Nestled in a little pothole in the pavement, the golden ball was biding its time. Rose Street was reflected on its glossy casing, along with all the passersby who were benighted to its silent but deadly shine.
Suddenly, a large battered car wheeled into the golden surface of the ball and pulled over down the street. A man of an advanced age stepped out and slammed the door shut with his boot.
Mr. Winston Bagley.
He was carrying a big package with both arms out. Despite the weight of his load, his back was straight as a ruler. His saggy-seated cotton slacks were making him out to look inelegant, but his nicely patterned sweater offset that first impression.
Mr. Winston Bagley was a tall guy; around sixty years old, rugged in the shoulders and chiseled everywhere else. A rather good-looking oldster, sporting a sun-tanned, stubbly face with irresistible candor. The kind of face that immediately inspired trust.
He walked through the pull door of a barbershop. A stocky man was being worked on, getting his curly hair chopped down to a thin tuft. He was the only customer in the shop.
As Mr. Bagley was entering, the barber raised his eyes while negotiating with a delicate cut.
“Hey!” He exclaimed joyfully, sending a hunk of hair to the checkered floor. “Long time no see, eh?”
“How do you do, old schmuck?” Mr. Bagley said.
He looked around and smiled at the young hairdresser reading through a paperback at her desk – a romance novel, judging by the cover. She smiled back.
“I see that you have finally wised up,” he said again. “You kept this one around longer than you did the others.”
The barber eyeballed his assistant and shook his head slowly with a little weariness in the neck.
He said, “I grew tired of looking for the perfect assistant. At least she’s got a cosmetology license. That’s a plus, even if there’s something loose in her brain. She’s good on the job though, when she’s not in the clouds.” The barber whispered toward the old man. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she had an ancestor who was cuckoo, know what I mean?”
“One’s got to be cuckoo to put up with your manic behaviors, space captain.”
The barber smiled thinly, looked at his assistant again, and called across to her in a raised voice, “Hey! Do something useful and chuck that thing away. This is not a freaking book-of-the-month club!”
She glared at him for a few seconds, then her eyes went back to her reading. The barber simply shook his head at the insubordination.
“One of these days,” he muttered to himself, “I’m really going to show her who’s the boss around here.”
“Here,” Mr. Bagley held his load out to him. “A little gift for your kid.”
The barber cocked an eyebrow in response with an easy manner. He then peered inside the package and saw it was full to the brim with parts of a racetrack play set: a motorized ramp way, electric racecars, action figures, and much more.
Mr. Bagley explained, “I’ve often heard him say how much he loves car racing and wants to be a Formula One driver.”
“Thanks, Winston,” the barber said, gesturing to his assistant to come and collect the package, since his hands were covered with hair.
She moved over to Mr. Bagley and nonchalantly took the package off his hands. Some toys nearly tipped out from the handoff.
“For Christ’s sake,” the barber said. “You be careful with that, will you!” The assistant shot him with her catlike eyes. Her composite beauty made it hard to guess her exact age, though Mr. Bagley figured she was older than she looked.
“Put that away in the back,” her boss concluded.
She glanced inside the package, then looked at Mr. Bagley with a jolly expression and looked back inside the package again.
“This is really gorgeous,” she said. “My little brother would die for a play set like this. Yeah –– He’d just about die for it. You can tell it’s a boy’s dream toy. You’re very nice, Mister!”
“I told you to put that in the backroom!” snapped the barber, the electric shaver slightly slipping from his grip and cutting amiss.
“Watch whatcha doin’, man!” The stocky customer complained with a grunt.
The barber apologized and shot another glare at his assistant, who then started away.
“And give this place a good sweep while you’re at it!” he called after her.
Mr. Bagley kept smiling at the whole display. He knew his friend to be short-tempered, especially with his assistants. That’s why he’d always had trouble developing a long-standing working relationship with them.
Without raising his eyes to him, the barber said with a heart-felt seriousness, “I suppose this is the last time you’ll walk into my shop, eh?”
“I suppose it is. By the time night rolls around, I’ll be long gone and settled in my countryside home. The move was long overdue. Guess I’ve finally worked up the courage to set out and live my dream as a rancher in the hilly slopes of the coast.”
“Well, that sounds terrific!” the barber laughed.
“Eh, you’re invited… Ring me up when you feel like getting your head out of your can to see the miracle of nature. God knows how much you need that!”
The barber turned to look at Mr. Bagley, an ear-to-ear smile barred his weather-beaten face. Over the years that he’d cut Mr. Bagley’s hair, he had grown to have a deep fondness for the man. Not the fondness you’d normally feel for a regular customer, but the kind you’d reserve only for close acquaintances.
He noticed the beard stubble sprouting out and pointed at it with the buzzing blade of the shaver.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But what you need now is to shave that bad weed off your face. Makes you look like a wretched fart.”
“I’d love too, but I’ve got to go. Got a couple things to round up in my apartment before I take off.”
Mr. Bagley looked around as if to photograph the whole interior layout of the barbershop in his mind: the checkered floor, the styling chair, the shampoo unit, the VIP’s pictures pinned on the wall – including his. All those things would serve as good mementos of his time here.
“I’m gonna miss this place,” he said.
“Alright… let’s cut the whining right there. You take care, old slug! I’ll tell the kid you dropped by. He’ll be happy about the plaything.”
Mr. Bagley walked out of the barbershop, feeling a little tight. He did a little backbend, and a side-bend stretch. The sound of his spine cracking, informed him that his body was still holding together pretty well; despite its old age.
He took in what he thought would be a deep cleansing breath. Instead he found that the air was rather stale and smelt of a faint mix of detergent and sweet flour. But permeating through was also the pungent metallic smell of urbanism: metal and glass buildings everywhere… Some dull sights he wouldn’t have to take in where he was going.
Mr. Bagley looked up to the sky and marveled at its pale and pristine blue. The clouds above were brushing up against one another with some kind of deference. One particular cloud seemed to be shaped like some weird indigenous mask with burlesque features. That eerie imagery tickled his sensibility a notch. Was he really seeing a mask, or was it just his imagination giving form to passing blots of whiteness? The color white could represent a new beginning, and in just a few hours he would sail off to a different horizon. So it could’ve been his imagination.
In his mind, Mr. Bagley could already see the long stretches of wide green, some neighboring farmsteads, streams flowing through the country, and finally, his estate where the ranch was built. There, he would go on living his single and lonely life, after having wasted thirty-five years at an unfulfilling 9-5 job. Thirty-five years he’d worked for a cardboard box manufacturer, doing things as insignificant as coating dried paperboards with waterproof materials. Insignificant…
“It’s not too late for me,” he thought to himself. “I can still make good of the time I have left.”
/> Six months ago or so, Mr. Bagley had been diagnosed with lymphoma, and if nothing else, he now saw time as a precious commodity.
Mr. Bagley was about to move towards his car, when something far off by the corner bookshop caught his eye.
It was glittering on the pavement there, just like a golden coin ought to in the dark. Mr. Bagley didn’t feel like swinging over to check it out, but the thing was quite shiny with all its radiance.
A piece of jewelry maybe, he thought, and started towards it.
“Watch out!”
Two burly men in matching uniforms, carrying a twelve-by-six-foot glass panel, pulled out of the building courtyard. The courtyard’s walkway made a junction with the pavement Mr. Bagley was currently standing on, stunned to the fact that he would’ve probably collided with them if not for the heads-up. His thoughts quickly swerved from the shiny object the moment the carriers blocked his path while veering to change direction. Grappling with the heavy glass they were maneuvering with utmost care, they shifted their feet very slowly. Afterwards they proceeded up the street, towards the bookshop where a pick-up truck was parked.
Mr. Bagley turned back and started apace towards his own car. The door unlocked, his hands hovered over the handle for a bit though. For he had just recognized the passengers in one of the cars that had just sped down the road.
The Greaves family…
Jeff Greaves was behind the wheel. Zoe, his graceful wife, in the passenger front seat. Reuben and Phoebe, their adorable little twins, were settled in the back. But Solene, their pretty, self-assured teen daughter, was not with them. She was the eldest of the siblings.
Mr. Bagley smiled as the Greaves’ car halted at a red light. They hadn’t seen him apparently. The family was living on the upper level of the Flanagan Condo; apartment 408. And Mr. Bagley was soon to vacate apartment 102 of the same building. So, he knew a little bit about them... But I knew that he was just being modest.
Without further delay, Mr. Bagley got into his car, unfolding his plan for the day in his mind. He had a couple places to go to bid his final goodbyes. Afterwards, he would hit the Condo to gather up the last of his possessions.
He drove off… and so did I.
Chapter IV
JUSTIN DELACROIX AND THE LECHERY
OF HIS LIKE MINDED FRIENDS