178
GEORGE DEAUX
a TV viewer: everything you could hope for. He does not look like
a leaper or any other kind of maniac, nor does this look like the
place you'd expect a leaping to occur; it is not, after all, the U.N.,
or Wall Street, or the halls of Congress, or the Pentagon. It is a
barbershop in Philadelphia. But this is 1967, this is the year when
otherwise sane middle-aged men, even here, began to grow beards
and steal hub caps, were troubled themselves about their symptoms,
but felt nonetheless the need to leap. And this professor - so ordinary
he look above the white sheet and tissue paper collar - who an–
nounces truly (the truth will always fool 'em, best cover story in the
world) that he is a prof. "Yes, just a college prof in the city for a
haircut." Who knows but us -
if
we could but see beneath that
sheet! - that he is really a hero-professor, an imaginary nigger–
sheeny-wop-spick? Drive a black car park ready at the curb. Wear
(under his fine academic-casual togs) his secret Worm Suit, his black
tights and his Worm belt and other super-secret gear. He is waiting
to unbutton and set right all this, all this
fat.
He been a long time talking. Voting. Marching. Now he's in his
secret underwear. Getting ready he gonna leap, they don't watch out
in here.
"Thatcher car park there inna no parking zone?" the barber
asks him. Theirs is the third chair, beside the white porcelain basin,
the red tubes, strange rubber scalp massage devices like enormous
French ticklers. The barber is young, plump and waxy, his own hair
greased in a ducktail, curled down his forehead, look like pink syrup
been injected under the skin of his cheeks. He is flamboyant, proud
of his skill, competitive, tough, snaps the scissors dramatically in the
air, sometimes too close to the professor's ear, testing his nerve, can
you take it how tough I am?
"Yes," the professor answered, "the black one." He is tempted
to add: Black like a worm. Like vengeance.
The barber snorted violently. Rattled. Clearing his throat. He's
saying, "You gonna get a ticket sure as hell. Park like that."
He shrugged. Not worried about parking tickets today, although
in the past he was a model citizen. This professor - Claude Flowers,
but now the Worm in mufti (the disguise disguised) - is a mild–
mannered gentleman. He wears wire-rimmed spectacles. He wears
tweed. He fights off a tendency to paunchiness with isometrics and
