Part 25 (1/2)
First challenge was to talk Shane out of the scissors. ”I'll coif the lad's hair. I'm a licensed barber in the state of New Jersey, you know.”
”You're too short, Shane. The hair cutter has to stand higher than the head.”
”I hate to break the news, little lady, but your t.i.ts are too small.”
Then came the ”Sit up straight, I can't do this if you're slouched over a drawing pad.”
”Have you ever cut hair before?” Owsley asked.
”Can't be that hard, hairdressers aren't famous for brains.”
Shane wheeled over to kibitz, and Marcella brought Hugo Jr. up from the creek. ”Hey, Andrew,” she called. ”Want to watch Maurey turn the hippy boy normal?”
”I'd rather barf up.”
I really got into the combing part. My fingers had never experienced anything so soft and smooth. It was like making snow angels naked, like riding Frostbite slow motion, like Sam Callahan licking between my legs.
Marcella let Hugo Jr. crawl across the picnic table. ”Lonicera Mangleson had hair that long, and when she cut it a wig maker in Amarillo paid forty dollars for the leftovers.”
”You going to comb all day?” Shane asked.
The longer I combed, the more Owsley tensed up. ”I've never had a haircut, not since the day I was born. It won't hurt, will it?”
”I won't hurt you.”
”I wish they weren't looking at me.”
As I finished the comb-out, Lloyd came back for Moby d.i.c.k. ”I got a tank of gas and some groceries, but I'll need another six-pack. We're out of Yukon Jack territory, Maurey. Southern Comfort's almost the same stuff.”
”What time is it?” I asked.
”One, maybe one-thirty.”
”I missed Paul Harvey. My life is in shambles. I missed Paul Harvey and we're trapped in a h.e.l.l-hole where they don't sell Yukon Jack.”
”I told you she'd fall apart in the South,” Shane said.
”Janis Joplin drank Southern Comfort. She was hard core and she died. Make mine tequila.”
Shane made a drooling snort sound. ”If you drink tequila, you'll be hard core and die, too.”
Lloyd hoisted himself into the driver's seat. ”What're you doing to the boy?”
”Maurey's playing Samson and Delilah,” Shane said.
Lloyd watched a few moments. ”Don't cut his ears off. He'll bleed in the ambulance.”
Sam Callahan says the two times men invariably make cornball comments is when they're watching someone get a haircut or watching someone change a tire. You ask me, there's more than two cases.
I started by forming a ponytail with my left fist and cutting straight across. Was the first ponytail I ever saw long as a pony's tail. Shane's scissors were little dudes he used to cut tape for his urine system, so mine wasn't an efficient beauty shop operation. My snips had the subtlety of a machete hack across Guatemala. But a weird thing happened as the scissors clipped their way through the ponytail. The world surrounding Owsley and me shut down, went blurry. Everything focused into one cone of light where my hands intersected his hair.
There's a trance state that two beings can reach where the silly banter of nearby yahoos no longer exists. Time no longer exists. Nothing before, after, or around the immediate unity of the two matters. It's neat.
Frostbite and I achieved the trance in an arena filled with several thousand people dressed in western wear. I pulled it off while nursing both my babies, and once an old sheepherder and I found it dancing ”The Tennessee Waltz” at a Fourth of July street party in Tensleep.
The moment you're supposed to transcend the reality of time and s.p.a.ce is s.e.x, but that's one area where I've never come close. s.e.x is complex-Will my birth control kick in? Why won't he slow down? Will he treat me like dogs.h.i.+t in the morning? The relations.h.i.+p works with horse and rider, mother and child, or two dancers who become one with the music and thus with each other. First time you start wondering who'll finish on top, the deal is blown.
”Why didn't you want Andrew to call you Owsley?”
”Freedom gave everyone stupid names, said a new ident.i.ty would force a break from our hung-up pasts. He's the one with the hung-up past.”
The hair between my fingers was clean mountain water; sunlight on the Tetons in winter; awakening at dawn and lying in bed listening to the birds.
”So where'd he come up with Owsley?”
”Owsley's the guy in California who makes LSD. Freedom wanted me to become a chemist. He said n.o.body gets high on art.”
The scissors were a silver canoe gliding through a golden lake. All these metaphors made my c.l.i.toris throb.
”Do you have a real name?”
”You'll laugh.”
”Why would I laugh?”
”Brad.”
”Brad?”
”I knew you would laugh.”
”I'm not laughing. Do you hear laughing?” What he heard was me gasping for air. ”Okay. Owsley is dead. Out of the fallen hair will arise Brad. The normal boy.”
”Will cutting my hair and saying I'm normal make me normal, Mrs. Talbot?”
”Sure. While we're taking new ident.i.ties, call me Miss Pierce from now on. I'm done with Talbot.”
”We'll be Brad and Miss Pierce.”
By G.o.d if I didn't have an o.r.g.a.s.m. Not your everyday gee-that's-nice o.r.g.a.s.m, either. There's ”I got off, dear. You can stop now,” and then there's o.r.g.a.s.m. o.r.g.a.s.m is when your eyes and ears ring. o.r.g.a.s.m is when you can still feel it hours later in the back of your knees.