Once upon a time, a young man with large ears and poor eyesight traveled from farm to city to pursue his trade. As his quick fingers spooled wet hair and snipped to the finest inch, a barber pole pulsed in the distance, spiraling him towards a spit-groomed future he was close enough to chase. The man had a penchant for drink, and with haircut dollars earned, becharmed the bartender next door to fill his coffee mug with beer. Revived, he’d begin the next cut—knees bent, eyes bifocaled to the crisp, clean line of saturated snip. But could he keep it straight? Could he? How could he? Coffee mugs clouded his judgment. But men forgive. They sympathize. They understand. They do not apologize for that which they cannot help.
The barber fell in love with a golden-haired girl, daughter of a butter maker and a nurse. The couple withstood resistance to their union like fragile glass storefronts boarded their windows for a hurricane. The storm blew and blasted at their very roots. It shook the foundation of their affection. And theretofore. Forevermore. The barber became the man who married the wrong woman. Or, as her parents would posit, their daughter married the wrong man.
All the wedding photos show ghosts dancing at high polka tide. Lurking in the evening sweet corn shadows of an untilled future neither could contemplate, still: they kicked up their heels as the band accordioned them onward. The couple, be they gorgeous and slim-tuck- waisted, evermore, glowing, escorted themselves off to bed. And in those final moments, we could see the future footage of babies in footie pajamas, mothers sighing into telephones, fathers sporting sideburns and anxious empty pockets and the desire to pacify that which could never be soothed. Even, and especially, the new barber’s inability to meet his wife’s shimmering brown eyes that say look at me. Her face a pale eclipse with dark arched eyebrows and waning eyes and lips so pale and wise they could see beneath the surface of his tonics and tiger balms and crushed empties in the dark of the barn.
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Anne Panning has published her first memoir, Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss. She has also published a novel, Butter, as well as a short story collection, The Price of Eggs, and Super America, which won The Flannery O’Connor Award and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. She has also published short work in places such as Brevity, Prairie Schooner, The Florida Review, Quarterly West, Kenyon Review, and River Teeth. Her essays have received notable citations in The Best American Essays series. She teaches creative writing at SUNY-Brockport and is working on her next memoir, Bootleg Barber: A Daughter’s Memoir.