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Violet February


Later, when Joe Apis met his wife and children at the park, he would watch an early-waking bee search for pollen on his son's blue jacket sleeve, and it would remind him of the fuzzy buds outside the barber shop. He thought they looked like violet willow leaves wrapped up tight. The stems trembled in the unseasonably warm February air, and the minute tips glowed in the sun.

But now, as he sat in the swivel-chair, he looked at the floor where the tiles had been worn away to cement, and just beyond, where the metal curb's geometrical design had been rubbed away.

He was pushed around to face the back wall. He liked the black and white picture that hung there, the one of another barber shop showing men waiting for their shaves.

The clipper buzzed in his ear, and conversation floated back and forth over his head. A child played a videogame in the seat to his right; the themed music started and restarted. The television behind him was on, he knew, but with no sound -- the people on it smiled dramatic smiles and gestured excitedly at a large table on a cruiseship.

Another customer came in and seated himself in a chair along the back wall. Joe wanted to go on looking at the black and white picture, but the new customer sat near it and had glanced at him over his phone. Joe closed his eyes, and he noticed for the first time the heavy click of the clippers: on and off in step with the varied pattern of the barber's voice.

It wasn't clear whether the talking pair knew one another, but, of course, the barber had that particular ability of barbers that made everyone feel like a regular.

Joe was pushed back around so he could see outside. His eyes opened; this time the faces on the television smiled over a breakfast dish of baked eggs and bread. The child with the videogame raised his voice and said something that ended in a whine, and the electronic music began again.

Joe blinked slowly and let himself sigh.

The barber cut with scissors now. Soon, Joe's scalp relaxed under the touch of the comb-fingers, and for a moment he didn't hear anything, instead he focused on the chill sensation that coursed down his neck. The first sound to come back floated through the open door; it was the soft click of branches -- the buds crossed and recrossed in the light breeze.

The barber spun him around to the mirror, and he approved of what he saw. He scribbled out a check, hardly able to keep his eyes off the willow outside. When he stood in the sun next to the young tree, he remembered his family would be at the park close by; he walked down the sidewalk and knew he would find that his children had shed their jackets and would be flitting from swings, to slides, to monkeybars -- their faces radiant and shining with beads of sweat -- crossing and recrossing one another in their game. He smiled and picked up his pace.
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