He was rubbing at his neck with a handkerchief when the screen door creaked open and shut with a thud. Joe looked across the shop at the man who was moving toward him.
"Yes, sir," Joe said automatically, folding the newspaper and sliding off the black leather of the chair.
As he put the newspaper on one of the wireback chairs along the wall, the man shuffled over to the chair and sat down on it, his hands in the coat pockets of his wrinkled brown gabardine suit. He slumped down in the chair, waiting, as Joe turned around.
"Yes, sir," Joe said again, looking at the man's sallow, dry-skinned face, He took a towel from the glass-floored cabinet. "Like to take your coat off, air?" he asked, "Pretty hot today."
The man said nothing. Joe's smile faltered for s moment, then returned.
"Yes, sir," he said, tucking the towel under the collar of the mania faded shirt, feeling how dry and cool the man's skin was. He put the striped cloth over the man's coat and pinned it in place.
"Looks like we're havin' another scorcher," he said.
The man was silent. Joe cleared his throat.
"Shave?" he asked.
The man shook his head once.
"Haircut," Joe said and the man nodded slowly.
Joe picked up the electric shaver and flicked it on. The high-pitched buzzing filled the air.
"Uh…could you sit up a little, sir?" Joe asked.
Without a sound or change of expression, the man pressed his elbows down on the arms of the chair and raised himself a little.
Joe ran the shaver up the man's neck, noticing now white the skin was where the hair had been. The man hadn't been to a barber in a long time; for a haircut anyway.
"Well, it sure looks like the heat ain't plannin' to leave," Joe said.
"Keeps growing," the man said.
"You said it," Joe answered, "Gets hotter and hotter. Like I told the missus the other night…"
As he talked, he kept shaving off the hair on the back of the man's neck. The lank hair fluttered darkly down onto the man's shoulders. Joe put a different head on the electric shaver and started cutting again.
"You want it short?" he asked.
The man nodded slowly and Joe had to draw away the shaver to keep from cutting him.
"It keeps growing," the man said.
Joe chuckled self-consciously. "Ain't it the way?" he said. Then his face grew studious. "Course hair always grows a lot faster in the summertime. It's the heat. Makes the glands work faster or somethin'. Cut it short, I always say."
"Yes," the man said, "short." His voice was flat and without tone.
Joe put down the shaver and pulled the creased handkerchief from his back trouser pocket. He mopped at his brow.
"Hot," he said and blew out a heavy breath.
The man said nothing and Joe put away his handkerchief. He picked up the scissors and comb and turned back to the chair. He clicked the scissor blades a few times and started trimming. He grimaced a little as he smelled the man's breath. Bad teeth, he thought.
"And my nails," the man said.
"Beg pardon?" Joe asked.
"They keep growing," the man said.
Joe hesitated a moment, glancing up at the mirror on the opposite wall. The man was staring into his lap.
Joe swallowed and started cutting again. He ran the thin comb through the man's hair and snipped off bunches of it. The dark, dry hair fell down on the striped cloth. Some of it fluttered down to the floor.
"Out?" the man said.
"What's that?" Joe asked.
"My nails," the man answered.
"Oh. No. We ain't got no manicurist," Joe said. He laughed apologetically. "We ain't that high-class."
The man's face didn't change at all and Joe's smile faded.
"You want a manicure, though," he said, "There's a big barber shop up on Atlantic Avena in the bank. They got a manicurist there."
"They keep growing," the man said.
"Yeah," Joe said distractedly, "Uh…you want any off the top?"
"I can't stop it," the man said.
"Huh?" Joe looked across the way again at the reflection of the man's unchanging face. He saw how still the man's eyes were, how sunken.
He went back to his cutting and decided not to talk anymore.
As he cut, the smell kept getting worse. It wasn't the man's breath, Joe decided, it was his body. The man probably hadn't taken a bath in weeks. Joe breathed through gritted teeth. If there's anything I can't stand, he thought.
In a little while, he finished cutting with the scissors and comb. Laying them down on the counter, be took off the striped cloth and shook the dark hair onto the floor.
He rearranged the towel and pinned the striped cloth on again. Then he flicked on the black dispenser and let about an inch and a half of white lather push out onto the palm of his left hand.
He rubbed it into the men's temples and around the ears, his fingers twitching at the cool dryness of the man's flesh. He's sick, he thought worriedly, hope to hell it sin't contagious. Some people just ain't got no consideration at all.
Joe stropped the straight razor, humming nervously to himself while the man eat motionless in the chair.
"Hurry," the man said.
"Yes, sir," Joe said, "right away." He stropped the razor blade once more, then let go of the black strap. It swung down end bumped once against the back of the chair.
Joe drew the skin taut and shaved around the man's right ear.
"I should have stayed," the man said.
"Sir?"
The man said nothing. Joe swallowed uneasily and went on shaving, breathing through his mouth in order to avoid the smell which kept getting worse.
"Hurry," the man said.
"Goin' as fast as I can," Joe said, a little irritably.
"I should have stayed."
Joe shivered for some reason. "He finished in a second," he said. The man kept staring at his lap, his body motionless on the chair, his hands still in his coat pockets.
"Why?" the man said.
"What?" Joe asked.
"Does it keep growing?"
Joe looked blank. He glanced at the man's reflection again, feeling something tighten in his stomach. He tried to grin.
"That's life," he said, weakly, and finished up with the Shaving as quickly as he could. He wiped off the lather with a clean towel, noticing how starkly white the man's skin was where the hair had been shaved away.
He started automatically for the water bottle to clean off the man's neck and around the ears. Then he stopped himself and turned back. He sprinkled powder on the brush and spread it around the man's neck. The sweetish smell of the clouding powder mixed with the other heavier smell.
"Comb it wet or dry?" Joe asked.
The man didn't answer. Nervously, trying not to breaths anymore than necessary, Joe ran the comb through the man's hair without touching it with his fingers. He parted it on the left side and combed and brushed it back.
Now, for the first time, the man's lifeless eyes raised and he looked into the mirror at himself.
"Yes," he said slowly. "That's better."
With a lethargic movement, he stood up and Joe had to move around the chair to get the towel and the striped cloth off.
"Yes, sir," he said, automatically.
The man started shuffling for the door, his hands still in the side pockets of his coat.
"Hey, wait a minute," Joe said, a surprised look on his face.
The man turned slowly and Joe swallowed as the dark-circled eyes looked at him.
"That's a buck-fifty," he said, nervously.
The man stared at trim with glazed, unblinking eyes.
"What?" he said.
"A buck-fifty," Joe said again. "For the cut."
A moment more, the man looked at Joe. Then, slowly, as if he weren't sure he was looking in the right place, the man looked down at his coat pockets.
Slowly, jerkingly, he drew out his hands.
Joe felt himself go rigid. He caught his breath and moved back a step, eyes staring at the man's white hands, at the nails which grew almost an inch past the finger tips.
"But I have no money," the man said as he slowly opened his hands.
Joe didn't even hear the gasp that filled this throat.
He stood there, staring open-mouthed at the black dirt sifting through the man's white fingers.
He stood there, paralyzed, until the man had turned and, with a heavy shuffle, walked to the screen door and left the shop.
Then, he walked numbly to the doorway and out onto the sun-drenched sidewalk.
He stood there for a long time, blank-faced, watching the man hobble slowly across the street and walk up toward Atlantic Avenue and the bank.
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