"Dan Simmons - Shave And A Haircut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites
by Dan Simmons
Introduction
My family moved frequently when I was a child. One of the problems of movingтАФat
any ageтАФis the tedious chore of finding a new doctor, dentist, favorite grocery store
... and barber.
When I was about eight we moved to the small Illinois town of Brimfield, population
less than a thousand, and although the town barely had one of everythingтАФone
store, one doctor, one schoolтАФit had two barbers. I re-member my mother taking
my younger brother Wayne and me downtown and entering the first barbershop we
saw.
The wrong one.
I remember the desiccated cactus and the dead flies on the window ledge. I
remember the musty, chewing-tobacco-and-old-sweat smell of the dark interior and
the mirrors that seemed to absorb the light. I remember the old men in bib overalls
who scurried away like cock-roaches as we entered; I remember how startled the
elderly barber was at our intrusion.
I had my hair cut that day, Wayne didn't. It was a ter-rible haircut. I wore my Cub
Scout hat, indoors and out, for three weeks. Mom soon learned that the real
barber-shop was a block down the street. No one went to the shop we had
blundered into. Even the old farmers who hung out there were bald or had never
been seen in a bar-ber chair.
The only interesting part to this anecdote is the epilogue: that same barbershopтАФor
one just like itтАФhas been in every town I've lived in since.
In Chicago, it was tucked away on an unnamed sidestreet just off Kildare Avenue.
In Indianapolis, it was a short block from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.
In Philadelphia, it was on Germantown Avenue just across the street from a
three-hundred-year-old haunted house named Grumblethorpe.
In CalcuttaтАФwhere most people get their haircuts and shaves from sidewalk barbers
who squat on the curb while the customer squats in the gutterтАФthe old shop was
just off Chowringhee Road, tucked under a hundred-trunked banyan tree which is
said to be as old as the earth.
Out here where I live in Colorado, it is on Main Street, between Third and Fourth
Avenues.
Of course it's not the same shop, it's just ... well, the same.
Look around. You'll find it in your community. You don't get your hair cut there,
and no one you know has ever had a haircut there ... and the prices are from a
pre-vious decade if not century ... but ask around. The locals will shake their heads
as if trying to remember a dream, and then they'll sayтАФ"Oh, yeah, that place has
always been here. That barber's always been here. Don't know nobody who goes to
'im anymore, though. Wonder how he gets by."
Go on. Work up the courage to go in. Ignore the mum-mified cactus and dead flies
in the window. Don't be dis-tracted by the old men who scurry out the back door
when you come in the front.
Go ahead. Get your hair cut there.
I dare you.
***
Outside, the blood spirals down.
I pause at the entrance to the barbershop. There is nothing unique about it. Almost
certainly there is one sim-ilar to it in your community; its function is proclaimed by