Roy the Barber I

Roy’s Skin had the tone of mild coffee, smooth, warm, and always emitting a decadent aroma of aftershave and spearmint. The scent would linger in Trvevor’s nostrils, on his clothes and in his mind for hours, sometimes days. And with that unforgettable scent, he could picture lonely Roy, silently cutting away, carefully examining his lines, skillfully applying the shaving cream, tapping the razor clean after every slow stroke. 

Trevor could see Roy In his lonely one bedroom unit, the moonlight shining over his sheets as he lay their alone, hands clasped behind the shaven backside of his skull. His Dark Eyes wide in the night staring through the ceiling into black holes of secrecy. Trevor knew that Roy would be all alone because his fiancé, Trisha, who he had been engaged with for 5 years in counting, would have been out working at the hospital. 

God had never comforted him but only confounded Roy in his lonliness. He knew he was there but he couldn’t understand why or how. Trevor could see him smoking in the darkness, his chiseled chest peeking above the blanket, glistening with sweat and the streetlights streaming in through the window. 

Roy was probably thinking about his mother. He was probably thinking how he should call her tomorrow, despite the constant disappointment he heard in her voice anytime he did. He knew she’d die soon anyway. Living all alone, isolated from everyone aside from her daily phone call with her 97 year old cousin Wanda, there was no way she could keep it up more than 10, maybe 15 years longer.  

Trevor knew the off-hours at Goldcuts barber shop He knew that 2 30 pm on a Thursday would guarantee him the quiet afternoon emptiness, the distant hum of a drink refrigerator and slow reggae music, dampened by spurts of the electric clipper and the precise clacking of metal scissors and Roy’s soft, baritone voice, every so often leading him back into some pointless conversation about the latest weather report or something else trivial. Trevor always made sure to save up a good amount of beard and hair to guarantee to longest possible amount of time spent there at Roy's shop. But, he was careful to never let himself appear disheveled in any sort of way, either. He showered beforehand and sprayed his good cologne. The one with a slight purple tinge to the bottle, frosted and shaped as a chiseled man’s body which he reserved only for Saturday brunches, formal occasions or the times he went for a haircut. He got as many workouts in that week as humanly possible. He gave his hair a light combing and he even trimmed his body hair just in case. He knew how much Roy loved baseball so he spent all morning studying the box scores over his coffee and grapefruit.

The morning commotion was bright and bustling outside Trevor’s luxury condo. It was still before 9 and the rest of the city seemed to be smiling back at him with glassy self satisfied grins as porous as his. Trevor took his non shedding terrier Adrian for his usual rounds by the condo building towards the dewy open field where the rest of his condo members, and the several others surrounding it congregated with their respective pooches. There was a strategically placed gourmet coffee shop and green smoothie bar at either end of the posh little parquet.  

All around was the bright smell of summer and the lingering dampness of morning air evaporating into the beaming sun and clouds of fruity flavoured tobacco vapour mingling with percolating espresso and the garbage disposal truck doing its Thursday rounds. Across the park stood Paul and Fred, and after noticing them immediately, Trevor cooly averted his eyes. 

The glint of summer light pierced into his memory banks and Trevor and Paul were suddenly 15 again boarding through the park after midnight.

As always, Trevor rode far behind, marvelling at the little tricks Paul would do, showing off for nobody. Trevor had only just picked up his first skateboard a few months prior, in search of a reason to escape his parent’s nightly blow ups. 

Before that, Paul would’ve never given Trevor the time of day. Paul had no time for a chess club, collar wearing, straight A student who also fit in with all the other rich kids. Despite that, Trevor had always admired Paul from a far. Even from a distance, the black void of Paul’s cool, sardonic gaze could reach the depths of Trevor’s own suffering. Even so, Trevor continued on with his prosperous high school career, until eventually his world began to collapse. 

The fighting between Trevor's parents had never became known to him in all his years. They’d managed to keep it well hidden. He had never known how the nightly silence at the dinner table had truly been a symptom of the complete tumult between them. It had never occurrred to Trevor that his father’s essentially permanent residency in the basement had been abnormal in some way. And for all those years he had somehow stayed oblivious to the unprecedented lengths of time it took his mother to take out the trash every night, or the smell of cigarettes badly masked by perfume as she returned on into the kitchen afterwards while Trevor ate ice cream sundaes. But, after the separation was announced to him, all those obvious clues stared him straight in the face. 

Though the two had never spoken in their lives, It was as if Paul knew exactly what was happening when he found Trevor, late one evening stooped against the brick wall in the parking lot of their high school. 

Trevor’s eyes were wet with tears, and he was thumbing a cigarette, staring at it with such deep focus he did not notice Paul’s shadow above him. It was the first warm spring evening of their freshmen year, and the neatly manicured gardens of nearby houses were beginning to bloom. The evening sun was a golden purple haze , in perfect view from the brick wall Trevor huddled up against. 

As Trevor looked up at Paul the dying sunlight radiated in his eyes, exposing them for all their blackened hurt, and immediately signalling to Paul that he had met his perfect accomplice. 

“You gonna just stare at the thing?”

Paul said, glancing down at the cigarette between

Trevor's fingers

“Well,”

Trevor said, gasping back his sobs, causing his voice to squawk and choke as he went on 

“I, uh, don’t have a light” 

Paul laughed and shook his head, giving Trevor a smouldering gaze

“Come with me.” 

“Where?”

Trevor asked. 

But at that point, Paul was already on his board, and Trevor was following suit. 

The sun had just about been completely overtaken by the night sky as Paul led them up ontop a dumpster bin, perched next to a stoop ontop of the school building. From the stooop Paul led Trevor to a ladder that took them to the top roof of the school. 

Trevor hesitated as Paul was about half way up. It only took once glance from Paul for Trevor to start making his way up. 

Trevor studied the redness of Paul’s lips pressed towards the orange filter of the cigarette. He was entranced by the orange street lamp glare that encapsulated Paul’s profile. He studied carefully the way Paul gripped the cigarette between his knuckles, and the slow. Heavy inhalation’s he took as he lit it up. Trevor felt heat rushing to his cheeks, and a slippery icy splendour all over his skin. He’d always loved the smell of tobacco. He knew it well from his fathers coat. He especially loved it as it puffed out of Paul’s mouth, enveloping him in a dreamy fog. Paul handed home the cigarette. Trevor inhaled was hard as he could. Hard enough that Paul’s eyes watered just watching him do it. The cigarette smoke funneled directly to his head. He lost feeling in his face, and his entire body slumped against the brick wall as he went for another drag. 

The cigarette craze quickly moved to weed, and then to whatever else Paul brought to school that day. There was no more chess club for Trevor. Paul pierced his lip for him. It got infected, but Trevor kept it in anyway. He saw so little of his parents, and between their divorce proceedings and constant bitterness, they never even noticed it. The only point of Trevor going to school was for drug runs and notice of parties. Otherwise they were at Paul’s mothers, a haven of bitch stick cigarette brands, Picasso paintings and kittens. She also had a sizeable record collection and a cupboard full of cereal with nothing else but questionable, dated cartons of half drank milk in the refrigerator. 

Trevor could remember the feeling being stoned before even taking anything, sitting on the couch during long afternoons with Paul. It was the friction of both their feet on the same carpet, beside eachother on the couch. The friction of loading up bong hits and mistakenly reaching too close over to the others knee. The friction of looking into Paul’s eyes a little to long as he told his stories. The friction of recognition that Paul was also holding his gaze. The friction of thinking that maybe it was mutual. 

With the school year coming to a close, party season had reached its height. The Dillard family home had been one of the best places to be, as the Dillards were swingers and never minded leaving their house for a weekend to spend at some lottle swinger orgy convention up in the countryside 

The kitchen was a cesspool of rum, perfume enhanced sweat and indecipherable bass heavy electronic frequencies. There was dancing and vomiting and young men jockeying for position while the young ladies fought for attention. Drug dealers peddled their drugs, the drugie chicks flirted their way to get them and jealous boyfriends challenged the surrounding guys preying on their girls to fights. Heather Stapleton got too drunk and offered a blowjob to Terry Brenner in front of his ex, Charlotte Milken, who called Heather a whore out loud in front of everyone as

heather and Terry headed to the basement where all the other hookups were taking place. The basement consisted of two bedrooms with locks and a main room with several couches opposite eachother and a big screen tv. There was also a bathroom that was big enough to house a small family. Heather and Terry couldn’t get into any of the rooms and so took to half of one of the couches, while some other unrecognizeable couple in the dimness were fucking. 

Trevor Loved the anonymity of it all. The music had no sound, the people had no faces. The words had no meaning. He found himself kissing a girl in a closet and not enjoying it. She was reaching down his pants. Her mouth tasted of gin which already gave Trevor the urge to vomit, not including the already pungent amount of vomit build up inside the the girl's esophagus. Rosa kissed him harder. She moved her hands more aggressively around his waist and under his shirt. Trevor tried to match the aggressiveness, but his lack of enthusiasm just made him more limp the more effort he put into it. His eyes were closed. She stole a glance at him. His face was a mix between the grimace of a dental patient and a whimpering dog. Trevor tried thinking about the movie he had seen with Paul that week with the sexy femme fatale who gets banged in the end. He remembered her black hair and parting red lips as she got fucked on the desk as if it was in a porno. Her moans. All the power she had shown the entire film, all the elegance, strength and prowess, suddenly surrendered as she became completely dominated by the film's hero. Trevor felt his fly start going down. 

“I can’t do this”

He said

Waves of humiliation subsumed him from his feet up to his chest. Her face was a pillow, smothering him to his death. 

Rosa continued, despite him pulling away. 

“I’m seeing someone” 

He said. 

She continued. 

He felt his teeth lock down and his fists clenched. His mother. His mother was there in the closet, puffing her bitch sticks into his mouth. Her flowery, nauseating, headache perfume was his mother’s. The way her nails pressed into his back and the way her cheeks were soft as paper, the flesh as easy as a sponge cake. It all sickened him to a rage. His shaking arms pushed forwards and Rosa hit the wall with a crack. 

And quickly, Trevor was out of the room. 

Drunk, his vision was blurred and he moved involuntarily and unsteadily, bolting directly Into Henry Dawkins, the school's star linebacker. Henry was a 30 year old trapped in a 15 year olds body. Trevor’s face rattled as it lunged directly into Henry’s fist as Henry went for a sip of his beer, the contents of which splashed out of the red cup and directly onto Trevor as he toppled to the ground. 

“Fucking idiot”

Said Henry  

By the time Trevor made it to his feet a commotion had gathered. The onlookers were surprised, and rather excited to see that Trevor’s nose was bleeding from the collision. 

“Chess club fag. Look at him. He’s bleeding like a little bitch. Boy, what a delicate little thing he is.”

Said Henry. 

The tears in his eyes blurred everything except for the empty green beer bottle on the sticky floor in front of him.  As his hand reached out and grabbed it, the tears streamed even quicker, and hotter, until it became impossible to see anything but the massive hulking figure of the distracted Henry, who laughed as his excited onlookers surrounded him to see the spectacle. 

Blinded with rage, the only confirmation of his strike’s success came from the crash of the glass breaking from impact with Henry’s face and the shrieks of horror coming from all the girls who witnessed the assault, and the ensuing bloody stream that formed thick puddles on the floor surrounding Henry’s skull. 

Despite the teary eyes and the palpating heart beats that arrested his consciousness, Trevor managed to find his board, along with a half opened bottle of whiskey, and to get out the front door before anyone had anytime to react. 

The air was cool and sobering as he breezed down there street. Suddenly the conclusion of what he had just done arrived in his mind. He contemplated the possibility that he would be murdered his next day at school. After all the pain he had dealt with that year, the prospect of death seemed uneventful. Still, it was enough to completely evleop him and distract him from Paul who boarded right up from behind him. 

Trevor stopped with a startle. 

“That was some twisted shit.”

Said Paul. 

Trevor blushed, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if he was proud or ashamed, and was waiting for Pauls judgment to come to decide for himself. 

“My place?” 

Said Paul. 

Soon they were back in Paul’s mother’s house, inside Paul’s bedroom. Paul’s mother often stayed out late Friday nights, or didn’t come home at all. Paul had a new Crowbar cd playing. The floor was littered with clothing and cigarette butts. Together the two traded bong hits and swings of Whiskey and hits of cigarettes with little words between them. Trevor always felt enlivened by the silence in an unsettling way. It was always there. The two spoke little about personal dramas and even less about public gossip. The little exchanges of words were usually brief and gave way to little more than a few sentences of actual conversation. 

“Hungry?”

“Nope”

“Me neither”

The two sat close together, and Paul rolled a joint, licking it and sealing it as he went on to speak. 

“That girl, Sonia...”

He said, watching as Trevor scratched the back of his neck. 

“Fucking all over me”

Trevor nodded without saying anything, not even glancing up from the carpet. 

“How about you” said Paul, popping the spliff into his mouth and lighting it. 

“Any chicks there?” 

“Before your little outburst, that is?”

Said Paul, coughing out a puff of smoke. 

“Well, yeah actually. “

Said Trevor. 

“There was one.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Said Paul, handing Trevor the joint. 

“I forget her name, actually.”

Said Trevor. 

Paul smirked, shaking his head. 

“What?” Asked Trevor. 

“You forget her name?”

Said Paul. 

“Um, yeah. I do. “

Said Trevor, glaring up towards him. 

“Alright then”

Said Paul, chuckling. 

“What? What’s funny?”

Said Trevor, his face burning. 

“You know what.”

“No really, I don’t”. 

“There’s no girl”

Said Paul, taking the joint from out of Trevor's fingers

“You’re just making it up”

Trevor froze for a moment before speaking. 

“Whatever you say, Paul”

“You know it’s true.” 

Said Paul. 

“What makes you so sure?”  

“Because,”

Said Paul, meeting Trevor’s eye. 

The flame of the joint flared as he took a long drag. 

“You're saying that just to hide what you really want to say”

Said Paul. 

Trevor felt his throat close, and the words barely escaping his mouth. 

“And what’s that?” 

Said Trevor

“You want me”. 

Said Paul. 

His breathing was heavy, and close up against Trevor’s face. Trevor didn’t move as Paul came closer to him. Within an instant, Paul took Trevor’s head into his hands and kissed him. Trevor closed his eyes and surrendered himself as Paul pushed him down into the sofa, ripping off his clothes with haste. 

Trevor didn’t put up any objection. The whiskey and the sound of the heavy music mixed with Paul’s grunts carried him away in a drift. It wasn’t right until Paul was about to enter inside him that he whispered shrilly into Trevor’s ear:

“If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you”