Beyond the forest on comet tails South of North Star near a state mental hospital and directly across Nugget Sound-Bite from Paradise Prison full criminals doing hard time, he passed through a small conservative town of 1,001 retired military guys and gals. Every house displayed a large American flag on its stoop.
Blowing in the wind.
He needed a haircut.
Incorporated in 1848 by religious fanatics from Siberia, Moon had a city hall, asphalt tennis court with a broken net, a restored drugstore with Native American artifacts and pharmaceutical histories, public security department and Indian tribal cultural center museum.
There was a post office, dentist, bank, small market, church, pub and deli - a converted gas station selling high octane java to drivers - well manicured lawns with roses and annuals, an upscale dining establishment and ferry service to neighboring islands.
A heavy-set blond woman, wearing wrap around sunglasses, blue jean shorts, a white t-shirt and tennis shoes hesitated at the door of a barbershop.
She was on Insane Street. A red and white striped barber pole rotated in its glass container outside the gray one room building needing a fresh coat of paint. Inside were three black leather barber chairs, two metal folding chairs and outdated Hunting & Flagellating magazines. The barber had a neatly trimmed beard. Out back a small dog kennel sat near a rusting van with a fundamentalist religious bumper sticker, "Jesus Loves U."
“Can I get a trim?” she asked.
“Sure,” said the barber.
“How long will it be?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Do you take checks?”
“Sure.”
She went out, sat smoking in her car for a minute, got out, slammed the door, came back in and sat down. The barber was finishing a customer.
She started talking.
“I’m taking sixteen to eighteen pills a day,” she said to no one in particular. She turned toward an old man reading the obituaries in a paper-thin daily newspaper.
“I knew it would never happen with the guy at work,” she said. “He started seeing someone else on another floor of the hospital. He cheated ME. He never really opened his true heart. He put people under. He was a divorced anesthesiologist with a three-year old kid he never saw. His ex-wife was a lawyer and they made some deal, an arrangement about life without parole. He loved me. But he wasn’t in love with me. That’s the difference. Do you live here?”
He looked up. “Yes, twenty years now. I think you are a strong person.”
“Actually, I’m a wimp.”
He laughed knowing better.
“True,” she said, “I’m just average.”
The man told her things. He influenced her. They were vulnerable. Her old history of fear, anger and resentment was about trust, loss of self and manipulating men to get them involved, in bed with a warm security blanket and then out of her life.
The old man knew about martyrs and the futility of rescuing women. Being human they were both predators. He was available without making her uncomfortable no pressure no expectations.
He was willing to be vulnerable.
She asked his age.
“All I know is that I’m retired from the Army. After that I worked at the state hospital.”
“Is it true they tie them down there? I heard they kept people tied down for fifteen years.”
“No. I never saw anyone tied down unless they were married to their insanity.”
“Are you married to your insanity?” she asked him.
“My wife died two years ago. We celebrated our 50th anniversary and she died two years later.”
“Will you get married again? Insanity is a blessing.”
“No. I won’t get married again. Marriage is like a business deal with bad sex.”
She took off her glasses revealing layers of dark smudged eyeliner.
Trucks loaded with cement, paper products and garbage rumbled past the open door throwing dust into air.
“Yeah,” she said, “well, my ex-husband works at the nut house and he has trouble with them people so he’ll probably sue.”
She kept talking to no one in particular hoping someone would listen.
They talked about everything but mostly he listened to her pain. They shared emotions and feelings and she was surprised at his openness. Stories with detachment increased emotional truth and trust.
They enjoyed hours of conversations filled with laughter and insight, confronting grief and loss and discovering their authentic self. Their communication bills were staggering.
They were lost, looking, open and honest.
They talked about their dysfunctional families, the absence of love in their respective families, her gay brothers and the sexual humiliations they faced.
“I worked in a hospital once,” she said. “I hated the stress of working in an operating room during heart surgeries, how some of the ancient surgeons were inept with their chauvinist attitudes. I felt uncomfortable working with an ex-boyfriend, so I quit. I’m not good at handling this breakup. I need to find a new job. I need to get a life.”
She started in again. She was a broken record of life’s miscarriages.
Aborted possibilities lurked inside her screaming heart.
“When I met him I was a model, size five. Look at me now. I can’t believe I’ve let myself go. I did lingerie and bathing suits. Look at me now. I’ve joined weight watchers and lost five pounds.”
“Off with her HEAD!” screamed the Queen.
No one said anything. The barber cut and dried.
She blasted hot air. “I’ve been in a couple of films, if I can’t get back in films I’m not going to do anything.”
The barber finished, shook off the plastic sheet, pushed white metal numbers on an old wooden cash register ringing up the sale. The woman stood outside the shop smoking.
“Nice haircut,” she said as he passed her.
After the barbershop conversation and discovering cosmological stamps of nebulas at a post office he entered a local day care center full of violence and neglect after seeing a child get slammed into a door by a caretaker.
He started to say, “Excuse me…it’s none of my business...” and stopped, seeing a girl dragging abused kids into the cramped office.
The exhausted receptionist said, “May I help you?”
He switched gears. “How much does it cost?”
“$135 a week.”
“What are your hours?”
“5:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. M-F.”
Ok, he thought, the woman is going to talk to the girl about the petrified kids.
The halls reminded him of a nursing home. He wondered if parents working in some office had any idea what went on in these places. What really happened to their kids during the day?
Temporary jobs for undereducated, unskilled and poorly trained child care providers. Looks good on the outside, all the advertising, bright yellow buses and plastic gym toys in the yard.
One wonders how the effect of early childhood mauling inflicted hard fast lessons of FEAR for future child development construction projects.
We go to these places when young. We go when old, paying people to take care of us. In between the beginning and end of life adults dropped us off, picked us up or left us alone to figure it out. The only difference was years and quality health care. Dynamics.
Random acts of kindness inside wire fences and behind metal doors needed a way out of a labyrinth without a center.
A Century is Nothing
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