Because he was going.
In the morning he called Jenks and accepted the invitation, while Ma winced and clutched her stomach and pulled over a heavy wooden chair and collapsed into it.
5.
Corrigan’s was meant to feel like a pub at the edge of a Scottish golf course, there was a roaring fire, and many ancient-looking golf clubs hanging above tremendous tables of a hard plastic material meant to appear gnarled and scarred, and kilted waitresses with names like Heather and Zoe were sloshing chicken wings and fried cheese and lobster chunks into metal vats near an aerial photo of the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
The barber was early. He liked to be early. He felt it was polite to be early, except when he was late, at which time he felt being early was anal. Where the heck was everybody? They weren’t very polite. He looked down at his special shoes. They were blocky and black and had big removable metal stays in the sides and squeaked when he walked. Well if anybody said anything about his shoes they could go to hell, he hadn’t asked to be born with no toes, and besides, the special shoes looked nice with khakis.
“Sorry we’re late!” Mr. Jenks shouted, and the Driving School group settled in around the long gnarled table.
The pretty but heavy girl hung her purse across the back of her chair. Her hair looked like her hair in the dream and her eyes looked like her eyes in the dream, and as for her body, he couldn’t tell, she was wearing a mumu. But certainly facially she was pretty. Facially she was very possibly the prettiest girl here. Was she? If aliens came down and forced each man to pick one woman to reproduce with in a chain-link enclosure while they took notes, would he choose her, based solely on face? Here was a woman with a good rear but a doglike face, here was a woman with a nice perm but a blop at the end of her nose, here was the Buggin’ girl, who looked like a chicken, here was the white-haired woman, whose face was all wrinkled, here was the pretty but heavy girl. Was she the prettiest? Facially? He thought she very possibly was.
He regarded her fondly from across the table, waiting for her to catch him regarding her fondly, so he could quickly avert his eyes, so she’d know he was still possibly interested, and then she dropped her menu and bent to retrieve it and the barber had a chance to look briefly down her dress.
Well she definitely had something going on in the chest category. So facially she was the prettiest in the room, plus she had decent boobs. Attractive breasts. The thing was, would she want him? He was old. Oldish. When he stood up too fast his knee joints popped. Lately his gums had started to bleed. Plus he had no toes. Although why sell himself short? He owned his own small business. He had a bit of a gut, yes, and his hair was somewhat thin, but then again his shoulders and chest were broad, so that the overall effect, even with the gut, was of power, which girls liked, and at least his head was properly sized for his body, which was more than she could say, although then again he still lived with his mother.
Well, who was perfect? He wasn’t perfect and she wasn’t perfect but they obviously had some sort of special chemistry, based on what had happened at the Driving School, and anyway, what the heck, he wasn’t proposing, he was just considering possibly trying to get to know her somewhat better.
In this way he decided to ask the pretty but heavy girl out.
How to do it, that was the thing. How to ask her. He could get her alone and say her hair looked super. While saying it looked super he could run a curl through his fingers in a professional way, as if looking for split ends. He could say he’d love a chance to cut such excellent hair, then slip her a card for One Free Cut and Coffee. That could work. That had worked in the past. It had worked with Sylvia Reynolds, a bank teller with crow’s-feet and a weird laugh who turned out to be an excellent kisser. When she’d come in for her Free Cut and Coffee, he’d claimed they were out of coffee, and taken her to Bean Men Roasters. A few dates later they’d gotten carried away, unfortunately, because of her excellent kissing, and done more, much more actually, than he ever would’ve imagined doing with someone with crow’s-feet and a weird laugh and strangely wide hips, and when he’d gotten home that night and had a good hard look at the locket she’d given him after they’d done it, he’d instantly felt bad, because wow could you ever see the crow’s-feet in that picture. As he looked at Sylvia standing in that bright sunlit meadow in the picture, her head thrown back, joyfully laughing, her crow’s-feet so very pronounced, a spontaneous image had sprung into his mind of her coming wide-hipped toward him while holding a baby, and suddenly he’d been deeply disappointed in himself for doing it with someone so unusuallooking, and to ensure that he didn’t make matters worse by inadvertently doing it with her a second time, he’d sort of never called her again, and had even switched banks.
He glanced at the pretty but heavy girl and found her making her way toward the Ladies’.
Now was as good a time as any.
He waited a few minutes, then excused himself and stood outside the Ladies’ reading ads posted on a corkboard until the pretty but heavy girl came out.
He cleared his throat and asked was she having fun?
She said yes.
Then he said wow did her hair look great. And in terms of great hair, he knew what he was talking about, he was a professional. Where did she have it cut? He ran one of her curls through his fingers, as if looking for split ends, and said he’d love the chance to work with such dynamite hair, and took from his shirt pocket the card for One Free Cut and Coffee.
“Maybe you could stop by sometime,” he said.
“That’s nice of you,” she said, and blushed.
So she was a shy girl. Sort of cutely nerdy. Not exactly confident. That was too bad. He liked confidence. He found it sexy. On the other hand, who could blame her, he could sometimes be very intimidating. Also her lack of confidence indicated he could perhaps afford to be a little bit bold.
“Like, say, tomorrow?” he said. “Like, say, tomorrow at noon?”
“Ha,” she said. “You move quick.”
“Not too quick, I hope,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Not too quick.”
So he had her. By saying he wasn’t moving too quick, wasn’t she implicitly implying that he was moving at exactly the right speed? All he had to do now was close the deal.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you since Driving School.”
“You have?” she said.
“I have,” he said.
“So you’re saying tomorrow?” she said, blushing again.
“If that’s okay for you,” he said.
“It’s okay for me,” she said.
Then she started uncertainly back to the table and the barber raced into the Men’s. Yes! Yes yes yes. It was a date. He had her. He couldn’t believe it. He’d really played that smart. What had he been worried about? He was cute, women had always considered him cute, never mind the thin hair and minor gut, there was just something about him women liked.
Wow she was pretty, he had done very very well for himself.
Back at the table Mr. Jenks was taking Polaroids. He announced his intention of taking six shots of the Driving School group, one for each member to keep, and the barber stood behind the pretty but heavy girl, with his hands on her shoulders, and she reached up and gave his wrist a little squeeze.
6.
At home old-lady cars were in the driveway and old-lady coats were piled on the couch and the house smelled like old lady and the members of the Altar and Rosary Society were gathered around the dining room table looking frail. They all looked the same to the barber, he could never keep them straight, there was a crone in a lime pantsuit and a crone in a pink pantsuit and two crones in blue pantsuits. As he came in they began asking Ma where he had been, why was he out so late, why hadn’t he been here to help, wasn’t he normally a fairly good son? And Ma said yes, he was normally a fairly good son, except he hadn’t given her any grandkids yet and often wasted water by bathing twice a day.