Chapter II.III

He met the next day as a different person. No, mister Thurlow's appearance has not undergone any changes at all - he was still a dystrophic man with consumptive breasts - but it was like a switch went off in his brain. Jo seemed to be attacked by euphoria, it seemed as if he was beaming with energy. At breakfast he wondered what to do with himself. Having outlined the plan by which he would act today, mister Thurlow finished his meagre meal and headed to the bathroom. There, holding his face under a stream of cold water, Jo rinsed off a little and looked in the mirror. His unruly hair was disheveled in all directions, and coupled with his somewhat crazy gaze, he looked like an angry and hungry student. "So", he thought, "Should trim his hair, otherwise with such a hairstyle he will only scare folk..."

Without thinking twice, Jo went into the office and, grabbing his wallet from the table, put it in his pocket as he walked. Already closing the wicket, mister Thurlow remembered that he had not fed Buffalo since yesterday. "It’s okay, chum, I’ll grab you some food today, I won’t forget", he thought. He put the key in his shirt pocket and, slightly straightening his hair, went on a hike to the hairdresser, which was located at the other end of the Parkrose Neighborhood. However, Jo did not forget to note to himself that cheerful female screams were heard from the yard of his new neighbours - one voice was older - as he understood, it was missis Yonce - and the second was younger. He already knew the owner of this voice by sight since yesterday.

Mister Thurlow thought that the female half of the Yonce family was enjoying their first day in a new place and, mentally imagining their walk around the yard, continued on his way. It seemed that the thought of those two only made Jo feel better. Without stopping for a second, he began to quietly whistle a melody, which, as it seemed to him, was suggested to him by the singing of birds that he had accidentally heard last night. It was more fun to walk this way, and besides, concentrating on trying to reproduce that song, he finally got rid of obsessive thoughts about his new neighbours. Carried away by this matter, Jo did not notice how he had already approached a residential building, on the ground floor of which there was a hairdressing salon. Having finished with his aria, he briefly admired the flowering bushes that grew near the entrance, and, taking a deep breath, entered the room.

In the tiny foyer, which preceded the hall itself, his modest person was immediately noticed by guy sitting on the sofa. It was Kelsey Pettipas, the son of the owner of this hairdressing salon, who, in fact, served as a barber in his mother’s establishment. Seeing Jo, he jumped up and he and the client shook hands, after which the latter began to say that, in fact, he needed - just remove excess hair on the sides and front so as not to look like some kind of garden scarecrow in public. The hairdresser laughed at these words and got down to business.

Mister Thurlow watched with interest in the mirror as the skilled hands of Kelsey Pettipas brought his hair to a civilized look. It was a real pleasure to see how scissors in the hands of a professional saved Jo from the bristling tangles that so disgusted him and made a bad impression. Despite the fact that he soaked in the bathroom almost every day, he almost never thought about his hair, which is why it, one might say, lived its own life. Jo recalled that in his childhood he did not like to get his hair cut, allegedly because the scissors would accidentally touch the skin on his head. Be that as it may, childhood phobias have finally disappeared from his mind...

When Kelsey Pettipas finished his business, Jo, paying him, asked if he remembered the last time he came to him for a haircut. The guy, after thinking a little, somewhat hesitantly stated that up until that moment he had seen mister Thurlow a whole year ago.

- By the way, did anyone get your hair cut today? - unexpectedly for himself, Jo decided to follow up with another question.

- You are the first client, calm down, - said Kelsey Pettipas cheerfully. - For at such an early hour few people bother to get a haircut, - added the hairdresser.

Mister Thurlow looked at his watch - it was ten minutes to nine o'clock in the morning. It turns out he woke up a bit early today... Jo left the hairdresser somewhat gloomy from the thoughts that had washed over him. "Did moving his family with a little girl", he thought, "Really change me so much internally?". There was no logic to it, but it happened. He spat angrily to the side, thinking that in this way he expressed contempt for common sense. However, it so happened that the lump of saliva landed not on the asphalt, but on a wooden cart, which was being driven by some old man, who immediately began to angrily express his displeasure to the young man, and Jo had to apologize profusely to him, but even this incident could not drown out the confusion in his head.

Soon the old man rolled his cart as if nothing had happened, and mister Thurlow, stopping near a building with a bookstore window, wondered what else he should do today. Jo remembered the evening phone call. He should exchange his work materials with his colleague, otherwise this would be an awkward situation... When leaving the house, he forgot to take the folder, so now, without delaying the matter, he ran back. The barber shop and his house were separated by quite a long distance, so mister Thurlow, who was not accustomed to physical activity, was exhausted already a third of the way. "Alas, you can’t jump above your head", he recalled his own thoughts. Therefore, he had to get home at a slow pace, which did not seem like a good idea to him - because he felt that until he gave Japhet his things, these shackles of promise would never fall off from him...

After some time, Jo was already in the area where he actually lived. He noted that only now people began to go out into the street (and it was already about twenty minutes to eleven), and he suddenly, for no apparent reason, wanted to take a roundabout route in order to approach his house from the other side, without being seen new neighbours. But Jo remembered how yesterday he punished himself for cowardice, and, having overcome this stupid desire, he boldly headed towards the house along the route he had walked a million times. Peering into the faces of passers-by who came across his path, mister Thurlow thought that he would certainly meet mister Yonce or someone from his family.And so he was not at all surprised when he noticed that near the gate surrounding their site, there were two human figures. From a distance it was clear that one belonged to a portly man, and the second to a little girl. Jo[, as he had done at the barbershop, stopped for a moment and breathed more air into his lungs.