Ice-Cream Headache by James Jones

peas which were already in when they got there. A month later the farmer had green beans and new potatoes from his truck patch too, and shortly after that green corn. They gorged on all of them. Larry thought he had never eaten such delicious, or such healthfully nourishing food; he thought he could actually feel strength seeping back into him through the very membranes of his mouth as he chewed. And Mona, who thought she had long ago forgotten all about such things, loved it and enjoyed stumping around the cabin in levis and moccasins and was continually looking astonished at the things she remembered how to do. They both begrudged her having to go into town every week for groceries, and Larry never went with her. That afternoon he would spend chopping wood for the range or walking by himself in the woods with his sheath knife. He never went up to The Place when she was not there because in some obscure way he felt it would be unfair.
    One Saturday after they had been there five weeks she came home from town bringing the letter from Beckett, which had been forwarded. It waxed enthusiastic about the West and was elated at the prospect of their coming to Albuquerque. He said he thought he could still fix it for Larry to start in the fall, even at this late date, if they would send him a note and give him the okay. They sent it.

IV
    In this way they went about living out their summer, loving every minute of it, enjoying it more than anything either of them could remember. It was a full seven weeks before Larry himself went to town, and only then because he had to have his hair cut, and because Mona insisted on it. He would much have preferred to stay at home at the cabin. But by the time they were half way there he had to acknowledge he was beginning to feel excited at the prospect of seeing civilization again.
    Strangely enough, he felt like an outlander hillbilly. The summer suit he wore felt strange and uncomfortable, and he could not get accustomed to the white shirt and tie and kept craning his neck and sticking his finger in the collar. He felt embarrassed as if he might do something wrong, for all the world like some mountaineer man who had only been in to this little jerkwater town twice in his life.
    “Ill help you shop,” he offered as they began to come in between the houses. “Then maybe we can get home soon enough to still go up to the place.”
    “You dont need to,” Mona smiled. “I can manage it all right. Anyway, you have to get your hair cut.”
    “But I can still help,” he said. “Youve got quite a list and therell be a lot of sacks to carry.”
    “Id really rather do it myself, Larry. I know just what I want and where to find it. And if you go get your hair cut, I ought to be finished almost by the time you are.”
    So while she shopped he went alone to get his hair cut. He walked along the streets slowly, feeling an almost irresistible desire to gawk at the buildings and neon signs. The barbershop was Saturday-crowded with men, but not all of them were waiting for haircuts, some were just loafing. So he did not have to wait as long as he had thought when he first went in. There were no children or women in the shop and three or four of the men were discussing the fully developed physical virtues of the blonde headed waitress who could be seen through the plate glass window of the restaurant directly across the street. Larry sat down, grinning to himself and feeling a little less uncomfortable. It might have been any barbershop in the world. Or at least in the US. When it came his turn he climbed into the chair feeling conspicuous and still very much the hillbilly.
    “Hello there,” the fat barber smiled.
    “Hello,” Larry said, and told him what he wanted. He was aware of some of the men watching him.
    “Say,” the barber said after a while, “seen you and your wife park your car down the street. Youre the folks took the Haines’s cabin up on Salt Lick for the summer, aint