Read Online Happiness of Fish by Fred Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A

’50s it was ultra-modern. It had low, swivel easy chairs instead of high barber chairs. It gave the short back and sides haircuts, the Sal Mineo comb-backs and crews and brush cuts that still grace framed photos on the walls. Some of the photos are advertising shots, showing what you can do with Wildroot Cream Oil or Brylcream. Others are sports teams, hockey and softball mostly, wearing narrow-lapel jackets and skinny ties with big clips that go past the width of the tie. Team members sport the haircuts in the pictures.
    When Gerry first came to town he wouldn’t have gone to this barbershop. They were slow to get the hang of long hair. Besides, they were busy watching their sports teams grow up and move to the suburbs. By the time the long-haired had taken over the downtown sometime in the ’80s, the barber shop moved to the mall.
    Gerry fancies he can recognize some of the ancient sports teams in the chairs in the barbershop yet. There are retired faces under haircuts that are renewed weekly, although they don’t need it. Gerry himself getsmonthly haircuts. He started coming here in the ’90s, well after he’d begun keeping his hair shortish and after there had been a sort of convergence of styles. The barbershop has given long cuts for years now. Some disco-flavoured pictures of mullets and shags have even joined the ducktails and buzz-cuts on the wall. They all look about equally antiquated now.
    Gerry gets his Christmas trim with the minimum of fuss. The conversation is morning, Christmas and minimal.
    â€œHave you got your shopping done?”
    â€œJust about, I should have it clewed up today.”
    â€œYou got your boat up for the winter, I guess?”
    Gerry is not a sports follower so talking about his sailboat is his occasional key to some sorts of small talk. “Oh yes, got it up in October, Thanksgiving weekend.”
    â€œThe snow’s holding off a bit.”
    â€œJust enough for a white Christmas would be okay with me.” One day in this barbershop, Gerry had a long chat with a man who was waiting for hospital results. He didn’t seem to expect them to be good.
    â€œI’ve only just got enough hair again to need cutting,” he complained. “Now I’m going to have to start chemo again.”
    The man was about ten years older than Gerry, thin and golf-club smart-casual. As he was leaving, he introduced himself. Gerry recognized the name. Twenty-odd years ago when he and Pat were falling apart he had spent some time with the man’s ex-wife. The man had left her for somebody younger at work. She’d complain about her stretch marks as they smoked cigarettes in bed after making love. Gerry would trace them with a dismissive finger, or kiss them. He felt plagiarized when the movie
Shirley Valentine
came out and made a thing out of stretch-mark kissing. Sometimes he would lie with his head cushioned on her small belly while she would lay elaborate curses on her ex: biblical plagues and disasters. Sitting in the mall barbershop, it appeared to Gerry that the statute of limitations for those curses hadn’t yet run out.
    â€œChemo’s the shits.”
    Today the barber vacuums his collar and holds the mirror up behind his head.
    â€œOkay for another couple of weeks.”
    â€œYup, I ought to be safe from the dogcatcher for a little longer.” Gerry pays and leaves a five instead of his usual three-dollar tip for a fifteen-dollar haircut.
    â€œMerry Christmas if I don’t see you before the day.”
    â€œYes, you have a Merry Christmas now too.”
    Conscious of his glowing, new-shaved neck and a few hair-ends in his collar, Gerry sets about his shopping. Last night he asked Vivian to reconfirm sizes for him. It’s the sort of attention to detail that pleases her and can expiate other failings. He thinks he has the liturgy down pat. Vivian is medium. Melanie is smallish medium and Tanya is smallish small. Gretchen is