Knave and a Haircut

Don't forget: ABCotD is still in road trip mode! We'll be back to our regular posting schedule in late June/early July. Thanks for reading!

Story Sent in by Delia:

Corey asked me out to an early dinner for a Saturday afternoon.  I agreed to drive into town to meet him.  Once there, he found me, waiting for him where we had agreed to meet.  He asked, "Will you follow me?  I have a quick thing to do."  I didn't see a problem with it.  Perhaps something unexpected had come up.  I climbed into my car, he jumped into his, and I followed him through the city streets.

After a 15-minute drive, we parked on a side street in a neighborhood of shuttered storefronts and ill-maintained, closely-built brownstones.  We parked and stepped out of our cars.  "Here we are," he said.

"Where is 'here'?" I asked.

He didn't answer, but walked down the sidewalk.  I followed behind him, although I was on my guard in case anything turned uncomfortably weird.  He led me about half a block down to, no joke, the only place on the block that was open: a barbershop, barely distinguishable from the dilapidation around it.  Its sign was painted, white on brick, and had faded through the years.  He walked in, and I followed.

"Hey guys!" he said, walking into the filthy shop.  There were two barber's chairs within, one of which rusted against the back wall.  There was one barber, and two other guys sitting inside.  They all scowled at Corey and I when we walked in.  Corey plopped himself in the barber's chair and said, "Your finest haircut, my good man!"

The barber glanced at me.  I sat down in the only available waiting chair, next to the two other guys, who I took it were just friends of the barber.  It wasn't as though Corey had taken their place in line, at least.

The barber started his work on Corey.  Corey didn't make the job too easy for him, as Corey hummed a rock song to himself and bobbed his head all the while.  The barber didn't complain, but the fellow I sat next to turned to me at one point and said, "You're very pretty."

"Thank you," I mumbled, and shifted my chair a bit further away.

Corey asked the barber, "Is it true that you don't need past a third-grade education to be a barber?  And if so, what do they teach you about hair-cutting in third grade that you don't learn in second grade?"

After he asked that, the barber stopped cutting Corey's hair and stared at him for about a solid minute.  No one in the shop said a word, and aside from the Johnny Cash playing over the radio, there wasn't another sound.  Corey himself kept bobbing to his rock song.  The barber went back to cutting.

Finally, the haircut was over, and Corey checked it out in the mirror.  He thanked the barber, then pointed at me.  "You want one?  My treat."

"No, thank you."

Corey handed the barber a wad of bills.  The barber peeled them apart, then said to Corey, "This is ten.  Haircut's fourteen."

Corey said, "Uh…" then ran out of the shop.

"Hey!  Hey!" the barber yelled, and he tore off, after Corey.  His two friends followed behind.  I was the only one left in the shop, and I was more than a bit bewildered.  After debating what to do for several moments, I left the shop, walked back to my car, and drove away.  I saw nothing of Corey, the barber, or the barber's companions.

More than a month later, a text arrived from Corey: "Where'd you go???"