Jackie

I woke up alone in the cab of the U-Haul with a stiff neck at one of those huge truck plazas somewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania.

It was about three a.m. and semis were pulling in and out all around us. I leaned forward and saw in my side rearview mirror that Cass was refilling the U-Haul's tank.

I sat there in the cab for a few minutes, wondering what I'd done.

In the last 48 hours I'd finally relinquished a man I should have given up on a long time ago but didn't because I was afraid of being alone, watched the tattered remnents of three and a half years of my life go down the toilet, packed up the only mortal remains worth salvaging, witnessed the destruction of a designer living room that I once thought I'd owned, and fled New York in a U-Haul truck with a scruffy booze soaked mick at the wheel.

God has a sick sense of humor.

I looked in the side mirror again and watched Cass, hatless and coatless despite the chilll, leaning against the side of the U-Haul as he waited for the tank to fill. An unlit cigarette dangled negligently from his lower lip and his hair stuck up in all directions. He was still wearing those dumb sunglasses. Granted the sodium lights that lit up the truck plaza like high noon were harsh, but I swear I saw him wearing the things in the full dark of last night as we drove off.

It was a wonder that he hadn't killed us both!

(Not that I really cared at this point.)

I got out, stretching. The air was bitterly cold and smelled of diesel.

"Seh, yeh up then, aye lass?" Cass flashed his teeth at me as he disengaged the pump nozzle, breath condensing in the cutting chill of early morning, then "Ahhhhhh, shite thass cold!" as gasoline spilled all over his jeans. "That were me last pair! Ah well, they'll dry out soon enough, give us some towels aye?"

I handed him a stack of those little blue paper towels you use to clean your car windows with, "Thanks lass, should dry up once we get in the cab." He blotted at his legs, "Yeh want anythin' while we're here?"

"No...well, coffee maybe." I said, but I doubted he heard me because six Harley riders pulled up beside us, engines drowning out everything around me.

They were women.

Big, burly women.

One of them was staring at him, the blank surface of her visor turned intently in his direction. By the discreet pink triangles decorating the gear of the entire group, I doubt that her interest was anything more than the novelty of seeing a seedy looking Irishman blotting at his own legs and swearing, ass high in the air and hair in all directions.

Giggling, I climbed back into the cab to get out of the cold. Maybe Robbie had been right to saddle me with this loser, it was the first time I'd laughed at anything in weeks.

Something inside of me started to untwist, just a little, and the nagging terror in the bottom of my stomach began to subside.

Soon Cass joined me.

He stank.

Before, Cass had given off the unpleasant fug of a Friday night watering hole, leavened by damp wool and sweat. Now he reeked of petroleum refinery. Well, to be accurate, a bar that operated next door to a petroleum refinery.

He began to light up while as he started the engine.

"Are you insane?" I said as I took his lighter away."You'll blow us up with all the fumes you're giving off. Don't you have another pair of pants in your kit?"

"Yeh right," He gave me a sheepish look and held out one raw knuckled hand. "Now, be a love and give us the lighter?" I handed it back with reservations."I said these were me last pair, and they is." He shoved the lighter into his hip pocket.

"This place has a laundromat." I pulled my purse out from under the seat and rummaged around, "It's on me, go wash!"

"Only five? Aye, that's right bleedin' generous of yeh when I just shelled out thirty bucks on gas for yehs!"

Cass had a point. I slapped a twenty and a ten on his extended palm. The money joined the lighter.

"They also have showers." He looked at me from behind those glasses, one eyebrow cocked, hand still out, "All right, if this isn't enough, let me know and I'll lend you more." I pulled out another five.

"Ahhhh, such concerned generousity from me lady fair!"

"Fuck you, you greedy bastard, that's all you're getting out of me!" I clapped my hands over my mouth. In all the years I'd lived with Paolo, this had never been uttered aloud, though come to think of it maybe it should have. There was something about Cass that just made "Fuck you!" so easy to say right to his face.

My brother's friend sat there, arms draped loosely over the steering wheel, staring at me, mouth slightly open, teeth showing. Then he started laughing, howling really, and pounded his fist on the dash, leaving dents I didn't notice until later, "'S about fuckin' time lass, 's 'bout fuckin' time yeh started fightin' back! 'Ere, yeh go find somethin' to do while I cleans mesel' up. Shouldn'a be more than an hour, tops!"

Still laughing, he drove the U-Haul the distance it took to get us to the main plaza.

My face felt hot.

The bikers were still refueling, but I noticed that the one that had been staring at Cass had called her friends over and they were huddled together, as if they were discussing something.

A group potty break? The price of gas? The Lilith Fair?

Cass grabbed his kit from behind the driver's seat, still laughing, slammed the door and swaggered coatless into the building, shaking his head, still laughing.

Pretty soon the lady bikers went in after him.

I noticed a little sign taped on one of the big glass doors that said, "Barber Inside".

Barber.

I reached up and ran my fingers through my perky little haircut, the one that Vinny had recomended, no told me, that I needed - "Professional." he'd said, "And while you're at it, have them dye it brown. Nobody will ever take you seriously so long as you resemble a lit match."

I leaned forward, turned on the cab light and looked at my roots in the rearview mirror.

Almost an inch of undeniable red was showing.

I'd tried to keep up appearances, even though I could no longer afford to go to the expensive salon I had been using. Home dye jobs hadn't been kind to me. I'd given up on the whole thing at least a month ago.

Fuck that, Paolo could keep his brown hair; I wanted mine back!

The barber had five truckers in a wide assortment of sizes and shapes waiting ahead of me.

They stared at me - a woman in a baggy worn pea coat, designer slacks and expensive cross training shoes sitting amongst the pot bellies, prison cuts and mullets.

The biker femmes filed past the little glassed in barber shop, helmets off, revealing multiple pierced ears and noses. The other customers eyed them with dull curiousity before going back to magazines and cigarettes while waiting their turn in the chair.

I picked up a copy of Field and Stream and leafed through it idly, trying to look like I did this all the time.

Finally, "Miss?"

"Huh?" I looked up from an article on how to reload your own shotgun shells and realized that I was alone with the barber, who was sweeping the floor, "Me? I'm next?"

"Oh no, not you! I thought you was holdin' a chair fer y'all's boyfriend. I don't do no ladies hair!" The bald middle-aged man in a blue smock waved around him, "Case y'all haven't noticed, but this place caters mainly to men of the male persuasion."

"I don't care." I stood up, took off my coat, dropped it on the chair I'd just vacated, and sat down on the barber chair.

"All right, but I ain't gonna have y'all's old man comin' in here and beating the shit out of me for defacin' his woman, am I?" Briskly he snapped the sheet before draping it over me.

It smelled of aftershave and cigarettes.

Like my father.

"Now, what d'ya'll want me to do with it? Just don't expect nothin' fancy, that's all. I only cut hair, I ain't one of them fancy "stylist" types."

"See this?" I held up my bangs, "See where it's red? Cut off...everything...thats not red...and...and...don't worry about the length, don't worry about the length...at all...it always grows back fast..." my voice cracked. I clamped my mouth shut before I did something really embarassing like burst into tears.

My face felt hot again, and in the mirror I could see that my face was blotching up all red and white.

"All right, if you insist. But if your old man comes in here and asks what the hell I'm doing, I'm tellin' him you asked for it and I tried to talk you out of it but y'all wouldn't listen!"

"Just do it."

Wendall, that was the name on his smock, fired up his clippers..

He stood behind me, I could see him in the mirror, staing at my head. Finally he shrugged and began running the clippers through Paolo's hair.

It took less than ten minutes to do the job.

Paolo's hair lay scattered on the floor. I no longer looked like a Friends escapee. I was vaguely beginning to look like Cass if he'd ever been to prison.

The barber offered to mousse the remains. I let him after he tried to salvage the situation by cropping the sides and shaving the back of my neck.

Better buy a hat, or dig one out of the back of the U-Haul.

As I paid the barber, Cass thundered past, barefoot, sans Levis.

The entire group of lady bikers were right behind him in hot pursuit.

"Holeeee shee-it.", the barber drawled as he handed me my change, "I hope to Gawd that there stupid peckerwood didn't make a pass at one a them. Them there's les-beens. Better call security afore they busts the place up!"