What So Far is the Significance?
whatever; with deep pressuring up from under the sand pits all the while.
Then, up to bed.
The pills keep the sand pits down, but the pressure’s always there. But no, understand, not literally, no—not like a hand inside a glove, but almost like that. Almost.
Aden? We do not fly to Aden. Sorry.
Dig that stack, you’ll find something to use. Dug, hit nothing; nothing; found no such picture. Those pictures must be long gone. Surely hope those pictures are long gone. The photographer went down in the nearby barber shop. What? To have my hair cut, in a man’s barber shop. A real man’s barber shop. Bud’s barber shop, where Bud’s a tall fat man ‘nna tight green shirt, like a bodyguard. He spoke harshly to the customer in his worn-out barber chair.
You ought not be ‘n this barber shop. This is a man’s barber shop.
Their reply was curt; no rules ‘n the animal kingdom; stated, as Bud cut carefully around the small earlobes. Bud normally would be a’laughey and a’jokey, but not this morning. The bodyguard raised a hand, saying, What? Are you trying to say we’re animals here? We’re not animals—I am not an animal!
I’m here only because my father said to be here, said a boy sitting by the door. He don’t tolerate no long hair on a boy. He’s always telling somebody or other what to do. The boy sat in shorts and a hygiene shirt.
What the hell is a hygiene shirt?
It’s a—a shirt. That’s all what’s known. That’s all he calls it.
Well, said the bodyguard—all you kids ought to be wearing hygiene shirts nowadays, the way the world’s going.
What do you mean, said the customer, as Bud’s scissors snipped, and his clippers buzzed.
Short—real short? Said that? Did you?
Yes.
Nodding, he set his lip to the task. Long brown tinged with grey piled up underneath. The scissors snipped, the clippers buzzed, loud they were, in this small barber shop, it being an addition tacked onto a frame house with the sign BUD’S BARBER SHOP across its front window. Bud lived in the frame house. He was never far from work. He at last spoke through this that pause in the clipping.
What makes you want to get a haircut like this? he said idly, trimming around an ear.
It’s somewhat different. It is good to be somewhat different.
Yah. Think I get it. Buzz.
Snip.
Buzz.
Yah, funny you should be here, said a tall green checked flannel shirted man across the chair from Bud. He seemed just another customer, usually, but was always there, and always restless; he paced the shop hard talking at whoever might seem to listen.
Why do you say that to my customer, Jack, said Bud, as he expertly used the scissors closer still on the customer smiling in the chair, with a twinkle in their eye, watching in the mirror at Bud and Jack’s banter.
Because it’s just unusual, said Jack, then stepping to a young man in a leather chair by the door with a deep stained tackle box hung in his hands.
Why are you here today, Rennie? Your hair’s not long.
I’m here because my father said to be here, said Rennie. He don’t tolerate long hair on a boy. He’s always telling me what to do. He dresses me in shorts and a hygiene shirt. See them?
Yes but—hygiene shirt? What the hell is a hygiene shirt? said Jack loudly—and there’s more to know about you, Rennie. You are no boy. Why’s your Father still dressing you?
Bud and his customer in the chair smiled, listening.
Yeah, said Bud, pausing his work—like he said—what the hell is a hygiene shirt?
Everyone laughed, but Jack really wanted to know. Rennie put down his tackle box, opened the front of his sport shirt, revealing a shiny black t-shirt stretched tight underneath.
This is a hygiene shirt, he said. It keeps clean. My Father said it does. As long as you wear this kind of shirt you never need changing or washing. That’s why it’s a hygiene shirt.
What? snapped Jack. Your father said that? That’s ridiculous!
The whole shop smiled, listening to loud Jack. Jack and Rennie were always good for a laugh ‘cross the whole shop, once they got going.
The barber is erased, the monkeys have it.
Go the greasy way.
Gusts of wind blowing. Blowing the gusts.
Lippincott—but.
Class! Everybody! Stop all!
Yes?
Bud. You first. What so far is the significance?
Bud: motionless, but for his hands. Writing in the dirt. It said Hansel. And very nearly, Gretel. But he ran out after pushing out the ground, angry at having been buried beneath what he wrote—Joseph came down the trail, gun in hand, dead pheasants in back of his hunting jacket. The license in the middle of his back made a great target.
And? That’s all?
No. The house is an evil house stinking of ghosts down the cellar up the attic ‘cross the whole damned thing. The man sits innocent with evil run through his past. He sits trailed off behind his long future lying spent and dead behind him.
The past is real the past happened its not gone at all its you the memories of.
Thank you. Now, you in the chair there. What so far is the significance?
The you in the chair there: the shadow tried hard to be but was just empty blackness—bu’, he could always see the man in the moon. Not everybody can see the man in the moon. Not everybody can see it. It looked down on him now.
I see you, said the man the moon—I see you.
Marie! The man the moon is talking to me! Talking to me, Marie!
Reaching down, he patted the cat ’til it threw itself down and began to purr.
He stepped around the cat went to the sliding glass door the dining room looked at himself from his—reflection.
What will be the last thing thought of? Surely not that—cannot be that.
Thank you. Now, you there. Boy by the door there. What so far is the significance?
The boy by the door there: just try, said the farmer, on the edge of his land with a shotgun. On the banks of the brook where the lily pads and dragonflies are thick. Hot. Hot the fucking boat. But. What insurance do you have? Oh, I’m sorry. We don’t take that. Not yet. No not yet. As a matter of fact, probably never.
Why do we roll these babies?
Because they will learn better that way.
It’s important they be rolled. As the Hansel und Gretel’d rolled out away north, past the town of men, into the fields, bearing in deep pressure, their tiny box. Full of the beans cooked last week, it reeks. Big tumor of teeth and hair.
Thank you. Now Jack—hey Jack, there. What so far is the significance?
Jack: small brown bird head darting about looking, looking—looking for what? No time! Fly! To cry out is the way of the land!
Dry. Dry. Lop. Loop. Drip. Dry. Whole. Tonight is the big game. Oh, why is that so damned important?
Wow.
And, also, turning away from the mirror takes the mirror away then makes the rest of the room appear inside; a dresser, a bed. Candlesticks. Wow. How that works!
It is time to go ask for a job.
The face comes goes the mirror the room turns the door stands there.
Out back the door, the keys hang the hand fumbles with the keys the door gets locked.
Somewhere someone’s lips demand more; those lips always demand more.
Thank you. Now, Rennie. What so far is the significance?
Rennie: yes on yes, he often felt he should be standing atop a great hill, high above them, shouting from a great book open in his hands; but he didn’t need a great book but as a prop, because he had it all up his head. Crap what the hell there, Rennie dear, my oh my, there’s a seemingly wide hole in that hygiene shirt; then, general hilarity erupted.
No not that not that!
Yes! I’m here because my father said to be here he don’t tolerate long hair on a boy he’s always telling me what to do he dresses me in shorts and a hygiene shirt.
See it?
Yes.
Lolly chucks the rolling pool of her offal down the stairs, fall.
See it?
No.
Why not? Her gut’s all hot and pliable in my hand. Bloody, gross. But.
Jesus Christ, if that were me, I’d get fired on the spot.
No justice.
No justice.
Fully realized mother.
No justice.
Okay. Okay.
Now listen; Elmer’s a tinsmith. Thoren’s a machinist. There’s a bowl of hardboiled eggs between them. Put there by Thelma.
Elmer gripped up an egg. Thoren just sat with arms folded.
I don’t like hard boiled eggs, said Thoren. You ought to of fried them up.
Elmer began peeling his hardboiled egg. Thoren sneered.
You know you don’t really like those, he said to Elmer. You’re just kissing up to Thelma.
I like them fine, like them just fine. They’ll be good. Thelma, you make them good.
Kissy, kissy, kissy-face, sneered Thoren, to Thelma. He laid his hand flat on the table, saying to Thelma, fry up some eggs, dearie—be a doll. Make them like I like them.
Be a doll? said—dearie? That how you talk to all the girls?
Some of them, said Thoren, grinning. The ones like. Now fry up the eggs.
Elmer’s egg peel scattered around where he sat.
Good, he said chewing. Thoren, do these. They’re good.
Fry three eggs, Thelma!
Here, said—take this skillet. Fry up your own. Like Elmer here, better. He likes them like he likes them. Not like you do.
Nonsense—I won’t go hungry to work! Fry them up—I can’t do it.
What’s the matter? Too much for your little brain to handle, Thoren? said Thelma.
Nuts!
Thoren rose, announcing, Okay, Thelma. I’ll get something on the way to the shop. They make good eggs down at Solly’s. I’ll go to Solly’s.
Go to your damned Solly’s, said Thelma. I’ll be here with my Elmer.
Elmer looked up with mouth full, chewing. Smiled. He clutched half an egg. Thoren gripped down his coat from the chairback threw it on gripped up his truck keys from the bowl before leaving without a word. Elmer and Thelma looked at each other.
Your brother is an oaf, said Thelma.
Yes. Oaf.
The rest of the egg went in Elmer. He grasped another.
Okay if have another? Okay?
That’s what they’re here for, sweetie.
Smiling, Elmer began to peel. But why’d it say inside it seemed to tell him I’m here because my father said to be here; he don’t tolerate long hair on a boy; he’s always telling me what to do; he dresses me in shorts and a hygiene shirt. See it—so he ate this egg faster than the first one because there seemed something odd about it. Plus he also needed to get to work. Thank God, yes, but—hygiene shirt? It was seven forty-five up all their mornings. Thelma’d be alone all day. Today was housecleaning day.
What the hell is a hygiene shirt?
Elmer left, one step closer to knowing, albeit dimly, that all life’s just the shuffle of an endless deck of days, cards pulling out one by one seemingly all by themselves until