Knackered Comes of Age with Benzos

  Hey there, Knackered here. The Knackered brothers one and two grew up in their father’s barber shop.  The often knackered mother was required to keep the family land line ablaze in the interest of maintaining the neighborhood gossip group.  Attired in her uniform of hair curlers and housecoat, she could not be bothered with the shenanigans of two boys who ‘drove her crazy!’ So the order went out to ‘go see your father for god sakes!’  Not needing to be told twice, they hopped atop their faithful bikes and headed out.  There was no fear that they would arrive.  They lived for the opportunity to visit the family shop.

   The neighborhood surrounding the shop was a carnival for all ages.  Ensconced  within just a few  blocks could be found the shop, liquor store, pool hall, and army surplus variety store (anybody out there remember those?). Too young to imbibe, the brothers spent their allowance money on combat gear and becoming pool sharks.  Once cashed out, they were forced inside, where they needed to settle down and act ‘normal’.

   The definition or normal was on a sliding scale.  Activities inside a barber shop at that time were anything but; normal that is.  The barbers (with the exception of Knackered Senior of course) were sketchy at  best, and oft times illegal at worst.  The guy who commanded the second chair once made his wife disappear, only to fade into the sunrise himself the next morning.  “Damn guy just disappeared,” was the terminology used.  Another employee favored turning his prosthetic leg backward to freak out the least suspecting.  And still another would come back from lunch quite ‘to the wind’ and needed to be retrieved from the side parking lot where he did ‘god knows what’ with his current girlfriend.

   The ‘Knackered Kids’ were entrusted with ‘jobs” to keep them busy.  They were indeed ‘in the hair;’ constantly, sweeping the floor.  Magazines featuring Miss July needed to be housed in the safe keeping drawer when the church clergy arrived for their appointments.  Ice blue Aqua Velva  aftershave needed to refreshed with food coloring to make sure it remained true to color and, “For god’s sake, keep that damn bird (shop mascot) out of sight” when the health inspector showed up.”

   All sorts came and went and the events that ensued could never be predicted.  A fire once broke out and was quickly extinguished when the newspaper of a sleeping  barber was set ablaze by the cigarette lighter of another.  Father Knackered, never to be too upset by most anything, simply stated that they needed to clean up the mess and cut another head of hair.  A parking dispute out front, once turned into a demolition derby when the participants decided to take auto revenge on one another.  The fracas made its way inside when the patrons decided to go face to face.  In the process, somebody called the cops.  Before Officer Chuck (another faithful customer) arrived, “the mess was all cleaned up”, and peace had been restored.  Chuck stuck his head inside only to be told that, “Nobody had seen nothin.”

   Eventually the brother knackered stayed home to build his slot cars (anybody ever had one?) and Knackered himself became an actual employee.  During his middle school years he shined endless pairs of shoes, swept up dumpsters full of hair and cleaned thousands of cigarette butts out of the ashtrays (gag me already).  He caught plenty of shade from school mates, but hands down, he had more money than any kids he knew.

   Certain times were more plentiful than others and when the Shriners convention came to town, all of the members came down wearing their little purple hats with gold tassels.  All were seriously ‘in the bag’ having arrived via taxi straight from the hotel.  They all got shaves and haircuts, visited the liquor store and drank from paper sacks while waiting for their Shriner brothers to get ‘dolled up’.  Not one to miss a beat, Knackered hit them all up for shoe shines and a thirty five cent polish job quickly became a ‘sawbuck’ deal.

   When basketball season rolled around Knackered decided to turn out and by the grace of some god, actually made the team.  While this brought cheers from the peers, it also cut seriously into his revenue stream.  It didn’t hurt the shop business though.  A major disaster occurred when the coach laid down the law on length of hair; none could be hanging over a kid’s ears.  The local garage band, who all fancied themselves as athletes were distraught.  They couldn’t cut, but couldn’t play.  Knackered sent them all to the shop.  Father Knackered was a tonsorial artist and fashioned hairstyles that could be combed up, but also let down for weekend  gigs.

   When it was all said and done, Knackered had just one more goal in mind before he left the shop for a ‘real job’ that paid minimum wage, at the going rate of a dollar and twenty five cents per hour.  The desire to give himself a shave weighed heavily on his mind.  Lacking the proper equipment at home, he waited until the shop was empty one day and dad was working in back, counting up the week’s receipts.  He soaped up his face with the latherizer machine and picked up his father’s straight razor.  Two swipes and his ‘peach fuzz’ mustache was history.  Sadly so was the skin above his upper lip.  He was quickly void of facial hair for the next few years, but endured more insults when he returned to school wearing a bandaid under his nose.  It hurt, but only his pride.  Of course it did.