The Barbershop

It was March. There had been snow the week before, but most of it had melted. The cornfields were empty and dead. The town wasn’t much. Almost nothing hung around in the long, dark winters that covered Iowa. That’s why Gustava Davis found it odd when she saw a young woman in a summer dress standing on the barren land holding a kite. She considered it for a minute or two before the cigarette singed her fingertips. Then she returned to the barbershop.

Most days, Gustava didn’t cut any hair. While there were people who lived in the town all year, men liked to save money by growing their hair out and getting it shaved off all at once. It meant there would be a next time, they told Gustava. The women of the town did not stop at the barbershop. They preferred to cut their hair at home, but this did not bother Gustava. She spent mornings staring out the window. Across the street from the barbershop, there was an old man who ran the town’s bakery. Gustava did not know his name. He made bagels that tasted like regular bread with a hole in the middle and nothing else. At 10:05 in the morning, he would take the last of the salt bagels to Mr. Schultz who ran the flower shop next door, and would talk for an hour or two before Mr. Schultz decided he had enough and would give the old man a small nod and head back inside the flower shop.

But today, Mr. Schultz did not eat a bagel with the old man. He crossed the street. He walked to the barbershop. He nodded at Gustava when he walked in and hung his coat on the coat rack. He sat down in the chair.

“How about a little off the top?” Mr. Schultz said, smiling.

Mr. Schultz was bald.

“It’s a joke. You’re supposed to laugh,” he said.

“Sorry,” Gustava said.

Mr. Schultz owned the barbershop. Gustava knew he didn’t like how the wallpaper was peeling or that the front door was chipped or how the ceiling had a long crack that ran from one end to the other. He had said before how much he wished he could fix the place. He always said there wasn’t enough money.

“How about a shave? The weather is getting nice and I’d like to feel the sunshine on my face,” Mr. Schultz said.

“Sure thing,” Gustava said.

She stubbed her cigarette. She pulled out a straight metal razor and shaving cream, laying them both in front of the mirror. She tied the cape around his neck with a double knot. She applied the shaving cream and dragged the razor across his jawline.

“This place used to belong to my father and his father before him,” Mr. Schultz said. “This barbershop was the second building built in East Wind, immediately after the church. Did I ever tell you how my great-great-grandfather came here all the way from Boston?”

Mr. Schultz had told this story to Gustava many times, including the moment when he hired her. She listened the first few times, but by this point, Gustava had learned to tune it out. She liked Mr.Schultz, he was kind in his own way. It was hard to focus. Gustava was thinking about how the milk in her fridge was probably going bad soon. Or maybe that she left the stove on. Sometimes she would think of Cassandra.

“All done, Mr. Schultz,” Gustava said.

“Already? I wasn’t prepared for this to be over just yet,” he said.

“You can pay now or later.”

“I better pay now. There isn’t going to be a later.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It wasn’t an easy decision.”

“You can’t.”

“I don’t like it either,” he said, “but times aren’t like they used to be. The truth is that this isn’t much of a town anymore. We were doing alright with the people driving by on their way to Waterloo, but it’s just not enough. Even the flower shop will go soon.”

“So that’s it? You fuck me and sneak out the front door?” Gustava said.

“Don’t be like that,” Mr. Schultz said.

Gustava had been living out of her car for two years before she ended up in East Wind. Mr. Schultz was the first person she met in town. He had an ad running in the local paper looking for a new barber. What she liked about him was that he didn’t ask any questions about why she was here or why she couldn’t go back home. He only wanted to know if she’d show up on time, and for the past nine years, she had never been late once.

“I’ve got car payments. I have rent due in a week.”

“You’re a tough girl. I have faith in you.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go.”

“Don’t be like that. Please,” Mr. Schultz said. “Look, it hurts me as much as it hurts you. Maybe more. My family cut down the wood for this barbershop themselves from some oak trees in their backyard. We built this town. Now there’s nothing left. It’s just the way it is. All I can do for you now is to let you take whatever comes in the door.”

He pulled out all the money from his wallet.

“It’s all I have on me,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke into his face.

“You know those will kill you?” Mr. Schultz said.

“I hope so.”

He shook his head and walked out the door.

Gustava watched Mr. Schultz slouch across the road, then flipped over the CLOSED sign. It didn’t feel real. She thought she’d have more time. The cigarette had gone out, so she tried lighting another one, but it wouldn’t catch. She grabbed a broom and swept the tiny hairs from Mr. Schultz’s face into the back room.

There were big, full bags of hair, all the hair that hadn’t been picked up by the garbage man yet. Five bags filled to the brim. Gustava could hardly remember where it all came from. She untied one of the bags and dropped the hair from her dustpan and dragged the other bags to the front room. She stared at the bags for a while and rubbed her finger up and down the lighter, lost in thought.

Hair smells awful when it burns. Like sulfur. Once, Cassandra had offered to flatten her hair with a straightener. They had just graduated high school. Cassandra had insisted it would make her look beautiful. When her hair burned, Cassandra began to cry. I’m sorry, she said, she had never straightened anyone’s hair before. And when Gustava reached out her hand to comfort her, Cassandra flinched. Her room smelled like sulfur for a month. Gustava wondered what it would be like to burn down East Wind and whether it would smell the same.

 There came a knock. Gustava didn’t hear it at first, so it was followed by a second one. In front of the door stood the young woman in a yellow summer dress. She held a kite.

“Go away,” Gustava said.

“Can’t you do a girl a favor? The other place isn’t open,” the young woman said.

Gustava let her in and the young woman said thank you. She looked at the cracking ceiling and the plain walls and ran her fingers along the frame of the window. She looked out the glass for a moment, then she turned to Gustava.

“Can I tell you a joke?” the woman said.

“Excuse me?” Gustava said

“I have this really great joke I want to tell you.”

“Sure.”

“Four kite strings stop in front of a barbershop. The first kite string says: ‘I'm going in for a haircut.’ He goes in, and the barber says: ‘We don't serve kite strings here.’ So he walks out. The second and third kite strings go in. Same result. ‘Get out! We don't serve kite strings here!’ the barber said. The fourth kite string takes off his hat, places his hand on top of his head, and rubs his hair around, tangling it. Then, he puts his hat back on his head and enters the barbershop. The barber looks at him suspiciously and asks, ‘Aren't you a kite string?’ The kite string takes his hat off, bows, and says: ‘No sir, I'm a frayed knot.’”

The woman let out a terrible wheezing laugh.

“You said the joke wrong. The joke’s supposed to be about a man who walks into a bar,” Gustava said.

“Did you want a joke about a bar? I have a great joke about a bartender.”

“No.”

“This one’s funny. I promise.”

“Fine.”

“A man walks into a bar. Ouch.”

The young woman let out a heavy cough onto the back of her hand. There were spots of blood once she had finished coughing. She wiped them onto her dress.

Gustava did not think much of the young woman. Her shoulders were in a permanent slouch, her teeth slightly bucked, and she had a curious habit of scratching the space between her eyebrows. When Gustava first met Cassandra, she wore a huge smile and a yellow sundress and it looked like the one the young woman in front of her was wearing. But somehow the young woman looked stained and covered in dirt.

“Do you know any jokes?” the young woman asked.

“Only if you get your haircut,” Gustava said.

“Sure, but it better be a funny one.”

“There once was a woman who moved to Iowa in pursuit of a reason to live,” Gustava said.  “She didn’t find one.”

“That’s not a joke,” the young woman said. “There’s no punchline. There’s a lot of set- up, what with the moving west and all, but your joke never goes anywhere. If I was telling your joke, I’d say it like this: There once was a woman who moved to Iowa in pursuit of a better life and all she found was a bunch of corn. She really got an earful.”

“I never said anything about corn,” Gustava said.

The young woman shrugged.

“Funny is funny,” she said, then laughed and coughed into her elbow.

“Let me cut your hair now.”

“I’ll think of another joke.”

Gustava pulled out her lighter and a cigarette. She inhaled deeply and filled the room with smoke. Gustava did not meet a lot of people like this. Maybe back home, she thought, just not here. There was something about her that seemed familiar to Gustava, but as Gustava tried to figure out what it was, the young woman grabbed her hands.

“You have nice fingers,” the young woman said. “Smooth like a baby lamb.”

Despite wanting to, Gustava was unable to move her hand. The young woman’s grip was tender but strong. She slid her fingertips across Gustava’s knuckles, feeling the cartilage between her joints. Then the woman stopped. She grabbed the cigarette from Gustava’s lips and took a drag. She breathed out a pillar of smoke that hung in the air in front of their faces.

“Careful,” she said, “smoking will kill you.”

Another wheezing laugh.

“No more jokes. Let’s cut your hair now,” Gustava said.

“Why would I want a haircut?” the young woman asked.

Gustava blinked twice without saying anything. It was getting dark and no other customers were coming in. She thought for a moment about asking the young woman to leave, but couldn’t quite muster the words. To Gustava, it felt like nothing mattered anymore.

“Why do you want to kill yourself?” the young woman asked.

“I never said I was going to kill myself,” Gustava said.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I think you should leave.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Before Gustava could stop her, the young woman snatched Gustava’s lighter and a couple bags of hair. Then she was out the door. Gustava took another puff, got up from her seat, and followed the young woman outside.

It was getting dark. The people from back home she still talked to didn’t think much of the Midwest, certainly not much about a tiny town like this. It was flat, they said, nothing in sight for a hundred miles. But Gustava loved the night here, she loved how small the night sky made her feel.

“Do you know why I love this place so much? They have the strongest winds in the world here.” The young woman pointed. “Look at the roof. It’s old, right? But if you look closer, there’s a long, straight line that’s made of all new tiles. That’s the wind.” The young woman looked at Gustava and smiled.

 “I need those bags back. They don’t belong to me,” Gustava said.

“Who do they belong to?”

“My old boss.”

“Well, let’s take them to him.”

The woman walked and Gustava followed. They walked through town, toward the river. You can see where the wind struck, the young woman said, as they passed by the buildings. Some people call it vertical wind because it runs in a straight line as it cuts through the buildings. Tornadoes are deadlier, but no one builds shelters for vertical wind, she said.

Gustava noticed that a corner of the flower shop's roof had been sliced off. It was on the right corner, just next to the sign. After nine years of living here, she had never noticed. Even the church, which received a new coat of paint every year, had doors with hundreds of little cuts. The whole town was covered in these scars. It felt like the first time she had ever seen East Wind before.

The town faded away when they crossed the river. Empty cornfields surrounded them and the night sky throbbed above them. There was a single building in the distance, a small house. The lawn was neatly cut and in front of the garage was a lawnmower with a few jerry cans filled with gasoline. The garage door was open and inside were bags and bags of hair. Nine years worth. Mr. Schultz’s house.

“We can knock to see if he’s home,” the young woman said. “Then we tie him up and burn his house down.”

“We can’t,” Gustava said.

“I’ll do it then.”

The young woman punched Gustava. The blow hit Gustava in the gut and knocked her to the ground. Her ribs were sore and she clutched her stomach to keep from vomiting. From the ground, she watched the young woman splash gasoline onto bags of hair. Once she had covered everything, she poured it on herself.

“I’m going to set his house on fire, and then I’m going to kill him,” the woman said.

“But why?” Gustava said.

“It’d be funny.”

“That’s fucked.”

“The man fired you. If someone should burn, it’s him.”

“Don’t. Please.”

“Then tell me a joke.”

Gustava wanted to get up and smack the woman in the face. She wanted to scream and save Mr. Schultz. But she wasn’t in Iowa anymore. She was home. Everywhere was snow and hills and all the people back home she used to love. She thought of Cassandra’s soft, curly hair.

And then she heard herself speak.

“There was this girl named Gustava. She was miserable. She lived in a small town where the only thing people ever did was ski or wait tables or freeze in the snow. To Gustava, it felt like death.

“But Cassandra made life worth living. A tiny girl in a yellow dress,  just under five feet, she moved up north from Georgia with her father. She had sharp eyes and small ears and a big, long, stupid smile that melted Gustava’s heart. Gustava loved her.

“And for a while, they were inseparable. Birthdays, holidays, long summer breaks, they were always around each other. But it didn’t last. Gustava started to find herself awake at night, unable to sleep, waiting by her phone until Cassandra responded. She sat for hours in her cold room and hated how quickly her depression vanished when she would get a reply. Gustava had never felt so much for another person and she hated how much she needed her. Gustava cut her out. And when Cassandra tried reaching her, she let the phone go to voicemail. Eventually, she stopped calling.

“However much it hurt Gustava, the silence broke Cassandra. Her mother and father had her to save their marriage, and when that collapsed, she moved north with her father. He was a drinker in a small town that had nothing to do. And when he was drunk enough, he told Cassandra how much he wished she was never born. Your mother and I are divorced, he would say, you have no more reason to be alive. After a while, Cassandra started to believe him.

“It had been six months since they last talked. There was a text message that said ‘Come over. Please.’ Gustava ignored it. Then the message came again. And again. And over and over until her phone was nothing but an endless wave of messages that said ‘Come over. Please.’ Then it stopped. It worried Gustava. She went to Cassandra’s house. The lights weren’t on and the door was unlocked. She climbed the stairs to her room. The lights weren’t on and the door was unlocked. Inside, there was only a chair, a rope, and a note. It was only five words long: Sorry to leave you hanging.”

The young woman didn’t laugh. She walked over to Gustava and kissed her. It was quick. Then she kissed her again,  longer this time. Each time she pulled away, Gustava felt herself being pulled back into the rhythm of it, letting the feeling travel down her spine. Then the young woman pushed Gustava away, ending the kiss as quickly as it started.

“Just because you can turn something into a joke doesn’t mean you should,” she said.

Something changed. The color of the young woman’s turned grey. Her fingernails cracked and her brown hair turned white. Her body rapidly shrank into itself and, for a moment, it looked like her skin had been stripped off her body and only the skeleton remained. She smiled. Then she was gone. Mr. Schultz’s house was no longer in front of her and Gustava found herself alone standing in the empty cornfield behind the barbershop.

It was night. The town was dead quiet. She felt alone.

Gustava thought the field was empty until she noticed a kite on the ground in front of her. The longer she looked at the kite, the more she felt the urge to smoke, but when she pulled out a cigarette she couldn’t bring it to her lips. She tossed it into the empty field and watched it stream across the night sky. She unraveled the kite, the string blowing lightly in the wind. And when it was completely unspooled, she ran, the kite dragging on the ground behind her. She was panting hard and the air was cold and crisp and she felt the sting deep inside her lungs.

The wind was growing. Soon, it whipped around her and the kite soared high into the sky. She watched it fly, above the buildings and the trees and the clouds, everything below it small and insignificant. It looked beautiful up there, she thought. Then came a slice of wind that severed the kite in half.

And as the two pieces floated back to earth, Gustava began to laugh.

Author’s Biography

Nathaniel is a writer from New England. He studied at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he got a degree in English Literature. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.