The Story of Sherry and Carl

He lived his life in the background of things, at work, at home, in life. He didn't really mind, as he didn't know there was any other way to live really. Since he was born, his destiny was to work in his father's office. Do what his father wanted. Ask no questions. That was no problem for him. It fit his personality perfectly. It was a problem though for his older brother. His father and older brother fought like cats and dogs. That's because they were so much alike. Two alpha males fighting for position. But eventually his brother came back after college, worked for his father, rose in the ranks, and took over the business after the father's death.

Carl, that was the younger brother's name, hated to fight. He did whatever his father wanted, but ultimately this made his father not think much of him. Fortunately he was good with numbers. Not good at all with people, but numbers were his thing. He liked them very much. So he became a valuable, though not that respected, asset to the firm.

He spent the day in the back room, out of sight of the clients, monitoring an array of computer monitors. He tracked other people's wealth or debt, watched the price of stocks, and told his brother, and the other financial advisors, what to do to make everyone money. He was very good at it. Almost a savant, in which stocks to pick, to make a killing. He didn't really care about money himself. Only that he had enough of it for his cars.

Originally, it had been his Father he had reported to. He had liked it better then. His Father had always given him little words of encouragement, even if his Father looked down on him a bit. But he was gone now, and his older brother had taken over the business. His brother tolerated him, because he was valuable for information, but otherwise he never had a kind word for him.

Carl lived at home with his mother, his father having died five years ago. They would watch TV at night in the basement family room, the lights turned down low, eating dinner on TV trays, watching game shows. His mother was very fond of game shows, and doing cross word puzzles. She still drove, though not well, and took herself to the Monday, Wednesday, Friday senior center card games and bingo.

Carl would spend the rest of his evenings primarily building model cars. He had dozens he had completed, lined up carefully on shelves under clear plastic boxes to keep dust off of them. No one was allowed to touch them. In fact, very few people ever saw them. That was ok with Carl. At least they were safe.

He also loved real cars. 1950s through 1970s classics and had a number of them in the garage, and reluctantly a few outdoors in the weather. All were carefully protected under tarps. No one dare look at, and certainly never touch one. One of his coworkers touched one once, and Carl had to spend hours polishing the fingerprints out. He didn't talk to the coworker again for quite some time.

To get to work he had to drive one. It made him nervous that it would get scratched or rained on. Winter was hell. Sometimes he would call his brother to pick him up if conditions were too bad. The car sat in the driveway carefully protected.

Once at work, he had the difficult task of picking a parking place. Now he felt one of them was "his". One next to the curb, so only one car was parked next to his, but not under a tree, the sap was a killer. But often the place was taken and he got very upset. When he did find a spot, he carefully took photos of all the surrounding cars noting the make, year, color, and license plates of the cars on either side. He would even visit the parking lot several times during the day, to see if any new cars were parked next to his.

One lunch, he came out and saw a small scratch on the passenger side door. It got him extremely upset. There was no car there now, so he looked at his phone photos and found out what the car was there earlier. Sure enough the color matched. He was going to get to the bottom of this.

He waited around, and sure enough the offending car arrived back in the lot at the end of lunch. The car parked in a different place and Carl watched as a woman got out of the car with a bag in her hand and walked over to a store and opened the door. She went into a store called, Killer Cuts, beauty salon.

Carl walked over to the store totally miffed. He wasn't the sort to yell and scream in anger. No his was more, a guilting thing, whining. He had spent his life keeping his cars spotless. How could people be so thoughtless? And he also wanted money to fix it. These thoughts raced through his mind.

But when he opened the door it was like he was on a different planet. A driving music beat was playing. A number of women were sitting in chairs arrayed along a wall of mirrors having their hair cut, shaved, others having their hair colored all sorts of strange colors in another area. Others were sitting in chairs looking at their phones or chatting. Behind or in front of the chairs stood other women, cutting, coloring, shampooing, and drying. It was a madhouse of noise. He stood there frozen just inside the door. He didn't see the woman from the car at first, but then he saw her step out from behind a curtain in the back.

She was medium height, slim, with numerous tattoos on her arms, and a row of earrings on both of her ears and a nose stud. Her black reddish streaked hair was severely cut on one side, with a pattern cut into it. Her hair on the other side puffed up a little before falling well below her shoulders. Numerous rings were on her fingers and her wrists covered in bracelets. She was wearing a loose black tee shirt and pants.

Carl finally gathered himself and walked over to her.

"You know you hit my car" he threw the words at her as he crossed the room.

She had no idea someone was talking to her and kept arranging her tools for her next client. Carl got closer

"You hit my car. What are you going to do about it".

She turned around seeing Carl coming at her and got scared. And put the chair between herself and Carl.

"You hit my door. How could you do such a thing?"

Now she was truly worried a madman was going to attack her. She pulled her phone out of her hip pocket.

"I'm going to call the police. Get out of here".

This seemed to both shock and dismay Carl.

"Go ahead. You're the one in the wrong. You hit my car. How could you do that?"

His shoulders seemed to slump, and he seemed ready to cry. He appeared to be truly in anguish over the siituation. He no longer seemed a threat, but more like a grown up child, who just had his toy taken away.

She came out from behind the chair.

"Really, I don't know what your talking about"

Carl had his phone in this hand, looked at it, and finding the photos showed her, her car next to his earlier, with a date and time stamp. Then photos of the scratch. She had to admit she did seem guilty. She told him she was sorry, but it didn't look very big at all. Maybe just a polish or some filler paint stick. She had used one on her car a year or so ago. Carl explained that his car was perfect, he would probably have to repaint the whole door, maybe even the whole car. But he felt her sincerity of guilt and the wind was taken out of his anger. He wasn't at ease being hard on people. Both of them now were trying to comfort each other.

Sherry, that was her name, said she was willing to pay what was needed, but that she didn't make much here at the salon. He would have to be patient. Carl said that would be ok. They would work something out. He was just about ready to leave, when Sherry said, how about paying him in haircuts. He certainly looked like he needed one. Now Carl had been using the same barber shop since he was a child. That's where he went. Even when the previous owner died, Carl kept going to the same place. He couldn't imagine going anywhere else. Sherry ran her fingers through his hair. Pulling it out in different directions.

"Yes, I could do something really nice with this. Who does your hair? It's shit. Please let me cut it"

She made little batty eyes at him. She was hoping she could get out of having to pay him anything for the scratch.

Carl had a hard time saying no to anyone, especially a woman, and especially one with her fingers in his hair. So amazingly he found himself saying yes, she could cut his hair.

He agreed to come back late tomorrow after work, when the salon was closed down to the other clients. His mother would have to fend for herself. Then he left, went back to his own work, in a slightly stunned state, not knowing quite what had just happened.

The rest of that day, and all of the next, he was in a highly agitated state. He kept running over and over in his mind how he got roped into letting the woman talk him into letting her give him a haircut. But he couldn't not go. It wasn't his way. His Father had taught him, his word was his bond. So somehow he would have to go through with it.

At the appointed time, he knocked on the glass of the front door of the salon, and soon Sherry arrived and opened the door. The music was still playing, but everything else was now quiet. Everything put away neatly in its place. This calmed Carl down somewhat.

"First we're going to give you a shampoo",

Sherry led him over to a chair in the corner with a basin located behind the top. Carl followed her over to the chair and sat down, then leaned back until his head was in the basin. Sherry was cradling the back of his head in her hands. He felt a nice stream of warm water running over the top of his head, wetting all his hair. Then shampoo was added. He felt Sherry's finger tips working along the edge of his hair in the front, along his temples, then down to the nape of his neck. Then back to his forehead and over the top in nice little figure eights. He was in ecstasy really. He had never felt anything so nice before, and floated away to the sensation. Sherry could tell Carl was enjoying it, so she prolonged the shampoo much longer than was actually required. She massaged his scalp and temples again and again. Then she rinsed the shampoo out, taking her time to run her fingers through his hair in long deep strokes.

"Ok, now for the cut"

She took him by the hand and led him to another chair before a large mirror. She put a bib on him and a collar.

"Let's see what we can do with this mess".

Sherry lifted and pulled his hair this way and that, until she felt she could attack it properly. She went at it with comb and scissors. Carl could feel her fingers sliding through his wet hair, pulling it out taut, hear the metallic snip of the scissors, and feel little bits of his hair hit his skin before falling on the floor or apron. She got the clippers a few times, trimming here and there. All the while this was going on Carl could feel her hands and fingers running through his hair or turning his head a little this way or that and he kind of liked the sensation of it.

Sherry also was talking to him non stop, asking him a questions about where he worked, what he did, his family. Carl was not used to so many personal questions. It made him a little uncomfortable, but he did the best he could with short little sentences. But he really didn't have to say much, as Sherry seemed to be able to take just a few words from him and multiple them by ten. After a bit he actually started to enjoy just hearing her chatter away. Most of the time he wasn't quite sure what she was talking about, people, events, things happening in town he had never heard of, or thought about.

Eventually, Sherry was done with the cutting and got out the hair dryer, comb, and brush. She teased out his hair in certain places, brushed it back in others, as the hot air blew across his hair and skin. Finally she seemed done. She picked up a hand mirror.

"What do you think?"

Carl looked at himself in the mirror and wasn't sure who the person was looking back at him. Yes it was him, but a different him than he had ever seen. He actually looked handsome, not his usual nerdy self. It was a little disconcerting, but he liked it. He was unable to say much of anything

"I like it "

Sherry was ok with such a short answer, as his face said it all. He looked like he was very pleased indeed.

"Well, I couldn't really do everything I wanted as your hair was so all over the place. Next time I can do better. Come back in two weeks and I'll do a better job."

She brushed all the loose hair off his neck, the bib, and clothes. And stood back.

Carl told her he would be back. He felt strange not paying her anything, but got up and waked to the door. Sherry locked the door behind him, gave him a little wave, then turned to clean up.

Carl went home, and spent a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror of his bathroom. Yes, it was a lot better than his old cut. He also brought back to mind the feel of Sherry's fingers in his hair. He had a strange feeling run through his body. He had this feeling a few times back in school around girls. But not for a long time.

When he went to work the next day his coworkers gave him funny looks. Who is this guy. A bunch of the guys teased him. He walked as quickly as he could to the back room, and closed the door.

The next two weeks, the thought of his second haircut kept jumping into his thoughts. He got a little squirmy inside thinking about it. Finally the day arrived and things went pretty much the same as last time, though this time Carl more at ease and able to enjoy the shampoo and cut even more. Sherry was if anything more chatty this time. At the end, when he looked at himself in the mirror, he looked even better. She had been right.

He was just about to get out of the chair, when Sherry said,

"I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but do you own another set of clothes? I have only seen you in these."

Carl did change his clothes. It was just they all looked exactly the same. In the summer he only wore mint green short sleeve button shirts and dark brown knit slacks. He had a winter set as well. All the same socks. Matching shoes. His closet only had several types of shirts, all hanging in a row, one just like the other, all in a row.

Carl explained this to Sherry and she said,

"Well tomorrow at lunch, I am taking you out and we care getting you new clothes. I'm not going to have my haircut matched up with what you are wearing now."

She said it so emphatically that he felt he couldn't say no. Sherry wasn't sure exactly why she made the offer. She did like shopping for clothes during lunch, but for herself, and sometimes joined by her girlfriends. Somehow she felt sorry for Carl wearing his mint green shirt every day, and he had become something of a project for her. It was strange, nonetheless.

The next day she and Carl went to large department store in the same mall both of their shops were located in. She essentially dragged him around from rack to rack of clothes, pulling things off, hanging them in front of him to see how they looked. She hung her picks on his arm, and they went back to the dressing room area where he tried them on, and came out to show her. She ended up liking two sets of shirts and pants, and Carl found himself at the cash register paying for them. He couldn't help notice two women's blouses also on the checkout counter, which he paid for too. Sherry took the bag with the blouses and said.

"More haircuts, I guess." And laughed

As it was still early, Sherry suggested they get some lunch. She pulled him into a nice restaurant next to the food court. When Carl ate here he only ate at the food court, and only one fast food place, that served piazza. The restaurant was dark inside, half full. The conversations were at a low volume. The place just smelled expensive. The hostess showed them to a nice table in the corner. The waiter soon showed up and asked if they wanted drinks. Sherry looked tempted but passed. Carl nodded his head no. The menus were brought and Carl ordered the least expensive thing, Sherry the most. The food was excellent. Carl looked at his watch when it got close to one.

"We've got to go."

Carl was always at his desk at one. Always.

Sherry said. "Don't worry. I don't have anyone scheduled until 2."

Carl tried to explain that he needed to go. He had to be back at one. Sherry asked if anyone checked on him to see if he was there at one. Carl admitted no. And are you expecting any phone calls or do anything for anyone at one. Carl said no. So what difference does it make if you are a little late? Carl couldn't think of any answer besides it was always how he did things. Sherry told him, he needed to learn to live. One day half an hour later than one wouldn't kill anyone. Carl squirmed, but remained seated, and finished lunch. He even relaxed enough to laugh at a few of Sherry's stories. Carl ended up paying for both meals.

When he got back to the office a few people looked at Carl, their watches, back at Carl, but didn't say anything. He was the boss's brother. And the brother wasn't going to complain as he probably wouldn't get back until 2 or so himself, as he did almost every day, after a nice lunch with martinis.

Carl didn't wear his new clothes to the office, but carefully put them on hangers under plastic bags, and the day of his next hair cut he brought them in and changed just before his appointment. When Sherry let him through the door he noticed she was sniffly and her eyes were red. He didn't say anything about it until she was cutting his hair.

"What have you been crying about?" Carl came straight to the point.

Sherry stopped cutting for a few seconds then said, "I'm not sure I should tell you or that you would want to know."

But Carl insisted, told her he was interested no matter what it was.

Sherry stopped cutting again, and with a big sobby sigh, said it was her boyfriend. Well her ex-boyfriend. They had broken up. She actually thought it best as he was not good to her. She has found out he had been cheating on her, for a long time in fact. When she confronted him with it, he first denied it, then got angry, then hit her, before storming out and calling her bad names.

Sherry's sobs and crying got worse as she told the story. Carl felt very bad and told her things would get better. She was a lovely person and she would find someone else, no doubt about it. Good riddance to that guy. He was upset the boyfriend had hit her. That was even worse than touching a car.

Sherry said "thank you. That is very kind". And kept cutting his hair in silence until she was finished.

Carl got up after she dusted him off and he was ready to leave when he found Sherry's face right up next to his, and she out her hand on the back of his neck, got on her tip toes, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Carl had never been kissed by a woman before. Sherry's soft wet lips felt very nice on his skin. Sherry went down off her toes and looked up at him with those soft eyes of hers, that had melted a many of a man's heart. And he felt something inside of himself swell in his gut and near his heart. Is this what love feels like he thought? He felt awkward not knowing what to do next.

"Well, I'd better get going," he said, though he wanted to stay.

She led him to the door and opened it and before closing it said to his retreating figure, " You know. You are a good person, Carl."

Carl went home and was a in a state he had never experienced before. He thought about the kiss. He thought about Sherry. Yes, Sherry. He couldn't stop thinking about her. He saw her face in his mind, her body. He had thoughts of doing things to her, he had only seen in movies.

He spent the next two weeks in this heightened state of energy, thinking about Sherry constantly.

The next time Carl came for his hair cut Sherry seemed happy and treated him very differently than previous times. Her shampoo was extra-long and she played with his scalp and hair until he tingled. And when she cut his hair he felt her body pressing into him, even her breasts against his arms and chest as she reached around him. Her stories were very light hearted and funny. When she was done and handed him the mirror she stood behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder and even a little down on his chest.