Excerpt of Death Splits a Hair by Nancy Bell

JACKSON CRAIN PUSHED OPEN the door of the Post Oak

Barbershop, entered and stomped his boots on the rubber mat to dislodge the snow. A freakish spring storm had blown into town the night before, coating the trees and power lines with ice and leaving a treacherous layer of snow mixed with sleet all over the ground. Joe Junior McBride, his long frame folded over the front chair, was putting the finishing touches on what remained of Horace Kinkaid's hair. He bobbed his head in Jackson's direction and waved his shears toward the row of chairs lined up against the wall.

"Take a seat, Judge. I'll be with you pretty quick here." He picked up a brush and began to brush the clippings off Horace's neck.

Jackson picked up a dog-eared copy of Newsweek. "Ow," Horace complained. "What is that, a wire brush?"

Joe Junior kept brushing. "Don't be such a baby. This won't take long. You don't want hair falling down your shirt, do you?"

Jackson grinned. He had always enjoyed coming into the old barbershop with its tile floor and bay-rum scent. He enjoyed the social aspect of the place as much as anything else. Certainly, he could have gotten a better haircut someplace else, he thought, but it just wouldn't be the same. He had been patronizing the shop since he got his first haircut almost forty years ago. Then Joe Junior's father, Joe Senior, had been the only barber in town. Now all that had changed. A good half the men in town patronized Quik-Kuts out on the bypass or one of the beauty salons that catered to the unisex trade. Joe Junior was doing all right, though. He had a prime location right in the middle of the block in the business district. He would always pick up the bank and courthouse trade — and he was the only barber in town who could style the Baptist preacher's pompadour just the way he liked it.

Joe Junior was a long, tall drink of water. A classmate of Jackson's, he had been a star basketball player and voted most likely to succeed in high school. Everyone thought he'd go to college, using one of the scholarships he'd been offered, but that never happened. On graduation night, he and his girlfriend, Gracie Simmons, had gotten a little carried away — so carried away, in fact, that she found herself pregnant. Against the wishes of both sets of parents, they insisted on getting married and the wedding was held on the Fourth of July. After a short honeymoon, Joe had enrolled in barber college. Joe McBride III, or Three, as he was called, was born in February. If Joe Junior was disappointed by this turn of events, he never showed it. He adored his wife and doted on his son. When Joe's father retired and his parents decided to move to Florida, Joe and Gracie moved into the family home. Then tragedy struck. When the boy was only four, Gracie, pregnant again, was run down and killed by a drunken driver while crossing the street in front of her own house. Two years later, Joe Junior married the lovely Marlene Ashburn, a widow with a young daughter.

"How 'bout this weather?" Horace, editor of the local newspaper, was examining his bullet-shaped head critically in the hand mirror Joe Junior had handed him.

"Weatherman says it's supposed to warm up tomorrow." Joe Junior put his foot on the pump to lower the chair so Horace could stand up.

"Good thing," Horace said, digging for his wallet.

"We'll have a power outage for sure if this keeps up." He handed the barber two bills. "Here you go. Next time, I'm having that pretty little assistant you got do my hair. Where is she, anyway?"

"I let Gini stay home because of the weather." Joe Junior put the money in the cash drawer. "She can cut your hair all right, but you'd better not ever let her hear you calling her my assistant. She's a fully certified hair stylist, and a feminist to boot. She'll yank out what little hair you've got left if you patronize her. Step up, Jackson. Shampoo?"

Jackson shook his head. "Washed it this morning. Just give me a trim."

"Fair warning," Horace said. He sat and watched as Joe Junior trimmed Jackson's hair. "Hey, Jackson, what's going on over at the courthouse? This is one hell of a slow news week."

Jackson, who was county judge of Post Oak County, thought a minute. A light note crept into his voice. "There's a leak in the roof. Last time it rained, it got the county clerk's computer all wet. Fortunately, no damage was done. That help any?"

"You know it doesn't, Jackson. I need real news. Anybody in jail I ought to know about?"

Jackson thought a minute. "Edna's found the Lord. She's decided not to cuss anymore."

Edna Buchannan was Jackson's foul-mouthed secretary.

"Now that would be news —" Horace grinned " — if it were true!"

Joe Junior was finishing up Jackson's haircut. He brushed his shoulders with the soft brush. "I pity you, Horace. Trying to run a paper in this town is a losing proposition. Nothing ever happens worth reporting."

"You sure have got that right," Horace agreed. He suddenly chuckled and pointed to the window. "Would you look at that? Old Rip's done gone ass over teakettle!"

Sure enough, Rip Clark, portly proprietor of the Wagon Wheel Café, had lost his footing and was sitting on the icy sidewalk trying to figure out how to gain enough traction to stand up.

The three men stood at the window watching curiously while Rip tried one maneuver after another to get back on his feet. His mouth was moving and they could only wonder what obscenities were spewing out of it. Finally, Jackson took pity on him. He pushed open the door and approached Rip, treading gingerly on the ice. Wrapping one arm around one of the old-fashioned lampposts the Main Street Committee had erected along the sidewalks, he leaned forward and extended one hand to help Rip. Rip grasped the hand and struggled to gain a foothold on the ice. He almost made it, but his feet slipped out from under him again, and he sat down again, hard, on the ice.

"It ain't gonna work, Jackson," Rip growled. "I reckon I'll be settin' here on this goddam sidewalk until the goddam stuff melts!" He made an obscene gesture in the direction of the two grinning faces in the barber-shop window.

Jackson, not being able to think of a response to that, stood holding the lamppost and trying to figure out a solution to the problem. Finally, with a nod of his head, he began to inch himself carefully back to the barber- shop. He opened the door and picked up the rubber mat off the floor, then turned and slid it across the ice toward Rip, who caught it and immediately began to manipulate his body until he was seated on the mat. Then, with great care, he got to his feet.

Joe Junior stuck his head out the door. "Come on in here, pal," he called. "I just made some fresh coffee."

Inside the barbershop, Rip took a seat on the shoe-shine bench while the barber went to fetch the coffee. Rip, an old Navy man, was wearing a soiled apron and a white sailor's cap, also soiled, on his head.

"Anybody else?" Joe Junior yelled from the back room.

"I'll take a cup." Jackson pulled a Don Diego cigar out of his pocket and sniffed it appreciatively.

"Me, too," said Horace. "Hey, Rip, don't you ever take that apron off? I'll bet you sleep in the damn thing."

Rip pretended not to hear.

Jackson and Horace seated themselves in the chairs along the wall and waited until Joe Junior came back with fragrant mugs of hot, black coffee. "Hope you guys don't take cream or sugar," he said. "I don't keep the stuff." He took a seat in the front barber chair facing the others.

"Hey, Jackson." He sipped his coffee. "I sure appreciate you letting the young'un practice that horn of hers over at your house. She's a good kid, but she was about to drive us to drink with that thing." Joe Junior's step- daughter, Ashley, fourteen, played French horn in the middle-school band, as did Jackson's daughter, Patty.

"No problem," Jackson said. "The girls practice up in Patty's room. I can't hear a thing."

The truth was Jackson was more than glad to have Patty at home and under his watchful eye. As she grew older, he was beginning to notice, these times were becoming less and less frequent.

"Mighty good coffee," Horace said. "Rip, you ought to get his recipe."

"Eat shit," Rip said, still smarting from his recent predicament.

Horace got a great deal of pleasure out of aggravating Rip. He took a pad and pencil out of his pocket. "Friend, I'd like to interview you for a human-interest story. What was going through your mind as you lay there helpless as a June bug on that ice?"

"Fuck off," Rip growled.

"Come on, Rip." Joe Junior was in a conciliatory mood. "He didn't mean anything."

"The hell I didn't," Horace said. "My readers like a good laugh same as I do." He drained his mug and set it on the magazine table. "Hey, Joe, anybody ever tell you you look like that actor, Jimmy Stewart? Talk like him, too."

"He's dead," Rip muttered.

Joe Junior ignored this. "A few times. Wife says that's the only reason she married me."

"Too bad you ain't rich like he was," Rip put in. Jackson changed the subject. "How's Three?"

"Oh, fine." Joe Junior went to the back and returned carrying the coffeepot. "More?" The men offered their cups for a refill. "Matter of fact," he continued, "the kid's starting a new job next week. He's going to work as a fishing guide down on the coast."

"Good. How'd he land that?"

"Not sure." Joe Junior put down his coffee mug.

"He's got a friend of a friend that owns a boat. At least I think that's what it is. You know how kids are these days. They don't tell you anything. He seems real excited about it, though. I think he'll do just fine." He picked up his mug again, looked in and saw it was empty and set it back down. "He's doing good — great — in fact."