Free Super by Jim Lehrer Page B

friends of mine,” said Truman to Browne. “They’re conscientious objector types who really came after me for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
    Browne said he’d heard that.
    “Care to join me for breakfast, Browne?” Truman said. “They’ve already arranged to serve me in that private Turquoise Room above the lower lounge, farther up the train.”
    “I’d be honored, sir.”
    Harry Truman looked at his watch.
    “See you in about an hour,” Browne said.
    “I’ll be there.”
    “Mr. President, I’ll escort you back to your compartment now,” said Pryor.
    Pryor did so with a special pleasure because Truman’s gunshot report had pinpointed the time of Otto Wheeler’s death.
    That, in turn, led to the most likely jurisdictional fact thatthe Super had already crossed the line into Valerie County, Kansas, when the shot was fired.

 
    “I am so honored,” said Josephs, a trim man in his forties in a starched white coat similar to those doctors wear. He was beaming. “I cut Mr. Edward G. Robinson’s hair on the Texas Chief. Did Errol Flynn’s hair—and mustache—twice. Judy Garland’s husband also came in for a shave once. But none of that or anything counts compared to you, Mr. Gable.”
    Clark Gable was seated in the barber’s chair in the small barbershop at the end of the middle lounge car. A large white and blue striped cloth was fastened around Gable’s neck, covering his front.
    “Just a regular shave,” he said. “Nothing fancy.”
    “Oh, yes, sir.”
    “Don’t touch the mustache,” Gable added.
    “Not even a trim?”
    “Don’t touch it.”
    “Mr. Flynn sure did think I did well on his.”
    “I’m not Mr. Flynn.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Josephs used a brush to cover the rest of Gable’s lower face in a white foamy lather that he had mixed in a heavy white china shaving mug that bore the yellow Super Chief drumhead logo.The emblem also appeared on ashtrays, towels, magazine folders, a variety of paper items and many other places throughout the train.
    “There we go,” said Josephs. “I hope that feels good.”
    Gable said nothing.
    Josephs, after sharpening a straight razor on a long leather strap, began.
    “I’ve never had a customer bleed to death on me yet, Mr. Gable,” said the barber, “if you’re thinking I might cut you.”
    Gable grunted pleasantly.
    Josephs continued to shave and make comments, most of which Gable ignored, for the next ten minutes until the job was finished.
    The official charge for a shave was two dollars and fifty cents, but Clark Gable gave Josephs a five-dollar bill and told him to keep the change. Gable then honored Josephs’s request to autograph the bill.
    “This is one five-dollar bill I am never spending,” said the barber.
    The actor shook Josephs’s hand and headed back to his drawing room.
    “That was Clark Gable, wasn’t it?” said the next customer, who had been waiting out in the passageway. He was an elderly man in a dark blue striped suit and bow tie.
    “It sure was,” said Josephs, as he began preparing to shave the man in the same chair as Clark Gable.
    “What’s he like?” asked the customer.
    “He’s like a king, that’s what,” said Josephs. “But he wouldn’t let me touch his mustache. I would have loved to be able to say for the rest of my life that once I actually trimmed Clark Gable’s famous mustache. I did Errol Flynn’s twice.”
    “I heard some lady up in the dining car just now talking about Gable,” said the other man. “She was whispering so everyone could hear that he was something close to being impotent. Could that be?”
    “We should all be so impotent,” said Josephs the barber.

 
    President Truman arrived at the entranceway of his car, with Jack Pryor following right behind him.
    A man stepped out in front of the former president, blocking the way. He was thin, disheveled, sickly.
    “Mr. President, I must talk to you,” said the man, who then put his hand over his mouth to stifle a