Rufus + Syd

by Julia Watts

  When my “paying customer” arrives, she looks different than any woman her age I’ve ever seen in Vermillion. Or back in Kentucky, for that matter. She’s probably in her late sixties or early seventies. Most women in that age range around here have already resorted to either the tracksuit-granny or housedress-granny look, but not her. She’s wearing a midcalf-length black sleeveless dress brightened up by a red silk scarf and leather clogs. But I know what all the women in the shop are staring at is her hair. For some reason, women “of a certain age” are supposed to cut their hair short (unless, like the old lady in Darlene’s chair, it’s for religious reasons, and then they pile it high on their heads). But this woman’s hair hangs down to the small of her back in a sleek silver curtain.

  “Hey, hon,” Darlene says—she calls everybody “hon”—“Are you the five o’clock?”

  The woman smiles. She has a weak chin and a strong nose, but the effect of these two things together is somehow elegant. “I suppose I am. But you can call me Five for short.”

  Darlene looks at her a little funny and relights her cigarette. “Well, if a shampoo and a blowout’s all you want, this little girl here will take care of you.”

  My face burns at being called “little girl.” “My name’s Syd,” I say, maybe a little too sharply.

  The woman holds out her hand to me. I try to remember the last time I shook hands with somebody. Maybe never. “Nice to meet you, Syd,” she says. Her hand is soft, but not so soft that it’s never done work. “My name is Josephine, but when I was your age I called myself Jo. It drove my mother crazy.”

  I smile. “Why did you start going by Josephine?”

  “Silly, romantic reason. When my husband said it, for the first time I liked the way it sounded. I liked hearing all those syllables coming from his lips.”

  I can’t decide what surprises me more: that I asked her such a personal question or that she gave me such a personal answer. I’m nervous about what’s going to come out of my mouth next, so I say, “If you want to get started you can have a seat in this chair over here.” Which is probably the dullest thing I could say.

  “Sure,” Josephine says. When she walks, she glides. “I feel foolish paying somebody to wash my hair, but I pinched a nerve in my shoulder puttering around the house, and it’s absolute agony for me to lift my arms over my head. I would advise you never to get old, Syd, but as they say, it’s better than the alternative.”

  “We should take your scarf off so it doesn’t get wet.” I lift it from her shoulders, fold it, and set it on the counter. It’s the same kind of gauzy scarf I like to drape over lampshades in my room. “It’s pretty.”

  “Thank you. My husband died three years ago, and I felt like I should do something to mark his passing. One of my friends suggested I cut my hair, but Philip had loved my hair, and I thought he’d come back and haunt me if I cut it off. So instead I took to wearing black with colorful accents—the black in mourning, the color to remind me that life goes on.”

  “That’s really cool,” I say, feeling stupid as soon as I’ve said it.

  “Is it?” Josephine laughs. “And I wasn’t even trying to be cool. What a bonus!”

  I fasten an ugly pink plastic cape over her shoulders, then help her lean backward into the neck rest of the sink as I gather up her hair and let it tumble into a pile in the basin. I pick up the sprayer and adjust the temperature, spraying just a little spritz on her scalp. “Does that feel okay?”

  “It feels lovely.” Her eyes are closed, so it’s safe for me to study the lines of her face as I wet her hair. High cheekbones, that hawkish nose, deep-set eyes. I wonder what she looked like when she was younger. Probably not exactly pretty, but what gets called striking.

  Darlene comes over to watch me work. “With hair that long, you’ll want to clip some of it back and work on it in sections. That way you’ll make sure all of it gets good and clean.”

  “Okay,” I say. I’m annoyed by her interruption even though her advice is useful.

  Darlene pats Josephine on the arm, which makes her open her eyes. “This is your first time in the shop, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Josephine says.

  “You’re not from around here, are you, hon?” Darlene says, and I can tell this is the question she really wanted to ask.

  “I am from here, actually,” Josephine says. “I’ve just been gone for a long time. I left Vermillion when I was eighteen, and except for visits, I didn’t come back until my mother took ill last year.”

  “And how’s your mama?” Darlene asks.

  “Dead,” Josephine says, and the word sounds like a dull thud. Nobody says dead like that—at least not around here. They say passed away or gone to be with Jesus or some other polite denial of the reality of the situation.

  “Oh, I’m real sorry to hear that,” Darlene says, after she’s recovered from Josephine’s shocking word choice.

  “Well, she was ninety-two, so you can’t say she didn’t have a good run of it.” She closes her eyes again.

  Once Darlene has walked away, I say, “I can’t believe you came back to this place after you’d gotten away from it.”

  “Well, in my defense, I did stay away for fifty years. And I couldn’t very well let my mother die alone, could I?”

  “No, of course not.” Now she probably thinks I’m the meanest person in the world. “It’s just… why are you sticking around here now that she’s gone?”

  “I take it that you are immune to Vermillion’s charms.”

  “It has some?”

  She laughs so hard I have to stop washing her hair for a minute. “Well, it has one, at least. My mother’s house, which I inherited. I’ve never owned my own home before, and I find that I’m rather enjoying it. For the time being, anyway. Mmm… it’s really lovely to have someone else wash your hair for you. Maybe I’ll become a regular customer even after my shoulder heals.”

  I watch the suds go down the drain as I rinse her hair. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” I say it softly, almost to myself.

  “Well, you’ll have to, won’t you?” Josephine says. “Just until you get a little older. But it’ll be worth the wait. And until then, you can imagine the possibilities.”

  It’s impossible to talk over the sound of the blow-dryer, so I concentrate on watching her hair turn from dark and damp to bright and dry. I think I might like my hair to look like hers when I’m her age.

  When I’m done, she says, “Well, Syd, it’s been a pleasure. How much do I owe you?”

  “Five dollars, please.” Asking her for money is embarrassing.

  She digs in her handbag, a bulky, tapestry-looking thing. “Here’s a twenty. Keep the change.”

  When I thank her, I feel like it’s for more than just the money.

  Rufus

  PATRICK LIVES about a fifteen-minute walk from Mr. D’s, and then it’s another fifteen from his house to mine. I run the whole way, thinking about the “unit” of so-called sex ed we had in gym class this spring. It was mostly about abstinence, of course, including a showing of this ridiculous video called Just Wait, which is almost as dumb as the antidrug “Just Say No” campaign, maybe even dumber. If you think about it, it’s almost as ridiculous as telling a two-year-old, “Don’t eat that bright and shiny red lollipop!” There was nothing about masturbation, naturally, but I’ve learned that it does not, in fact, cause blindness, and is instead perfectly normal and healthy. So I figure mutual masturbation must be doubly healthy, right? I arrive at Patrick’s house panting and sweating.

  “What’s up, Snow?” Patrick says when he opens the door. He’s wearing creased Bermuda shorts with a belt and a tucked-in short-sleeve dress shirt. He even has on shoes and socks: talk about weird!

  I shrug, my standard response to just about everything, but it’s also true that Patrick doesn’t seem especially excited to see me, which is disappointing after so much effort. Honestly though, Patrick doesn’t seem to get excited about much of anything.

>   He tells me that his parents aren’t home and won’t be for a couple of hours—as if I didn’t know that already, as if that isn’t why I’m here, and then he leads me into his bedroom and closes and locks the door behind us. We’re still shy with each other and so at first we both just sit on his bed and talk. He mentions the My Lai Massacre, which is what Mr. McHenry was talking to us about today in World History. It’s not exactly an aphrodisiac.

  “Pretty awful stuff,” I say, and then add, “And just further proof that there is no God, if you ask me.”

  “Shhh!” Patrick is still shocked when I say things like this, because his parents are big Catholics and everything. He looks around the room as if someone might have overheard me, as if the walls could talk. I think he’s maybe a little embarrassed.

  Patrick and I aren’t exactly the ideal couple. I mean, we’re not even a couple at all—we’re really different. I guess I’m, like, more sophisticated or something, than he is. I don’t necessarily think I’m smarter than him, but he’s all innocent—or at least almost innocent anyway, certainly more than I am. And besides, I don’t even think that Patrick is gay, which always causes me to wonder what the hell he’s doing with me in the first place. But whatever, I’m so lonely that I’ll take just about anything I can get.

  “Yeah, well,” Patrick says, in response to what, I can’t say for sure. He stares off into space.

  It’s always so painfully awkward at first; it’s enough to make you want to change your mind.

  “I don’t have much time,” I say, which is true, but then we don’t need all that much time either. What we do doesn’t take very long.

  “Okay.” Patrick gets up from the bed, walks over to the window, and pulls the curtains closed. Next, just like every other time, he picks up the box of tissues off his desk, next to his coveted laptop, comes back, and sits down next to me on the bed. It’s like he’s become a robot.

  And then we proceed to do what we’ve always done, which has only been maybe a half a dozen times. I’m getting a little tired of it, and also a little bored with it, but if I try to move on and do anything different, Patrick always stops me.

  But there has been a little progress, actually. Whereas we used to just masturbate together, now we masturbate each other—while we’re still dressed, though; Patrick won’t even take off his shirt! We sort of just look down while we’re doing it, which I guess is so that we don’t have to look each other in the eyes, though I’d prefer that. Patrick won’t even kiss me or let me kiss him either, which I know because I’ve tried, but he always pulls away when I do. And this is what passes for my sex life; I guess it’s better than nothing.

  After we’re done—we try to finish at the same time, which is kind of fun—the look we exchange is intense and red. Patrick cleans up and flushes the evidence. He acts so weird afterward that I’m always expecting him to tell me that this is the last time and that it’s over, but all he says now is “I guess you’ve got to be getting home or something, huh?”

  Whereas I’ve still got, like, more than half an hour before I really have to leave—since we’re so fast. But because we are obviously done here, I say, “Yeah.” I tell him that I’ll see him at school tomorrow, and then I go.

  The walk home from Patrick’s is almost always sad for reasons I don’t fully understand. A deep, midnight-blue feeling—almost black, it’s been this way every single time. I just feel kind of empty after the time with Patrick, and yet I’m hooked on it too—because it’s all I’ve got. But also, I think Patrick himself makes me feel sad, because he’s one of those people who doesn’t have a clue who he is. It’s like he’s alienated from himself or something, and it’s hard not only for him but also for anybody who’s friends with him too—not that I think he has many, if any, friends.

  I scour the landscape and the horizon as I begin the walk home, searching for something to cheer me up—anything! I mean, what do I have to look forward to? First up, it’s supper with Mama and Daddy, which is often tense, and then I’m either alone in my bedroom all night, doing homework or not, or I’m sitting in front of the TV with them and nobody’s talking, watching some cop show or some medical show or, even worse, a reality show—none of which I even care about. At least it’s Friday.

  Sometimes, just to try to cheer myself up, I’ll take off running, which I do today. I run all the way home. I think of myself as a yellow streak as I run. One of these days I think I’m going to just keep on running.

  MAMA’S WALKING around the table dishing up supper, a trail of steam following in her wake. She always serves Daddy first, then me, and herself last. If Dwight were here, she would serve him after Daddy, and Dwight would also provide something of a buffer between Mama and Daddy and me—although there is also that little detail of his born-again status, which pits the three of them against me.

  Tonight we’re having fried pork chops, white rice steamed to within an inch of its life, and canned green beans cooked in bacon grease. Though I love bacon, the thought of eating something cooked in bacon grease turns my stomach; and served with fried pork chops no less: talk about redundant! And then there’s Mama’s rice, which is like nobody else’s—almost as hard as a kernel of uncooked popcorn and, somehow, no longer white, but almost yellow-gray in color. This is her version of cooking Southern style.

  “How was school today, son?”

  Daddy’s dressed in his undershirt and shorts; his after work uniform. He looks tired. His job title is “Shift Supervisor,” and though he likes to make out as if he’s the boss, over time I’ve learned the truth, which is that he’s really just a lowly middleman between management and the assembly line workers. It’s kind of sad, and I have to say that I feel for him: after almost forty years on the job! Though most of the time this question about my school day seems rote, tonight I’m trying to consider the fact that he might actually mean it, that he really does want to know.

  I catch myself shrugging but then I force myself to say something. “It was okay. We’re studying the Vietnam War in World History.” I’m hoping for some kind of response from one or both of them, something like a conversation, but Daddy just says, “Uh-huh” and nods.

  “You were a teenager during that time, weren’t you, Daddy?” I ask. “So where did you stand on the war?”

  He looks at Mama, rapidly chewing on her pork chop and avoiding eye contact. “Well, that was a war against the spread of communism as I recall, and the way I saw it then, and the way I still see it, is that any red-blooded American has got to get behind that.”

  A predictable response. Also predictable is that I’ve noticed that Mama, who’s eating as if her life depended on it, doesn’t seem to like to talk about anything that’s not personal, and—here goes—she changes the subject: “Did you and Patrick get your homework done?”

  I nod, and then the usual silence falls over the table. Now the cold, silver sound of utensils clinking against china, and the brown-gray sounds of chewing and swallowing, seem amplified.

  “We got a letter from Dwight today,” Mama announces, on to the next subject, pride in her voice.

  I wonder what’s coming next. Daddy looks up from his plate. Mama seems to have paused for dramatic effect, like she’s waiting for a drumroll.

  “He’s got a girlfriend.” She beams. She pulls the envelope from out of the air like a magician, takes the folded letter from the envelope, scans it quickly, and says, “Her name is Nicole.”

  And now comes the clincher, as Mama continues reading silently to herself. “He says they met at church.” Daddy smiles at her.

  Ah, Christianity and heterosexuality—now it’s time for me to change the subject. I feel like saying something shocking like “Jeez, sex with Patrick this afternoon was really disappointing,” but still trying to get a conversation going, I tell Daddy what Mr. McHenry said about the French regretting their involvement in the war.

  Daddy stabs a limp, greasy green bean with his fork, chuckles and says, “Well, that’s the French for
you,” and then he mumbles something about freedom fries. From there, he goes off on the “anti-Americanism” of “your president,” until I give him the look. He knows better than to say anything negative about President Obama in front of me unless he wants a fight, since I think Obama’s about the greatest thing to happen to this country in a long time. Whereas Mama and Daddy both objected to him from the get-go, and that’s nothing but pure racism, if you ask me.

  Mama looks first at Daddy, then at me and says, “This isn’t really an appropriate subject for suppertime conversation, boys, now is it?”

  If Daddy disagrees he doesn’t say so, and so it goes. Over time I’ve noticed that our suppertime conversations are more like headlines without the story that should follow. In fact, Mama seems to discourage conversations of any depth, as if she’s afraid of them. But I also know that almost as soon as I leave the table and go to my room, I’m going to start feeling bad, basically because Mama and Daddy are so old and all.

  “Can I be excused?” I ask. “Homework.”

  Mama’s taking a sip of her iced tea at the time, and so she just nods, whereas Daddy says, “Go ahead, son.”

  The homework excuse isn’t exactly a total lie, since I’ll probably thumb back through The Catcher in the Rye and spend some time with ol’ Holden and Phoebe. Or maybe I’ll draw for a while. I always have a sketchbook by my bed. But as soon as I hit my room and close the door behind me, I’m overcome with a deep and unfathomable loneliness. Everything is a dull gray. I throw myself on my bed and stare at the ceiling, which should have a hole in it by now, I’ve stared at it like this so many times. And then I imagine just that, my bedroom ceiling with a jagged hole that I’ve burrowed from looking at it so hard and for so long. It’s open to the skies, the stars; it could very well be my escape hatch—out of my bedroom, out of the family home, into the night sky and then… the universe!

  But reality hits and it’s just me, alone, stuck in my own bedroom in this middle of nowhere, no hole in the ceiling and, really, no way out.