One of Mr. P.’s customers—this man who lives down the road and doesn’t have a TV—comes every Wednesday night to get his haircut. But Mr. P. can’t cut much of his hair, having to cut it every week like that. He has to just snip the scissors around on his head some and make out like he’s cutting it, comb it a little, walk around his head a few times, to make him think he’s getting a real haircut. This man always comes in at 6:45 P.M., just as Mr. P. and his family are getting up from the supper table.

This man always walks up, and old Frank used to bark at him when he’d come up in the yard. It was kind of like a signal that old Frank and Mr. P. had, just between them. But it wasn’t a secret code or anything. Mr. P. would be at the supper table, and he’d hear old Frank start barking, and if it was Wednesday night, he’d know to get up from the table and get his scissors. The Hillbillies always come on that night at seven, and it takes Mr. P. about fifteen minutes to cut somebody’s hair.

This man starts laughing at the opening credits of the Hillbillies, and shaking his head when it shows old Jed finding his black gold, his Texas tea, just as Mr. P.’s getting through with his head. So by the time he’s finished, the Hillbillies have already been on for one or two minutes. And then, when Mr. P. unpins the bedsheet around this man’s neck, if there’s nobody else sitting in his living room watching TV or waiting for a haircut, this man just stays in the chair, doesn’t get up, and says, “I bleve I’ll jest set here and watch the Hillbillies with ya’ll since they already started if ya’ll don’t care.”

It’s every Wednesday night’s business.

Mr. P. doesn’t have a license or anything, but he actually does more than a regular barber would do. For one thing, he’s got some little teenincy scissors he uses to clip hairs out of folks’ noses and ears. Plus, Mr. P.’s cheaper than the barbers in town. Mr. P.’ll lower your ears for fifty cents. He doesn’t do shaves, though. He’s got shaky hands. He couldn’t shave a balloon or anything. He could flat shave the damn Beatles though.