Still Shaving

By Donald Sheridan

The door is open. I invite you into my world.

Could we agree that the following list of ingredients are found in this phenomenon we refer to as life—joy, sorrow, happiness, disappointment, victory, defeat, wonder, awe, love, hate, surprise, gain, and loss?

While each life contains the same ingredients, they are not apportioned in the same way. Fate, chance, and our own decisions go a long way in shaping our individual outcomes.

Come, taste this smorgasbord.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638852407

Book preview

’39 Plymouth

Shortly after my seventeenth birthday, I started to develop a serious case of I need a new car-itis. But before there could be a car, there had to be cash, and before cash, a job. The Patron Saint of Teens smiled on me, and after school on a snowy December afternoon, Tom Oliver’s dad took a chance and hired me to work in his neighborhood grocery. I started in just before Christmas holiday, and after four months of Saturdays and most weekdays after school, I had $206 in a King Edward cigar box I kept hidden under my socks in the bottom drawer of the old bureau next to my bed.

It had taken several serious family discussions that rose to a fever pitch on occasions a year earlier when I first brought up the idea that I would buy a Whizzer motorbike. My family had lined up in strong opposition since they were sure I would kill myself or, worse, graduate in no time to an Indian or Harley, start wearing leathers or, perish the thought, get a tattoo. A Whizzer was out of the question, or so it seemed, but I was a bulldog and brought it up at every opportunity. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t promote the idea. I picked at my food. I feigned ennui. I became more and more lethargic. I became withdrawn. I lacked enthusiasm. In short, I made life unpleasant for everyone in the house.

Finally, one night over a supper of smoked butt and cabbage, one of my father’s favorite meals, he stunned us all by asking, How much is this Whizzer going to cost?

I was cured. The door to healing was ajar, and I burst through the opening, miraculously whole again and chattering with enthusiasm. I wasted no time seizing the opportunity that fate and my own disgusting behavior had provided. I knew what to say. I had been rehearsing it for weeks.

Tom Connors still has one of his old Whizzers. I quickly added, It’s old, but he says it’s got some life in it if I baby it along. He said I could have it for twenty dollars. Surely the reader can see the transparency of my logic, and I wonder now in the writing of this family scenario if it was transparent in the summer of 1952—the good, clean-cut neighbor boy assuring his product, the phrase baby it along. The fact that Connors smoked, snitched his old man’s Blatz Beer, and had plans to run off and join the navy were secrets to which my father was not privy.

Do you have twenty dollars?

I sure do, I boasted. Lawn mowing in the neighborhood had gone well that summer. I had several regular customers and had hoarded my money, counting on an opportunity such as this.

Then get the damn thing, he said. And don’t be leaving it in the yard. I don’t want this place looking like a junk dealer’s. Keep it in the garage, or it’s history. Do you understand what I’m telling you?

Okay, I responded and glanced at Marlene, who made a face and stuck out her tongue, but she couldn’t rile me that night, and I simply smiled back and helped myself to another plate of smoked butt. The battle of wills was over, and the next morning I had my Whizzer, but it was my father who had the last laugh.

It was my first lesson in the relationship between dreams and reality and the fact that reality seldom lives up to our dreams. All the babying in the world couldn’t make that bike into the reality I had conjured up in my dreams. I often had to pedal it for a block before it would kick over, and then it couldn’t outrun even the oldest dog in the neighborhood. It was unreliable. The tires were worn and often flat, it lacked compression, and before the summer was over, I sold it for ten dollars and was back on my Schwinn, and the Whizzer faded from my dreams like an old toothache.

By the following spring, I was infected with car-itis, but unlike my Whizzer experience, this time around, I promised to stay away from acquaintances. I was wary of car lots too after hearing so many stories about hamburger in transmissions and the bag full of tricks those charlatans had up their sleeves. This time, I promised myself, would be different. I began to plan my strategy and build my case in hot rod because my father would rule me out of order, and my case would be thrown out without a hearing. I decided to keep it practical. Before I could walk, I would have to learn to crawl. I would have gladly given an arm, or at least a finger, for a convertible (ah, hyperbole, thy name is teen). In this case, a convertible would have to be put on hold. I reasoned a four-door sedan would catch my parents off guard and increase my chances. Then there was color. I liked red, but in the early fifties, red was something common only in the newer models or on a paint chart at Earl Scheib’s. Red also signaled raciness and danger, hot rods and trouble—even blood, my blood, my blood spilled on the highway during a drag race with some greaser sporting a ducktail haircut and revving a ’49 chopped and channeled Mercury complete with fender skirts and a coon’s tail tied to the antenna. No, like practical shoes, it would have to be black—black and gutless.

On an early May afternoon, after three hours of moving groceries from the storeroom in the basement to the spotless white shelves at the Oliver grocery, I was pedaling my Schwinn down Oriole Avenue toward a supper of Spam and macaroni when the For Sale sign in the windshield of a black Plymouth screamed, Here, over here, kid. I stood down on the pedals, and the Schwinn’s rear tire left a black streak on the pavement.

I was squinting through the windows at the tan reed seat covers when I heard him say, She’s been a good old car, but my eyesight isn’t the best anymore, and the wife doesn’t drive, so here it sits. Would you be in the market?

Talk to you later, I shouted back to him as I pedaled with newfound vigor in the direction of 5221 Oriole Avenue and a date with destiny.

I never liked Spam, and after four years in the Army, my father could barely choke it down, but surrounded with Mom’s homemade macaroni, we both managed to tolerate it from time to time.

When he wasn’t looking up from his plate, I studied his mood and determined that during dessert, I would ease into the case du jour. When my mother brought out her pineapple upside-down cake and served a more than generous slice to my father and I saw his smile and heard the satisfying drawn-out Ahhh, I know the time was right.

Good, hon, he said after washing down the first bite with a swig of fresh coffee.

Yeah, Mom, I chimed in. You’re the best cook I know.

Was I being too transparent? I retreated and waited until my dad cleaned up the last of his cake and with his two thumbs pushed his plate away, his signal that he was indeed finished.

Boy, I sighed, I just realized I’ll be graduating in less than a month.

Do you want a medal?

Ken, my mother gently urged.

I’m going to need to hunt for a full-time job, I suggested. Oliver’s was okay for part-time, but…

And so your point is?

Here goes, I thought. I think I need to buy a car. There it was, out in the open.

The room fell mysteriously silent. The calm before the storm? Was the fuse lit? Was the time bomb ticking? I was desperately trying to organize my thoughts, but my plans to lay out a perfectly supported case for my car ownership were nowhere to be found in the chaos that was then my mind. The ship was going down, and I had forgotten how to swim.

Silently but with a hint for the dramatic, my father peeled open a fresh pack of Camels, cracked his Zippo, lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, exhaled, and studied the smoke as it curled upward around the hanging lamp that watched over our small dining room table.

He slowly loosened his tie with his right hand as his fingers on his left hand began rhythmically drumming on the table—pinky finger first, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, thumb; pink, ring, middle, index, thumb; pink, ring, middle, index, thumb.

Although I didn’t see her leave, I heard Marlene’s footsteps as she hurried upstairs to the relative safety of her bedroom. I glanced over at my mother, who had flight written clearly across her face, but she sat frozen in place.

The next sound was one I will never forget. It was the sound of a life preserver hitting the water, and it was thrown to me by my father who had locked his eyes on my own and quietly asked, Can you afford to own a car?

Yes was my relieved reply.

Then by all means, buy one, he said as he headed for the living room and his date with the Gillette Friday night boxing match.

My mother started clearing away the dishes as I sat in silence, trying to reconstruct what had just happened. I think the term in today’s parlance is near-accident trauma. At any rate, I was brought out of my shock-induced trance by my mother’s question tossed out to me from the kitchen. Do you want to wash or dry?

The next day, I took the $206 out of the cigar box, put it in my pocket, and headed for another Saturday at Oliver’s Grocery with a brief stop at Mr. Luther’s, the current owner of my first car.

He was sitting on his front porch reading the morning Tribune, an old white chow dog asleep at his feet, when I walked up the sidewalk from the street.

Morning, young fella, he said in a friendly tone, looking over the reading glasses hanging low on the bridge of his nose. What can I do for you?

I looked at your car yesterday.

Ah, so you did. He put down the Trib on the small table next to his chair. So you did, he repeated.

I think I’d like to buy it, I said, trying to hide my excitement.

Whoa there. Not so fast. He stood up and started to walk past me toward the ’39 Plymouth. We haven’t talked price yet. I’m asking for two and a quarter. How does that sound? He turned to face me as he leaned back against the car and reached down to scratch the dog who had followed him to the curb.

I’ve got two hundred and six, I said, disappointment in my voice.

I’d say we have a problem was his reply as he started past me on his way back to the porch and his Tribune.

Really, I repeated, It’s all I got.

I’ll think about it, he said, already back to reading, the dog once again curled at his feet.

Can I stop by later this afternoon? I asked, the embarrassment lodged in my throat like a lump of cold oatmeal.

Without looking up, he said matter-of-factly, It’s a free country.

That Saturday seemed liked forever. I was anxiety ridden and tried to think of reasons Mr. Luther should sell me his car for less than his asking. Then I would have a panic attack and shove my hand deep into my pocket to make sure the money was still there. I bounced back and forth from anxiety to panic and back. It should have been a pleasurable day. I had the green light to purchase a car. I was working for what turned out to be the nicest employer I ever had, and on that Saturday, I was sign making. It was retail psychology, as Mr. Oliver called it, and every now and then, he would decide to move the items lagging behind in sales. It tickled me to see his plans unfold.

The two of us went to the basement and took note. "Hmm. Three cases of kraut. Peel the labels and mark ten cents on the lids. Same thing for those cans of pumpkin. Fill a