Mary L Kelly

On Monday afternoons that Fall when I was seven and after my Brownie troop met in the old stone Methodist church basement; and after we made finger paintings of spaghetti and wove rag coasters; and sang silly songs, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” ; I then made my way along the three blocks of painted oaks, red maples, and elms and arrived at Kelly’s Barber Shop.

I perched myself, legs dangling, on one of the old oak captain’s chairs after grabbing a National Geographic and Prairie Farmer to wait until he finished brushing the remains of the haircut from the nylon white cape on his customer. It was a beautiful Indian summer day, my father used to call them, so the door was blocked open and a shaky ancient man walked in the door. My father took the two dollars from his last customer of the day and greeted the man who seemed disoriented and was gibbering to himself.

 “Earl, it’s a bit late in the day. Where you headed?”

  “My head’s cold, Bill,” and the poor fellow started to cry and rub his head. 

  I was spellbound watching this morality play unfold and discarded my copy of Prairie Farmer. My dad took a fresh white oversized Irish linen handkerchief from his pocket, made a triangle out of it and tied it around a distressed Earl’s head. He told him supper must be waiting and Jean would be cross if he missed it. So he took his hand, led him out the door, after he’d dried his tears, and sent him on his way.

“Now Earl, turn right at the clock tower, Jeannie’ll be lookin’ for ya.”

 He went to the phone and called Earl’s daughter, a usual occurrence I had now reasoned, then looked down the street once more, and finally turned to me and asked,

“Ready to go home, Macoushla?”