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
For about a year now he’d been attending, each month, a woman called
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
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
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’s 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
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
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.
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
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,
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
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
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 3 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
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
- “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
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 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
- “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
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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