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Stonewall: Stories of Gay Liberation 79

and flexed his right arm, cocking his fist near his face. “You want
to feel my bicep?”
Floyd rubbed his hands together and cupped his right palm over
Robert’s peaked arm and his left under it.
“Is that okay or is that okay?” Robert said.
“It’s better than okay.”
“You can let go now.”
“So,” Floyd said, “whyn’t you drive your car over to my place?
We can work us out a deal. You do something for me. I’ll ‘restore’
it for you.”
“Restore it?” Robert said. “You said you weren’t blind! Are you
crazy? That car doesn’t need any restoring.” He climbed into Floyd’s
barber chair. “Just trim it.”
Floyd fastened the striped barber cloth tight around Robert’s
neck. He folded the tissue strip down neatly over the cloth. Wrapped
and swaddled, Robert felt his body become subject to the barber. His
mother had spent the entirety of his boyhood diapering and scarfing
and lacing him in and out of clothes. One fall she had taken him after
school to find a winter coat. She had wanted to shop at Penney’s, but
he had fast-talked her into a better buy at the Army-Navy Outlet.
She had thought of her hus band, a strict man Robert did not know
was not his father, who had said the boy’s last year’s parka would fit
well enough this season. Robert thought only of the brown leather
bombardier’s jacket he and his buddies had stared at through the
plate glass window. They had pledged to form their own squadron.
His blood-buddy Stoney named himself command pilot. Robert was
to be head bombardier.
“This is the size,” Robert had said, handing the jacket to his
mother.
“That’s too large, I’m sure.”
“The boy’s probably right.” The clerk, whose name tag read
Nigel, had spoken archly over the perfect knot of his stylish silk tie.
“He really ought to know. He came in here several days ago with a
gang of boys who disturbed the manager no end. I remember your

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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