“There was nobody in the shop for a haircut this time of night, just Rage Gage, the barber, and a few friends, blues singers.

The light from the front window was yellow, and although it broke up a corner of darkness and the rain with its small strength, it seemed to turn to water and to run and fade like cheap dye, once it left the window.

The house was not a real barber shop, not originally, though it had been fixed up nice. It was only a Negro cabin with a barber pole out in front of it.”

—Lewis Nordan, from Wolf Whistle, 1993.