The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  Tiny could scarcely understand the uptick, until one day Dale burst into the shop, his eyes wild, pupils dilated, his head covered in a cap of soft black silk.

  Them nig—uh, dudes up the hill done gone crazy!

  Say, bruh, a man from the back called. I think you got on your wife’s bonnet.

  Yeah, another voice called. This nigga wearing hair underwear!

  You clowns laugh, Dale said. Did you know that the idiots up the hill started putting lye in people’s hair without any goddam warning? Pardon my language, but that shi—stuff burned so bad I ran to the damn—pardon me—Cross River and stuck my head right in!

  Dale uncovered his head; the once coarse grains of his hair were now straight and wavy. The nig—guy, the darn barber, Sonny, said it makes the hair easier to cut. D, you ever hear anything so stupid?

  Mariah and Tiny exchanged glances as Dale took a seat to wait.

  * * *

  Jerome arrived that night just as the shop was closing. Unfallen tears rested in the corners of his eyes. The shop sat empty except for Tiny and Mariah. When he walked through the door, Tiny turned and pretended to straighten the hair products on the table behind her chair.

  Why is there no trust between us? he said. After all I did for you? All our walks.

  Mariah swept, trying to look away from Jerome’s sad, dim eyes while suppressing a smile.

  Go somewhere, Tiny said. You fools believe anything.

  Yeah, Mariah said. Red Devil Lye? Everyone knows we lick our razors just before every cut.

  Mariah! Tiny called.

  Don’t mind me, Mariah said. I’m half-’sleep.

  Look, Jerome, Tiny said. I don’t want you in my shop no more. At all. Go. You’re not different. You’re not welcome. You can’t seem to grow up. You’re the same goddam fool I didn’t want to be with anymore.

  But our walks—

  You can get a head start. Go on.

  Jerome didn’t argue or fight; he simply backed out of the shop, slowly, with a strange feline walk.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon the next day, a man with a tuft of spongy and unruly hair sat in Mariah’s seat and called for his hair to be cut into a high-top fade.

  You want it tall, right? Mariah asked.

  Yeah. But please don’t do nothing weird. I almost had to knock Sonny out this morning. I caught the nigga licking his clippers like some kind of goddam animal.

  * * *

  Back when they were together, Jerome never found out how she’d gained the name Tiny, but another man did, over a perfect haircut one afternoon while Jerome was elsewhere looking the other way. The illicit haircut was something else Jerome never found out about, and so that particular betrayal was not even why they broke up. And why should it matter that she cut another man’s hair, huh? Why does a haircut become an intimacy simply because Tiny’s a woman? Such absurdity. But then that whispered story. Surely that was an intimacy. Or perhaps she spoke so freely, so easily, because she knew she’d never see this man again. This man who smiled at her when she passed him at the bus stop. She couldn’t bear his smile, because the animal atop his head made him look defective. Every man around her during the Great Hair Crisis had become a ruined sculpture. She felt like a lapsed superhero, all that power she shrank from wielding, all that responsibility she shirked day after blessed day. Let me cut your hair, she said to the man, as an act of charity. Shortly after that, she cut another man. And another man. They grew as indistinguishable as strands of hair in her memory. One man told the next about Tiny. And she accepted them into her house, warning them all that she’d cut them only once. One time and no more—that way, she could control the flow of hair-blighted men and she could tell herself that by seeing these men only once she wasn’t betraying Jerome.

  She cut their hair and never saw them again, and usually during the shape-up she’d whisper the source of her name and they’d all miss the point and ask the source of her power.

  One man, though, managed to slip in a second time. He was a small man with a reddish Afro. He hunched as he walked and scrunched himself into a ball as he sat. His voice sounded like a high-pitched strain, and both times his hair had grown wild and unkempt. Balls of white lint coiled into his curls. Tiny had to wash his hair to soften it in order to move the clippers through his knots. As he bent over the sink in the back of Tiny’s basement with the water and lather dripping through his naps, she told him, as she usually told the men, about her name. When I was small, she said, I was tiny. She chuckled, as she always did. The youngest and the tiniest one in the family. But that’s not why they call me Tiny. I been a big girl ever since, like, fourteen, but it’s like no one could see that. When someone felt disrespected, they’d say something like, You must think you talking to Abigail or some shit? That’s me, Abigail. Abby. Disrespecting me was nothing to them, I guess. Like disrespecting a bug or something. Tiny. Inconsequential. Eventually, I told folks to stop calling me Abigail, Abby, all that shit—

  Before Tiny could finish, the man looked up at her with glowing eyes and finished for her: Told ’em to call me Tiny and no one ever asked why. It’s a beautiful story. You told me last time. He laughed as if he had carved out some sort of victory.

  Last time? She looked at his head and suddenly remembered. Uh-uh. I told you my rule then, I told you when you came in the door today. One-time-only deal. Dry your head, and then you gotta go.

  You can’t do that to me, Abigail. He smiled wider. You can’t do that to Cross River. Too many heads in crisis. Uh-uh, you gon’ cut this. He snatched at her wrist. Come on, Abby. Just give me a little trim. He chuckled a mean, mean little chuckle. Make magic.

  The small man let go of Tiny’s wrist and sat with his back to her. Just a Caesar today, he said, so confident he was that Tiny would cut his hair with little fuss. And he was right. It was easier to start shearing his nappy kinks than to keep arguing. Her hand shook as she trimmed, though. She rushed the tricky parts she would usually have moved through with precision and care. The sooner she finished, the sooner she’d never have to see him again. Tiny cut with disgust, watching the stubborn dirt and dandruff as if they had left indelible splotches on her, forever staining her soul.

  When the small man stood and looked into the mirror, he said nothing at first, and then he balled his fists.

  What is this trash? he screamed. You did this on . . . You did this ’cause I wouldn’t leave!

  No, I—

  Of course you did. This is worse than one of Sonny’s cuts.

  You want your money back? Tiny tried to joke, but that seemed to make the small man even more angry. It’s the curse, Tiny said, still trembling in fear. The Hair Crisis, she said, it comes for every barber in Cross River eventua—

  You think I’m a fool, bitch? The man snatched at Tiny’s shoulders. All I wanted was a good haircut for once. Is that too . . . Tell me your secret, Abby. How come the Crisis ain’t come for you, huh?

  I don’t have a secret, she said, shoving the man. Please leave.

  The small man raised his right fist as if about to throw a punch. The gold bracelet on his wrist, the gold chain around his neck, they both jangled. Tiny raised her arms and flinched to curl away from the blow, but the small man lowered his fist with a snort and a chuckle. He tossed the towel that lay around his neck before stomping up the stairs and out of Tiny’s house.

  The next day, when Jerome came for his weekly cut, Tiny’s hand trembled as if still trimming the small man’s red bush. She could feel the heaviness of his fingers at her shoulders and her wrist.

  What in the fuck is this? Jerome said, peering into the mirror.

  I don’t know what’s wrong, Tiny lied. It’s the curse.

  For the rest of the week, Jerome remained sullen, only frowning at Tiny or grumbling her way. She wanted to tell him what had happened, but that would be a long story, beginning with the first man she cut behind his back.

  Or perhaps it would begin with her name and how her family made it
into a curse, how they made her into a small, tiny thing. She imagined him laughing at her, sneering and calling her Abigail the next time she accidentally cut jagged marks into his head. Two, three weeks of bad haircuts made Jerome into a different man. If there was a fight to be picked, he picked it like some naps.

  One day after a particularly bad haircut, Jerome fingered the slanted frontier that was now his hairline as they ate Chinese food. Tiny’s clippers had pushed it back so much that Jerome’s forehead now looked like an eroding coastline. Tiny asked Jerome to pass her a packet of soy sauce.

  Get it your damn self, Jerome barked, standing sharply from his seat. Got me out here looking like George Jefferson. I was the dude with the good haircuts! Who the fuck am I now?

  He stomped out the door, hunched and scarred like the small man. Tiny watched his disappearing form with sad eyes, vowing to never cut another man’s head. Tiny held firm to her promise no matter how many men knocked and cried and pleaded. She remained firm until that night Jerome returned to her doorstep several months later with tears in his eyes.

  After that, she vowed to never again give up her power. To never again freely give away something as precious as a haircut.

  * * *

  Tiny swept the hair of her last couple of customers into woolly piles late one night. She rubbed her clippers, razors, and combs with alcohol even as she felt her eyelids forcing themselves shut. She enjoyed the solitude, though she stumbled through the shop with her eyelids low, sleep trying to ambush her. The one thing she couldn’t allow herself was a seat. To sit down would be to fall asleep and make herself vulnerable to an opportunist, one of Rev. Kimothy’s legion out there, always looking to catch her slipping so they could do her harm. Tiny grasped the broom again and went at some hair clumps she’d missed, and as she swept she heard the flat slap of an open palm against the window. Without looking up she waved the interloper away. The noise persisted. She slowly turned to the entranceway. Jerome stood at the window waving. A sharp pang of irritation ran through Tiny, but also relief. At least it wasn’t another head to cut. At least it wasn’t a protester. Any annoyance Jerome was about to cause would not end in her destruction. When she opened the door she noticed he wore that same serge suit. The same panama hat. Dirt stains now ringed the hat’s brim and the jacket’s wrists.

  D! he exclaimed, stretching his arms out as if preparing to strangle her. D! Why is there no trust between us?

  Look at my eyes, Tiny said. I’m half-’sleep.

  Please, please, please, please, D, please tell me your secret.

  Tiny sighed. She just wanted to sleep. This man in front of her looked so anguished that it sent sharp pains shooting through her joints.

  It’s piss. She dashed these words off halfheartedly, surprising even herself with the sting of her sarcasm.

  Piss? You mean you pee on your clippers?

  No, silly. That would be ridiculous. I soak all my clippers, my combs, everything I have . . . I leave them all to soak overnight in jars of piss.

  Really? True this time?

  Yep. That’s my secret.

  Yes, Jerome said. That makes so much more sense than all that other stuff you told me.

  Does it? Tiny said, and then she sighed again. Of course it does.

  Tiny looked at Jerome with sad, tired eyes. She forced a smile onto her lips. She wanted to say, No, fool, what do you take me for? But to point out his gullibility now would be a true act of cruelty. If only Jerome knew how to read the crooked tilt of her lips. Her face was a book he could never truly comprehend. These men, she realized, would believe anything. They preached logic and reason but followed only magic. Things would always be like this. Always and forever. As long as she lived and cut hair. Tiny felt more exhausted than she had ever felt before, like weights had attached themselves to her eyelids, her limbs, her neck, everywhere. After Jerome left, she locked the door and walked through the protest and into darkest night, never to be seen in Cross River again.

  It was better this way. Perhaps Tiny sensed the horrors that hovered on the horizon. Sonny sitting alone every day in an empty shop surrounded by endless jars of his own piss. Soon would come the hair cults. The Cult of the Licked Razor. The Cult of Red Devil Lye. The Cult of Blood. The Cult of Piss.

  But then there were also the Children of Delilah, the barbers, the barberesses, sprouting all over town like new growth and shining like the brightest points of light, like the finest, most luxurious hair, smoothed with a slick sheen of grease, growing faster than any havoc the Hair Crisis could cause, faster than any curse could possibly curse.

  TOBIAS S. BUCKELL

  The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex

  from New Suns

  When Galactics arrived at JFK they often reeked of ammonia, sulfur, and something else that Tavi could never quite put a finger on. He was used to it all after several years of shuttling them through the outer tanks and waiting for their gear to spit ozone and adapt to Earth’s air. He would load luggage, specialized environmental-adaptation equipment, and cross-check the being’s needs, itinerary, and sightseeing goals.

  What he wasn’t expecting this time was for a four-hundred-pound octopus-like creature to open the door of his cab a thousand feet over the new Brooklyn Bridge, filling the cab with an explosion of cold, screaming air, and lighting the dash up with alarms.

  He also definitely wasn’t expecting the alien to scream “Look at those spires!” through a speaker that translated for it.

  So, for a long moment after the alien jumped out of the cab, Tavi just kept flying straight ahead, frozen in shock at the controls.

  This couldn’t be happening. Not to him. Not in his broken-down old cab he’d been barely keeping going, and with a re-up on the Manhattan license due soon.

  * * *

  To fly into Manhattan you needed a permit. That was the first thing he panicked about, because he’d recently let it lapse for a bit. The New York Tourism Bureau hadn’t just fined him, but suspended him for three months. Tavi had limped along on some odd jobs: tank cleaning at the airport, scrubbing out the backs of the cabs when they came back after a run to the island, and other muck work.

  But no, all his licenses were up to date. And he knew that it was a horrible thing to worry about as he circled the water near the bridge; he should be worrying about his passenger. Maybe this alien was able to withstand long falls, Tavi thought.

  Maybe.

  But it wasn’t coming up.

  He had a contact card somewhere in the dash screen’s memory. He tapped, calling the alien.

  “Please answer. Please.”

  But it did not pick up.

  What did he know about the alien? It looked like some octopus-type thing. What did that mean? They shouldn’t have even been walking around, so it had to have been wearing an exoskeleton of some kind.

  Could that have protected it?

  Tavi circled the water once more. He had to call this in. But then the police would start hassling him about past mistakes. Somehow this would be his fault. He would lose his permit to fly into Manhattan. And it was Manhattan that the aliens loved above all else. This was the “real” American experience, even though most of it was heavily built up with zones for varying kinds of aliens. Methane breathers in the Garment District, the buildings capped with translucent covers and an alien atmosphere. Hydrogen types were all north of Central Park.

  He found the sheer number of shops fun to browse, but few of them sold anything of use to humans. In the beginning, a lot of researchers and scientists had rushed there to buy what the Galactics were selling, sure they could reverse engineer what they found.

  Turned out it was a lot of cheap alien stuff that purported to be made on Earth but wasn’t. Last year some government agency purchased a “real” human sports car that could be shipped back to the home planet of your choice. It had an engine inside that seemed to be some kind of antigravity device that got everyone really excited. It exploded when they cracked the casing, taking
out several city blocks.

  When confronted about it, the tall, furry, sauropod-like aliens that had several other models in their windows on Broadway shrugged and said it wasn’t made by them, they just shipped them to Earth to sell.

  But Galactics packed the city buying that shit when they weren’t slouching beside the lakes in Central Park. If Tavi couldn’t get to Manhattan, he didn’t have a job.

  With a groan, Tavi tapped 9-1-1. There were going to be a lot of questions. He was going to be in it up to his neck.

  But if he took off, they’d have his transponder on file. Then he’d look guilty.

  With a faint clenching in his stomach, Tavi prepared for his day to go wrong.

  * * *

  Tavi stood on a pier, wearing a gas mask to filter out the streams of what seemed like mustard gas that would seep out from a nearby building in DUMBO. The cops, also wearing masks, took a brief statement. Tavi gave his fingerprint, and then they told him to leave.

  “Just leave?”

  There were several harbor-patrol boats hovering near where the alien had struck the water. But there was a lack of urgency to it all. Mostly everyone seemed to be waiting around for something to happen.

  The cop taking Tavi’s statement wore a yellow jumpsuit with logos advertising a Financial District casino (RISK YOUR MONEY HERE, JUST LIKE THEY USED TO IN THE OLD STOCK MARKET! WIN BIG, RING THE OLD BELL!). He nodded through his gas mask as he took notes.

  “We have your contact info on file. We’re pulling footage now.”