Vanity Insanity (42 page)

“Oh my gawd! I have not heard this song in, like, forever.” Jenae turned up the Police classic song: “King of Pain.”

“Hey, Ben, this is you.” Virginia came out from the back room with a bottle of chemicals. “King of pain. Get it? Your tooth. ‘King of pain,’” she sang loudly along with Sting.

The bell rang as Caroline and her son, Connor, opened the front door. Connor ran into the salon in red cowboy boots, shouting, “Donuts! We got donuts!” Caroline had let Connor’s blond curls grow until a client asked what her little girl’s name was. His new short hair made him look older and boyish.

“Ben, want a donut?” Connor asked. He grabbed my hand and walked me over to the box on the UP desk. “We got skrinkles on ‘em.”

I really had no appetite with the throbbing in my mouth, but I took one. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Is the TV broken?” Toby asked, annoyed.

“No, why?”

“The Missouri game is on tonight, and as much as I like hearing old Police songs, I’m sure that ESPN is already talking about the game.”

Back in August, when I had first seen the Husker schedule, I’d had my eye on the Missouri game. As the fall had quietly twisted into a sad season, I lost my focus with the Huskers, who were well on their way to a third
national championship. Toby and I were going to meet A.C. and a group of friends at the Upstream Brewery in the Old Market that night.

“That’s right. We’d better start talking about it!” Jenae mocked.

Jenae’s hair was darker and shorter, and I wasn’t sure where she was getting her inspiration these days. She had taken a two-inch area of hair on one side of her head and colored it a pink-copper color. I didn’t ask why since I knew she’d probably tell me.

“Let me guess what those cute little ESPN sports guys are going to say, hmmm? How about, ‘Man those Huskers look good. If they play better and are stronger and execute and penetrate’—whatever that means—‘they’ll probably win the game.’”

Toby ignored her and looked at me.

I sighed. “Virginia, turn off the radio. Turn the TV on, Toby.”

Toby went to turn on the TV and then stopped. “I forgot to tell you that you have a nine thirty haircut. I couldn’t fit him in, and I saw that you had an opening…”

I looked at the clock. It was 9:28. At this point, all I really needed was relief from the pain in my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the shift. “Caroline, when’s your first manicure?”

“Ten. Why?”

“Could you and Connor run up to Richard’s Pharmacy and pick up my prescription? My first appointment should be walking in any minute.”

“Yay! A walk, Mom. Go for a walk!” Connor jumped down from the pew he was standing on. He’d been looking out the window at the dark clouds rolling into Omaha.

As Caroline opened the door, the wind blew in and almost knocked Connor over.

“Whoa! That was fun!” Connor laughed.

The weatherman had been hinting at a big front, possibly bringing severe weather. The bell rang repeatedly as Caroline and Connor left, and a small man entered Vanity Insanity, wearing worn jeans and a work shirt: my nine thirty appointment. I looked at his hair first. He didn’t even really need a haircut, so this could be a quick one. I was already thinking that I might throw a few other appointments at staff. I didn’t want to handle too many today.

“Have a seat.” I looked over my last-minute appointment. His hair was thinning and turning gray at the temples. His face looked much older than his hair suggested. Miles and miles of small wrinkles lined his weather-worn complexion—probably from working construction at a big project downtown, a few blocks from the Old Market.

“What do you need today?” I hoped this one wasn’t a talker. I didn’t feel like talking.

“Just a trim.” The man’s quiet and polite voice didn’t match his rugged looks. He did look a little familiar to me. Maybe he looked like some actor. I couldn’t place it.

I looked at the clock as I placed the apron over the man in my chair. Hopefully, Caroline wouldn’t run into any problems at the pharmacy. As I buttoned the back of the apron, I looked down at the back of the man’s neck. He had a large birthmark just below the bottom of his hair.

“It doesn’t have to be too short,” the man mumbled.

The misshapen birthmark brought me right back to Maple Crest in a flash. I was cutting the hair of the Chief. Eddie Krackenier, the bully from Saint Walter’s, was sitting in my mom’s pink chair. I started cutting his hair as I got my head around the fact that I was touching a man who had scared Lucy to death and entertained the old neighborhood with his reputation. He seemed old. He seemed small. He seemed beaten. I was no longer the boy who played by the creek. He was no longer a bully. We were both older and a million miles away from the years on Maple Crest.

As I finished wiping off the extra hair from Eddie’s neck, Hope opened the door, the bell ringing like a school bell. She looked rattled. “It’s really bad out there.”

Eddie cleared his throat as he asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“Are you working on the renovation of the old Union Station?” I pointed to the Wehner Construction logo on his shirt. The Union Pacific railroad station was getting an art deco facelift.

Eddie looked down at this shirt and mumbled, “Yeah.”

“We’ve been giving you guys free haircuts this week.” I hoped the staff didn’t hear me.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Eddie said as he threw down two bucks for a tip. “Thanks,” he said again as he awkwardly opened the door and left Vanity Insanity. He bumped into Connor as he ran into the salon. Caroline mumbled an apology, and Eddie mumbled, “No problem.”

“Here, Ben!” Connor handed me the bag from the pharmacist. “Guess what we saw!”

“The Cookie Monster?” I asked.

“No, silly. We saw a funny man.” Connor closed his eyes, pretending to hold a cane, and walked around the room.

Caroline smiled at her son. “A blind man was selling brooms.”

“I remember that man from when I was a kid,” Virginia said as she picked up the schedule from the UP desk. “He must be two hundred years old.”

“Ben,” Caroline said as she lowered her voice, “the pharmacist said this is some pretty strong stuff. You must have some toothache.”

I set the sack of medicine on the manila envelope from Tom Ducey that I hadn’t touched since he’d dropped it off on Thursday. As the day inched by, I eyed the sack, looking forward to heading home and checking out of this pain shooting across my jaw. By three o’clock, the sky outside Vanity Insanity’s windows looked as dark as night, and the howl of the wind sounded spooky to Connor. At three thirty, I gave in, opened the sack, and looked at the bottle. I sat down, read the warnings and directions, and decided that since I had just finished my last appointment, I would take two pills. The pain was now sharp, severe, and no longer bearable.

“What time do you think you’ll get to the Upstream?” Toby asked me.

“Toby, I’m gonna have to pass on the Upstream. I wouldn’t be much company anyway. I’m heading home. Tell A.C. that I’m watching the game at home with my sack of codeine.” I pointed to the pharmacy sack on the desk and smiled.

Toby smiled awkwardly and then said, “Will do.” He swept around the chair with Jenae’s broom and then set it near her station. “I hope you feel better, Ben.”

Jenae came out of the back room singing, “‘There is no place like Nebraska, good old Nebraska U.’”

I felt a little murky as the medicine kicked in. In the fogginess, I thought about a mortuary in a small town in Idaho. I was burying my dad. The pain was starting to lift.

“‘Where the girls are the fairest, the boys are the squarest…do, do, do, do…’”

“Could you sweep up the back room while I start unplugging everything?” I asked. The light of the salon changed the streak on Jenae’s hair from copper to pink, pink to copper, as she flitted around the salon.

“I have one more lady at four thirty,” Jenae replied. “A cut and style with…what’s her name?”

Toby walked out of the Vanity Insanity, and the bell rang. “If you change your mind, we’ll be upstairs by the pool tables near the bar.”

I walked over to the UP desk and started collecting what I would need to take home. Suddenly I stopped. Toby hadn’t touched the upper casings of the door. I looked at Jenae, who was digging through her purse. Maybe I’d just imagined that Toby had just walked out of the door without his normal routine. A calm wave slowly started to take over me. My codeine was working. I needed to get home before I got too loopy.

Had Toby really not touched the upper casings of the door? Had I really paid for the funeral of a man who lived in Idaho, a man I’d never met? The lights of the salon changed the color of Jenae’s copper streak as she moved around her station. I needed to get home.

“After my color and style with Glenda the Good Witch: game time.”

“You’re killing me, Jenae. Why so late on a Saturday? “

“I thought we were watching the game here. Don’t we usually?”

“That’s for day games, Jenae. Look around, Toots. Everyone’s gone, and I really need to get out of here.” I could hear the downpour of rain outside the front window, a cold rain. A degree or more lower and the rain would be snow.

“I can’t cancel. Besides I don’t think I could get a hold of—what’s her name?” Jenae ran to the UP desk and looked at the appointment book. “Susie James. Don’t you think she looks like Glenda the…”

“Jenae, I’m dying here.”

“I won’t take too long. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that Faith called this morning, sorry. I guess she’s back in town. Wow, can you hear that rain? This weather is so cool. It kind of feels like when the apostles were all huddled in that one room after Jesus died. I think it must have been storming. That’s what I think. Don’t you think?”

I had never heard Jenae talk about religion. I shook my head and looked out. Faith had called?

“Remember?” Jenae asked as if we’d been there. “When Jesus shows up in that upper room and tells them to calm down and stuff. Remember?”

A buzzing sound started to fill my head, and I knew that I needed to get home soon. I couldn’t wait to take another one of those little pain stoppers. Peace, be with me.

“I think there was fire, something about fire when Jesus told them to…”

“Jenae.” I pulled out a key ring from my pocket. “Please, please, check every outlet twice. Make sure every hot iron has cooled. All lights off except that back one.”

“Whoa. Wait, let me catch my breath.” Jenae put her hand to heart. “Is the control freak really going to trust someone other than himself with the
key
?”

I took the key off my key ring and handed it to Jenae.

“I’m just not sure if I can handle the power of the key,” she mocked.

“Every outlet twice, Toots. I mean it.”

“Feel better, Ben.”

I grabbed the bag of checks and cash from the day, the manila envelope, and the bag of pain meds that were becoming my new best friend. I was going to float home and watch the Huskers. Just my painkillers, the Huskers, and me. I ran out to my car, the cold rain pelting my face as I smiled. I was going home to get away from funerals, songs about old ladies who had swallowed flies, a salon that still had equipment in the upper bay from a renovation stopped in midstream, fallen and weaker neighborhood bullies, and caskets in Idaho. I was running away.

I drove to my house and sat in the driveway for a moment. The pain in my mouth was softer, distant. I took the money but left the Morrow gift and manila envelope on the passenger seat. I locked the car door, walked up to my front porch, unlocked my door, threw my jacket on the floor, took another pill, and plopped on the couch. On my pain-free island, I watched the first quarter of the game against Missouri, which was being played in Columbia, Missouri. The Huskers were ahead fourteen to seven in the first quarter when I fell into a very deep sleep.

My dreams were sketchy and pointless until I floated into the most vivid, wonderful dream I can remember.

Tom Osborne knocked on my door and walked into my living room. This was the Tom Osborne from the seventies era. He was much younger, his hair redder, and he was wearing a jacket that I remember him wearing during the championship time when I was eight years old. I felt awkward that I was too tired to get up and greet him. He looked at me.

“Don’t get up, Ben. We’ve come here to ask you something.”

I didn’t know who the “we” was, but I sat up and listened. I didn’t want him to know about my tooth.

“We need you, Ben. We really need you right now.”

I couldn’t believe that Coach Osborne was standing in my living room. And he needed me.

“I’m putting together a new staff of coaches, and we think that you’d be a great addition to the Husker coaching staff.”

“Me? Really?” I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move.

“My new assistants are with me. We want to add you to our team, but you can’t tell anyone. You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

The silhouettes of two more bodies were in the door. The smaller one came into the room. Octavia was wearing her blue suit and holding her cell phone. Her hair looked good. “I told him all about you, you poor wretch.”

The other body entered my living room. Theresa was in her cream-colored prom dress with long and full, caramel hair. She was laughing. “Ben, is this a hoot or what! I’m coaching football.” It was really Theresa. As clear as day. Without cancer. I wanted to get up and hug Octavia and Theresa. I wanted
to tell them how much I missed them, but I knew that this was an important meeting, a serious meeting with Coach Tom Osborne, so I smiled at them both.

“Will you help us, Ben?” Tom Osborne asked me in a gentle voice.

“We need you, Ben. We’ll have so much fun,” Theresa said as she came a little closer. Octavia’s phone rang. She answered as she started to walk toward the door.

“It’s for you, Ben. It’s Faith. I forgot to tell you she called. She’s in town.”

Octavia held the phone out toward me, but it kept ringing. How could it be ringing if Faith was on the phone?

“We need you, Ben,” Coach Osborne said.