Gerald Part 2 - Thomas's tale by SteDJ

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This story is a follow-up to 'Gerald' - make sure you have read that one before reading this sequel.

"Where’ve you been? You’re late," said Thomas’s mum as Thomas walked into the kitchen, dumping his school bag on the floor and pulling off his school tie.

"Nowhere much," muttered Thomas, as he helped himself to a can of Coke from the fridge. "We were walking past Gerald Taylor’s barber’s and he wanted some help moving a box, so me and Chris stopped to give him a hand."

"It’s a wonder he didn’t try to give you both a short back and sides!" laughed Mrs Richards, as she ruffled Thomas’s centre-parted feather cut. "I’d have thought with hair like that you’d both be sitting targets for his clippers!"

Thomas chose not to mention what had really happened, or indeed what had nearly happened in Gerald Taylor’s barber shop in case it gave his mother ideas, and he was about to skulk off up to his room when he remembered that he had promised to follow up on Gerald’s request for some help with installing his new sink.

"Oh, I meant to mention, Mr Taylor needs some help with plumbing in a new sink," said Thomas, "and I said I would ask Uncle Barry if he would pop round to see what he could do for him."

"I’m sure that won’t be a problem; why don’t you give him a ring? His number’s in the phone book."

Barry answered the phone after two rings.

"Hi Uncle Barry. It’s Thomas here. I was talking to Mr Taylor, the barber on the high street earlier today, and he says he needs some help with a plumbing job. It’s a wash basin he wants installing. I said I’d ask you if you could do it for him."

"Yeah, I don’t see why not. I’ve got a spare half hour tomorrow about three thirty. I’ll need a bit of help though, it’ll be too heavy for one person to manhandle. Tell you what, I’ll meet you there after school and you can give me a hand fitting it. Some free-of-charge professional training for you!"

Thomas wasn’t expecting that, and didn’t quite have an answer prepared. After what had happened to Chris, there was no way he was heading back into that godforsaken place as long as he lived.

"Err… I don’t know…." Then thinking on his feet, he came up with what he thought might be a suitable excuse. "I won’t be dressed for DIY work and I won’t have time to go home and change before half past three, and my mum will go crazy if I get my school uniform dirty. Anyway, Mr Taylor will be there, and I reckon he will be able to help you."

"Mr Taylor might have customers… Anyway, don’t worry Thomas, I’ll bring a spare pair of overalls with me for you to put on over your school clothes, so that should keep you clean. OK? So see you tomorrow. Three thirty at the barber’s. Don’t be late. Bye for now." Barry rang off, and Thomas stood there wondering how he was going to get out of this one.

It was going to be tricky. Thomas was sure that the first thing old Gerald would do would be to fling him in the chair and give him a "short back and scrape", just as he had done to poor Chris. Still, he had twenty-three hours or so to work out a way round it.

Twenty-three hours later and Thomas hadn’t worked out a way round it. He had contemplated throwing a sickie, coming up with a subsequent engagement, even simply not turning up, but none of those options seemed really viable. He would simply have to bite the bullet and show up as agreed, help his uncle and hopefully make a run for it as soon as the job was done.

Once more, Thomas and Chris were walking home from school, Chris sporting his utterly shocking new haircut and reeling from a difficult day of mickey taking and cruel comments from the rest of his classmates. The red and white twirling pole of Gerald’s barber’s soon loomed into sight, and Thomas was disappointed to note that his uncle had already arrived and had parked his work van outside.

"OK mate, good luck and I’ll see you later. Take it like a man!"

"Yeah, whatever."

Chris quickened his step until he was well past Gerald’s, leaving Thomas to his fate.

"Hi Thomas. Here you are, put these on." Uncle Barry stepped out of the van, his bald head gleaming in the afternoon sunshine and clutching a folded-up pair of navy blue cotton overalls, which he threw at Thomas. Catching them, he took off his blazer, unfurled the overalls and balancing on the pavement outside Gerald’s, he wriggled into them, securely fastening the poppers up the front. Thomas then threw his blazer and school bag into the back of Barry’s van, and all was ready for the challenge ahead.

"OK, let’s go," said Barry, grabbing his tool box and pushing open the door of the shop. Thomas’s heart was in his mouth as they entered to the sound of a tinkling bell, and in no time, he found himself back in the place he had been so anxious to escape from the day before.

Gerald was in the process of scalping another poor teenage boy, whom Thomas recognised from school. The boy sat there looking like thunder wrapped in the same grubby nylon cape as Gerald had used on Chris the day before, and he winced as the old barber crunched through his hair with the manual clippers, almost ripping it out by the roots and depositing it in a growing heap in his lap.

"Hello gents," said Gerald with a cheery smile. "What can I do for you?" A look of familiarity then crossed his face as he clapped eyes on Thomas. "Ah, you’re they boy from yesterday with his uncle the plumber. I didn’t recognise you at first in your blue boiler suit. Thanks for coming so quickly. Let me show you what needs doing."

Leaving the half-shorn boy where he was in the chair, Gerald then showed Barry what needed to be done, they agreed a price, and uncle and nephew set to work. The basin to be changed was fortunately in front of the unoccupied barber chair allowing plenty of space to work, and after thirty minutes or so of graft, the job was done, and a shiny new washbasin was fully installed, making the rest of the shop look even shabbier by comparison than it had before. Gerald had finished with his unhappy reluctant customer, and was now sitting on a waiting chair smoking a cigarette and reading the paper.

The tricky bit was to follow, as Thomas edged towards the door hellbent on getting out of the shop with his hair intact.

"Gents, you’ve done a fantastic job," beamed Gerald, reaching into the till for some money to pay Barry. "I can’t thank you enough." Then, to Thomas’s horror, Gerald once again reached for the crumpled up blue and white striped cape, and shook it out, liberating it of the last few hairs from its previous wearer. Then addressing Barry and nodding towards his bald head, he said,

"Normally I would offer you a trim on the house in exchange for your efforts, but with respect, I can see that in your case, Sir, you have nothing for me to trim. What I am more than happy to do though is give your young assistant a trim by means of saying thank you â€" it certainly looks like he needs it…"

Standing behind Gerald and out of his line of sight, with a look of sheer horror on his face, Thomas desperately shook his head and silently mouthed to his uncle "NO! NO! NO!"

"That’s very kind of you," replied Barry. "You’re right; his mop is a bit overgrown and would benefit from a bit of attention. If you could sort it out for him, that would be great. Thomas?"

"NO. WAY. I don’t need a f*cking haircut. He tried to cut my hair yesterday and when I politely told him I was leaving the shop, he tried to stop me. You should have seen what he did to my mate Chris, he almost scalped him, it was f*cking awful, so no, I’m not staying here a minute longer. So f*uck you, baldy…"

"LANGUAGE, Thomas! I won’t stand for it. You’ve earned yourself a damn good haircut and that’s the end of it." To Thomas’s dismay, Barry seemed to be siding with Gerald, and they were now both blocking the doorway. His worst fears seemed to be coming true.

"Thomas, get in the chair. Now. Please."

Uncle Barry now spoke softly and slowly, staring intently at Thomas, who stood still rooted to the spot, his face red from fear and rage.

"I’ll count to three, then I won’t be responsible for my actions. One."

An eternity seemed to pass.

"Two".

Thomas still refused to move and stood resolutely still, staring down at his feet.

"Three. Right, don’t say I didn’t warn you."

In a flash, Barry grabbed Thomas by the arm, shoved it up behind his back and frogmarched him to the chair.

"Aaaaagh!! Let me go, you bully!"

Now out of choices, Thomas had no option but to comply, and very reluctantly, he slowly climbed into the old barber’s chair, slumped onto the leather cushion, and sat, red in the face, tears in his eyes, with his head hung low staring at the floor.

In no time, Gerald had the grey towel around his shoulders, the tatty blue and white striped nylon cape around his neck and tightly tucked into the back of his collar and was vigorously pumping up the chair.

"Any requests for him?" asked Gerald, making it sound like he was about to carry out an execution of some kind.

"I think he deserves a bl**dy good cropping, leave a bit on, but I’ll leave it up to you," replied Barry. "You’re the expert. Do you mind if I have a smoke while I sit and wait for him, then I’ll give him a lift home."

"No problem at all, my friend. Make yourself comfortable." Gerald was busying himself at the counter in front of the chair no doubt selecting the most suitable implement for inflicting what would probably be maximum damage on his young victim’s hair.

Armed with a large pair of steel scissors and his big black comb, Gerald took up his position behind the chair, and forcing Thomas’s head up and making him look straight ahead into the mirror, he dragged the comb through his long chestnut brown locks. Thomas was flinching and clearly expecting the cutting to begin at any moment, but Gerald had other ideas as he scooped up a five-inch-long lock of hair from the top of his head with the comb and positioned the scissors ready to do their worst.

"Now then, young man. I have a question for you. Do you think it was acceptable to talk to your uncle like that and to disobey him so rudely?

"I don’t know," muttered Thomas.

SNIP!!! The scissors closed quickly and decisively on the hank of hair, and it fell immediately to Thomas’s cape-covered lap.

"Nooooooo!!!" Howled Thomas, somewhat taken by surprise

"OK then, Let’s try again now, shall we?" said Gerald. "Don’t you think you behaved inappropriately just then?"

"I don’t know," repeated Thomas.

SNIP!!! Another huge chunk of hair detached and slid down the cape.

"I don’t know about you, but I’ve got all day," said Gerald, lining up the next section of hair. "I’ll rephrase it. Don’t you think you owe your uncle an apology?"

"I suppose so."

"You suppose so? Is that all? Well go on then, apologise, and make it good."

"Sorry."

"Not good enough."

SNIP!!! Yet more hair was gone, and tears started to stream down Thomas’s cheeks.

"OK, Uncle Barry, sorry I was rude to you and sorry that I swore and sorry that I disobeyed you."

"OK son, apology accepted," replied Barry, and he settled down to read a magazine.

"Very good, now head down please."

Gerald had well and truly butchered the top â€" in among the long hair there were patches that were no more than an inch long where he had randomly hacked off huge chunks of hair during his evil torture routine, and the only way for it to be evened up was for Thomas to lose a whole load more.

First though, Gerald turned his attention to the back and sides, and immediately started his attack with the dreaded manual clippers. Burying the dreaded device in the thick mass of hair at the base of Thomas’s neck, Gerald deftly manoeuvred the clippers up the back of his head and the hair began to fall with a vengeance. The first pass left behind a white stripe of fuzz up Thomas’s neck all the way to his crown. With each successive pass, the clicking device crunched efficiently through more and more hair, and the stripe widened until the whole of the back of his head was as good as bald. Mountains of hair had built up on the back of the cape, which Gerald brushed off onto the floor, before continuing the onslaught round Thomas’s ears sending yet more long hanks of hair to his lap.

Finally putting down the shiny chrome instrument of terror, the barber then selected a huge brown Bakelite pair of electric clippers, and snapping on a black plastic toothed attachment, he brought them to life with a loud ‘clack’ which gave way to a dull humming noise. This was turning into a real nightmare for Thomas, as he sat there surrounded by chunks of his own hair deeply regretting having phoned his uncle the day before. If only he had ‘forgotten’ to make that call…
Thomas remembered the electric clippers from his visits to the barber as a little boy. In those days, the barber would buzz him around his neck, and that’s what he was expecting now, as Gerald fought with the electric cable, wrapping it round his wrist and lining up the humming machine for the next stage of the haircut. Instead of steering it round his neck, though, the barber plunged it straight into his fringe and dragged it back across his head, leaving behind no more than half an inch of hair and sending huge curtains of long brown hair to his shoulders.

"Whoah!!! What are you doing??!! You didn’t do this to my friend Chris… Why are you cutting mine so short? It’s not fair!"

"You heard your uncle’s instructions," replied Gerald, "But think yourself lucky, if it had been up to me, I’d have taken the lot off for such insolent behaviour."

In a state of absolute panic, Thomas stared in utter disbelief as the last of his hair succumbed to the clippers, and he soon was left with nothing more than a short crew cut. Gerald remained silent for the rest of the haircut, focussed on his work and roughly steering Thomas’s head around so as to ensure that the clippers had not missed a single hair. Looking down, there was hair everywhere, and the blue and white stripes of the grubby cape had almost disappeared under a fine carpet of severed locks.

At long last, the clippers were switched off and returned to their hook, and the barber finished off the haircut with his customary scrape round the hairline with a cut throat razor. Finally, taking a noisy old black hairdryer, Gerald gave Thomas’s head and face a good blast, causing him to smart as the hot air blew away any remaining bits of hair from his face and head, and creating a storm of flying clippings as the mounds of hair on the cape were also sent to the floor.

Thomas looked and felt emotionally drained, his eyes red with sobbing as the cape was removed and he was finally released from his ordeal in the chair. Standing there with his legs like jelly still dressed in the blue overalls, he looked like he’d just joined the army, and was absolutely dreading what his schoolmates would say the next day. Surely this was a nightmare and he would soon wake up and everything would be back to normal.

Barry stood up, having had his head buried in a magazine throughout the entire haircut, walked across to Thomas and rubbed his freshly shorn bristly head.

"Come on skinhead, let’s get you home. Thanks Mr Taylor, it’s a bit shorter than I had in mind, but I guess it’ll save his mother having to buy so much shampoo!"

"My pleasure, gentlemen. Thank you again for your fine work, and young man, I hope this has taught you a little lesson. Hope to see you again soon."

"Not if I see you first, you sadistic old b*stard," angrily retorted Thomas.

"THOMAS! That’s bang out of order. Sorry, Mr Taylor. Rest assured I’ll make sure he’s dealt with appropriately when he gets home…"

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