Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [164]
Genetic Flaw
NORMA WAS OVER at the beauty shop for her weekly hair appointment and Macky was eating his lunch at the Trolley Car Diner, as he did every Friday. Sitting at the counter, a few of the other men were discussing politics and Hamm Sparks, as usual. Macky said, “The guy is dangerous. He’s getting crazier by the minute. Right now he’s got every lunatic-fringe group and hate group coming out of the woodwork. If somebody doesn’t shut him up, he’s going to drag us right back into McCarthyism and the next thing we know we’re going to be dragged into a war with Russia.”
“I read the other day that the Klan was backing him now,” Ed said.
Merle, who was just a step away from being a part of the radical right wing, said, “He can’t help who backs him. He came out in the newspaper and said he wasn’t one of them.”
Macky said, “He says that, I can guarantee it, but he’s taking money from them right now and God knows who else.”
“What do you think, Jimmy?” asked Ed. Jimmy, who had not said anything, said quietly, “I agree with Macky. He needs to shut up and quit putting his wife through all this mess.”
Ed said, “Yeah, but how are you going to stop him? Like he says, it’s a free country.”
Monroe Newberry, who had come in from the tire store, added, “I was talking to Bobby on the phone the other day and he says all the big insurance companies up there are getting behind Hamm, but I don’t know what his real chances are.”
Merle said, “I don’t care what the papers say, I think he has a good chance to win.”
Jimmy took a swipe at the counter with his rag but said nothing else.
Two blocks away, at Tot Whooten’s beauty shop, the conversation was definitely not about politics. Betsy Dockrill, who had just come out from under the dryer and was getting ready to be combed out, remarked, “They are having a sale on caper coats out at Montgomery Ward. I got two, they were so cheap.”
Tot pulled Betsy’s hair net off. “Well, I wish I had time to sit around the house in a caper coat. I don’t even have time to shop for one, with my schedule. By the time I close this place up at night, all I want to do is go home and get off my feet.”
“You need to take a day off once in a while.”
“I would if I could.” Tot cut her eyes in the direction of Darlene, her twenty-five-year-old daughter, who worked in the shop with her. Betsy got the implication. Darlene was not overly intelligent and could not be left alone in the shop without someone watching to make sure she wouldn’t put the wrong thing on a customer’s hair again. Tot’s insurance was already sky-high.
Norma was sitting in the next chair, with her hair half rolled up, flipping through a magazine. She asked Tot, who was taking a drag off her cigarette, “Do you think Elizabeth Taylor is happy?”
Tot blew the smoke out. “She’s sporting a diamond the size of a doorknob, why wouldn’t she be?”
“I just wonder if all that fame and money and all those husbands have made her really happy.”
“Well,” Tot said, “if she’s not, I’d like to switch places with her. I’d be downright delirious. She can keep the men; I just want the money and the ring. Between having to put up with Daddy and James, not to mention Dwayne Junior, I’ve done my time in hell, thank you.”
“Oh, Tot, you make it sound so terrible. I can’t believe your life has been all bad. Weren’t you ever happy?”
Tot took another drag on her Pall Mall and put it back in the black plastic ashtray. It was an interesting question, one she had never been asked before.