The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [13]
Rayber thought that if the barber would read a few….
Listen, he didn’t have to read nothin.’ All he had to do was think. That was the trouble with people these days—they didn’t think, they didn’t use their horse sense. Why wasn’t Rayber thinkin’? Where was his horse sense?
Why am I straining myself? Rayber thought irritably.
“Nossir!” the barber said. “Big words don’t do nobody no good. They don’t take the place of thinkin’.”
“Thinking!” Rayber shouted. “You call yourself thinking?”
“Listen,” the barber said, “do you know what Huwk told them people at Tilford?” At Tilford Hawk had told them that he liked niggers fine’ in their place and if they didn’t stay in that place, he had a place to put ‘em. How about that?
Rayber wanted to know what that had to do with thinking.
The barber thought it was plain as a pig on a sofa what that had to do with thinking. He thought a good many other things too. which he told Rayber. He said Rayber should have heard the Hawkson speeches at Mullin’s Oak, Bedford, and Chickerville.
Rayber settled down in his chair again and reminded the barber that he had come in for a shave.
The barber started back shaving him. He said Rayber should have heard the one at Spartasville. “There wasn’t a Mother Hubbard left standin’, and all the Boy Blues got their horns broke. Hawk said,” he said, “that the time had come when you had to sit on the lid with…”
“I have an appointment,” Rayber said. “I’m a hurry.” Why should he stay and listen to that tripe?
As much rot as it was, the whole asinine conversation stuck with him the rest of the day and went through his mind in persistent detail after he was in bed that night. To his disgust, he found that he was going through it, putting in what he would have said if he’d had an opportunity to prepare himself. He wondered how Jacobs would have handled it. Jacobs had a way about him that made people think he knew more than Rayber thought he knew. It was not a bad trick in his profession. Rayber often amused himself analyzing it. Jacobs would have handled the barber calmly enough. Rayber started through the conversation again, thinking how Jacobs would have done it. He ended doing it himself.
The next time he went to the barber’s, he had forgotten about the argument. The barber seemed to have forgotten it too. He disposed of the weather and stopped talking. Rayber was wondering what was going to be for supper. Oh. It was Tuesday. On Tuesday his wife had canned meat. Took canned meat and baked it with cheese—slice of meat and a slice of cheese—turned out striped—why do we have to have this stuff every Tuesday?—if you don’t like it you don’t have to—
“You still a Mother Hubbard?”
Rayber’s head jerked. “What?”
“You still for Darmon?”
“Yes,” Rayber said and his brain darted to its store of preparations.
“Well, look-a-here, you teachers, you know, looks like, well…”
He was confused. Rayber could see that he was not so sure of himself as he’d been the last time. He probably thought he had a new point to stress. “Looks like you fellows would vote for Hawk on account of you know what he said about teachers’ salaries. Seems like you would now. Why not? Don’t you want more money?”
“More money!” Rayber laughed. “Don’t you know that with a rotten governor I’d lose more money than he’d give me?” He realized that he was finally on the barber’s level. “Why, he dislikes too many different kinds of people,” he said. “He’d cost me twice as much as Darmon.”
“So what if he would?” the barber said. “I ain’t one to pinch money when it does some good. I’ll pay for quality any day.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Rayber began. “That’s not…”