Awake in Hell

by Downing, Helen

  I know what you’re thinking right now. Why would anyone go to a beauty parlor in Hell? And, what is being cut? Since hair (like every other body part) is just a fabrication created by the dead. I would remind anyone who questions this, that Hell is supposed to imitate an earthly city, just shittier. And people crave things that make them feel more like they used to, especially women. So, surprisingly, the hair salon down here is pretty busy.

  I am, all of the sudden, very excited about the prospect. It sounds like a pretty easy gig! I mean, I have no problem making people look worse than they did when they came in. And who’s ever fallen in love or planted a garden, or did anything that wasn’t just narcissistic or vain in a salon. I mean, getting a haircut is not necessarily sinful, but once you’re in the salon chair, thinking about how you are going to look when a professional hair person is done with you? That, in a strictly old testament way, probably falls under vanity, otherwise we would all just be taking kitchen knives to our hair or just letting it grow out until we look like Rapunzel. So, the idea of getting a temp job that sort of punishes people for something that is sort of, kind of wrong — sounds like a winner!

  As I arrive home to my apartment, peel off the wretched leather, throw it into the paranormal closet followed by a nice view of my middle finger, and settle into bed, my mind is filled with all kinds of possibilities.

  Tonight my dreams feel familiar, like an old favorite movie that you stumble upon on a rainy Sunday. I find myself stopping in the dream just to soak up and enjoy the sense of homecoming and to relish not being chased by invisible monsters.

  When I was growing up in Small Town, USA it was very rare that anything out of the ordinary happened. Occasionally, some poor, unaware stranger would accidentally stumble into our little hamlet. Right before he, or she, contemplated suicide or ran out of town screaming, they might stick around long enough to create a buzz. But that didn’t happen nearly often enough. Every once in a while a local kid would get a wild hair up his ass and decide to rob a liquor store or the convenience mart. That would be amusing, watching our finest in blue chase down some wanna-be thug. And of course, there was the one time when we made national news, after an octogenarian who lived on the outskirts of town (in a shack by the way — a fucking shack!) died. Her house was condemned and the construction workers found $1.7 million dollars in cash under the floorboards. That one kept tongues wagging for quite some time.

  Anyway, those kinds of instances are few and far between. But every single year, without fail, come mid-June, the main road into town becomes bumper-to-bumper color and light and promises of great things to come — because every year, Mid-June meant fair week.

  The county fair was advertised as an exhibition of business, agriculture, the arts and sport. Businesses from all over town would literally shut down their storefronts and relocate to the fair grounds for the week at the fair. Local farmers would haul out their home grown produce and livestock to show, auction, or sell. Their wives would sharpen their claws in order to tear each other apart in various baking, canning or jellied competitions. They even had a table setting competition.

  The “arts” always made me giggle when I saw it on a billboard or a brochure since it basically entailed a cutest baby photo exhibit, a birdhouse making workshop, a taxidermy competition, and a few local bands screeching out their versions of Mustang Sally or Brown-Eyed Girl for a half-dozen drunks.

  But the sport? Holy shit… the sport! The sport was always the very best part of the fair, because “the sport” meant the Rodeo. Sure, they also had a demolition derby and a bunch of fat, middle-aged guys dressed in old-time, uniforms playing baseball, but no one really cared about all that. The rodeo is what put butts in the seats at the county fair. Bulls and clowns and barrels brought out the families and the old folks. The cowboys brought out me and my pals and every other red-blooded female in a 150-mile radius.

  Every year, we would all show up in droves, dressed to the nines in our tightest jeans and tallest boots. We would spend the day at the rodeo ogling the cowboys as they smacked dust out of their jeans with their great big cowboy hats.

  Then, when the sun went down it would be time to hit the midway. The midway was truly a magical place, transforming a giant empty field into a paradise, filled with carnival rides and barkers claiming their game would ensure you the very biggest stuffed animal at the fair. Not to mention, funnel cakes, popcorn, candy apples and anything you could possibly want (and a few things you have never thought of), deep fried and served on a stick. Some of the best times of my life were at the county fair.

  And tonight, I’m back there. Enveloped by the lights, sounds and smells that make me feel instantly at home and happy. I’m walking with other people, I think Linda is there and a few others who could have been strangers or friends forgotten. It’s dusk. I can almost feel the breeze coming in with the darkness, as it tends to do in the world of the living. I can hear laughter ringing in my ears from every direction, and some of it belongs to me. I feel content.

  Next thing I know, I’m all alone. I have a faint memory of being here, in this situation, once before. This actually happened to me. I was about 33 or 34 years old at the time. Linda had already met Hank and left earlier to spend some alone time with him. My friends, Tammy, Syndie and I were walking the midway when two yahoos from a bordering town came up and started telling them all about the sheep they were showing at the grandstand the next day. Next thing I know, they are walking off, arm, in arm with those two rednecks and I am left standing alone. Even though I realize this is a faraway memory, I can’t help but feel fresh pain, as I realize I’m alone in the one place that you never want to be all by yourself...the county fair.

  I make my way to a bench that is not occupied by a pregnant women or harried moms trying to wipe off a sticky face before they attract the dirt right out of the air. Once I locate an empty bench, I do what any grown ass woman, whose best friends just abandoned her next to the kiddie rides at a carnival, is supposed to do. I sat down and started to cry. Not sobbing, snotty crying, but weeping quietly to myself. “Fuck them.” I say to myself, “if they’d rather hang out in a stinky barn filled with livestock over me.” I’m just beginning my little self-pep-talk when I realize that I’m no longer alone on the bench. I look over to see a pretty young girl sitting next to me. She appears to be about 20 or so, with incredibly long blond hair that shines under the lights of the carnival. She’s wearing old dirty jeans, worn out sneakers and a tee shirt, and when she speaks she has a pronounced southern accent.

  “Hey. You Ok?” she says in my dream, and I realize she said it to me in life, as well.

  “Yes, I’ll be fine. Just being silly.” I say, quickly wiping away my tears.

  “My name’s Sue-Ann,” she sticks out her hand and I take it. “I’m Louise,” I respond.

  “Nice to meet ya, Louise,” she says. Then, suddenly much shier than she was when she sat down, she begins her tale. “See Louise, I work for the Harris Shows, the rides that are here? And I have a friend who works in our office?” she formed it as a question and nods her head to a trailer that says ‘Corporate Office - Harris Shows’ that is sitting right across from our bench. Isn’t it funny that the trailer has probably been there every year and I’d never noticed it.

  “So, anyway,” she continues, “my friend, well, he kinda noticed you and he wanted to come over and say ‘hi,’ but he didn’t want to upset you even more... so he figured if I came over and met you first, maybe it’d be okay if I introduced you to him?” The whole Jeopardy-answers-in-the-form-of-a-question thing is annoying, but other than that, she seems very sweet. So, even though my brain is screaming, ‘these people are carnies and probably trying to figure out a way to rob you blind!’ I still find myself looking at her and nodding my head in consent.

  She smiles, a wide smile, and motions over to someone behind me. “Bobby, come on over!” and she stands to make room for the stranger.

  He sits down next to me and I look up a
nd gasp. I can’t tell you if my reaction in real life was the same when this event actually happened to me, but “dream me” has forgotten how to breathe. I’m looking into the lovely face of the man with the little girl. “Bobby?” I say. “Nice to meet you,” and I stick my hand, that I’m sure is trembling, out toward him.

  “Hello. And you are?” he says in the same voice I heard earlier today, in Hell.

  “Louise.” I answer

  “Well Louise, do you not like my carnival?” he asks teasingly.

  “I love the carnival. Is it really yours?” I ask.

  “Well, kind of. I’m the manager of Harris Shows, so for now it is my carnival. And I hate to see pretty girls cry at my carnival.” He looks at me and smiles and I feel the warm glow that his smile brought to my nightmare the night before.

  “I’m just being a huge baby because my friends ditched me for farm animals.” I say laughing. “Don’t take it personally.”

  We look at each other and grin. I see the night ahead of me, in this lucid dream that has become a memory. A memory locked away inside of a broken, dead brain that has been less and less reliable as my expiration date got closer and closer.

  I suddenly remember that we spent all night that night together at the carnival. Like two teenagers on a first date, we walked hand in hand, got cotton candy and rode every ride. We joked like old friends. When we stopped in front of a milk bottle game and I talked the barker into giving me an extra ball to win a big stuffed tiger. Bobby looked down at me, through those lenses, with those deep blue eyes and said, “I think I might have to start calling you ‘Weasel’ instead of Louise.” I mockingly punch him in the arm and say, “That does not make me sound very attractive at all.” He stops and takes off those glasses and looks deep into my eyes. Before I know it, he is kissing me. Not a lecherous, cop-a-feel kind of kiss. A real kiss, a first kiss, a kiss that says ‘Get used to this, because I’m planning to do it a whole lot more.’ And then he wraps his arms around me and I start to cry again, only this time not because I’ve been forgotten. This time, because I’ve been found. I am home here, in these arms — protected, soothed and loved.

  I wake up and it takes a minute to remember that I am dead. I am dead, Bobby is alive and we were a couple once. I know this to be true deep inside my damned soul, even though past that night I still can’t remember. But, I know that I loved him and he loved me. How did I forget that? How did I forget that I had not just a lover, or even a boyfriend, but a real grown-up, loving relationship? I have to talk to Deedy. I must tell him that I identified the man from the street and from my previous dream — Bobby, otherwise known as Robert James Callow, in management for one of the largest amusement companies in the world. He traveled five months out of every year, yet the rest of the time he was mine. MINE! I spring out of bed with a sense of both panic and renewed excitement. So, Bobby is not a figment of my imagination but a ghost of a memory that has manifested down here. That has got to mean something, right? All these memories, bizarre dreams, everything that is happening to me since the moment I found that notice tacked on the bulletin board at the coffee shop means something. I am changing. Maybe my future is changing too.

  And the little girl — must be Linda! I was closer to her than anyone else, other than Bobby. It’s all so clear now! She’s manifesting as a child to remind me that we were the queens of embracing our inner children! The eternal bratty kids who downright refused to grow up, never took anything or anyone seriously. Now, even though I’m stuck down here, I have to find a way to make this work. I can hardly wait for today to end so that I can go see Deedy and tell him all about this new revelation. I can almost see his face. Big, huge, grin just for me!

  But first, I have to pretend to know what I’m doing as a hairdresser. This should be fun, and this may be the job that I get to keep longer than a day. I feel it in my construct of a skeletal system. When I take a peek in the closet I am both surprised and more than a little pleased with what I see. Granted, I’m not going to be walking any runways at fashion week in Paris anytime soon with this outfit, but it’s really not hideous, either. A pair of old lady style shorts, the kind with an elastic waist band (for extra comfort!) and that fall just above the knees. The top is of course some unnatural fabric that promises to fit terribly and is the color of cat puke, but still, over all, not bad! Once I pull on the shorts I realize they are at least 2 sizes too big. The elastic holds them up but creates a balloon effect so that I look like a giant pear shaped pile of cat puke. So, why am I grinning from ear to ear? Because other than the orange jumpsuit, this is the best outfit I’ve ever gotten from that “loves-to-fuck-you-up-the-ass-every-single-day” closet. That, along with my brand, spankin’ new memory of Beautiful Bobby and Me, just goes to confirm it.

  Everything is going to be different, starting today!

  The walk to the salon is short, which is good considering what I’m wearing. Not because of discomfort, but because of the looks I’m getting from my fellow Hellions. Remember, how competitive we are down here when it comes to our closets? Yeah, well, today’s outfit might just get me cut up. So I’m more than a little relieved when I see the salon sitting before me just 2 blocks from my apartment. I glance across the street at the coffee shop where I found the original notice for the agency. I stop for just a moment and get a little nostalgic. It seems so long ago since I reached out and took that note of destiny, although in terms of real time it’s only been a few days. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in these limited hours. I reach up and brush away just the hint of a tear. ‘There’s no time to cry now, ya big baby!’ I say to myself. ‘It’s time to make a few others cry!’ and I stride into the salon.

  The second I walk in, I feel at home. I am going to assume that the short, portly woman standing in the middle of the room cussing everyone out is the owner. My eyes go wide with combined surprise and admiration as I watch this diminutive woman put everyone in their prospective places. She’s wearing a housecoat, probably not intended for use outside of the home for the living, but for us it’s all fair game. It’s bright yellow with a huge print that suggests something has been spilled all over it, but the changing colors that are depicted say, ‘no, somebody did this on purpose and called it fashionable.’ On her feet are a pair of lime green high tops, a couple sizes too small, so she’s cut out the toes and let her piggies free. I think I may have found a mentor down here. I say this because as all these thoughts and observations are occurring to me, I have also heard her drop the f-bomb at least seven times. And when she says it, the word sounds like ‘fook’, because she has a very pronounced British accent, kind of like Deedie’s, only she sounds more like the Queen. Well, the Queen if she hung out on the docks, but nevertheless.

  “You must be Louise, right?” she finally gets to me within her tirade. “You ready to get to work?”

  “Yes Ma’am,” I say, respectfully. I do not want to be on the other end of one of this woman’s fits.

  “Who the fuck are you calling Ma’am?” she says. “Do I look like the fuckin’ Queen to you?” This makes me laugh out loud since I was just thinking about the Queen. But suddenly I remember that this woman’s disposition is probably not going to improve if I just burst into laughter every time she says anything to me so, I stifle any more.

  “I’m sorry. I just didn’t catch your name?” Yes, I realize that I’ve become a bit sycophantic, but what can I say? This broad is kinda scary.

  “Name’s Lottie and as of right now, I’m your worst nightmare.” She sticks out her hand and I take it while trying not to laugh again. I’m guessing this will not be my worst nightmare, no matter what she may think. ‘Really?’ I think to myself. ‘Come take a walk through my brain some night.’

  “So, Lottie,” I start, trying to convey a friendly and conversational demeanor to her. “Are all these people here for a haircut?”

  Her voice suddenly became docile and almost polite. “Well, this gentleman would like to hear the lunch specials and that woman
over there is here for a kidney transplant.” Obviously, Lottie is a master of sarcasm. Then the old Lottie came back with a vengeance. “Of course, they are all here for foockin haircuts! Blimey, what did Deedy send me this time? A fookin mental?”

  Okay, so maybe she is scary, but I also think I just might be a teensy bit in love with her. Not in a lesbian way, more like a ‘this is who I want to be when I grow up’, way.

  “Come here newbie, and I’ll show you how we make fookin magic.” she says with a guffaw-type laugh. “Welcome to the most fun you’ll ever have in Hell, cookie!”

  I rush over as she escorts an older woman into the hot seat. I feel excited as the woman says, “Just about a half inch off. That’s all.” Lottie looks at me and gives me a wink. I start to get excited. I actually start bouncing on the balls of my feet like a child waiting to see what’s behind some visiting relative’s back. She began her lesson with, “The first thing you do is listen carefully to the customer.” Then she grabs an enormous pair of shears and lops off a huge chunk of this woman’s hair from the back. “Then you do the exact opposite!”

  I was born for this. I can do this job for eternity. And eternity is exactly how long I’ve got. I immediately turn to everyone waiting and say “First victim, step right up!”

  The next 8 hours fly by. People keep coming in. I don’t understand why. I mean, really... we’ve already collectively asked why they initially come in. But then not only do they come in to groom something that doesn’t really exist; they sit there and watch us butcher every single person’s hair before them. It’s like those breathers that drive super slow by a car accident because they can’t resist seeing the carnage and possibly a body part or something else really gross. But the part that astounds me is that still, after everything, they get up and get into my chair. Every single one of them tell me, sometimes beg me, not to do to them what I did to everyone else, even though a part of them has to know that that is exactly what I’m going to do. People left my chair in tears, or screaming at the top of their lungs. One guy actually took a swing at me! What a day!