“Mr. Titus?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Ayuh?”
“Mr. Anicetti said I could use your restroom?”
“Key’s inside the front door.” Doe-ah.
“Thank you.”
The key was attached to a wooden paddle with MEN printed on it. The other key had GIRLS printed on the paddle. My ex-wife would have shit a brick at that, I thought, and not without glee.
The restroom was clean but smoky-smelling. There was an urn-style ashtray beside the commode. From the number of butts studding it, I would guess a good many visitors to this tidy little room enjoyed puffing as they pooped.
When I came out, I saw two dozen or so used cars in a small lot next to the station. A line of colored pennants fluttered above them in a light breeze. Cars that would have sold for thousands—as classics, no less—in 2011 were priced at seventy-five and a hundred dollars. A Caddy that looked in nearly mint condition was going for eight hundred. The sign over the little sales booth (inside, a gum-chewing, ponytailed cutie was absorbed in Photoplay) read: ALL THESE CARS RUN GOOD AND COME WITH THE BILL TITUS GUARENTEE WE SERVICE WHAT WE SELL!
I hung the key up, thanked Titus (who grunted without turning from the truck on the lift), and started back toward Main Street, thinking it would be a good idea to get my hair cut before visiting the bank. That made me remember the goatee-wearing beatnik, and on impulse I crossed the street to the used furniture emporium.
“Morning,” I said.
“Well, it’s actually afternoon, but whatever makes you happy.” He puffed his pipe, and that light late-summer breeze brought me a whiff of Cherry Blend. Also a memory of my grandfather, who used to smoke it when I was a kid. He sometimes blew it in my ear to quell the earache, a treatment that was probably not AMA-approved.
“Do you sell suitcases?”
“Oh, I got a few in my kick. No more’n two hundred, I’d say. Walk all the way to the back and look on your right.”
“If I buy one, could I leave it here for a couple of hours, while I do some shopping?”
“I’m open until five,” he said, and turned his face up into the sun. “After that you’re on your own.”
4
I traded two of Al’s vintage dollars for a leather valise, left it behind the beatnik’s counter, then walked up to Main Street with my briefcase banging my leg. I glanced into the greenfront and saw the clerk sitting beside the cash register and reading a newspaper. There was no sign of my pal in the black overcoat.
It would have been hard to get lost in the shopping district; it was only a block long. Three of four storefronts up from the Kennebec Fruit, I came to Baumer’s Barber Shop. A red-and-white barber pole twirled in the window. Next to it was a political poster featuring Edmund Muskie. I remembered him as a tired, slope-shouldered old man, but this version of him looked almost too young to vote, let alone get elected to anything. The poster read, SEND ED MUSKIE TO THE U.S. SENATE, VOTE DEMOCRAT! Someone had put a bright white band around the bottom. Hand-printed on it was THEY SAID IT COULDN’T BE DONE IN MAINE BUT WE DID IT! NEXT UP: HUMPHREY IN 1960!
Inside, two old parties were sitting against the wall while an equally old third party got his tonsure trimmed. Both of the waiting men were puffing like choo-choos. So was the barber (Baumer, I assumed), with one eye squinted against the rising smoke as he clipped. All four studied me in a way I was familiar with: the not-quite-mistrustful look of appraisal that Christy once called the Yankee Glare. It was nice to know that some things hadn’t changed.
“I’m from out of town, but I’m a friend,” I told them. “Voted the straight Democratic ticket my whole life.” I raised my hand in a so-help-me-God gesture.
Baumer grunted with amusement. Ash tumbled from his cigarette. He brushed it absently off his smock and onto the floor, where there were several crushed butts among the cut hair. “Harold there’s a Republican. You want to watch out he don’t bitecha.”
“He ain’t got the choppers for it nummore,” one of the others said, and they all cackled.
“Where you from, mister?” Harold the Republican asked.
“Wisconsin.” I picked up a copy of Man’s Adventure to forestall further conversation. On the cover, a subhuman Asian gent with a whip in one gloved hand was approaching a blonde lovely tied to a post. The story that went with it was called JAP SEX-SLAVES OF THE PACIFIC. The barbershop’s smell was a sweet and completely wonderful mixture of talcum powder, pomade, and cigarette smoke. By the time Baumer motioned me to the chair, I was deep into the sex-slaves story. It wasn’t as exciting as the cover.
“Been doin some traveling, Mr. Wisconsin?” he asked as he settled a white rayon cloth over my front and wrapped a paper collar around my neck.
“Quite a lot,” I said truthfully.
“Well, you’re in God’s country now. How short do you want it?”
“Short enough so I don’t look like”—a hippie, I almost finished, but Baumer wouldn’t know what that was—“like a beatnik.”
“Let it get a little out of control, I guess.” He began to clip. “Leave it much longer and you’d look like that faggot who runs the Jolly White Elephant.”
“I wouldn’t want that,” I said.
“Nosir, he’s a sight, that one.” That-un.
When Baumer finished, he powdered the back of my neck, asked me if I wanted Vitalis, Brylcreem, or Wildroot Cream Oil, and charged me forty cents.
I call that a deal.
5
My thousand-dollar deposit at the Hometown Trust raised no eyebrows. The freshly barbered look probably helped, but I think it was mostly being in a cash-and-carry society where credit cards were still in their infancy… and probably regarded with some suspicion by thrifty Yankees. A severely pretty teller with her hair done up in tight rolls and a cameo at her throat counted my money, entered the amount in a ledger, then called over the assistant manager, who counted it again, checked the ledger, and then wrote out a receipt that showed both the deposit and the total in my new checking account.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s a mighty big amount to be carrying in checking, Mr. Amberson. Would you like to open a savings account? We’re currently offering three percent interest, compounded quarterly.” He widened his eyes to show me what a wonderful deal this was. He looked like that old-time Cuban bandleader, Xavier Cugat.
“Thanks, but I’ve got a fair amount of business to transact.” I lowered my voice. “Real estate closing. Or so I hope.”
“Good luck,” he said, lowering his own to the same confidential pitch. “Lorraine will fix you up with checks. Fifty enough to go on with?”
“Fifty would be fine.”
“Later on, we can have some printed with your name and your address.” He raised his eyebrows, turning it into a question.
“I expect to be in Derry. I’ll be in touch.”
“Fine. I’m at Drexel eight four-seven-seven-seven.”
I had no idea what he was talking about until he slid a business card through the window. Gregory Dusen, Assistant Manager, was engraved on it, and DRexel 8-4777.
Lorraine got my checks and a faux alligator checkbook to put them in. I thanked her and dropped them into my briefcase. At the door I paused for a look back. A couple of the tellers were working adding machines, but otherwise the transactions were all of the pen-and-elbow-grease variety. It occurred to me that, with a few exceptions, Charles Dickens would have felt at home here. It also occurred to me that living in the past was a little like living underwater and breathing through a tube.