BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Everybody in town is arguing about who killed JFK. There are so many theories. And all kinds of alleged alliances. Frank Sinatra--with the Manassas County Garden Club. Cuban exiles led by Jimmy Hoffa, assisted by the Junior League of Roanoke, Virginia. Lyndon Johnson, munitions profiteers and a square dance group from Mineral Wells.

"Everybody knows it was John Wilkes Booth," said Tiny Mae Smith, one of the accused square dancers.

"Don't be naive, Tiny Mae. There was definitely a cover-up," said conspiracy buff Bob Weird who has devoted over nine-tenths of his life to the case. "The Warren Report conveniently left out certain things. For example, they never told us what a knoll is."

"After all your research, Bob, who do you think was behind the assassination?" I asked.

"A lot of things point to the FBI," Weird replied. "Kennedy bumped into J. Edgar Hoover at a Georgetown gala and is said to have remarked, 'What an ugly girl.' Even worse, he refused to sign Hoover's dance card. How was the President to know J. Edgar had stayed up nights stitching his slinky dress--identical to the one Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang happy birthday. Hoover was so hurt by the rebuff, he fled the ballroom in tears, catching his dress on a nail, and exposing his rubber girdle to a couple hundred people."

"How terrible," I said.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," said Weird. "Hoover was a very proud man and he wore size 11 shoes. What's more, he was known to have used the word 'knoll' frequently in conversation."

"Don't forget about Eduardo," said Vernon Wagstaff, vice-principal at Axel Junior High. "The shadowy figure in the rhumba line. Spotted at the Copa two weeks before the assassination. A cigarette girl testified she overheard him telling a woman he was going to rub somebody out."

"You mean there's a witness?" I said.

"What a witness," said Wagstaff. "Marge had some kind of figure in those days--you've seen torpedoes? She says, 'At first I mistook him for Ed Tappazoota, the chiropractor. I thought he said something about rubbing the woman's gout. Only later did I put two and two together.' Poor Marge--died two weeks before she was scheduled to testify in front of the House Select Committee."

"Sounds pretty suspicious."

Bob Weird fingered his sideburns. "Foreign operatives say Fidel Castro held a grudge against Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The invasion was bad enough. To call Cuba a bay of pigs was a great insult to the dictator and to the Cuban people."

"It would make me mad."

"That's nothing," said Weird. "What was not known until last Monday was that the CIA had tried to assassinate Castro with a rubber cigar. Boom."

"So it was Castro."

"Fidel didn't act alone," said Weird. "A lot of sources say the mod was involved."

"What's the mod?" I asked.

"The mod is a highly secretive organization about which I have no information but I am sure they are very nice people."

"Surely you jest, darlings." It was Ivana Tubbs, fashion editor for the Axel Rattler, dressed impeccably, as always. "Remember when everybody talked about what a cute couple the Khrushchevs were, especially when they wore matching Cossack hats? Nina Petrovna redecorated the Kremlin and was the fashion trendsetter for women from Minsk to Vladivostok."

Tubbs lifted her elegant foot long cigarette holder to her lips and inhaled deeply. "When the Kennedys moved into the White House, it was Jackie this and Jackie that. What else could Nikita do?"

"I can't believe it," I said.

"You're all such fools," said Tubbs. "Don't tell me you didn't notice when the pill box hat replaced the babushka. Soviet women began demanding Oleg Cassinis and Halstons. They would stand in line all day for one Ferragamo shoe. The USSR was on the verge of collapse."

Makes sense to me. I just wish I knew who killed JFK.