"The Barber of Summerville
By Joseph Quarles
There was not a cloud in the sky, and the intense sunlight shown down upon the town square of Summerville. In the center of the square, the antebellum court house squatted like a huge dun colored toad in the shimmering heat waves of the July sun. Just to the west of the courthouse, on the corner wedged between a hardware store and diner, a barber shop sat dark and closed.
Inside the small, dimly lit shop, a single barber’s chair sits in the center of the room. Hanging impotently down the side of the barber’s chair is a stropping belt, glazed from years of use. The powdered pomade and talc that had once tickled the nostrils of former customers now sit in their battered tins untouched. Scattered issues of “Field and Stream” lay splayed about on end tables, like dead birds. Ed Ghint, the owner, is not there. His home is being rifled by relatives, and an auction is in the works.
Things were not always as such for Ed. A few weeks earlier, he had been following his usual routine. He would open his store bright and early, sweep the sidewalk, and hold court over the last real bastion of male bonding left in the area. He was extremely good at his calling. He paid meticulous attention to the block cuts and sideburns he administered, just touching the edges of his patron’s freshly shorn hair lines with an electric razor and using the flair of an artist applying the last touches on a masterpiece.
If it is one thing a small town is adept at, is knowing what the neighbors are doing or who they are doing it to. Gossip began to make the circuits of the town. All was not well with Ed. It started simply enough, one day he did not show up for work. A second day passed and still no Ed. On the third day, he finally showed up at the shop. A few curious men ventured within and sat for awhile. Ed seemed very jerky in his movements. He laughed too loud and long, with an almost shrill giggle, in response to his patrons poorly told jokes. Nobody stayed long.
At the end of the week, Ed walked into town and was drenched in sweat by the time he arrived at the square. His nearly bald pate burnt by the sun and the fringe of his remaining coal black hair was pasted to the back of his skull. Instead of opening his shop, he walked to the Co-op. He made his way into the garden center where he stared at a John Deere riding mower. He walked up to the register and wrote out a check for the full amount of the mower. It was a lot of money, so the manager, a rather hateful man named Mr. Bracey, came up to approve the transaction. Bracey did not like Ed. He considered him a bit too “light in the loafers” for his liking. However, Ed’s credit was good and he could not refuse him. Then, Ed told him he was going to drive it home and he needed to buy some fuel.
Bracey pushed the lawn tractor out to Tire Center pump and obliged Ed with a full tank of gas. Bracey even paid for it, staring the entire time at Ed, wondering what had gotten into him. Ed sat on the mower, started it up, and waved at Bracey and the tire crew. He drove the mower through the parking lot to the edge of the road, then using a left hand turn signal, turned right on the shoulder of the road and drove out of sight. Everyone at the Tire Center stood gawking until Bracey turned and shouted at the crew to get back to work.
For an entire week, Ed was seen driving back and forth to town, waving at passing traffic and grinning like an opossum. At the end of the week, Mr. Bracey and two of the burliest men from the Co-op warehouse showed up in Ed’s driveway with a truck and ramp. They promptly repossessed the mower from Ed. His check had bounced like a rubber ball. He just stood, stared, and wore a smile like a cheap Halloween mask, while Bracey and the men drove off with the mower in the truck. For a few days he remained out of sight, but not out of the minds of the now befuddled community.
Sunday morning came and the heat wave finally broke with the blessing of an early morning shower. The venerable Baptist church on the east side of the square was filled with worshipers in their Sunday best. The minister, the good Reverend Wright, was finishing up a sermon that had for once not put half the congregation to sleep. Outside, a rainbow had appeared in the sky, and Ed walked up along the sidewalk. He was naked and mumbling to himself. He stood for a moment in front of his shop, his lean, stark white body reflected in the puddles around him. He turned and walked over to the middle of the intersection, where the Baptist church sat on the corner. He then stood under the traffic signal. He crossed his arms and rocked back and forth on the heels of his feet, as though contemplating a problem.
Inside the church, the sermon came to an end and the Reverend Wright released his flock early. He was hungry and wanted to beat the Church of Christ members to the good seats at the Shoneys by the interstate. The crowd surged to the doors and spilled out onto the steps. A woman screamed and the crowd log jammed at the sidewalk. Mothers covered the eyes of their children, while the men tried to shove the crowd back into the church. Ed stood grinning and waving from the middle of the street. He then looked down and picked a bit of lint from his navel and stared at it quizzically.
The cluster of men at the top of the now mostly cleared steps, stood for a moment arguing, and then shoved the Reverend Wright out onto the steps with the admonishment of, “What the hell do you think we pay you for?” from one of the elders. The good Reverend then took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his snow white hair, straightened his dark blue tie, walked down the steps, and made a bee line right up to Ed.
“Brother Fred, please let me help you, we can talk about this inside,” he said to Ed,
Someone hissed from the top of the steps, “His name is Ed, dammit!”
Reverend Wrights blue eyes closed for a moment in frustration. He then looked at Ed and saw the situation for what it really was.
“Ed, I don’t know what has happened to you. I can tell you’re really sick. I want to help you, I really do. I’ll get you clothes, food, money, whatever you need, but man, we gotta get you inside,” Reverend Wright pleaded.
He then held out his hand and looked Ed in the face and said, “Please.”
Ed stood for a moment, his face reddening and scrunched up in concentration. Suddenly, an abrupt blast of flatulence erupted from his skinny shanks. He looked at the Reverend and then shrieked, “You want some of this! Huh?!” Ed’s hand shot out and grabbed the Reverend Wright’s crotch, squeezing his testicles, and then yanked down hard. The Reverend managed a noise not unlike a boiling teakettle, and staggered back, hunched over. The Reverend then roared and in a purple faced fury lumbered forward and punched Ed square in the nose.
Ed’s nose popped and sprayed a gout of bright red blood. He then collapsed on the ground twitching, while the Reverend fell to the ground writhing beside him. The crowed surged anew down the steps and formed along the sidewalk. Nobody said a word. A sheriff deputy’s patrol car drove slowly around the corner, and abruptly stopped. The blue lights flickered on. A burly deputy, with a rather severe crew cut and mirrored sunglasses exited the vehicle. He hitched his pants up, shifting his pendulous gut, and sauntered forward. He stopped a few feet from the two groaning men, spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the road and stared. He looked up at the aghast, silent crowd and said, “What in the HELL is ya’ll doin here?”
Eventually, an ambulance came and carried Ed off to the hospital for treatment and observation. The crowd dispersed, and the Reverend Wright had to be taken in a later ambulance to the hospital for treatment of a rupture.
About a month later, the same deputy who had driven up to the bizarre church fracas helped a maiden aunt of Ed’s break down the door to his poorly kept farmhouse. Once the door was down, the deputy stood in shock at the inside of the residence. The aunt quickly scurried back out onto the porch where she nearly fainted.
The deputy stared at the attempt of a domestic tableau in the living room. Sitting around in several chairs and a moth eaten sofa, were department store mannequins dressed in dusty1950’s clothing. What appeared to be a mother mannequin and several child ones, sat with drawn on cheerful faces, apparently staring at television with an axe buried in it. In the kitchen, the deputy found another similarly dressed mannequin family sitting at a dinner table loaded with dirty, fly blown dishes.
Finally in the bed room, the deputy discovered a rickety bed with a pile of soiled bedding on top of it. The pile had what appeared to be a human shape buried underneath it. A tuft of blonde hair stuck out from under the ragged blanket and sheets. The room smelled of spoiled cabbage. The deputy froze for a moment. His heart was pounding and beads of sweat were running down his face. He approached the heap. Reaching out, he shakily pulled back the blankets, revealing a mop of blonde hair and a face with the mouth cut out. He looked down and saw the crotch was also mutilated. He stared at the mannequin a moment longer, and then stomped out of the house, spitting a stream of tobacco on the wall along the way.
The townsfolk never saw Ed Ghint, the barber again. He resides at the State Mental Health Hospital, where he continues to chop away at the padding in his room with his imaginary axe and has conversations with his “family.”
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