Behind Sal’s barber chair hung a paper calendar covered in red circles. Martin, a new customer, assumed they marked appointments. Then he noticed every Monday was circled, although the shop was closed on Mondays.
“Are those days off?” he asked.
“No,” Sal said. “Those are days I must remember.”
Sal was seventy-three and had cut hair in the same shop for nearly fifty years. He did not explain further. Martin spent the rest of his haircut studying the calendar in the mirror. A Wednesday had three circles. One Saturday had a large X. The first of every month had a small blue dot.
When Martin mentioned it to his neighbor, the neighbor guessed the marks showed pension payments. Another customer thought they were birthdays. A third said Sal kept track of who owed him money, and immediately paid for his last haircut.
By the end of the week the calendar had become a subject of discussion at the bakery. Sal heard about the speculation and added a green star to the next Tuesday. Nobody knew what that meant either.
Martin returned a month later. Sal asked how short he wanted his hair. Martin said, “Short enough to survive whatever the green star is.”
The barber’s other customers had developed theories of their own. One offered to bring a ladder on every red-circle day. Another said Sal should buy a modern phone that could send reminders. Sal pointed to the phone on the counter. It had been sending reminders for years. “And do you act on them?” Martin asked. Sal picked up his scissors. “Let’s discuss your haircut instead.”
Sal chuckled. “That’s my sister’s visit.”
“And the red circles?”
“Different things.”
“The three on Wednesday?”
“Three different things.”
Martin realized he would have to be more patient. During the haircut Sal mentioned that his sister always brought a cake, his grandson was learning to drive, and the shop’s old boiler made a noise like a tractor whenever the weather turned cold. Martin tried to connect these facts to the marks, but Sal wouldn’t confirm a thing.
When the town announced Sal’s retirement, customers organized a party. They asked him for the calendar so they could remember important dates after he closed. Sal took it off the wall and held it behind his back.
“You can have the clippers,” he said. “The calendar stays with me.”
At the party Martin made a speech about Sal’s skill, his patience, and his mysterious record of town life. Sal’s sister arrived with cake. His grandson arrived in a car with an instructor. The boiler coughed twice and fell silent, as if it too knew the shop was closing.
Finally Sal showed Martin the calendar. Each red circle marked a Monday when he had intended to fix something around the house. The triple Wednesday was three repairs he’d promised his sister. The X was the day he’d actually repaired the dripping tap. The blue dots were dates his wife had asked him to remember to call the boiler man.
“You had a calendar for things you kept putting off?” Martin asked.
“I was going to explain it,” Sal said. “Never got around to it.”
“What about the green star?”
“My sister was coming to check whether I’d done the repairs.”
Martin looked at the forest of red circles. “And had you?”
Sal folded the calendar and placed it in his coat. “Why do you think I’m retiring?”