Hairy Situation (a short story)
Posted: Thursday, November 20, 2008
by Tex Norman
Betty was pulling Evelyn Vanderhausen's hair through a bunch of tiny holes poked through the skin of a plastic shower cap. With the grace of a conductor and the skill of a brain surgeon, Betty rolling each strand on to a thin roller, squeezing on the color solution. It was a motion she had performed several thousand times, so that now it was performed flawlessly and without the slightest effort. Betty looked up just in time to see Mavis coming up the driveway toward the Betty's Beauty Box door. Betty's husband had enclosed the garage and turned it into a hair salon. That was nine years ago. The husband was long divorced, but Betty's Beauty Box was going strong.
"Mavis? Mavis Hemlocken. Not her again," said Evelyn. " I wish I was done here."
"How come, hon? Don't you like Mavis?" Betty asked.
The customer chair was a Pepto-Bismol pink, and the counters were of deep purple Formica, the combs and brushes were neon orange. Her walls were festooned with art prints of little children with huge teary looking eyes and dominated by blues and mauves. Betty loved the splendor and beauty of her little home hair salon.
"I like her all right," Evelyn said. "If spending time with a snake sounds like fun to you."
"She can be a little contentious," Carla Jane Millsap said too loudly. Carla was slow roasting under this ancient hair dryer that looked like a big egg on her head. The dryer filled her ears with the roar of hot air blowing out all over her head.
"Now you girls be nice, now, you hear me," Betty cautioned them. "I'm in the hair fixing business, and I can't afford to be running off paying customers just because you two think somebody's a bit bitchy."
A ribbon of Christmas bells hanging on the back of the door tingled a warning as Mavis Hemlocker entered Betty's Beauty Box.
"I need me a permanent wave," Mavis said just as soon she stepped into the shop. "Roll ‘em tight and soak ‘em hard, because I want something that's going to last."
"What's the matter with you Mavis? Didn't your mama teach you nothing when you was drug up? Say hello first, for God's sake?" Betty asked.
"Oh," Mavis said seeming to realize she was being a bit abrupt. "Yeah. Hi, Betty," Mavis said. "Hi, girls," Mavis added with a nod to Carla and Evelyn. "Sorry. I've got my mind preoccupied, I know that for damn sure."
"That's all right, Mavis," Betty said. "Park it in a chair and relax. I'm frosting Evelyn's locks for her. I'm almost done with the color and ready to cook her head while I get you started."
"I don't understand you," Carla said raising the dryer hood. "Ladies our age dye the gray out. And here you are putting the gray in."
"Oh, shut up, Carla Jane. It's my hair. And frosted hair is not the same thing as gray, for God's sake."
"Oh, hush you two," Betty said. "My gosh, you act like you're five years old when you ought to be acting like fifty-five year olds."
"Who are you calling fifty-five?" Evelyn snapped.
"You aren't going to sit there and say you're younger," Carla countered.
"Of course I'm younger. Not even fifty yet."
"You got panty hose older than fifty, Carla, and you know it," Betty said chuckling.
Carla Jane raised her hood again and spoke loudly to the room, "You girls heard about the murder I suppose?"
"Murder?" said Betty.
"Nope," said Evelyn. "Who got murdered?"
"Oh," said Carla Jane, and lowered her hood and returned to her drying.
Betty, Evelyn, and Mavis just gapped at Carla who seemed oblivious to their gazes.
"Hey, Carla," Evelyn said, "who got themselves kilt?"
"She can't hear you over the dryer," Betty explained. "Hell, she don't hear so good even without a dryer blowing in her ears."
Betty stomped her foot twice and waved her arms getting Carla's attention. She raised her hood making a face that said, ‘what?'
"Looky here, Carla Jane. You don't ask us if we heard someone got murdered and then when we ain't heard you just drop the whole damn discussion," Evelyn snapped.
"Calm down now, Evelyn. You get too made and the color won't take in your hear. Now that's a scientific fact." Betty turned to Carla. "What murder? Who got kilt?"
"You don't know?" Carla asked.
"Damnation, Carla Jane, we said we didn't know. We don't know. So out with it."
"It's been in the paper this morning. Radio too."
Mavis leaned in. "Just tell us what you know, Carla Jane," she said calmly.
"Well, all right then. It was Flow. Flow Martin."
"Sweet Jesus in heaven," Betty said, "she was just in here. I did her "doo" yesterday!"
"She was at Wednesday night prayer meeting two days ago," Evelyn added.
"I didn't know her," Carla said, but my Burt is with the Sago City Sun, as you all know. He said it was a horrible murder scene. Just horrible. Blood everywhere."
"Poor Flow," Betty sighed.
"Her daughter who lives over in Winter Haven had been trying to get her mama. When she didn't answer the phone all night she drove over this morning and found her dead in her kitchen." Carla turned the dryer off and then whispered the juicy part. "Her mama was naked and sort of chopped all over. Burt told me there was signs of, you know."
Brows wrinkled all around.
"You know," Carla insisted. "Sex stuff. Signs of sex stuff. She may have been," Carla paused for dramatic effect, "raped. It could have been a rape and murder."
Mavis leaned back in her chair and cackled.
Carla's jaw dropped, Betty was sending out a stink-eye, and Evelyn looked like she'd just found a slug in her soup spoon, but it had no sobering effects on her laughter.
Evelyn spoke first. "Mavis, what in the hell is so funny?"
Mavis had to wipe tears from her face as she continued to chortle.
"What is so funny?" Betty said firmly.
"You three," Mavis said. "You three are so shocked. So surprised." The laughter abated now Mavis's face slowly took on a look that was hard and flinty. "You three might be surprised, but I'm not surprised."
"Flow Martin was an angel sent from heaven," Evelyn said.
"Why would anyone want to kill a saint like her?" Betty said.
"Flow Martin was no saint," Mavis said, "and she was no angel sent from heaven. She was a demon turd that had floated to the top of hell's septic tank and got washed into this towns drinking supply. She was a hypocrite who had an act that could fool a retired pastor. And Flow Martin was a back stabbing biddy who has plagued this town way too long."
"I can't believe you're talking this way," Carla Jane said. "My Bert said someone took an ax or something and hit that poor woman three or four dozen times."
"Poor thing," Betty said in a raspy whisper.
"None of the blows were enough to kill her," Carla continued. "The medical examiner said that lady suffocated in her own blood."
"How ghastly," Evelyn said with a sigh.
"There's nothing ghastly about it," Mavis said with sudden force.
"Explain yourself, Mavis," demanded Betty. "Why have you got a bug up your big butt over that sweet dead lady?"
"Because she was having a flopsy with my husband!"
"A flopsy?" Evelyn said clearly puzzled by her choice of words.
"A flopsy," Mavis said again. "You know. A pickle tickle. Mattress magic. Making the beast with two backs. Doing the horizontal bop. Humpin'!"
After a pause Carla spoke. "Making love?"
"Making love is too polite a way of describing it. They were doing the nasty."
"It's not nice to say anything about the dead unless it's good," said Carla.
"She's dead," Mavis said, "and that's good."
"You know this is true?" Betty asked. "You know for sure your husband and Flow were --" She let her voice just fade into an uncomfortable silence.
"It's true."
"How do you know?"
"Caught them."
"You caught them? Actually caught them? In the act?" Evelyn asked.
"Both of them. They were butt naked and wallowing around together. In her bed. I saw it with my own two eyes."
"When?" asked Betty.
"Last night."
The timing wasn't missed by anybody.
"It happened like this," Mavis said. "I dropped my wedding band down the sink drain last night right after I did the dishes. Well, Sam said he wanted to head down to the Sago Bar & Grill for a few beers with the boys. Well, I figured the ring was caught in the goose neck under the sink, but I wanted Sam to take that piece loose and get my ring."
The ladies were growing more alarmed by the second. It was like they were watching a run over puppy in its death throws.
"Well," Mavis continued, "I got in the car to go down to the Sago Grill and get Sam. On my way there I took Camphor Road so I could cut over to Pine Street. That took me right by the Camphor Grove Condominiums. That's when I saw Sam's truck, parked by one of those condos. Well I tell you I breaked right fast and walked around to the side and peeked in the window. That's when I saw them runting and grunting together right through the bedroom window. Those two disgusting lumps of lustful flesh didn't even bother to pull the shades."
"What did you do?" asked Betty.
"I yelled at them right through the window."
"You didn't?" Carla said.
"I did."
"Then what happened?" Evelyn asked.
"They split apart. It was like watching cells divide under a microscope. Sam looked at me through the window, grabbed his pants and shirt and dressed fast. He was faster than fire in a cast iron skillet. When he came out of the condo I hit him with a rock I'd found in the flower bed. I nailed him with a stone and told him, ‘You insignificant chunk of cheese, you get home. I'll deal with you later!' that's what I told him."
"And did you, uh, say something to Flow?" Carla Jane asked.
"A little. Not a lot. I went back to my car and took this little shake shingle roofing hammer from the car. Sam had left it there in the tool box he keeps in the trunk of my car. It has a hammer on one side and a hatchet blade on the other."
"Oh, my God," whispered Betty.
"That's right," Mavis said. "I did it. I walked in there and said, ‘Flow, God better forgive you ‘cause I never will,' and I commenced to whacking on her. I don't know how long it took, or how many whacks I gave her, but I'll bet I've given Lizzy Borden a run for her money. I just kept whacking her ‘til she ceased moving or moaning. When she got real still I carried my little hatchet back to the car and went home."
"Mavis, this just can't be true," Evelyn said.
"When I got home I found Sam smoking on the back porch. ‘I'm sorry, Mavy,' he said to me. He was sitting there in the dark, with his back too me, too ashamed to look at me. It was kind of too bad, too, ‘cause if he'd looked back at me he'd've seen me pointing the 12 gage right at the back of his head."
"I can't believe what I'm hearing here," Carla said to no one in particular.
"You're sitting there waiting to get your hair done and telling us that you killed Flow Martin and your own husband?" Betty said.
"They take your pictures when they arrest you, don't they?" Mavis asked Carla Jane. "I thought I'd better get my hair done before they arrested me. You don't make house calls to county jail do you, Betty?"
For a long time no body said anything.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Great short story. The story-line unfolds quickly and keeps the reader interested. I also like how you inserted discriptions of the beauty salon; this added to the scene.
hi tex,this was an amusing and capturing article, and i was on the edge of my seat.i can't stand the suspense....what happened to mavis:)you're quite a good story teller, and i enjoy reading them,my best regards,sue
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