Stabbed in the Back Hair Barbershop

by Alex Dermody

Jeremy Jelly was drying his hands with paper towels when a boom and swoosh of sci-fi sounds and lights erupted by the urinals. Underneath the red letters that spelled STINGRAY MIDDLE SCHOOL, there appeared a man. The man wore an orange jumpsuit with tiny black numbers over his heart.

“Woah!” said Jeremy Jelly. “You’re... you’re me from the future! Are you here to tell me about how great our life turns out?”

“Nope,” said older Jeremy.

“Are you here to send me on a mission? One that changes us forever?”

“Sort of,” said older Jeremy. He checked under the stalls. He stuck a broom behind the bathroom door. “You know our best friend, Ramone?”

Younger Jeremy laughed. “Uhhh, yeah. I think I know our best friend, Ramone.”

“Well, in the future, Ramone approaches us about an investment opportunity: The Back Hair Barbershop. I traveled back in time to tell you not to invest in The Back Hair Barbershop.”

Younger Jeremy rubbed his chin. “Back hair barbershop?”

Older Jeremy turned and hiked up his orange shirt, revealing a jungle of hair occupying his entire back.

“Ah!” yelled younger Jeremy.

“Right? And other people, like Ramone, have carpets back there.”

“We’re disgusting.”

“We can thank Dad.”

But something didn’t make sense to younger Jeremy. “If everyone has gross hairy backs that need shaving, wouldn’t a back hair barbershop be a good investment?”

“Oh, yeah. The idea is flawless. Business booms, and we get rich. I mean really rich. To the point where people are like, ‘Seriously?’ From back hair? No, what I’m talking about is cutting Ramone out entirely. We need to save money to start the business on our own. Call it Backs by Jeremy Jelly. The first location should be in Brooklyn, the back hair capital of North America, but we’ll open locations all over the country. Maybe the world!”

Younger Jeremy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No way, man. Just steal Ramone’s idea? Give me one good reason to screw over our best friend.”

Older Jeremy sighed. “In the future, we marry Nicki Winter, and—”

“No shit! Really?”

Older Jeremy said stop with his hand. “We marry Nicki Winter, and one day we go into the barbershop after closing. And in the backroom is, well ... Nicki and Ramone.”

“Oh.”

“We momentarily lose control, sort of like a blackout. We set fire to Ramone’s house and...” He pointed to his orange jumpsuit.

“Oh.”

“If it helps, look at it this way. We won’t be stealing from Ramone. We’ll just have the idea first.”

The Jeremys stood silently for a moment.

Then younger Jeremy clenched his fists. “Why should I believe you?” he asked, his voice raised and shaky. “Why? All you seem to care about is money.”

Older Jeremy pointed at younger Jeremy’s Def Leppard shirt. “You know how we’re obsessed with playing the drums?”

“More than anything.”

“The day before setting fire to Ramone’s house, we joined a band. A real band. The money from the back hair barbershops will give us the freedom to do whatever we want.”

Older Jeremy once again looked down at his orange clothes. “We can spend our adulthood making beautiful music, instead of hunting through the legal library for arson charge loopholes, and accidentally finding a time travel spell written inside a copy of Infinite Jest.”

Younger Jeremy looked his older self in the eyes, searching for any trace of deceit. “You’re right,” he said finally. “We would be stupid not to do this.”

Older Jeremy put his hand on younger Jeremy’s shoulder. “Trust me. Your band friends are way better than Ramone. Oh, one other thing. Steer clear of Nicki Winter. Ramone or no Ramone, she’s the worst.”

This advice stung younger Jeremy the most. Nicki Winter was hot. Like laughably hot. “Fine,” younger Jeremy mumbled under his breath.

With that, older Jeremy removed a candle and matches from his pocket. “You won’t regret this,” he said. Older Jeremy lit the wick and chanted some gibberish. “Just remember the music.” The bathroom once again erupted with light and sci-fi booms and swooshes and older Jeremy pinwheeled counterclockwise into nothingness.

Someone jiggled the bathroom door. Jeremy removed the broom and in walked Ramone.

“Sup, chode?” said Ramone. “You still sleeping over Friday?”

Jeremy’s first instinct was to, as usual, call his best friend fat. But then he thought about the back hair. He thought about the betrayal. He thought about the band. “Ramone, I ... I can’t sleep over,” Jeremy said. “I forgot my dad just got a vasectomy. He needs my help around the house.”

“Rain check?” Ramone asked, disappointed.

Jeremy looked at his best friend with heavy eyes, but when he responded, his voice was confident. Almost like he knew what had to be done and how to do it. “Sure,” Jeremy said. “Rain check.”