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face each other. Caesar squeezes past us while Mom pats both our cheeks on her way to the kitchen.
    â€œYou’ll love it,” I say, grinning. “You’ll feel like a new man. Hey, you’ll feel like a man, period.”
    â€œNo, I won’t,” he says.
    â€œOooh,” I say, “is that a confession? I always had my doubts about you anyway.”
    He laughs. “After you,” he says.
    â€œNo, after you,” I reply.
    Then we go through the door at the same time, calculating just right to get wedged in there, stuck together, arms flailing and making Mom dissolve in giggles.
    A love for the Three Stooges is probably the strongest bond between Beck and me.
    By the time we reach the porch, Rudi is sitting happily up in the big chair with a baby blue bath towel tucked around his neck. Dad is checking his hardware: sharp scissors, electric clippers, straight razor.
    â€œSo,” Rudi chirps, sounding more like the barber than the client, “did you hurt your knee in the war, then?”
    Morris is having trouble with patience. “Rudi, please, just get your hair cut without saying anything else.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” Dad says, patting the top of Rudi’s head. “I relish the opportunity to educate. Wounded Knee was the battle that represented the effective end of the Indian Wars. The end of that whole period of history when the native peoples still had a fighting chance to retain their land. And it was set off by the killing of Sitting Bull.”
    In silence then, my father starts cutting Rudi’s hair.
    â€œI wasn’t even close then, was I?” Rudi says, and Dad just keeps on cutting.
    The first cut takes no more than five or six minutes. I jump in next, and that takes maybe three. Caesar, not due for a trim for a solid week yet, jumps in and out just as quick. Then Morris gets his de-hippifying.
    Dad gestures at the chair, dusting it off for the last appointment of the day.
    â€œNo, sir. But thank you, sir,” Beck says. And if respect were smoke we would all be choking now. Beck is not challenging my Dad here.
    All the same I wish he would just get in the chair.
    â€œYou don’t want a free haircut?” asks The Captain, formal as you please.
    â€œAh, get a free haircut for cryin’ out loud,” Morris says. Just go along to get along is what he’d like to say.
    â€œLook, feel mine,” Rudi says, pausing from feeling it himself just long enough to shove his dome in Beck’s face. Beck rubs the dome, kisses it, then shoves it away again.
    â€œYou’re just gonna lose it in a few days anyway,” I say wearily. Beck is an exceptional guy who can be very hard to talk to sometimes.
    â€œI know that,” he says. Then he turns back toward the evening’s host. “And I appreciate and respect your offer, sir. But I just feel like I need to fly my freak flag for just these few more days.”
    Ah … why? Why did he have to do that? He meant it as a joke, I know. He meant it to be playful, in a way that would get a fake-angry response, a challenge. Delivered in a way that said he was different from my father’s world but not necessarily opposed to it.
    In a way that my father could never, ever appreciate.
    Caesar looks straight up in the air, then slinks into the house like he’s doing the limbo under an invisible crossbar.
    â€œIs that the flag you want to fly, young man?” Dad says, clearly working to maintain composure.
    â€œDad, Beck was just —”
    He holds an index finger up in my direction. “Out of turn,” is all he says.
    â€œI am very sorry if I was out of line, sir,” Beck says. He looks, for the moment, as he basically never looks — uncertain and nervous. “I did not in any way mean to offend you. You are a great man and a great host. I apologize for my lapse in manners.”
    The harmful electricity in the air starts buzzing just a little