Saturday Morning Backroads Justice

Hick took off for his weekly haircut this morning at 7:00. I'm sure he doesn't need a haircut every week. He barely even has hair. But that's always his excuse when he leaves at 7:00 and doesn't return until 10:00 or 11:00.

At 9:40, Hick called to report that he was going to drop off his prescriptions at the pharmacy, then go look around Goodwill for a while.

"What have you been doing for over two-and-a-half hours?"

"Getting a haircut."

"Sure. You wouldn't even wait that long for a doctor's appointment."

"It takes time, Val. I have to wait. There are always ten or twelve guys there." Sure. On a Saturday morning, there's a rush on haircuts. I've seen that shop. You can look right in the window. There's not even ten chairs around the walls for waiters. No pool table. No magazines. Just the barber chair in the center, and a few red nondescript chairs ringing the walls for waiters to sit in.

"That's hard to believe." It's not like Hick is getting a haircut from Jose Eber. It's some good ol' boy who has this box-like building at a 4-way stop, catty-corner from an auto parts store, across one street from an abandoned former gas station that used to do car inspections in the manner of "You pay me, your car passes," and across the other street from a tiny decrepit trailer where sno cones are dispensed at odd hours on various days, depending on the mood of the proprietress.

"I shoot the bull with the other guys until it's my turn." Hard to believe Hick is always last, what with leaving home at 7:00 for the ten-minute trip.

"This morning we saw a fight! A car pulled into the parking lot with another car right on its tail. At first I thought a woman got out. That it was some kind of domestic abuse she was running away from. Then we saw it was a little guy with gray hair. A big guy jumped out of the second car and started screaming, 'You pulled right out in front of me and almost made me wreck!' The Big Guy looked to be about 40, and started swinging at the Little Guy. The Little Guy fought back. He was actually getting the best of it, even though he looked around 60. We all ran out to watch. The Big Guy was about my size. He threw his keys at the Little Guy's face, and they bounced off, and hit Johnny the Barber's truck! Johnny got mad then. 'Mister, now you're messing with my truck. I've got a problem with that.' He stepped up to the Big Guy. Johnny's a big boy. He's about a head-and-a-half taller than that Big Guy. So the Big Guy said okay, and held up his hands, and left. He didn't want no part of Johnny."

"They told me to call the police while it was happening. I dialed 311, the non-emergency number, and nobody answered. Anyway, by then, both guys were gone. We all went back inside to talk about it. Johnny said, 'Nothing like that has ever happened here.' And I told him, 'Yeah, but I bet that's not the first fight that parking lot has saw.' It used to be a bar right across the street."

Can you imagine Hick calling the NON-emergency number for the police? Because when a fight just erupted on the barber shop parking lot, what you want is the dispatcher to tell the cops, "You can put your feet up and have another donut. It's not an emergency. You can drop by later and see what's going on."

There you have it. What really goes on when Hick leaves early in the morning and does not return for hours. Apparently, there's some kind of fight club in Backroads. Now Hick has violated the first law of fight club.

I imagine his punishment will result in being moved to the end of the haircutting line next Saturday.