The Fair Exchange - Part 3

Driving across the bridge into Glenville revived long forgotten emotions. The old general store, Madison Avenue Grill, the Royal Theater, and so many other memorable landmarks had disappeared. In their places I saw knick-knack shops and second-hand clothing stores sitting side by side with shuttered businesses that I remembered from childhood, their dingy facades marred by graffiti and time. I had not expected to feel the loss of the home from which I once left without expectation of return but driving slowly through downtown I began to grieve what I had never grieved before.

You cannot truly hate a place unless you loved it first.

But my back tingled with excitement when I saw the sign for Big Ed’s Barbershop, the original candy cane pole faded almost white and the store’s plate glass window warped with age. Walking through its open door, I smiled at the barber standing with the Glenville Times in his hands.

“Do you have time for one last trim before closing?”

“That depends,” he replied closing the paper with a snap, “do you have the scratch to buy the first round at Marty’s Place?”

“Do you promise to buy the second?”

Big Ed was taller and easily 50 pounds heavier than the barber gesturing toward one of only two chairs in the little shop. His replacement seemed friendly enough and wore a handlebar mustache and tattooed anchors on each of his large biceps – bluish green with age.

“New in town?” he asked while draping a black cloth across me and fastening it behind my neck.

“Just visiting.”

“How you do want it cut?”

“Skin on the sides, fade in back, clean up the top.”

“Ex-military?”

“Marines.”

“Nam and a lifer to boot from the look of ya.”

“Yeah. Never was a fast learner. You?”

“Navy … pleasure cruise in the Med. I thought it’d be fun to see the world but spent most of it scraping barnacles.”

We both laughed.

“I had planned to join the Marines myself and would have if not for the accident.”

“Accident?”

“My best friend was hit by a car when we were seniors in high school. Me, Joey and Marty had planned to join once we graduated … but with Joey paralyzed….”

His words rendered us both speechless. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the realization of who he was, the memory of his former youthful face sending a wave of fear through my guts.

As he started trimming, I broke the awkward silence, asking –“You Big Ed?” even though I knew damn well he wasn’t.

He chuckled. “When I was a boy folk called my dad Big Ed and me Little Ed. But now that Dad has passed everyone just calls me Ed. And you are?”

“Jay Eff,” I answered offering my hand, “pleased to make your acquaintance Ed.”

Setting down the electric shears he picked up his scissors and continued –“We don’t see many tourists in Glenville … visiting friends or family?”

“Neither,” I lied, I visit Glenvilles. This is number seven. I collect postcards, memorabilia, history.”

“I’ve heard of stranger hobbies.”

“Yeah … well, this is mine.”

“If you’re interested in history you’ve come to the right shop. This little town is the Philanthropic Capital of the world.”

“You don’t say.”

“Course it wasn’t always. But people here are more generous per capita earnings than any other town in the country. Joey started it after the accident.”

“Because of the accident?”

It’s difficult to explain,” he answered. “But no one believes he could have turned his life around without it. The story made more sense when Joey told it. I remember the look in his eyes, the terror of the thing.” After an uncomfortable silence, a tear slipped down his cheek. “It was the car that changed everything.”

I was a senior when that car changed Joey’s life. But no one ever got that story right. They always left the most important part out. Without it there was no life-changing accident, no small-town hero, no philanthropic capital of the world.

Like a lot of kids, Joey bullied me regularly, singling me out after school every Wednesday. He would push or punch me around or bring me to my knees by pressing his fat thumb along the radial nerve on the inside of my left forearm. It was the regularity of his torment – anticipation building the acid up in my guts till I could no longer prevent the inevitable rupture. One day when Joey cruelly squeezed my collar bone, I drove my right hand into his sternum with sufficient force that it knocked him flat.

I was every bit as surprised as he.

I had seen the echoes of that fight in my midnight vision in the cemetery, but never believed its prophetic certainty. I yelled – “You need to make a choice,” my voice sounding as alien in my ears as if independent of my thoughts.

“What did you say?” Joey demanded, his eyes narrowing with anger and concentration.

My adrenaline spiking, a fleeting vision appeared of Joey running into the pathway of a car before it was replaced by Joey’s ruddy, grimacing face as he rolled up his sleeves.

“Walk away Joey,” I pleaded, “walk away or something terrible will happen … to you.”

Something in the urgency of my voice made him pause. But once the moment passed, the glint of concern in his features vanished.

“Something terrible is going to happen alright.”

I didn’t know the first thing about fighting. But after a flurry of weakly deflected punches my fear vanished, the realization that I should have stood up to him years before more painful than the beating he was giving me in the moment. But as my arms weakened and began to droop it was more a beat down than a fight. Eventually even Joey was winded, pausing to stare angrily into the one eye that hadn’t quite swollen shut. But between ragged breaths I began to helplessly laugh – feebly at first – and then harder and harder at the absurdity of the situation.

“You think this is funny?”

I nodded my head faintly but there was no point in trying to explain. Focusing on his angry, watery eyes, I only managed to mutter, “So … you made your choice.”

“Yeah,” he answered before whispering – “You think Wednesdays were bad before? I’ll make them a thousand times worse.”

His next punch broke my nose; I felt the thick blood oozing from my nostrils and laughed out loud, my chest swelling with a euphoria I had never experienced before. A few moments later my legs collapsed, but the anger my laughter triggered had short-circuited Joey’s brain, my unexpected mockery filling him with a savage rage.

I don’t remember much after that. I vaguely remember Joey kicking me in the ribs as Rita’s voice shouted –“You’re killin’ him!” After that Joey ran out of the school and into an oncoming car.

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The Fair Exchange - Part 4