When Tom was ten and first moved to the South there were many thrilling new
experiences like grits and ringworm and forests in the city but most memorable

was that black strap hanging from the barber’s chair he was put in shortly after
arriving which readied the gleaming single-edged blade as ominously as anything

he’d seen prior then the blade came to the rear of his neck to trim further and make
the border as straight as a machine as if that would solve his problems but he fell for

it for the barber was avuncular and had a shiny bald pate and that smarmy paternal
friendliness Tom had yet to realize is a cloak for shame plus the man relayed lewd

stories found in hidden magazines as the blade whipped across the strap then came
to trim Tom deeper. Lo these many years later Tom suspects the barber would have

drawn blood had he known what kind of man Tom would become since the distinction 
between desire and the brain is like the gulf between the old and young now with less

hair and more sin Tom has come to fear those men of the South lingering like sloths
put on earth to remind us this life we’ve come to love could end in the nick of time.