Chapter 3rd visit to Frankie’s Tinker Bell’s Doo
Another week went by at the mill. It was Friday night and Gus crashed, at the table. Literally. The sound of the kids talking, and the clinking of the utensils put her to sleep.
Boone woke her up and walked his mama to her bedroom and gently laid her down and let Clover take over from there.
The next morning was a beautiful Saturday morning at the Frankie’s Beauty shop, which is right in the smack-dab- middle-of town and was always busier than a bee’s nest. Most Saturday mornings that Gus wasn’t working, she went to the shop just to see what was shaking. This morning she actually had an appointment to get her hair cut off.
Always busy, every chair taken, ladies were at the sink getting their hair washed and three more waiting their turn, sitting on the un-used dryers.
Lisa was rolling Ms. Jenkins and talking on the phone, Gus winked at Lisa as she came in. The long phone cord waving and heavy was up to Lisa’s ear, two chairs over from the phone. Ms. Jenkins’s husband was the richest man in the whole County, and she tips very nice everywhere she goes. Lisa was happy.
Gus could see Sugar thru the half window in the shampoo room, was bent over scrubbing someone’s soapy head at the moment, “Hey girl, you ready?” Sugar asked.
“Yep, where’s Sissy at?” Gus answered Sugar.
Coming out of the bathroom and from behind Gus, Tina Joe answered her,
“She went across the street to get some Cokes”. Cokes in the South means all bottled soft drinks, pops, soda waters or whatever you want to call them. It doesn’t mean five Cokes. Like a dog could be a Beagle, you know? Then Gus sat down at in a dryer chair and started thumbing through a magazine and waited on Tina Joe.
“Hey girl”, Gus greeted Tina Joe and walking with Sugar and her customer from the wash room. Sugar, sat her wet customer, Lottie LeBlanc, down at her chair, next to the wall phone.
Standing there near Sugar’s chair and close enough to speak to Mrs. LeBlanc. All younger Southerners, black or white are taught to show respect to older folks by using Miss or Mr. before the elder person’s first name, if given permission to call them by their first name to begin with. Gus asked her,
“Miss. Lottie, you O.K?”
“Yeah hon, but I could use a fresh towel!” Hot Lottie rolled her eyes toward her hairdresser. Sugar gave her a bath. And Mrs. LeBlanc didn’t look like she was going to tip Sugar very good either.
Gus asked Sugar,
“Why cain’t you go?”
Sugar was handing Lottie another towel.
“Girl, wish I could. Have a baby shower and I don’t wanna be-all-hung over and trying to drink green punch the next morning. Know whata’ mean?” She pulled her roller cart closer to her and took a comb to Lottie’s head.
“Wish you could. Next time we go out, you’ll have to come with us?”
Sugar grabbed a roller and answered,
“Oh, yeah, I’ll be there next time.”
“Good, ‘cause we always have a good time!”
“Gurl, I know, we do it right!” Then Sugar turned the chair around and started rolling Lottie’s hair.
Sissy’s chair became empty, so Gus sat down next to Mrs. LeBlanc and Sugar to wait on Sissy. Gus knew Mrs. LeBlanc had rent houses and apartments she rented out, so she asked her,
”Mrs. LeBlanc, do you have any apartments for rent?”
“No Honey. Not right now. Give me your phone number and I’ll give you a call if one does come open. You need a place?
Gus started digging in her purse for her checkbook and pulled out a deposit slip. Then she looked up and answered,
“No, Ma’am, it’s for a friend that’s working out at the mill; he’s good people.” And handed Mrs. LeBlanc the deposit slip with her phone number on it.
Note to all under the age of 40:
For decades deposit slips were only used for deposits. There was no online banking. Deposit slips were considered safe and often used as business cards to hand out to strangers. They usually had our drivers’ license number, date of birth, full address and phone numbers on them. Wild huh?
Mrs. LeBlanc took the slip, looked down at it and put it in her wallet and said,
“That’s good. If I hear of somethin’ I’ll give you a call.”
“Thank you, I’ll tell him we’re looking.”
“OK honey.”
Gus sat down and picked up The River, a weekly newspaper, off of Sissy’s work dresser. The River was the oldest published newspaper in the county and since it’s a weekly, it’s always late with half of last week’s news! Most people subscribed to it to see who did what, who died or who was bailed out of jail, who had a baby, got married and where the garage sales were on the weekends.
Gus opened it up and held it out to read. Oh my Lord it’s Steve McQueen! There he was, on the front page riding a four-wheeler in the homecoming parade. Homecoming was the last weekend and he was there too throwing out candy.
That’s when Sissy walked in the front door with some junk food and drinks in her arms.
“Hey girl. Buying Groceries?” Gus asked
“Yeah, we were all hungry.” Sissy looked down at the dryer close to the door and said,
“Tina Joe they didn’t have the pink coconut cakes, sorry, so I got ca’ the chocolate one.”
“That’s OK.” Tina Joe answered, as she reached up to Sissy to get her junk food.
Sissy put everyone else’s junk food on the counters. They had their hands full of hair. Gus sat across from Sissy at a dryer chair. Gus waited for Sissy to sit down with her food and then she asked Sissy,
“Why didn’t you call me and tell me about this.” Gus held the front page up, then folded it and sat it down where it was between two hair dryers.
Rocking her head, she said, “’cause we just got ours this morning. Can you believe it?” pointing to the paper. Crazy, huh?”
“Yes, I can believe it. That sorry-son-of-a-dawg. Men!”
“Well don’t tell no one what we did, ‘cause this morning we also found out he has a wife aaand a brand-new baby boy. Apparently, that’s what he was celebratin’ the night we met him,”
“Lorrrrd have mercy! Briar-sorry-dawg-Teel.” Gus continued, “He should’ve been home with his wife.”
Then out of nowhere Gus said to Sissy with a strange look on her face, ”Girl, you need to stop cutting on your hair.” Attention span thing, I guess.
“Yeah you’re so right? What’s th’ matter? You don’t like it? Tina Joe did it.”
“Yeah. I like it. It’s just too short for you. Never seen you with short hair.”
“Oh, it’ll grow out in a week or two”, Sissy laughed and then she asked, “Does it hurt when you look at it?”
Gus was still making a face and she lied. “No. It looks good, but it looks better a lil’ longer. That’s all.”
“Well, stop making that face!”
They talked a while longer about Briar Teel, aka, Steve McQueen, while Sissy ate her chips. They had both heard of him before, seemed to be a tough redneck/ex-con that the younger guys tried to be. Had his own little entougch, followers. Sissy told Gus a customer of Lisa’s saw the paper and said something about Briar’s wife having a baby last Thursday, a week-ago. That meant the new baby boy was a couple days old when his sorry old-man was out running the bars and honky-tonks with them.
“Men. Cain’t live with ‘em and cain’t legally shoot ‘em!”
When she finished her chips Tina Joe said,
“OK, trade chairs and le’ me get ta’ work on your hair.” Gus had decided the heat was too much for long hair. Even shoulder length hair, that she could pull up was too much. She wanted short hair. Gus trusted Sissy with the scissors and knew she wouldn’t mess it up.
“O.K. Doll, I’ll do it.”
Sissy threw the shawl around Gus’ neck. Got it situated and then she looked up at the mirror and Gus and then asked Gus,
“How short? Any idea what you want?”
“Yeah, I know exactly what I want. A Tinker Bell with a little Peter Pan. Think you can do it?” Gus was smiling in the mirror at Sissy.
Sissy smiled back her and said, “Oh, that’ll be so cute with your size. But you sure?
“yep, I’m sure. It’s so dammed hot at the mill”
“O.K.” Then Sissy went to work.
When Sissy cut the last big hand-full of hair, Gus felt lifted, fresh, new.
“Girl, that feels good. Good, like-sex-good.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Sissy laughed and teased the back of Gus’s hair with her hand, lifting her shorten hair up and she went to work again. Thirty minutes later Gus was a little lighter and was sporting a new short do. She paid Sissy and then said her goodbyes to everyone and went happily to the garage sale on Lindsey with her new Tinker Bell hair-do.