You've Been Here Before

You’ve been here before. You tell Oscar you like the cut, and you do, actually. Hair wasn’t made to curtain your forehead, and Oscar is a wizard with scissors. You tip him well. You always tip him well. Barbers are surgeons in high demand. A sensitive craft. Underpaid, too. You ask him about the dog. You don’t ask him about the wife, about Missy, who has been bunking with a friend out of state ever since Oscar did time. You don’t know the friend’s gender.

           You don’t ask because you know better.

           Lopped off a sheepdog this time, Cal, Oscar says. We’re open more than once a season. Don’t be a stranger.

           You promise not to be. Oscar counts the cash. He only deals in cash. You notice him notice the tip. Oscar’s too coy to say anything, but he glows.

           You both volley goodbyes, and you go for the coatrack. The waiting room is empty save for the woman. She wears waxy pink sheets in what passes for a spring coat and thumbs a picture book at least a decade below her reading level. A salamander head surfaces from her neckline on the left side of her throat. A tattoo. She doesn’t know he’s peeking—the salamander, not you.

           You’ve seen her before. You’ve seen her in that chair, in this light. Spring has a way of painting a room through a window. Shining is too harsh a verb. Spring light settles like snow. It doesn’t slice like summer sun. It is indistinguishable from air. That’s how you know you’ve seen her. You’ve seen her painted in spring light.

           Your coat slides on, and you exit Oscar’s shop. You forget the woman just like you forget you don’t have to zip up. The cold is receding. Snow puddles in creamy slop throughout the parking lot. Chilled wind retreats through your fresh trim, tickles the roots. You think about hitting the bagel place before you reach your car. Your laptop is in the backseat. You could grab a bagel or a turnover and take up residence under one of the outdoor seating umbrellas and get some work done. Plow through client emails. Review the new ad reels.

           The outdoor seating is populated but not congested. You don’t like crowds. You know their faces like you might know the contestants from a past season of Survivor. None look your way. The strip is lethargic aside from the bagel place. Through Oscar’s windowfront, the woman in waxy drapes migrates to the back with Oscar. Out front a man glides by on the sidewalk, a man who could use a trim himself. He follows the walk to the bagel place. His cat plods alongside him on a leash. You think this odd but not as odd as you should. You can’t place him, but you know this man.

           Your stomach warps the longer you think about it, and you settle in behind the wheel. Your insides continue to garble words, but you don’t know the language. You turn the ignition and blow through slush to leave the lot. You’ve lost your appetite.

#

           Oscar billows the cape over your head and wraps your neck in sanex strip. It’s been an inch and a half in hair years, and here you are, not being a stranger.

           I’ll make a rug out of you one day, Cal. Would you believe me if I said I kept all the hair in the back? Swept it all up and bagged it?

           You do not believe him, though you wouldn’t put it past him. This you don’t let on to, but you laugh and ask about the dog as if Oscar didn’t always give the same answer. You keep Oscar happy. He’s got sheers at your head. Best to keep him level. One mistake and you’re waiting a month for your botched do to grow back, or worse, you’re walking around with a snipped ear.

           You tip him at the counter. Another fine job. You tell him so. Old Oscar’s in the best of spirits. Grey stubble nibbles at his sideburns and his forehead started folding since he got out of the clink, but he has fire in him yet, not to mention the steadiest hands.

           You coat up and don’t ask about the wife out of state. You know better.

           You got motor in your step today. You’re late for a conference call. The door fights contrary wind when you yank it open, but that’s as far as you get.

           You didn’t see her come in, but there she is. Same seat. Same picture book. Everette’s First Field Trip. The woman flips the pages with an aimless, loitering interest. Pale pink wax coat. Matching sunhat. Hair that doesn’t look the slightest inch shorter. You search and search for the salamander, but he’s asleep and hidden under collarbone—if he’s there at all—and you’ve officially spent too long in the doorway.

           Slush melts through to your toes on your way to the car. Your laptop is in the back. You don’t think about the bagel place today, but you feel its gravity.

           Your car rumbles to life and you pull out of your space. A pinprick on the back of your neck alerts you to something to your left on the sidewalk. You look. The woman in wax is gone, her outline fuzzy and ghostlike in Oscar’s chair like looking at someone through dark fluids. The sidewalk remains vacant. You haven’t thought of the passerby man and his cat since your last trim, but you do now.

#

           You wait ten minutes before Oscar takes you.

           Never make a friend wait and never mow your lawn drunk. Oscar guffaws mid-snip. He centers your face in the mirror and measures your bangs with his sausage of a finger. You’ve seen him do it before.

           There isn’t much to cut, but Oscar takes his time. He earns his tip. You always tip Oscar.

           You keep tabs on the waiting room. Empty, as usual. Soft blue sky beyond the glass. Scuttle clouds. Winter droppings in the lot.

           Oscar finishes, dusts you off like you’re an antique lamp, and rings you up. You pay cash. Old reliable Cal. Economy could crash on my head and your business alone would keep us afloat. Don’t ever bald.

           You say you’ll try your best, and you mean it.

           The woman with the salamander etched into her skin doesn’t show. The waiting seats are full ghost town. This loosens a knot in your gullet you didn’t realize you carried. What would you have done had you seen her? You don’t know, but you’re glad the deliberation is off the table.

           You bundle up and wade through brown snowmelt. Your laptop is in the back. The afternoon overfill at the bagel place is spilling into the outdoor seating patio.

           You wade some more and shake out your new hair once you reach the bagel place. The scent of nuts and grains ride hot and toasty in the air. You peruse the glass pane guarding the pastries and breads and other carbs. Two of the lemon bars, please. The ones with the red drizzle. Strawberry, you assume. You pay. You don’t pay cash.

           You pick a seat outside under an umbrella. The patio is clearing out, quickly but not quickly enough. You stuff your ears with buds. No music, but it discourages strangers. You open your laptop. A new ad reel for three clients distributed across two hundred websites. Thrice as many emails. All blurs together. You’ve done it all before. You’ve done it all before in this very chair, here, at the bagel place.

           You’ve been here before.

           The patio clears. Vehicles rev and depart from the lot. Lethargy settles over the strip. Only a handful of rogue legs shadow the lot and sidewalk in crisscrossing slivers. You don’t people-watch. They are background dressing to you. You don’t notice and you don’t care until one particular shadow plods past Oscar’s shop and alongside the bagel place—a shadow fractured into four limbs. Four paws.

           You peek over the lid of your laptop. The man walking his cat is rounding the strip. He still needs a trim. Shaggy and Woodstock to the core, it flows to his shoulders, where the scruff ends and Men’s Warehouse takes over.

           He disappears inside the bagel place. There’s no line, but he takes an eternity. You wait for him. You don’t know if he exited out the back entrance or if he’s buttering his bagel indoors, but you suspect he’s not. You suspect he’ll be joining you. You would bet money you’ve waited for this man before. You know it like you know the day of the week. You trust it’s Monday even though no one can prove it.

           The cat precedes him onto the patio. Steam rises from the coffee in his hand. At first you pretend you weren’t staring, but he doesn’t pretend. He grabs two chairs, one for the cat, one for himself—at your table. His beard creases into ripples when he smiles. It’s inviting. You’re invited. As if it’s his table.

           You’ve been here before.

           Cal Faraday. The man shakes his head. Been awhile—well, from a certain point of view. You look good. Truman—he misses you.

           Truman, the cat, doesn’t show it.

           You lean back, close your laptop, and keep your distance. Have we met? You consider he’s a client. Maybe you met at one of the networking events you no longer attend. Or any of the things you no longer attend.

           So that’s where we’re at. The man’s mouth twitches and he throws back coffee. Cal, oh, Cal. Yes and no. We have met, and I dare say you know that. We met right here, right now.

           You don’t understand, but you don’t need to tell him that.

           I know you won’t know until after the fact, so I’ll get the essentials out of the way. My name is Garfield. I’ve been watching. Yes, I’ve been watching you, Cal. He points. He grins. He invites. You’re a bit slow to catch on although there’s not much to catch. It’s like a bad haircut. You won’t know until it’s over, and by then it’ll be too late, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

           Ants invade your skin. You don’t notice, but you’re bunching muscles in your calves and abdomen. Fight or Flight kicking in, and you chose Flight. But you remain seated. You do this because you know this man. You’ve seen him before. You’ve met him here, at the bagel place, at this table, in these exact circumstances. You just didn’t know it. Didn’t know until it happened. Deja vu.

           Tell me what you want. You don’t like confrontation.

           To ease your ride. You have this feeling, don’t you? You know it’s about to happen. Not premonitory. No, not quite. It’s like—

           Like I’ve been here before.

           Yes, Cal. The man who calls himself Garfield smacks the table in delight. Truman doesn’t flinch. We’re moving past denial. Now, only you can help me help you. Only you have lived it before. I need to know—what’s going to happen at Oscar’s Barbershop?

           You tense. Your bones rub together.

           Shouldn’t you be telling me? Who are you? You pause. What are you?

           Garfield reaches for your hand. You let him. Cold hands. I’m a friend. Now, what do you know about Oscar Johnson?

           You hesitate like a kid before a flu shot. In the end, you tell him. You don’t see why not. Public knowledge is public.

           Garfield sips coffee. He shakes his head. Oscar’s never been to prison. Never separated with his wife either. He looks away and swishes coffee like it’s mouthwash. Or not yet.

           What are you saying, then? That I’m psychic? That I’m making it up?

           Or you’ve lived it before.

           Your teeth rattle behind a nervous grin. You rise from your seat. Nice meeting you, Mr. Garfield.

           He grabs you by the arm. Something like thunder grates your spine and makes your toes and fingers tingle. What does Oscar go to prison for, Cal?

           You hesitate. You never knew the details. In fact, you don’t remember how long ago he got out. Manslaughter.

           You break away from Garfield. His coffee spills. He tips it upright in a hurry. You avoid eyes. You stare past him. A small blot dribbled from the cup. Not coffee. It looks red. Red like strawberry—or some more morbid fluid.

#

           You recline in Oscar’s chair. You sweat. You sweat hard. He wraps your neck in sanex strip, but you choke and he has to loosen it with one of his sausage fingers. You don’t tell him not to forget your sideburns. You don’t ask about the dog.

           Enough hair on this one to make a lion jealous. Oscar lops off layers from the top. The sheers dance close to your ears.

           You want to ask about the wife—test Garfield’s theory—but you don’t dare distract the man at work. Not with those blades so close to your eyes, your throat. One bad slip and you wouldn’t know until it was too late. You sit still as possible, but telling yourself to sit still works about as well as telling yourself not to think about an elephant.

           Oscars snips. He snips and thins and trims until he doesn’t. You ask why he stopped.

           Dull scissors, my friend. Don’t cut with dull scissors and don’t mow the lawn drunk. Not safe. I’ll be right back. You want a water while I’m in back? You look like you ran a marathon.

           You decline. Oscar scoots into the back. You don’t ask why he doesn’t keep spare supplies up front, and you don’t ask for permission when you rip the cape and sanex strip off and stagger into the waiting room, hair frazzled and hyperventilating. You count your breaths. You lean into the windowfront. Soft blue sky. Slush mounds speckle the lot like anthills. You don’t know why there’s still snow. You don’t know why it’s still spring. You only know it’s Monday because you’ve been here before.

           A woman asks if you’re alright. You tell her you are, not entirely untruthful.

           It’s her. You’re surprised that you’re surprised. Of course, it’s her. Pale pink wax coat. Sunhat. Everette’s First Field Trip sits tented on the kitty table beside the magazine rack.

           You want to say something, but by the time you’re done untying your tongue Oscar is back. Cal, I wasn’t gone that long, was I?

           You wave him off. You agree to pay. Then you lie. You lie about a conference call. Have to go in a hurry. Emergency. Oscar nods. He doesn’t ask questions. He rings you up. You pay cash. You tip well.

           The woman goes to the chair with Oscar right away. You intend to leave, but first you collapse onto one of the waiting chairs and feel your lungs swell. Big, slow, consensual swells. Your body adjusts. Inner parts and fluids drip and gear into proper place. You run hands through your unfinished trim. You almost laugh, and a cold trickle of relief drains through you.

           You think to watch the windowfront, but Garfield doesn’t show.

           This makes you feel lighter. Unshackled somehow. You stare out the glass with blissful newness, like a lens lifted. Maybe, for once, you haven’t been here before. A virgin day.

           You keep looking for Garfield when you zip your coat. You yank the door open. You step out onto vacant sidewalk.

A garbled scream slips out before it closes.

#

           You find the woman with scissors in her neck. Another barber tells Oscar not to pull it out, that it might spring an artery. You and the barber hold Oscar back.

           She spasms. Her crotch darkens and urine sours the air. Her eyes flutter like all the future days she will never live are flashing before her. You’ve never seen an animal flail in a claw trap, but you believe it looks something like this.

           An honest accident. A phone rang. Oscar answered. The chair swiveled with the woman in it. Oscar had the scissors clamped, the blades hugging, and jerked away from the phone at the wrong moment, the wrong angle, and with too much gusto.

           When Oscar calms, you and the other barber back off. You stand there dumb as a deer in headlights before lowering to the floor to hold the woman’s hand. She squeezes, but she doesn’t see you. Her eyes already glaze with scenes from the Here After. The salamander convulses over the groove of her collarbone, blood spattered across it.

           She’s long gone when paramedics arrive. They roll a sheet over the body and load it up into an ambulance. The procedure is unceremoniously efficient.

           You vomit outside over the sidewalk curb. A paramedic pats you on the back. He has his hair tied up in a bun and a firm heft to his hand. You clear dribble from your mouth. You haven’t been here before, and you wish you never had been.

           Good thing it wasn’t you this time, the paramedic says.

           He hops into the back of the ambulance and lifts the sheet to see the face, and for the first time you see his. You’ve seen him before. At the bagel place. With Truman.

           The paramedics lift you into a stretcher after you faint.

END