Author's Note: The WTF continues as Thelma Lou spills more beans, metaphorically.
The Trouble with Barney, Part II
Hearing your dear friend tell you she saw her beau naked and handcuffed to the outside of a jail cell in the Courthouse is not an everyday occurrence. In fact, it's the kind of thing one never expects to experience in a lifetime. Helen was no innocent babe—after all, she was a schoolteacher and children did say the darnedest things—but this? The first thing she did was put down her coffee cup. The next was to look Thelma Lou Harper straight in the eyes and confront her with the most likely explanation. "Did you use cooking sherry in that cobbler?"
Still flushed with embarrassment and anxiety, Thelma Lou furrowed her brow and shook her head in confusion. "What does that—" And then she understood. "Why, Helen! Are you accusing me of being drunk?" The redness of her blush turned petulant outrage in a feminine flash and she banged her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. "You know I never drink!"
Well, she was accusing her of exactly that, in fact, but it wouldn't help any to rile Thelma Lou up further, and it was true she wasn't the sort to nip from the bottle. But it was the only explanation Helen could come up with for the bizarre accusation. She tried again. "Are you sure he was…?" She couldn't possibly finish the sentence.
"As a jaybird, I tell you!"
A thought sprung into Helen's mind that instantly lowered her blood pressure and brought a little, knowing smile to her face. "But Thelma Lou, of course! There must've been some criminal they'd rounded up who'd stolen the key to the cell from Barney, cuffed him and taken his deputy's uniform to escape in." Silently, she thanked heaven for a cool head and a logical explanation.
Thelma Lou, however, was shaking her head vigorously as her hands twisted in her lap. "Oh, Helen, if only that were it." She'd have to tell her the rest of the story, and there was no avoiding it. This concerned Helen as much as her. She had a right to know and it was her job to tell it. "Andy was there, too," she fumbled.
Helen swallowed. "Cuffed to the other cell?" She couldn't deny the image was troubling, but in perhaps a different way than thoughts of Barney. Her mind flitted back to the roof-raising at the church after that terrible storm last April. Andy had been working hard in the hot sunshine and finally had taken off his shirt and wiped his brow with it. She remembered looking up at him from below, hammering in nails with those strong bare arms, chest glistening.
Thelma Lou interrupted her little reverie. "No, Helen, only Barney was…like that. Andy…Andy was…" She dropped her head into her hands. Wasn't it bad enough she had to see it? But now, to sit here and try to describe the terrible thing she'd seen. Surely the good Lord was testing her to the limit this day.
Helen couldn't imagine what was coming next. She truly couldn't. Her eyes were wide as saucers. "Andy was what?"
Thelma Lou took a deep breath, eyes squeezed shut, and blurted out, "He was slapping Barney's private parts with a motorcycle glove!" That took all she had, and she fell onto the sofa, reducing to a sobbing mess. Saying it was just as bad as seeing it!
The room spun. Though she wanted to believe it was all just a figment of Thelma Lou's overactive imagination, the truth was that Thelma Lou didn't really have much of an imagination. She was just as average a small-town woman as anyone could imagine. One of Mayberry's finest. And there was no denying that she could not have made up such a story to save her life. But if she wasn't imagining and she wasn't drunk and there was no feasible interpretation involving desperate criminals, then life as Helen Crump knew it was officially at an end. Even some crazy scheme involving a Hollywood director or the FBI couldn't explain this. No, there was no denying it. Something was going on that needed explanation, and Helen resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't rest until she got one. "Come on, Thelma Lou, we're going to the Courthouse."