Cyril Hennessy was a bitter man, a bitter man who wanted a
haircut. The further he got down this street, in the sunshine, the more he felt
the urge to visit his barber and have his hair seen to. In his head (those
monologues he loved to conduct) Cyril made it sound as though he meant his man,
some valet-like creature who’d come into being for the sole purpose of tending
to the Hennessy tresses. How his mind meandered at times in idle fancy. And although
Cyril was no self-obsessed dandy, he did place airs on certain mundane
practices in his life. This haircut was a case in point. The clemency of the
day, surprising as it was only March, added an extra urgency to Cyril’s need to
see a coiffeur, crimper or whatever you care to call it.
Through a combination of pressing circumstances (one thing
after another like cannon fodder) he’d neglected to have his hair looked at
beyond his usual one-month maximum. The length of his locks combined with the
warmth of the day was bringing way too much heat to Cyril’s head, way more than
he was comfortable with.
As said, Cyril was no precious fop but had been a dapper
gent throughout his time on Earth (no harm in that!) Walking along the street,
still in the sunshine, the day growing warmer with some speed now, he did the
little calculation—the cogs in his brain working in rhythm with the cogs of his
frame bouncing, as it was, along the pavement—yes, it had been seven weeks
since he had seen a barber. Cyril worked it out: seven weeks had passed since
any cutter whatsoever had come near his hair. And in Ole Zork of all places,
where the good town elders took such pride in the development of themed
hairstyling shops! Where he was headed now, the area around Mint Street and South Street , was awash with places to go
for a wash, cut and blow dry. And he’d left his hair growing for seven weeks.
Cyril was surprised at himself. He was normally thoroughly precise as to when
to have his tresses shorn.
For about a year now he’d been attending, each month, a
woman called Doris , who ran a common or garden
salon in Minusrat, Cyl’s part of town. He found the notion of going up for a
cut to the themed barbershops around Mint
Street and South Street distasteful, believing the
whole area to be tacky and touristy on an epic scale. But curiosity was driving
him to do so nonetheless, passing Mint
Street everyday, as he did, on his way to his
mortuary job. In the near two-month growth period that had just elapsed, his
locks had taken on a most lengthy mien, stifling him now in the noontime heat.
It had got to the extent, such was his desire to be shorn, that he’d go for the
first barber he came upon. He wouldn’t care if Sweeney Todd himself was
standing over the chair. In Cyril’s flustered, agitated state he wasn’t sure if
the legendary Mr Todd had yet had a cutting shop rigged out to his repute.
Although he was really of a mind to visit the Elvis barber and decided he would
make today the occasion for his first trip to that renowned local shrine.
With his unruly mop and his resentful thoughts, Cyril knew
about bearing a cross or two. And he was carrying two extremely heavy ones at
that moment, trotting along, as he was, to the barbershop strip. The place
where the now famed Jasper Keogh had started the scissors cutting, in a manner
of speaking, in the establishment of a number of themed barbershops in this
part of Ole Zork. Jasper, all six feet four inches and seventeen muscular stone
of him (Cyril had read a recent profile in TressDresser
Monthly and had seen an accompanying photo of Jasper’s bulk), was an
obsessive Elvis Presley fan, whose father had left him the family cutting shop.
His inheritance was, at first, an encumbrance to him, but once he’d perfected
the techniques of the trade, he’d really taken to the job and had started
adorning his father’s venerable old premises with statues and posters of the
King. It helped his “vibes”, as he put it, “when I’m snippin’ a bonce”.
Anyway, the concept took off with the opening of a Buddy
Holly barbers (proprietor Barry “Bopper” Bradley) two doors from Jasper’s. There
were some faltering first steps when business thinned out (similar to some of
the clients’ hair) but then tourists started making the trek to Mint Street on
word of mouth and taking photographs of Jasper and Baz’s shops, and the coffers
of the coiffeurs (to use a cumbersome turn of phrase) began maintaining a
healthy state (to the delight and encouragement of the aforementioned town
elders, who loved and championed tourist attractions and the knock-on financial
benefits they brought. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t have to invest
any of the town’s money in the upkeep of these attractions. Jasper and his
fellow barbers more or less looked after and paid for the strip themselves.)
Five years on from the fateful day, when Jasper had stuck
his Love Me Tender poster in the shop
window (under the cone), there were now seven themed shops on the half-mile.
And Cyril foresaw that that bourgeoning number would continue to grow. It was
the most bustling part of town now, none other than the BarberShrine half-mile
(as Ole Zorkers had dubbed it).
As he walked on, Cyril visualized his hair as a willow
weeping to be shorn, while his thoughts were like foetuses begging not to be
born. Yet still the well-known barbershops played on his mind. He had passed
their cones countless times as Mint Street, as I’ve mentioned, was a daily
passing point for him going to the mortuary where he’d been employed for a year
now (the T&Cs were actually far better than the hospice where he’d last
held down a job. At this rate he often felt that he’d be off the planet by his
next employment).
He had heard all the local tittle-tattle as to what a fine
shrine to King Elvis Jasper Keogh (the cutter and proprietor) had erected. The TressDresser Monthly article had
detailed everything in Keogh’s shrine, from the walls’ array of pictures of the
King in various states of godlikeness (as the piece had gushed), right up to
the names Jasper had called the cuts on his price board: number 1, the most
expensive, was “The King E”. A case of the first cut being the dearest, Cyril
mused (but wasn’t that Rod Stewart? and rather than answer that question he
made a mental note to move on from such deliberations). He’d go to the Elvis
barber.
He pondered the choice available to him around these parts
regarding decorated and adorned barbershops, for the strip was filled with
themed hair salons. For example there was the Manchester United shop, ever
popular with native and tourist fans alike and a sight to behold if reports
were correct about its interior.
It had become the done thing now for any new hairdresser
going into business in Mint Street or South Street or thereabouts to erect a
mini-shrine to whichever famous person/institution/organisation the coiffeur or
coiffeuse most fancied or whichever person/institution/organisation hadn’t
already received the homage treatment (as a one-idol-one-shop policy operated
in the hair management zone) .
Oh, how the council loved this progress, chuffed by its
drawing power for visitors into what had been a dilapidated area only few years
back. Cyril had heard that the tourists, in nine times out of ten, merely
entered a “shrine”, photographed it quickly and bounced out (as tourists do)
leaving a gratuity to the cutter for the pleasure of snapping his shop. Most of
the actual styling was still being done on local heads. Stood to reason, Cyril
thought, after all who gets a haircut on holidays?
Cyril considered it further: tourists eager to see the
bedecked and cluttered cutting shops; salons whose numbers had grown, along
with the quality of their themed displays, in a few quick years. An air of
healthy competition pervaded among these businesses, each one wanting to please
visitors with eye-catching presentations of idolatry. They were being reported
on to a wider and wider audience each passing month. The authorities of Ole
Zork had hoped for a successful BarberShrine half-mile on Mint and South
Streets and, in point of fact, their hopes had been exceeded. As said, an
unwritten rule existed, along this half-mile, whereby only one shrine was
permitted to each object of fanaticism (for want of a better way of putting
it). There was only one Elvis shop, ditto Manchester
United. Newcomers were told they’d have to come up with new ideas. Like the
recently opened Heartpond FC barbers or the Tom Jones crimper on South Street .
Jasper Keogh was lucky in inheriting his shop, that he’d themed it on the most
popular singer of the 20th century, ensuring a good flow of business
up to his planned retirement. Cyril wondered if an Adolf Hitler barbershop
would attract much custom (but soon chided himself for engaging in more silly
speculation). He then began to consider if the council would finesse the strip
further; demarcating crimpers in terms of their themes. Would one half of Mint Street wind up
containing only those barbers who’d put up altars to exalt sport? The Heartpond
FC shop beside the Oldkeep United and so on, with all the rock music altars
further down on South Street ?
Say the Chrissie Hynde beside the Pattie Smith salon (two similar souls from
the world of rock, that perennially popular sphere). Although Cyril had to
concede that the town fathers would have a job in getting the muscular Jasper
Keogh to move the short distance from Mint
Street to South Street with a Compulsory Decamping
Order. CDOs were Town Hall’s favourite weapon for rearranging Ole Zork whenever
they had a brainwave (which was not often!).
This BarberShrine half-mile was proving such a good money
draw that Cyril was sure his speculations would eventually unfold. The whole
thing would be planned and regulated to an obsessive degree (at that point
Cyril stopped himself, for again he was involved in rambling surmising. And
there were things to be done!) He had yet to attend mass at Keogh’s Elvis altar
but felt sure that it would suit his purpose on this growing-ever-more-divine
day. But damn this heat! He’d left his abode some twenty minutes earlier and
was about to hit Mint Street
obsessed with having his haircut. And on top of that he had his bitterness to
contend with. It had been eating at him since yesterday evening when he’d had a
numinous flash: had seen Old Zork in his mind and it was full of pricks (a very
sweaty milieu indeed). Cyril wondered if the self-hatred he was experiencing of
late was a form of narcissism. At 32 he felt old and depressed (of course it
was spectacularly young but he didn’t know that then). The previous night,
before sleep and stark dreams, he’d read the biographical summation of one Ken Spice
(30). Fuck it, you had to envy Ken. The chap had packed a lot of living into
his three decades. Cyril felt that events in the morgue, where average
afternoons meant shaving the just-deceased and reaching for the chemicals to
stave off putrefaction, would not amount to more than a vaguely memorable
moment in Mr Spice’s earthly and natural. But Cyl consoled himself with the
thought that one person’s achievement was another’s failure (was he risking
glibness forming such thoughts?). He had nothing personal against this Ken chap,
a noteworthy guy who’d turned up in a magazine he’d been reading before turning
in for the night, who had an interesting life with many exciting deeds done.
But just reading about them had triggered feelings of failure in the sorry
speck of a godforsaken struggle that Cyril named his life (Cyl would often
descend into bleak meanderings re the state of play in his own earthly and
natural. He was prone to bouts of intense despondency).
Anyway in his head Cyril had only good wishes for Ken. As
they’d said at those awful meetings he’d attended “I wish you well”. But, as he thought of it, a voice in his head
continued. If you need actors, Ken, after you’ve adapted the stories into
feature movies (Ken was a writer), don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll gladly
whore myself if it means an end to penury (by Western standards, he wasn’t
starving in the African desert after all) and tramp-dread. Not to mention
feelings of complete uselessness and hopelessness (for the most part the sum
total of his daily brain-feed). Yes please call, Ken, Cyril thought and I’ll do
whatever you want me to do.
And he’d thought that that was as bad as he would feel that
prior evening. He was reaching for the razor blades when a Booker winner turned
up on the next page, replete with her achievements. He could feel and hear
bitterness, could almost taste it in fact, swirling inside him in the form of a
rant. He wanted to remember and rail at the image of a certain witch he’d known
a good number of moons ago, quite a roll of the ages back. But he knew also to
be wary as such memories could tip him over the brink for good. How he’d
shivered as the thought of her came back to him. He was liable to collapse
altogether if he started pondering the past as he walked along; or, to be more
specific, started pondering her. He parked the memories of that witch, and the
rant she would induce, for another time.
However, while he was on the subject of poison-thinking, Mr
Hennessy considered sending his diary for the weekend into The Evening Lies. For the
past three Thursdays he’d endured reading (had stoically put himself through
the experience of taking) a column they’d concocted, wherein a local celebrity
outlined the really quite whirlwind and eventful (nay, chockfull!) nature of
their social programme over a typical weekend. Cyril had never seen such active
living, so many ports of call, crammed into two and a half days. The thrice
he’d read these pieces (someone had given them the original title of “My Weekend by _______”) he’d felt the
whole effect was like that of an energy breakfast bar. These people were so
right-on and packed full of bland living but Cyl had laid the paper aside after
reading it and just felt annoyed and cheated of anything to digest. Was that
really all there was to it? Taxiing from one pub (or hotspot) to another (with
some token cultural/retail activity thrown in, just so readers won’t think
you’re a raving alcoholic!) drinking healthy, hearty, moral, self-regulated
beverages and rejoicing at the grabbing, ugly, no-time-for-failure cosmos all
about one? Mr Hennessy’s ire was fired up from reading this drivel. He wanted
to submit his own rather less spirited diary for the perusal of folk. Let them
see what it was like in his margin of experience, having nothing to prove to
the Evening Liars. And now, with the fires of his rant stoking ever strongly,
how would he put his schedule? Lemme see:
Four p.m. Friday:
Walk home in the rain stopping at the Camden
and there his diary tapered off as Cyril found these latest
reflections were bringing him on a thought-train that he, with real emphasis,
did not wish to travel on. I mean would The
Evening Lies people even raise a chuckle at the tame nature of his two and
a half day programme before consigning it to their bin, shredder or
incinerator?
And then he was back thinking of Winston Smith and the
fabulous and accurate nature of Eric Blair’s clairvoyance. He couldn’t escape
those screens and the reels of wars assailing his eyes. Last night, after the
magazine and before his dreams of warships and POWs, as he was whiling away the
time gazing into the park, he was keenly aware of the continuous buzz of the
news show hitting home the importance of battles far afield; a malignant
background drone. He could almost hear its tumescent thrum, now at noon, as he
wandered onto Mint Street
(God, is this street called after some ancestor of Randy’s? And the cover of
that controversial book flashed into his mind: Elvis kissing his mother. But
was it the innocent kiss of a devoted son?).
But returning to last night: it was dusk and he had been
looking at the trees and the grass. To determine if it was raining, he had
looked at the roof of the municipal swimming pool, upon which a surfeit of
drops was, it was plain, falling (author’s
note: in an attempt to write in a style like some of my heroes I am trying
to dispense with overused adverbs, hence “it was plain” rather than “plainly”
in that last sentence). He remembered how he’d reached for his hat in days
gone by, from similar (even just such) vantage points, when he’d lived in
attics in the land of rain. Cyril thought of men he had known back then,
classic minor functionaries, who could prove the most dangerous and destructive,
abusing what small power they had. But alas, he’d continued, that was all in
that place of precipitation and hunger quite some calendars back. And then he
found that recalling the musings of last evening exasperated him the more (the
heat and resentments were closing in on Cyril H’s head). Oh for Chrissake let
me to the Elvis barber post-haste, he thought, and hurried his footfalls
towards that cone and that shrine. In the end it didn’t make sense for him not
to have his haircut in one of these tourist attractions (after all, he’d been
passing them, going to the morgue, for nigh on fifty-two weeks at this stage).
KEOGHS! The one with the Elvis connection certainly attracted him. He threw his
gaze each day on their cone as a private ritual. As well as daily casting his
eyes on the film posters stuck in the shop’s window. Of course the place
grabbed his attention. Cyril had loved Elvis from a young age. Doris in Minusrat, and her average little shop, could
wait awhile before he’d cross her jamb again. He’d get his barnet sorted and
have a good glance around the shrine to boot. What could be better as a tonic
to his ill-humour and malaise, on this most hot of days (for the middle of
March?).
Averting his eyes from the now blinding sun (damn, he should
have taken his baseball cap along), Cyril thought how much he wanted to look
fresh, good, clean and new, as you do (that phrase “as you do” why did people
use it!?).
As it grew nearer he was beginning to visualise the barber
shop as a plot of calm wherein he could, with a glad heart, plant himself (a
crazy methodical part of him toyed with the idea of asking the barber if he
might stay on after his cut just to soak in the calmness. Would save on those
counselling bills the whitecoats had started to impose).
At this point in Cyril Hennessy’s life what he craved most
was respite from flickering screens of 24/7 war footage. With a jolt, that
brought his scurry down to a stroll, he thought how dead on Eric Blair had been
with his soothsaying. Good God, what are they up to on Lie TV? It never ends: Australasia
is Aiding the Coalition in the Push for the Heart of Mesopotamia !
Thus spake the bleating Tannoy into his brain all the latest developments. Cyril
was convinced: this war was being brought to us, first and foremost, as
entertainment. Spring and sunshine are nice but my locks are too long and I’m
too hot (not to mention the fact that I’m so pissed off with my life that I
could weep right here on this street, damn the eyes of passing souls!). A plot
of calm with mild conversation, a simple and pleasant place to be, is what I
need. So went Cyril’s reflections, as went his reflection, looking decidedly
longhaired (even a tad nervous) in the windows he passed, at brisk speed, going
into town.
He caught sight of himself (and flinched) in the plaque of Skram & Recneps, those reputable and
discreet Messrs, as he flew (by no means an angel though) past their stoop,
hotfooting it. Things were becoming unclear in his mind. He forgot his purpose
in the great outdoors. He was growing fearful, like an attack of the old
agoraphobia was imminent. Then he snatched back his composure, remembering where
he was and what he was about, though, having said that, he remained dizzy (in
the more old-fashioned sense of that word i.e. just spinning, unable to take
root). What a startling dreamy night had elapsed. These steps, his quick paces,
were therapeutic. This walk will clean up your appearance, all anodyne measure
welcomed. That was the sheen he put on it in his near scrambled brain. Someone
coughed behind him, a scrofulous hack that further spooked his spirit. He
closed his eyes, partly against the sunlight and partly in mental pain. Behind
his lids an array of enemies (files of them, with files on all of ‘em!). He
felt his walk turning into a jog, a blessing of new stamina he was surprised to
possess. In his mind’s eye a staircase led away from the baying mob. There were
many stairs (stares). As Cyl figured it, take them. Anything was better than
being chased (chaste). Then he opened his eyes and came upon it, could espy it
four doors further up, that ancient cone nudging like a unicorn’s horn on the
frontage. Red and white continuing in eternal spiral and looking not a little
like, to C’s eye, a stick of seaside rock (albeit a very large stick, something
a rich cousin might brandish at one in a dream). And KEOGHS, the name boldly
splashed above the cone was just where he needed to go to relieve his sense of
encroaching dementia. At the risk of sounding verbose let me say that Cyril
craved the calmness promised by this place in the way an addicted doctor might
crave a morphine phial. This will most certainly do, he thought (not the phrase
“ah, sure, ‘twill do” so beloved of his compatriots but, it must be stressed,
“will most certainly do”). It was just the ticket for the way he was feeling.
So as the town clock struck the bells of twelve with the heat and the hair too
much, along with the war footage, for Mr Hennessy to take, he gathered himself
for a moment, tilting his head for a deferential look, and pushed open the door
of Keogh’s barber (this action triggered a loud bell which threw Cyril for a
second). But he knew he was safe, things were okay, and he left the street.
Inside: what is this, a chapel? Cyl suddenly felt tears
welling up. Goodness, he thought, is this the beginning of one of my turns? You
saw me crying in a chapel. It’s like another world. A quiet land full of grace,
Graceland . Cyril saw, enough memorabilia
adorned and cluttered the place. Cyril could see, very full on, what all the
talk and the magazine articles had been about. Could see yes, that the barber
(the often talked about Jasper) was a zealous (with a capital Z!) Elvis Presley
fan. All Shook Up (how Cyl could
relate to that song, the shaking part anyway!) jumped along like a jaunt, at
low volume, in the air. Bless my soul this place is less a simple chapel more
the Sistine. This is certainly worth a visit. Why have I waited so long to come
in here, this interior of all things Elvisy? All the publicity it’s gotten, the
people I’ve heard discussing it, Keogh’s Elvis shrine-cum-barbershop? I mean I
knew, all those times I passed, that it was no ordinary hairdressers. I sensed
it would be eye-catching and exciting. I didn’t expect a run-of-the-mill
interior, like one finds in those RASP convenience stores that are springing up
everywhere. Although, and a cautionary bell tolled in Cyril’s head, as he
recollected how he’d once entered a barbershop as a boy and been attacked by a
dog. One never knew what to expect anywhere. His friend Alan O’Reilly was fond
of reminding him of this dog incident, just to see the startled fright in Cyl’s
eyes as memory rolled out the scene.
Where’s the proprietor, I need service? Cyril gave a slight
spin of his head to the right, then left. The King looked back at him in many
ways: sorrowful saucer-eyed guises, youthful virile smiles. To a faint feeling
of disgust Cyril even noticed a fat Elvis squinting at him from a small frame
to the left of the raised TV set. To his surprise Lie flickered away the endless violent footage of the ongoing war:
the smoke rising over a bombarded land. Cyril had expected to see Blue Hawaii or some such running on
endless repeat from Keogh’s television. This latest war has captured everyone’s
imagination for sure, even ultra-fanatical Elvis fans. This latest war was
reaching into the holiest of shrines. The sanctum sanctorums.
Then from behind a door of hanging beads, which when
unruffled displayed a young King at the Opry, up stepped Jasper Keogh the
obsessed cutter. Cyril’s brain filled with thoughts of that book (he had actually read it himself), causing such a stir in
all quarters now. Randy Mint, its author, had alleged (and outlined compelling
evidence of) a huge mother fixation on the part of Mr Presley. The King and Mother’s Ming he’d called
his scandalous tome and had written of the kicks Elvis had got (not on Route 66
but rather) in erotic daydreams of Gladys (Mint’s authorial skills made one
think so anyway). Longstanding loyal fans were appalled! Longstanding fans,
Cyril imagined, not unlike this muscle-bound fellow now approaching from out of
the beads. Jasper the giant, whose voice now rose (to a considerable volume)
and said:
- “Howaya, wanna
haircut?”
Cyril wrote an urgent mental note: Don’t mention the Randy Mint book! Cyril was jittery enough as it
was. His dreamlife had crossed the line into his waking life, bringing a good
deal of turmoil with it. He knew he could not take, mentally or physically, any
sort of tussle with this Keogh fellow. He would have to, as the local parlance
put it, “keep him sweet”. Last night, as he slept, he’d been somewhere, maybe
it was Qatar ,
at a shipping intersection. A busy place in international terms, of strategic
interest to many powers (perhaps it was the Suez Canal .
He really had no idea of where he was dreaming of these days. Not being the
most widely travelled of individuals, he wasn’t exactly picturing places he’d
been to. Probably the dreamscapes were a mere composite of TV footage: Suez , Qatar ,
Jordan
equaling too much BBC Newsnight rolled into one!).
And then with extreme clarity he’d dreamt of two hundred or
so people in a yard out front of his living quarters. Awaiting processing
(gassing!). A concentration camp. All are gassed only to awaken in a large brick
house by a roadside, alive and journeying on some sixty years later. Is this
possible? The house had been flashing up at frequent times in his dreams for
months now. Cyril was bemused and unnerved. Who wouldn’t be? That house, those
people. He was jittery, too, over the standoff ensuing between him and his dear
friend Vic. In an attempt to lighten his friend’s mood, he’d written to Vic
almost two months previously to tell him of the ill jazz mag he’d found full of
doxies that would derange him. As Cyril texted it to him they’d looked as good
as Vic’s mother had in the cathouse on the day Vic was conceived. His friend
took umbrage at these foul-fingered texts and, as a result, the two men hadn’t
communicated to one another for seven and a half weeks. The attempt at humour
was botched. Cyril wondered if the joke was too clumsy or explicit for Vic’s
liking. Cyril had spent these weeks, in the main, engaged in bouts of
chest-thumping and self-flagellation (much in the manner of an attendee at a
Shia festival for that matter). And also, as I’ve been outlining, his hair had
grown to quite a length in this period.
The stuff about the mother and the cathouse he had adapted
from the aforementioned Randy Mint book on Mr Presley and his mother Gladys.
Yes The King and Mother’s Ming was
the tome’s outrageous, nay egregious, title. What a mother fixation it had
painted! Along with various other muddy (of the Mississippi kind, boom boom!) details of the
shock! horror! wow! variety. Though C was neither shocked, horrified nor wowed
by the extras (hadn’t Al Goldigger been over that ground already?). It was the
mother fix that most interested and fascinated him. Randy’s other nuggets of
insight weren’t that impressive at all. So what if Elvis had spent so much time
worrying about his health that he’d made himself sick? Cyril too had often done
likewise. And, although he was loath to admit it, he shared (or had the
potential to at least) some of the nastier dietary habits of the King (right
down to a fondness for battered pineapple rings, a treat he often like to
indulge in after a tough day spent assisting the embalmers). Besides, Cyril
knew Randy Mint’s type. He could imagine him right down to his breath (which
probably smelt like an ill-lit public toilet, come to think of it!).
The mental note scribbled fast, Cyril looked at Jasper
(goodness me he is a big lad, bigger in person than that magazine shot led me
to believe and I had thought he was huge on the page!) and delivered his
answer:
- “Er, yes I’d like a
number three at the back and…”
- “Eh hold on take a
seat first. Then ya can tell me the details,” Jasper instructed, and who would
disagree with that stature?
Cyril proceeded to a black leather chair (one of three)
facing the mirrored wall. An American flag was stitched onto the chair’s back
with a picture of Elvis sewn where the stars usually are. It’s the Star and Stripes, Cyl thought, as he
assumed his position on this throne and looked at his reflection in the mirror
and at Jasper’s image, too, the big man standing behind him. Jasper placed a
standard barbershop gown around Cyril’s neck, the gown reaching down to the
Hennessy knees.
- “So, you were
sayin’, what kinda cut?” Jasper spoke and his accent, C thought, was sooo Ole Zork.
- “Yeah,” Mr H said.
“I’d like a number 3 at the back and sides and if you could just feather it
down at the top and front, that’d be fine.”
- “No probs at all,”
Jasper boomed. “Feather it down, I like tha’. Not many o’ me punters know the
trade terms. Most o’ dem wud just ask ya to go easy on the top and front, but
feather it down. Shows know-how. D’ya know someone in the business or are ya
just an expert yerself?”
- Well, a-actually,
no,” Cyril stammered. He was becoming a little put out by Jasper’s bulky
presence and thundering voice (Cyl was sure the chap could be heard out on the
street). “M-my last hairdresser used the term so I guess I got it from her. I’d
never claim expertise in the field of haircutting. You’re the expert there Mr
Keogh. I read that piece on you in TressDresser
Monthly. You came across as extremely well-versed in your trade I must
say.”
- “Nice of ya to say
it,” the giant sounded, as he clicked his scissors and waved his comb in the
air reminding Cyril, with some discomfort, of a man about to carve a Sunday
roast. “I’m in this game a while now, it’s in me blood. Plus, you live and
learn all kinds of things after yiv done a few thousand heads.”
Must please him, Cyril was thinking, say nice things. Massage
his ego and don’t whatsoever bring up the Randy Mint book. Tell him you like
the memorabilia, tell him you love Elvis.
- “Love the way you
have the shop done out. Elvis everywhere is fucking cool!”
Cyl instantly regretted using the expletive. Made him sound
uncouth or, to use the Ole Zork term, he’d sounded knackerish (there again he
suspected that the tonsorial artist was not the most pure-tongued of individuals himself, so
why worry about how you sound to him? But Cyl was just a natural born worrier).
- “You’re obviously a
huge fan, Jasper,” he continued, and then feared he’d been over-familiar
addressing the cutter on a first-name basis. But he plodded on like a blind man
fencing many phantoms.
- “I love the King
myself. What a great soul! Compelled to fly in ’77. Bleak black August. In
music maybe The Beatles equal him. But that voice can stop anyone in their
tracks.”
Jasper was nodding in happy concurrence at Cyril’s paean to
Mr Presley. Keep him sweet, the big ape, Cyril thought.
- “And, heh, what a
trend you’ve started here, all these themed barbershops in Ole Zork. The
council owe you one for sure.”
- “Don’t mention
those arse-wipes to me!” Jasper boomed, he voice having (incredibly) gotten
louder. “It’s true what I started here and what do the cunts want me to do?”
Cyril shook his head indicating he had no idea what the town
elders had in mind for Jasper Keogh (and just as he’d expected the swearing had
started to spew from Jasper’s mouth making Cyril feel less of a knacker).
- “Those bastards
only want me to move me whole operation down to South Street . We are endeavouring to
bring more order to the Mint
Street South Street half-mile. That’s what they
said when they wrote to me. They want all the music barbers together and all
the sport barbers together etcetera et-bleedin-cetera. Wha’ I say is, it’s not
broke so don’t fix it. Over me dead body I’m movin’ from Mint Street . This is where it all began
and, as far as I’m concerned, this is where it all stays. Till it all ends!”
I’ll be damned, Cyril thought, am I becoming like Eric
Blair? Is my gift prophecy? This is exactly what I speculated upon on my way
here. I knew Town Hall would interfere and try to finesse things. They can’t
leave well enough alone. Too well paid they are, with too little to do. And now
this angry booming hulk here tells me they’ve already written to him to try to
set their changes in motion. It’s uncanny but it’s just what I surmised. Weird!
And Cyl felt slightly elated too; delighted that he’d been so right in his
predictions about the council’s moves. He said a fast mental prayer that God would
grant him the ability to foresee more events (but here Cyril checked himself
again, as he was starting to imagine predictions of the Last Day. My oh my you
must be insane, he thought, from guessing about Compulsory Decamping Orders to
soothsaying Armageddon, in one instant! Stop it now while sanity remains!).
- “I totally agree
with you Jasper. Those council folk are completely anal. They want everything
organised and regulated to the nth degree. Fuck ‘em (oh, the wildness of his cussing now). Your father left you this
shop. You’ve done him proud the way you’ve built it up. Don’t let those
bureaucrats screw you around. They wouldn’t have so many tourists in Ole Zork
if it wasn’t for you. Stay on Mint
Street !”
- “That’s exactly
what I’m gonna do,” Jasper shouted (dear
oh dear the man was loud!).
He began now to comb the Hennessy head in preparation for
cutting.
- “I love it here,”
he continued. “It’s where me Da started the business. I couldn’t imagine
working anywhere else. Only thing now is when I hear the name Mint Street , I
think of that little shit who has that filthy book out. Randy bleedin’ Mint.
Cheeky bastard! The things he said about Elvis. Not that I’ve read the book
meself. I would in me arse. Just heard reports like. I’m actually sickened that
my shop is on a street with the same name as that little swine. I tell ya, if I
got my hands on Randy he wouldn’t be randy anymore. Chop his prick off!”
Spitting this venom against the writer Mint, Jasper seemed
to grow happier in front of Cyl’s eyes. His scowl softened to what could be
called a gentle expression (if that were really possible on the vast menacing
crag that was the barber’s visage).
Once again with practiced aplomb Señor Keogh brandished his
crimping equipment and, without further ado, went goodo into Cyril’s barnet.
Cyl could see the locks from the left side of his head hitting the floor at
some speed, as Jasper combed and cut with the professionalism of a man who’d
been five years in the trade. Cyril was conscious of the mental note he’d made
to himself about The King and Mother’s
Ming. He wasn’t going to bring up that book in the presence of such a
presence as Jasper Keogh. The guy was just too big and too angry. He was in
fact the quintessential outraged fan.
Randy Mint had libelled the dead King with his smutty
allegations of incestuous mother lust and thousands of people were aching to
have Mint’s head on a plate. Cyril could think of no book in recent times
(apart maybe from The Devilish Limericks)
that had stirred such ill-feeling towards an author. Cyril in his wisdom had
decided that mentioning …and Mother’s
Ming in Jasper Keogh’s vicinity would only court trouble and had elected to
keep schtum re the tome. Only problem now, as he sat in Jasper’s chair with the
giant going at his hair and all the Elvis clutter thereabouts, was that Jasp
himself had brought up the contentious book and now surely expected Cyril (his
enthroned customer) to proffer a comment on Mr Mint and Elvis and Elvis’s
mother’s ming. This would require some tact on Cyril’s part. Make a diplomatic
comment and get off the subject. Try to get it across to Jasp that he (Cyl) had
an antipathy to Randy Mint just like all the other upset Presley lovers out
there (Cyril’s true views didn’t matter; why insult the hand that trims your
tresses?).
But then Cyril said it. As people are fond of saying: “it
just came out.” It was what he believed was true and so we may conclude that
maybe Cyril was a fool, unable in his life to tell white lies. He was looking
at Jasper’s pumpkin head in the mirror. The Keogh tongue protruded at the side
of the fat-lipped mouth, a sign that Jasp was in deep concentration upon
Cyril’s hair. And then Cyril piped up.
- “Actually, I think
Randy Mint was onto something about Elvis fancying his mother. Think he could
have a point as a matter of fact. I’ve actually read The King and Mother’s Ming and Mint outlines the facts and the
evidence very well. True, it’s not what people want to hear. I mean almost
everyone loves Elvis. But you know the old cliché Jasper: the truth hurts.
Besides it shouldn’t take away from the quality of the music; only if you let
it. Only if, when you’re hearing Heartbreak
Hotel, you start thinking of him, well, you know, wanking off about
Gladys…”
And with that the Hennessy voice trailed away as the
expression on Jasper’s face told Cyl to shut it right there. Cyril mentally
kicked himself. What the hell had possessed him to tell this huge cantankerous
man and loyal King of Rock ‘n’ Roll fan, in whose chair he was ensconced, at whose
mercy he was receiving a haircut, about his true views on the scandalous book
so besmirching of the good king’s name? Did he like to stir trouble on purpose?
Or had he actually been possessed? Had the words come down some ethereal pipe:
Cyril, the conduit to show a diehard King fan that their idol had feet of clay?
Then Cyl began to feel religious zeal. There was only one God after all and he
wasn’t (despite what some people thought) called Elvis Presley (but Cyril
reminded himself to pause here. His bullshit detector was refining all the
time, and he knew his thoughts were veering, at speed, into the realm of merde: a conduit for God? Honestly,
pah!).
Anyway, there wasn’t going to be much time to think now, as
listening to Jasper roar seemed the order of the day. The barber Keogh spoke
(correction shouted!).
- “What the fuck are
you sayin’, you agree with Mint and his filthy ideas?”
Jasper lay down the comb and scissors and placed his hands
on his hips. Cyril stayed rooted in the chair, looking with a wary eye, at
Jasper in the mirror (was that steam coming from his nostrils?).
- “Yiv got a bloody
cheek. This is the Elvis shrine you’re in. No one talks like that in here!”
Cyril could no longer hold Jasper’s stare. So he turned his
gaze upon his own mirror image and instantly thought how ridiculous he looked
as the cutting job was only half complete. Let’s hope he cools down and
finishes my head. Don’t want to land on the street with a thatch looking like
that. Better say something ameliorating:
- “Look, Jasper…”
And that was as far as Cyril Hennessy got in his attempt to
placate the renowned Jasper Keogh within the hallowed confines of his estimable
Presley shrine, for the leviathan now bellowed.
- “Look nuthin’. Get
ourra me shop NOW! I don’t know who ya think ya are comin’ in here and
insultin’ Elvis like that. I won’t have it!”
And Jasper whipped the gown from Cyril’s chest and spun the
chair to face the door.
- “Go on, gerrout!
You’re getting’ away lightly. You’re lucky I don’t Sweeney Todd ya. Where’s me
blade?”
And he shook his head in deep agitation.
- “Gerrout I said.
There’s the door. What the Jaysus are ya waitin’ for?”
For an infinitesimal moment Cyril considered a plea to
Jasper’s softer side. There was, after all, his haircut to be completed. But
Cyl quickly concluded that Jasp didn’t possess any fluffy sides to his being. Whatsoever! It looked like Mr H
would have to hit the pavement with his barnet unfinished. To argue with this
howling brute seemed out of the question.
So Cyril gathered himself off the chair and darted onto Mint Street with
Jasper’s last words ringing out behind him.
- “Don’t show your
face in here again ya little faggot. Yiv got some nerve. Some fuckin’ nerve!”
And so it was that Cyril Hennessy, still a bitter man, found
himself walking, where Mint Street
met South Street ,
in the town of Ole Zork ,
with a half-finished haircut on his head. He decided to pop into Bopper
Bradley’s and get the job finished. He could see Buddy Holly’s big eyes, in
those large frames, enticing him from a poster in Bopper’s window.
As for ever returning to Jasper Keogh and his Elvis shrine?
Well, a song lyric leapt into Cyril’s mind: “That’ll be the day!”
© Brian Ahern 2003
Wonderful blog! here
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