Ike and Bobby.
Saturdays they collected. They rose early and delivered the papers and came back home and went out to the barn where they fed the horses and afterward the mewling moiling cats and the dog and then returned to the house and washed up at the kitchen sink and ate breakfast with their father and then went out again. They made their collections together. It was better that way. They carried a book with tear-off tabs dated for the months and weeks and a canvas bag with a drawstring for the money.
They began on Main Street, collecting at the places of business before they became busy and crowded with the Saturday trade, before the townspeople would come downtown and the farm and ranch people would drive in from the country, buying things for the week and passing the time, neighborly. They started at Nexey’s Lumberyard beside the railroad tracks and collected from Don Nexey himself, who was kind to them and had a bald head which shone like sculpted marble under the low tin-shaded lights above the front counter. Then they went next door to Schmidt’s Barber Shop and stood their bikes against the brick storefront under the spiraling red and white barber pole.
When they entered the shop Harvey Schmidt was employing scissors on the hair of a man seated in the chair with a thin striped cloth pinned about his neck. There were black curls caught in the folds of the cloth like scraps of sewing. Sitting along the wall were another man and a boy, reading magazines and waiting. They looked up together when the two boys came in. The boys closed the door and stood just inside the room.
What do you two want? Harvey Schmidt said. He said this or something like it every Saturday.
Collecting for the paper, Ike said.
Collecting for the paper, he said. I don’t think I’m even going to pay you. It’s nothing, only bad news. What do you think of that?
They didn’t say anything. The boy sitting against the wall was watching them from behind his magazine. He was an older boy from the grade school.
Pay them, Harvey, the man in the barber’s chair said. You can afford to stop for a minute.
I’m considering, Harvey said, whether I’m even going to. He combed out the hair above the man’s ear, drawing it away from his head, and cut it cleanly with the scissors and then combed it flat again. He looked at the two boys. Who cuts you boys’ hair now?
What?
I said, Who cuts your hair?
Mother.
I thought your mother moved out. I heard she moved into that little house over on Chicago Street.
They didn’t answer. They were not surprised that he knew. But they didn’t want him talking about it in his barbershop on Main Street on Saturday morning.
Isn’t that what I heard? he said.
They looked at him and then quickly at the boy sitting against the wall. He was still watching. They kept quiet and stared at the floor, at the clippings of men’s hair under the raised leather-backed chair.
Leave them alone, Harvey.
I’m not bothering them. I’m asking them a question.
Leave them alone.
No, Harvey said to the boys again. Think about it. I buy your papers and you get your haircut from me. That’s how it works. He pointed at them with the scissors. I buy from you and you buy from me. It’s called commerce.