BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Love has bloomed in Axel and, I'm sorry to say, it's not a pretty sight. First, there was the wedding of my cousin Ronnie and an aging Vegas showgirl named Pinky Dilfeather. Ronnie, at twenty-six, is a talented singing evangelist who has appeared several times on cable access. "Something old, something new" fits them to a T.

June DePew, Axel's daring fashion maven, coordinated the event, using Pinky's favorite color which is, of course, Pepto-Bismol pink. The thirteen bride's maids, all of whom Pinky knows from Krystal's XXX, wore pink and black checkered hot pants. The bride herself was attired in a low-cut pink Spandex cocktail dress with thigh-high boots.

I always cry at weddings but at this one I got practically hysterical. For one thing, my husband Sonny had stayed out all night at a stag party at New Jersey Nights. He completely forgot that it was our date night--and I had gone to all that trouble with the box from the appliance store!

Even worse than Sonny forgetting about our night of love, however, was watching my best friend Brandi take up with Cousin Butch who got out of jail three weeks ago.

Brandi is what you might call a vulnerable woman after losing her heart surgeon husband to his twenty year old receptionist. Just like me, she sacrificed her youth and beauty for a man who treats her like a common dirt clod.

At the wedding reception when Brandi caught sight of Butch dressed in a tank top with all his prison tattoos and hair just about covering his entire body, she got so giddy she slipped down in cake icing.

If only she knew the kind of man she's going head over heels for.

Butch inherited the character--but not the looks--of his father Stymie, a cheap, pretty boy who married my Aunt Juanita for her sugar ration coupons and left her on the steps of Axel Memorial Hospital in the summer of 1944.

Despite growing up deprived of his father's influence, Butch hogged all the doughnuts and called the dog Stupid Head. He was rude, crude and lewd. But when it came to looks, he took after his cow-like mother and, try as he might, he was unable to command even the homeliest of girls. His buck-teeth and oversized nostrils were a genetic beacon signalling "DANGER AHEAD!"

It was a lonely life for Butch and his mother. Though people liked Aunt Juanita okay, they found it nearly impossible to get within ten feet of her. She compensated for her lack of striking looks by cultivating a striking smell, a mixture of Jungle Gardenia and room deodorizer, boiled down to make it extra strong. The result, which she called Bathroom Jungle, was lethal to anyone with allergies.

When a deacon at the Baptist church had a sneezing fit and hit his head on the pew, the ushers started seating Juanita and Butch by themselves in the balcony. Finally the two just quit coming.

Butch responded to his isolation by forming a motorcycle gang, although he could just afford a Mo-ped. The only kid he managed to recruit was a boy named Ray who played the piccolo in the junior high orchestra. With greased back duck tails and taps on their shoes, they tried to elicit fear and envy. Eventually Butch was able to pull off a few petty crimes. He did five years for burglary of a building.

"It wasn't a real building, only a snow cone stand," Brandi reminds those who mention Butch's record.

I'll never understand what she sees in him, a boring oaf who doesn't know a high class lady from a blow-up doll, who's gone out with more prostitutes than Drew Nixon.

I guess true love really is a many splendid thing