Like some careless hedgecutter, the old barber came head and shoulders into the mirror and lopped a chunk off the tall, revered pompadour. ?Stand out like a diamon? in a goat?s ass,? was the comment.
Horn accepted his punishment without flinching. Without words. Stoical as Aurelius, whom he admired when he was tired or sleepy, he watched his own stone-face in the mirror.
?No way,? the barber sang an old tired-voiced tune, ?no way you was gonna lose election, baby. Hundred percent black people?s cooperation.? He yanked a strip of hair away that left Jimmie Horn nearly bald in one spot.
With that the mayor brought both his dark eyes to the right, to Robinson?s eyes. ?Be careful,? he warned in his soft, firm voice. ?You are Jimmie Horn?s barber. You pay attention to your work.?
The old barber took his message and there was a brief silence.
?Come brand new into this town,? he resumed his speech with a new cutting angle. ?Massomino or which-what. Says hop to Jimmie Horn. And Jimmie Horn hop. He hop right exactly to.?
?I have my reasons.? Horn finally found himself at the point of apologies. ?You don?t get to see everything that goes on ? uh ? It?s complicated. Just cut my hair, please, Robbie.?
The old man slashed down on one fuzzy sideburn. Then he got the other one. ?What?re you doin? to us baby?? he started crying. ?I don?t like this. Understand it??
Jimmie Horn drifted into a Sunoco parking lot with a popped-up Spaulding outside in the street. Into the alleys of an urban renewal project. He drifted in his own sports memories. Drifted in memories of solemn old men and women giving him dreamy, semi-lucid talkings-to. Asking him if he knew that he was smart enough to go off to Tennessee Agricultual Industrial one day?
The old man started in with his sharp straight razor. ?You know they gonna kill Henry Aaron yet. You know that,? he said. ?I dream that.?
?You know I?m just your dumb baby,? Jimmie Horn answered with his eyes closed. Feeling hot lather on his throat, lots of hot lather. ?No common sense,? he smiled, teeth whiter than the shaving cream.
?Don?t you smile at me like that,? the old man was strong on top of his blade. ?I know that one other dumb baby.?
?He smiled. Played his piano so pretty he got his fingers broke in a car hood. And that pretty Carma. She smiled too. Dumb happy baby. Shot her with women?s stockings over their heads.?
?Finished.?
Jimmie Horn opened his eyes and took a good look at himself in the mirror. Something in his mind said
but he didn?t.
?This is good,? he patted the shrunken head. ?You?ve done it.? He grinned so convincingly that the old man took pleasure. ?Saved me.?
But Jimmie Horn was singing a different tune to himself.
he repeated.
Horn drove the city?s Oldsmobile back toward downtown Nashville. He followed Church Street to 6th, then switched over to West End Avenue. It was 8:15 on the clock outside Morrison?s Cafeteria and he still had some work to do. It was something he had little stomach for, but it had to be done anyway.
Jimmie Horn flicked the car?s noisy directionals on, then waited his turn to go into the parking lot flanking Nashville Police Headquarters.
Police Interrogation Room #3 had a small square window up too high to be reached without a stepladder. There were three orange plastic chairs. A copper doorknob.
Everything else was white.
Two very black blackmen, Marshall ?Cottontail? Hayes and Vernon Hudson, sat facing each other in two of the chairs.
Hudson, thirty-seven years old, wore a short-collar white shirt, blue bus-driver?s tie, gray pants. He also had a brown shoulder holster setup over his arm. Hayes, aged twenty, was dressed in dark burgundy and gold: a feathered burgundy hat, silk jumpsuit, calfskin boots, a variety of gold bracelets, rings, and earrings.
One thing was obvious in the small room: Cottontail Hayes hadn?t learned how to dress in his hometown of Gray Hawk, Mississippi.
Jimmie Horn was standing in the room, directly behind Hayes. Occasionally the twenty-year-old would look over his shoulder at the mayor, but Horn never returned the look.
?I understand you murdered a man name of Freddie Tucker.? Vernon Hudson spoke in a surprisingly soft voice.
?I also understand you the big new dope man around town,? Hudson said.
This time Hayes slowly stroked his long goatee.
Jimmie Horn sat down in the third chair. He looked into Hayes? face.
Hayes examined what he thought to be an imperfection in one of his rings.
Horn lighted up a Kool and handed it across to the boy.
?I?d like to explain something to you,? he said.
