BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

There's something fishy about the story of state Sen. Drew Nixon offering an Austin undercover police officer $35 for oral sex. Republicans have a high class image to uphold, and everybody knows you can't hire a decent prostitute for under $200. You might as well buy your suits at K-Mart and drive a Vega. It just doesn't add up.

For one thing, why was the senator from Carthage packing a pistol without a license? (He was already on probation for carrying a .357 Magnum when he was arrested with three prostitutes in Dallas a few years ago.)

"Being raised in East Texas, in the country, it's just something you do," Nixon told reporters. So is snake handling and marrying your cousin, but it doesn't mean it's right.

And what about Cheryl, the thirty-seven year old senator's starry-eyed bride of nine months? At twenty-three, she's probably decades younger than many of the prostitutes Nixon knows. Why would any guy stray from the barnyard with a gal like that of his very own at home?

Sex. Guns. A balding politician. The story reads like a Tom Clancy novel. Makes you wonder whether Nixon was conducting his own top secret investigation of the skin trade.

Anyway, how effective can a legislator be when he doesn't even realize all you have to do is call a lobbyist, and before you know it, you'll have more prostitutes than you can shake a stick at. It's a tax write-off, and lobbyists are proud to help out any way they can.

To look at Senator Nixon in his Sansabelt slacks and shirt sleeves, you'd never know he was an out-of-control playboy sex machine. He says he's ashamed and has offered to get psychological help, but he probably ought to make a pit stop at the V.D. clinic first.

"These small town goobers cruise into town smelling like a load of Aqua Velva that fell off the truck," said Captain Milo Grubb of the Austin P.D. "They proposition the first vice squad officer they see. The decoy says, 'Is that a gun in your pocket or are you glad to see me?' Either way, we've caught our man."

The big city is a wicked place for many an innocent lawmaker. Like Axel's own Charley Smith who was sent to the Capitol with a mandate to legalize pit bull fights. When he got down to Austin, he started hanging out at Tanya's Nude Modeling, and his bill never even made it out of committee. Broken (and being blackmailed by Tanya) our single issue candidate returned to Axel in total disgrace. Returning to the counter of the family hardware store was a bitter pill for Charley to swallow, especially with no nude models inside a sixty mile radius.

Nixon's not the only county boy brought down by evil temptation.

Governor Bush told the beleaguered Republican to "hang in there," and people back home are talking about how it takes "a mighty big man" to expose himself to the public eye the way Nixon has. Some folks are willing to forgive and forget. It's what they've come to expect from politicians.

"What do you think Bill Clinton's doing right now in Washington?" said one angry Nixon supporter.

After all the hubbub, maybe that's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans try and pay some poor, hard-working woman $35 for something Democrats can get for free.