After school Kashton and Romi Rae entered the modest establishment owned by Kashton's grandfather. Old-timers in waiting chairs lining the room resembled gargoyles on a cathedral.
"Machines will never replace barbers..." a prescription addled old fart who had come in like clockwork for about thirty years (because the "we made our own fun" pensioner discovered he could get a buzz cut and the hairs in his nose and ears clipped in less than seven minutes, then slip between the red leather barber chair to a duct taped stool at the seedy dive bar across the street for a celebratory ale and still get home in time before his long suffering common-law wife began to wonder), reminisced that this building originally was a fuel company. Potbelly stoves were showcased in the storefront windows. A large scale embedded in the parking lot for trucks to weigh loads of coal had been paved over with asphalt because it was easier than removing it.
Kashton asked, "Poppycockle, can I show Romi Rae some of the old stuff in back?"
Without looking up from his work the boy's close-to-retirement grandpa sporting a fohawk, ear gauges, neckbeard, a short sleeve smock, and cargo shorts that exposed multiple tattoos answered, "Sure, but be careful." The twelve-year-olds passed the large mirrored, quarter sawn white oak back bar that was crowded with aftershave lotions and family pictures. They turned the corner by the thermostat permanently set at a frugal "we're not heating the whole neighborhood" 64 degrees to a door leading to a storage warehouse in the back half of the building.
