Clyde Pritchard at City Barbershop

Now, I ain’t one to gossip — you know that — but you sit long enough in this chair, and folks’ll spill things faster than I can sweep ’em up. Been that way since before the new bridge went in, and that was, what, ’86? Lord, I remember when this shop still had a Coca-Cola cooler instead of that humming thing that keeps my ice cream bars half-frozen and twice as sticky.

Anyway, you come to me askin’ about Tommy Wayne Turner, and I’ll tell you this much: boy had a gift for trouble, same as his mama, same as that whole side of the family. Not mean trouble, just unfortunate. Like a magnet for bad luck.

That summer he run off, hot as sin and just as unforgivin’, I told Lily Pearl he’d be back someday. “They all come back,” I said, and she near bit my head off with a look. You don’t cross Lily Pearl Turner unless you like your ears burned clean off.

So, imagine my surprise when this morning, I’m sweepin’ up clippings, and the bell over the door gives one sad jingle, and in walks Tommy Wayne, full-grown, beard scruffy, eyes older than a man his age deserves. Said he was lookin’ for a trim.

Well, I told him I could cut hair, but I can’t fix reputations. He laughed. Quiet, like somebody who forgot how, and said, “You still charge two bits for a haircut?” I told him, “Son, two bits was before the Carter administration.”

He sat down anyway. Didn’t say much, just watched himself in the mirror like he was waiting for somebody else to appear. Finally, I said it plain: “Town’s been whisperin’ again since you come back. You plan on stayin’?”

He looked at me through the mirror. One of them long, heavy looks that makes you wish you’d kept your mouth shut. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Depends what’s still here worth stayin’ for.”

I snipped a bit and said, “Well, the barber’s still here. So’s your Aunt Lily Pearl, and the creek, and the stories that won’t die.”

He smiled then, a small thing, but it cracked something open in the room. I swear the old clock on the wall ticked louder for a second.

When he left, I watched him walk past the pool hall and down toward the post office. Couple of folks peeked through curtains, pretendin’ they wasn’t. Miss Hattie dropped her mail trying not to stare.

And I thought to myself: Piedmont’s got its share of ghosts, and not all of ’em stay quiet.

He’ll stir the ashes, that one. The boy’s come home to dig something up. And I don’t mean bones, though Lord knows we got those too.

*****

New Yesterdays is available through the following links: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.