January 1, 2023
I sincerely apologize, this is not in place where I’ve decided to put it, after many weeks of posting. Remember this is an unedited manuscript and decisions about where to place things are part of “writing”. So, consider it just free reading and enjoy. Best regards, Kary:
Frankie has her own hair shop, has her own money and drives a beautiful Caddy now. She also drives Odessa crazy bragging about how much money she spends on stupid things, instead of saving it for retirement. Her shop’s booming. Frankie has more money than she ever dreamed of having. Because Frankie had such a horrible early life she’s not as worried as Dee is about retirement. Dee loves Frankie more than the sisters she has and always wants the best for her. They shared many years as children and then again after Frankie got married Dee constantly worried about her soul mate’s safety and if she’d had anything to eat.
As children, back in the late forty’s Dee watched helplessly as Frankie was physically and psychology abused. She told her mother several times that Frankie was beaten by her father. Unfortunately, back then there was nothing anyone could do. All Dee’s mother could do was walk down the street and visit with Frankie’s mother. Usually, Alice was as beat up as Frankie, from defending Frankie from her father, Darrin. The two mothers would then cry together and look forward to the day that Darrin might fall under the train, at work. That was a hopeless dream, because he was a conductor and rarely had to catch a rail handle on to the train.
Then finally, when they were thirteen, the bastard was helping his brother round up cattle out of the Big thicket river bottom, in the deep under brush close to the river. It was a warm spring day already in April, maybe up in the 90’s by 10 am. Dehydrated, Darrin decided to get off his horse and take a drink out of the Neches River. Darrin brought his horse, Dodge, up to the water with him, thinking he’d want a drink too. Strange, Dodge pulled hard backward, reared up and accidenlty causing Darrin to lose his balance, falling back into the swallow water. Into a round floating turning ball. A round floating nest of mating white-mouth water moccasins. As Darrin realized what was happening to him, Dodge showed his own fear of the snakes and turned completely around ran toward the cattle, before Darrin could grab the horse’s tail. With the cattle’s mowns and low moos, the whistles and yells of the cowboys, the cow dogs barking and growling as they tried to herd the cattle out of the thick underbrush, no one could hear Darrin’s screams. Only Dodge heard him, but Dodge was running as fast as he could back into the safety of town. They all saw the riderless horse running back into town and knew something had happened. One rider tried to catch Dodge and the others left their places headed in the direction the horse ran from, the river bank.
When Darrin’s brother, Darrel, finally found him, the snakes were still mad and biting Darrin’s dead body on the sandbar, where the water current and snakes carried Darrin’s body. The horse was still running hard seven miles away from the bank of the river, when a neighbor recognized it, slowed it down and took it into his barn to calm it down. Everyone knew it was death only Karma could award Darrin.
Knowing all of that, Dee knows Frankie deserves security in her old life, she listens patiently to Frankie’s stories of buying fifteen boxes of Yellow Box flipflops “to go with every Saturday fish fry or Bar-B-Que outfit for the next few months” and tries not to say much. Then Dee screams to herself in her Caddie on the way home.
Shelly Guidry is a hairdresser who works at Frankies. It was her birthday weekend and most of the girls from Frankie’s is going out tonight. They’re “going to let their hair down and rais’som’ Cain!” As Shelly told everyone who came into the shop that day. Shelly’s pushing fifty but claiming to be only forty-five. She’s crazy about one of the local country and western singers, Trey Green.
Trey’s “gonna be at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) tonight!” But this group of ladies called it the UFO because you never knew who you’d see dancing their little hearts out there. Lord help Trey Green, Shelly‘s on her way! He was gaining some positive attention with all of the radio stations and was coming up fast. Everyone expected it to be a good show and a good time.
Gus thinks he’s a good singer and all, but he’s no Merle Haggard, you know? Shelly’s crazy about him. Little too young for Gus. It is Shelly’s birthday weekend and they’re going to celebrate it the way she wants to. Girl’s night out!
Gus’s hairdresser, Sissy, who also worked at Frankie’s, was also one of Gus’s good friends. Sissy’s an old soul who should have a degree in psychology ‘because if she hasn’t heard it all. Honey, she’s done it all! She isn’t the old stuffy type of old soul, Sissy’s the happy-to-meet-you, understanding and funny-but-truthful-old-southern-lady-soul. From the first time she ever cut Gus’s hair Sissy made Gus feel like she’d known Gus all of her life.
As Gus got to Frankie’s door she could hear the conversation going on. Mainly because they were yelling over the air conditioners and blow dryers. It made her smile. Gus walks into the beauty shop to see Melissa teasing someone’s bleach blonde hair into a 1970’s hairstyle and yelling over all of the noise, trying to talk to her client. Shelly’s bent over a sink washing someone’s hair. The cigarette smoke mixed with the chemical smell of hair coloring and permanent solution could knock down an ox when you first walked in. Just short of not being able to breathe and your eyes watered, even if you were not sensitive to hair chemicals or smoke. Yeah, we’re in the South, no doubt, Gus thought.
Tina-Joe is the first born and dam-it her daddy wanted the first born named after him, no matter what it was. She fits the name too. Half the time she’s a girly-girl and the other half she can drink her daddy underneath the table. With women’s lib being pretty well in place, its hard being a Southern woman these days. We don’t know whether to act like Scarlet O’Hara or chew tobacco. Know what I mean?
Tina Joe’s fussing, but mostly teasing, about Melissa, to Shelly and anyone else who’d listen.
“This was planned a couple of months ago and that old hussy decided at the last moment she had something else better to do. No big deal. I’ve seen her drunk and make’ fool of herself before.”
Melissa was grinning at Tina Joe, sitting at one of the hair dryers beside the door and she answered, “Tina-Joe, I cain’t help it. Girl, you know I gotta’ go to my daughter-in-law’s baby shower Sunday! I don’t wanna’ go to it with a red swollen face. All puffy, you know? With a dammed dry mouth and breathe reeking of Jimi! Nope. I refuse to go all hung over.”
Laughing at Melissa’s answer, Tina-Joe noticed the door open and said a loud, “Hey Gus.”
“Hey Girl, what’ca ya’ doing sittin’ there?”
“This is where I sit and jump all th’ welders when they come in”, with a wink.
Seeing that most of the dressing chairs and seats were taken, “Good idea. Think I’ll take this side.” Gus took the seat at a hair dryer on the other side of the door. After Gus got settled down at her dryer chair, she took it all in and accessed the whole lot of them working, expect Tina-Joe. Lord, this crew’s good with hair. They’ve seen it, did it and wants to do it again!
Gus looked over at Tina Joe and thought about how bad Tina Joe was when she gets drunk. She’s a cussing-slurring-lush to every man she can get her hands on. Total disaster. Horrible, horrible drunk. Cigarette ashes everywhere, spilling her Jack and Coke on everything. The worse thing, she burns everyone who gets near her with her damn cigarette. Oh and she’ll try to start a fight with a nun! Then flip her switch, for whatever reason, and wanna tell you how much she loves you. But then’ she’ll think you need your ass whooped because your shirt is blue! Go figure. Laughing, Gus said “Tina Joe, you had better behave tonight!”
“Helllllll no! Baby girl, I’m gonna get sssso messed up tonight, you’re gonna have’ ta pour me into th’ car to get me home.”
“Better not mess up my car.”
Laughing, “I’ll try my dam-est not to, doll-babe.”
“Gus, got your Aunt Dee at one o’clock.” It was the first thing Sissy said to her since she walked in.
“Good, I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days.”
It was fifteen ‘til and Melissa, walked back to the bathroom, looked out of one of the windows at the traffic going by and announced, “There’s Miss Dee’s white Cattl’-lac. Right on time.”
“She always early to everything.” Gus said, “I hate that about her.”
“Why, ‘cause you’re usually late?” Sissy, smiling at her.
“No. Well, yes. And worse it’s the one good thaing mama likes about Aunt Dee. About five years ago Hazeline slipped and said, “why cain’t you be on time like your Aunt Dee?”
“Wow! That’s bad, if Hazeline said something nice about Dee. Better not be late tonight.”
“I won’t.”
Shelly walked past Gus behind Mrs. Adams with a wet head, full of towels.
“Hey girl.”
“Happy Birthday. Looking good!” Gus greeted her.
“Thank you.”
“Hello Mrs. Adams.”
“Hi honey. Haven’t seen you in a while. You doing ok”
“Yes Ma’am. I’m good. What’s Connie into these days?”
“Chasin’ all of those kids she has. You know she married an Exxon man who has custody of all three of his kids. Not a one of them is older than ten.”
“Oh, Lord. I didn’t know that. She must really love him.”
“Guess so…we’ll see if it’s love for him or his pay check. Only time will tell. But me, I’d never married a man with more than one child.”
Shelly broke in and turned Mrs. Adams around to the mirror, “O.K., enough of this madness. Do you want me to set it for you or use a hot iron on it?”
“Set it, Honey. But first, do you mind if I smoke?”
“Sure, go ahead!”
“Thank ya’, Honey. Let me get my cigarette lit.”
The door opened and in walked an older classy fashionista’ with Elizabeth Taylor blue eyes. Naturally jet-black hair with a little salt, beautifully pulled up into a pile of curls, with a couple of baby curls softly bouncing on her olive neck. Aunt Dee, short for Odessa, had her own cigarette barely hanging out of her bright red lips, stepped into the smoke-filled beauty shop, carrying two pizzas in.
“Look what the cat done drug in! Dee, we was just talkin’ about you.”
“Hope it was juicy-good and scandalous,” she mumbled with her cigarette hanging off of her bottom lip, smiling with her pizza boxes.
“Of course it was! What’ca’ got there Mama?” Tina Joe said as she was taking the pizza’s out of Dee’s arms.
Taking the cigarette out of her mouth, “Some groceries’ for you wayward women”
“Oooh Dee you didn’t have to do that. Thank you.”
“It’s so close to lunch and I know how ya’ll are. Don’t eat worth a damn during lunch time. Rather cut hair than eat. I want my beautician calm and full when she does my hair.” Turning around and winking at her niece. Gus wink back, got up and gave Dee a tight hug. Dee pinched her arm with her long red fingernails, “My baby’s so pretty, I could still eat you alive.”
“That’s fine Aunt Dee, but when you gonna stop pinchin’ me?”
Dee looked seriously at her, holding Gus out by the shoulders, smiled,
“When I’m too weak and old to do it, Babydoll.”
“That’s not gonna happen anytime soon.”
“You dammed ‘rat baby.” Hugging Gus more. Dee’s tone turned sentimental,
“Hell, when you was a baby… I guess, til you were ‘bout two or so, I bit those fat little arms or thighs eeeeverytime I picked you up! Feels like yesterday. You’d giggle and laugh about it then. You don’t still like to be bit, do ya’ honey?”
Smiling, Gus,
“No… huh, well maybe.” Then feeling embarrassed, “Well it depends!”
“I knew it! You should’ve been mine! What have I been telling you Frankie?”
Frankie had her mouth full of hair pins, all she could do was grunt.
Gus rolled her eyes. Then with her arm she invited Dee to sit down in her place.
“Thank ya’, Babydoll.” Dee put her old big purse down on the top of the dryer, where the knobs are, sat down and put her cigarette back in her mouth. Then she started looking around for an ash tray. Gus already had one and handed it to Dee as she walked over to the Coke machine and got them a couple of Dr Peppers.
I’m gonna get off of subject now. See, most southerners, at least where I’m from call all carbonated or soft drinks “cokes” as in a general species. Like horses or dogs or Kleenex. They’re all considered “cokes” until the waitress takes the order. I other words, you might get asked out to go to the Dairy Queen to get a coke, know what I mean?
After Gus handed Dee the Doctor Pepper and sat hers down on the floor beside Dee’s dryer then she went outside. She got a lawn chair out of the trunk of her little Nova. She came back in and proceeded to sit down beside Dee like she’d done this a thousand times. She felt the stares. Looked up at everyone, “What? There’s no where’s left to sit.”
Shelly was combing out Miss Tooley’s wet head, she spoke up,
“I think it’s a wonderful idea myself. How ‘bout ya’ Dee?” Shelly asked.
Dee laughed,
“Honey I think Gus is so smart she needs to run for Congress. And quickly before all my hot-connections die off.” Winking at Shelly.
“Yes, I think she should too.”
“Babydoll, ya’know I luv’ ya’ so much.” Patting Gus on her knee.
Dee wasn’t anything like her siblings. She lived her life the way she wanted to and slept good at night. She said what she thought, dressed the way she liked, which was somewhere between Madonna and Dolly Parton. At home she usually wore only a slip. Only a slip. One that you could see right through it. We considered it lucky if she wore her bra and panties with it. She didn’t like mow-mows, “makes me feel naked.” But she didn’t think there was anything wrong with her slip. It was her house and “if you don’t like it, don’t look at it!”
During the next hour they watched one by one, the hair dressers got pieces of pizza and carrying on about how good it was.
After a few quite seconds, Dee gently patted Gus on her knee. Then out of no-where she asked Gus,
“Talk to your mama lately?”
Gus was a little surprised Aunt Dee asked about her nemesis-sister. They’ve always been at each other’s throats. Gus chalked it up to both of them having a strong personality. Gus answered Dee with a plain face and in her Southern English,
“Her and daddy are fightin’ again. He cooked a brisket last weekend and got it all over her precious kitchen.” Gus smiling to herself and then looked over at Dee and said using her hands, “Apparently he dropped three slices on the floor and got bar-b-q sauce “all over my clean floor.”
“Big Hank’s brisket is pretty damned good. If I’m drunk enough I might eat a piece of it off of the dammed floor.” Dee and all of the hair dressers and some of the shop laughed with them. Dee coughed a smoker’s thick raspy cough. Or coughed and laughed. No one could ever tell which was came first.
“Yeah, it’s pretty good. But knowin’ daddy he might’ve been bored and did it on purpose just to get her started.”
“Don’t take much.” Wiping her eyes and about to blow her nose.
Gus agreed, “No it sure don’t.”
With Tina Joe playing in the freshly rolled and dried hair of a lady named Tooley Nelson, who had just came out from under one of the dryers asked Dee “How is Hazeline?
In stereo Dee and Gus answered her at the same time,
“She’s still a bitch.” Then they laughed in stereo.
“She always was wound up pretty tight. Thought she was better than everyone else when we were in school.”
“Hasn’t changed. Except now, she does treat Big Hank better than she did when they were married the first time. Learned her dammed lesson. She’s got a good man.”
“Yeah, I bet. No one but Hank will put up with her. I know several women who were waiting for her to get out of their way. They were gonna snatch’im up quick!”
Dee said, “Poor Hank. He just worked and tended to the kids. I don’t think he ever went out with anyone while they were separated and divorced.”