« « 16/03/2008 Image - The Barber’s Chair

A Tough Room

Contributed by Nicolas Papaconstantinou on 17/03/08

So this is where he works, the big Jew with the straight razor. See him moving slowly cross the room; you wouldn’t have thought they made kikes that big, and you sure as fuck wouldn’t have imagined a guy that vast would be so slick and delicate with his blade.

This guy; we’ve never been able to track down where this guy takes them to do his job. My organisation, the people I work for, they maybe don’t want to know the fine details, for the sake of plausible deniability, but they at least like to have a sense of things, have some clue of where the bodies are buried. But this guy, despite his considerable bulk; we’ve never been able to catch him when he picks a… a package up, and we’ve never been able to find this place.

Who knows, maybe the guy has more than one safe place to take them. Sure as fuck, none of the dumb bastards I’ve sent to follow him have ever seen one of them. Well, the ones that get back haven’t, anyway. Professional courtesy says that we never ask him about the soldiers that vanish without a trace in his wake.

The Jew, the Demon Barber, as he’s known to wiseguys like me that’re in the know, he only gets used for special jobs. You need to send a message to some motherfucking yo prick who doesn’t know to do his dealing off your territory, you just throw a few bills to a cornerboy with a glint in his eye, he’ll cap that wannabe gangsta in broad daylight, and the job is dusted and done. But you need an attorney extinct, or a federal witness to enter your own private relocation program? You cut a deal with the Barber.

In fact, I’m the guy who brokers that deal; at least, for my organisation. I mean, I don’t know much more about the guy then anyone else, but I’m the Caprelli family fixer in this burg, and that means that you want something like that done, you go through me. There are about a half dozen guys we use for messy jobs, and the Barber is one of them, and as far as I knew, I was the only one in my crew who had a hotline to the motherfucker.

So how’d I end up here, if I don’t know where here is?

Well, fuck if I know, is my answer to that question. Someone high up obviously heard something about me that they didn’t like, or hell, maybe even cousin Joe found out that I was banging his bangle wearing bitch of a wife alternate Thursdays, I don’t know.

All I know is, I pass out in front of the tube, then come to with cold feet, zip-tied to that old barber’s chair over there, and all I can see are white tiles and my clothes in a pile over in the corner. After a few minutes of working out that my mouth isn’t working, like I’ve just been to the dentist or some shit, I notice a shadow crossing my face, and roll my eyes in that direction. While I’m processing the giant egg-shape of a big-ass Jew, a meaty hand grabs my hair from the other side, and forces my head down over the shampoo basin that I haven’t noticed before.

I don’t get to feel the razor as it slides across my Adam’s apple, because by the time the shock subsides, I’m already out of myself, over here on the other side of the room, watching it all happen.

All I can think, while I watch him holding me over the basin, cold water running, is that when there’s that much blood, it doesn’t look real at all. All those times watching slasher flicks, and bitching about the fake blood…? I won’t be doing that again. Well, course, obviously I won’t be, but you know what I mean, right?

And so, I’m standing here, watching the big guy as he quietly goes about slicing me up, breaking me down, into easily disposable pieces, and I’m feeling pretty detached. Kinda like I should be angry or upset, but it’s like I’m on heroin, and everything is real far away. The Demon Barber is grunting softly as he works on some particularly strong muscle tissue, and I’m actually laughing, thinking “well yes, ma’am, I do work out… how could you tell?”. The laughing, and the grunting, though, I barely hear them… they echo like I’m underwater.

Then, as he’s finishing off his clean-up, I start to wonder, well, then, what’s next? Come on, motherfucker, where’s the bright light…? Where’s the next place? Which, you know, is wishful thinking, but I figure I’m entitled. I mean, it’s not like I ever actually capped a son-of-a-bitch.

Nothing happens, though, and he’s finishing up, and then he’s switching off the light. And when it’s dark in here, I look down at my hand, and I can kind of see it, still, like it’s a negative image of itself.

And there are other shapes hanging out there now, floating in the darkness of the room, like I’m a bitch in a peepshow, and all of the johns have stroked in a coin at the same time. They’re all looking at me, flat and dull like they don’t give a shit, and I’m on display with my titties out, so to fucking speak, and when I call out to them, ask them “what the fuck?”, they don’t hear me, and I’m underwater again.

Then I start to recognise faces, and it’s like my high school reunion, because it’s all the losers that I ever dropped a line on to the Jew, all the snitches and the skimmers and the wiseguys and the jerks, and that’s when I get it. This is it, now; this is inbetween, where I get to float in the dark until the next time the guy with my old life gives the Demon Barber a job, and me, and all the other guys he ever laid his blade on, get to watch, again and again, in our own little peepshows in the dark.