Блейк Крауч - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, No. 5. Whole No. 813, May 2009

For the Love of Mary Hooks

Through the curtain of constant rain, Mary Hooks caught her second look at Donny Palmer. Hidden in the shadows of the entranceway to Drucker’s 5 & 10 on the opposite side of Corbett Street, she watched as the boy and his mother dashed into the Dairy Queen. Mary had seen the boy only once before, when his father, Don Senior, had showed up to tell her he had to stay home that night — something had come up and his wife Dale expected him. In the rain, Don Senior had stood hovering in the doorway to keep her from his son’s view. But she saw the boy, a beautiful blur behind the streaked glass of his father’s Pontiac LeMans, shaggy blond bangs over his eyes. From the Dairy Queen, mother and son sprinted to Carmello’s Barbershop where, under the awning, they shook off the rain. The boy’s mother pushed open the shop door, but Donny shook his head and refused to enter, stepping back from the meaty figure of the town barber and into the rain.

The truth about Carmello DeNino was that ever since The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show he stopped liking boys altogether. The barber scowled from behind his chair, disgusted with the boys of Lake Claire who had let their hair grow long: first the front and sides, over the eyes and past the ears, and to their collars, where it curled like a girl’s. Then they stopped coming altogether. The Palmer boy, an oddball already, Carmello told anybody who would listen, was the first to refuse a haircut. But others followed. And here the boy was, standing in the rain, again refusing a haircut.

For eighteen years Carmello stood each morning before the American flag that flew from his barbershop. His massive hand spread over his swelling chest as he recited the Pledge of Allegiance with a solemn shake of his head, to show the people of Lake Claire he was an American, the best you could possibly be. But after two decades of running an honest business in Lake Claire, Carmello spoke painfully of the declining number of young customers in his shop each day.

Mary Hooks watched as the boy’s mother appeared to plead with her son to enter the shop, angry, yes, Mary thought, but more disheartened than anything else. Donny remained steadfast in the rain, as if to underscore his defiance. The boy’s mother dropped her head in surrender and entered the barbershop, nodding apologies at the immigrant barber, who had a moustache like Stalin, the cheeks of a bulldog, and a head like a fuzzy pumpkin. Donny stepped back under the awning and out of the rain. Crossing the street to get a better view of the rain-soaked, shaggy-haired boy, Mary sought shelter under the same awning.

“Just can’t stay dry these days, can we?” she said to him as she shook water from her umbrella.

“No, ma’am,” Donny answered, his eyes still on his mother and the big barber inside, who stood with his beefy arms folded across his chest.

Mary stirred at the boy’s formal “ma’am.” At twenty-two she was not used to hearing such formal greetings. “Not ready for a haircut yet, I guess.”

Donny acknowledged the pretty stranger with rosebud lips, brown eyes, and short dark hair with a puzzled glance her way. But he didn’t hold his gaze; he pushed wet bangs from his eyes and looked away, barely grunting a reply. Donny’s mother talked inside, with her back to the window, while the Italian barber glared at the boy over his mother’s shoulder.

“My name’s Mary.” She dipped her head to catch the withdrawn boy’s eyes again.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve seen you.” He shuffled his feet from side to side, kicking at the wet sidewalk with the toes of his sneakers.

“I’m going to make a guess here — and I’m usually right about these things — I bet you like The Beatles, don’t you. Is that it?” she asked, the hope of a reply in her smile. Donny looked up with eyes wide. “Uh-huh.”

“Is that why you don’t want to get your hair cut?” Moving closer to the boy, Mary hummed the melody from “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”

“Uh-huh.” He ran his hand through wet hair, his eyes returning to her in recognition.

“Your parents making you? Is that it?”

“Uh-huh.” He glanced at his mother again and back to Mary. “Mostly my dad, he doesn’t like it one bit. But he’s not here right now.”

Mary Hooks nearly answered that she knew his father was away on business in Atlanta, but caught herself in the middle of a nod. She knew because she had met Donny’s father, Don Senior, just yesterday during her lunch break, at home, and right before he had left for Atlanta. I’ve only got a few, Mary-girl , Don Senior whispered in her ear as he pressed his hips into hers. They didn’t eat lunch but instead made love on Mary’s rose-colored sofa, Don Senior murmuring promises of gifts from Atlanta, of a time when they would be together, of a ring on her finger. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll make you honest. Just, things have to move slowly in delicate situations like this. When he had exhausted himself, he kissed Mary’s forehead and hurriedly dressed, cursing the clock on the wall. Don’t you move from here until I get back . Mary knew he thought he was being romantic.

“Is that right?” Mary turned back to the boy.

“Uh-huh.”

When she asked the sixteen-year-old if he had heard the new Beatles single, “Paperback Writer ,“ Donny shook his head. Mary Hooks smiled and touched the wet bangs that had fallen again over his eyes, before jerking her hand away in shock at her own action.

“I like your hair,” she added, as if saying so would explain away her immodest gesture.

Through the large plate-glass window of Carmello’s Barbershop, Dale Palmer, frustrated and tired from the latest battle between father and son, leaving her, as always, in the middle to mediate, watched as a stranger, a curiously familiar young woman, reached out to touch her son’s face. Dale noticed that the young woman wore capri pants in the latest fashion, something her husband Don had forbidden her to wear. It’s not proper. I don’t care what they’re doing in Atlanta, he told her. Without understanding why she needed to return to her son so suddenly but knowing that she did, Dale Palmer apologized to the bearish barber again.

“I’m sure we’ll be back,” she said and left the barbershop.

Donny waited under the awning, grinning oddly at his mother. There was no sign of the young woman with short hair who had touched her son’s face with such affection.

“Who was that?” Dale Palmer asked her son.

“Some lady,” Donny replied, turning from his mother and the offer of her umbrella. “Said she liked my hair.”

Donny Palmer had a pretty face for a sixteen-year-old boy: the eyelashes, the yielding blue eyes, the smooth, clear skin of his mother, the fine fair hair that fell well past his ears to the collar of his shirt. While most of the boys of Lake Claire wanted to be like Aaron, Alou, or Matthews as they cracked balls into the hot, humid air of Fulton County Stadium, Donny wanted to be a Beatle. Ever since he, like seventy-three million others in America, had gotten his first glimpse of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show , Donny felt something stir inside that he could hardly name, an enthusiasm that rose up from within and brought tears to his eyes as it swelled to a scream. He had no idea why, but he knew he wanted to keep that feeling. Watching The Beatles sing on television in their neat black suits as they strummed guitars, heads bobbing, Cuban heels tapping to the backbeat, Donny wanted to jump around. It was a fantastic noise, not unlike music on the Negro station he heard when their housekeeper Mrs. Jackson thought no one was around. Listening to The Beatles gave Donny the idea there was something beyond the borders of Ball County, beyond the stifling walls of his father’s house and the needy hands of his coddling mother. When Donny heard The Beatles, he danced, and not the dances he had been forced to learn at junior cotillion where, dressed in dinner jacket and dark trousers, he hid in gymnasium corners waiting for the evening to end. In his bedroom, Donny danced like the kids on American Bandstand, where everyone danced together, where stylish city kids knew the latest hit songs and pretty girls cried out for pop stars like The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Turtles, and Love. Donny couldn’t stop himself and he didn’t care. He didn’t care that his father had forbidden him to listen to The Beatles or any music like it.