BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

The minute I saw the huge headline on the front page of the Axel Rattler--"World to End September 1!!!"--I knew it wouldn't be long before the Heavens to Betsy cult showed up again. And just when Jasper was doing so good. He hardly ever talked about the days when he was high priest of the cult started by his mama, Loraine Fontaine, and a group of disgruntled professors from Ivy league schools who wanted to live in yurts and grow their own oat bran while returning to the godhead.

After all our hard work reforming the boy. He was even using hair gel. Of course, the deprogrammer had started the ball rolling but we were the ones who tackled the job of turning him into an average lad. A lad who liked to cuss and shoot things and play with matches. Lord knows it's hard, once you've been worshipped, to revert to being normal. Power is so intoxicating. I always suspected the reason Loraine signed over custody was so she herself could become the Head Betsy.

Just the other morning the cute little guy ran all the way to the beauty shop to tell me he had been struck on the head by a piece of water. I guess after 28 days over 100 degrees he forgot what that stuff is.

Folks around here might have forgotten the word for rain but they have 15 different names for a woman like Loraine. When I saw her passing out tracts in front of the donut shop, it was all I could do to keep from boxing her up in a crate and shipping her to Timbuktu.

"Look what the rat dragged in," I said. Her flea-bitten mane looked like it hadn't been conditioned in months. "I suppose you're here for the boy."

"The boy? Oh, uh, the boy--yeah. And Earl's and my VW bus," she said. Earl was Loraine's ex but nobody knew whether he was Jasper's father. They were only married a week when Loraine ran off to New Mexico and started meditating.

"Loraine, every mother hopes her son will grow up to be a big shot--a circus clown or lawyer," I said. "But I guess that wasn't good enough for you."

"You should talk," said Loraine. "The way you're always pushing those trashy daughters of yours to try out for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders."

"You ought to do something about that mustache," I said. I just couldn't help myself. What's the use of trying to reason with a woman who uses the <Ouija> board to tell her when to touch up her roots? Somebody who believes such weird-o things?

That night I could hardly sleep. As I tossed and turned, it hit me. That piece of water--the one that landed on Jasper--was an omen. A sign that if we didn't do something quick, Sonny and me and Stormy and Destinee were going lose the joy of our lives--the cute little creature who could cheer us up with just a wag of his tail. I got up and hand-cuffed Jasper's little wrist to mine and spent the rest of the night on the floor beside his bed.

The next morning the bulk of the Betsy-ites showed up in full regalia--flowerdy moo-moos from garage sales throughout the southwest. A moo-moo can hide a lot but it can't hide a Harvard Ph.d..

"Harken, denizens of Axel! The end is near!" It was Stephen J. Goo, former chair of the classics department at Princeton. Wearing a size 22 moo-moo and <John Lennon> glasses. He handed Jasper and me a leaflet entitled Back to Betsy. "You yuppies think your sports utility vehicles render you invulnerable," he said.

"I don't think we have those in Axel," I said.

"No Range Rovers?" said Goo.

"Nope. The chiropractor's wife drives an '85 Suburban but mostly it's just pick-up trucks."

The professor scowled and dropped the leaflets in the trash. Just then Loraine pulled up in a VW bus full of people in moo-moos. "Climb in," she said.

I jumped in front of the boy to shield him. "You'll never take him alive," I said. Stephen J. Goo rolled down his window and looked at me. "You--not alive. Not him," I explained.

Jasper and I watched the bus disappear over the hill. When we were sure the coast was clear, we walked to the beauty shop. On the way we were struck by several pieces of water.