stand there all day. From the cash register he took out three one-dollar bills and held them forward. Well? he said.

Ike advanced and took the money and made change and gave Harvey Schmidt a tab from the collection book.

You’re sure that’s right, the barber said.

Yes.

What do you say then?

What?

What do you say when a man pays his bill?

Thank you, Ike said.

They went outside. From the sidewalk the two boys looked back into the barbershop through the wide plate glass window. Beyond the gold lettering arced over the window the man with the fresh haircut was putting his jacket on and the boy who had been waiting was climbing into the chair now.

Son of a bitch, Bobby said. Turdhead. But it didn’t help. Ike didn’t say anything.

They swung onto their bikes and pedaled south half a block to Duckwall’s and entered and went back past the display of girls’ underwear and folded brassieres without even speculating about them this time and walked past the combs and bobby pins and mirrors and plastic dishes and on past the pillows and curtains and bathtub hoses and knocked on the manager’s door. He let them in and paid them quickly, indifferently, without fuss, and they went back outside and rode across Second and collected at Schulte’s Department Store on the corner and went on to Bradbury’s Bakery and stopped in front of the wedding cakes in the big window.

Ike said, You want to go in here first or upstairs first?

Upstairs, Bobby said. I want to get her over with.

They parked their bikes and opened a door that was set back into the building, and then entered into a small dark foyer. There were black mailboxes attached to the pasteboard inside the door and a brown pair of men’s shoes stood on the floor. They passed through and mounted the stairs and turned at the top down the long dim corridor which led back toward a fire escape above the alley. Behind one of the doors a dog was barking. They stopped at the last door where the morning’s Denver News still lay on the mat. Ike picked it up and knocked and they stood before the door with their heads bowed, looking at the floorboards, listening. He knocked again. They could hear her now, coming.

Who is it? Her voice sounded as if she hadn’t spoken in days. She was coughing.

We want to collect for the paper.

Who?

Paperboy.

She opened the door and peered at them.

You boys come in here.

It’s two-fifty, Mrs. Stearns.

Come in here.

She shuffled back and they entered the apartment. The room was too hot. The heat was suffocating and the room crowded with all manner of things. Cardboard boxes. Papers. Piles of clothes. Yellowed stacks of newspaper. Flower pots. An oscillating fan. A box fan. A hat rack. A collection of Sears catalogs. An ironing board opened against one wall with a row of loaded grocery sacks spread across it. In the middle of the room was a television set built into a wood cabinet with another smaller portable television positioned atop the first like a head. Across from the television was a stuffed chair with hand towels laid over the worn arms, and off to the side a faded davenport shoved against the window.