Chapter 4

Candy rang Buck. “Buck, could you be a sweetie and bring me over a few things the doctor said I should have?” (Candy noticed an uncomfortable parallel between the way she talked to Buck and the way Anne Johansen talked to her)

“Sure, Candy. I can leave for lunch a little early. What do you need?” Buck still sounded eager to help her even after all the many little favors she’d asked of him over the last few months.

“Well, I need some plastic sheeting, and a lighter, and a couple of long pointy things to use as probes.”

“Good lord, Candy! It sounds like you are either preparing some heroin or doing a home tonsillectomy. What in the world do you need this stuff for?”

“It’s a new pain therapy that the doctor’s told me to try. I’ll tell you more when you get here. It doesn’t hurt.”

“What kind of things am I supposed to get for the probes? Don’t they have this stuff at the hospital? Do you want me to stop by there?”

“No. That is supposed to be the beauty of this treatment. You do it at home with things that you can purchase readily. I thought that you could get some of those skewers that they have for barbeque. Although something like probes from a voltmeter would be even better… But, I suppose they’re too expensive. Just see what you can find at the hardware store. I have to lie down now, I feel groggy.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, just bring the stuff as soon as you can.”

45 minutes later Buck tapped on the door and walked in with two plastic grocery bags draped over his arms.

Shopping was not his forte, and there had been a long line at the hardware store, so Buck was looking a little sober. Not the sort to complain though, he laid out an assortment of accoutrements on the kitchen counter without a word. There were six or so yards of black irrigation dam material, a can of charcoal starter, and a variety of pointy things. Apparently, because of the season, barbeque skewers were hard to come by, and he hadn’t been able to decide between the roasting thermometer, the grapefruit spoons and the corn holders.

“Well? How’d I do, doc?” he asked, hopefully, as Candy stared pensively at the pile of cookware.

“Great, Buck, that should work just fine,” she replied automatically, not wanting to arouse too much curiosity in him. “How much do I owe ya?”

“My pleasure,” said Buck. Apparently he figured buying his best girl dam canvas and metallic pokey things was just the next best thing to chivalry.

“Oh, Buck, really, I can pay you,” she protested, knowing that in actuality she could not pay him unless he accepted major credit cards.

“Tell you what,” Buck did his best to grin a romantic old-fashioned cowboy grin. “You just save a little two-step for me one of these days and we’ll be even."

It pained Candy to see a guy with a masters in physics get all “Yup, Ma’am” on her. It was an affliction with Greenbelt guys to live in a pretend time when girls really needed men and hanky dropping was an option. One thing that really embarrassed her about Buck was the high-heeled cowboy boots and the silk scarf and ten gallon hat he wore out to the bars on weekends. She humored it, partly because at the 5th Ace he was definitely not the only one dressed as Dale Evans. But it kind of made her miss Haines and his incredible body in faded blue jeans and expensive loafers that he wore with no socks. She always wondered how he managed not to get foot fungus. Anyway, she had necked with Buck out the back door behind the dance floor more than once, so she felt she no longer had a right to criticize.

Thinking of the whole series of decisions, or non-decisions that had caused her to get involved with this long suffering doofus of a man made her head ache even worse. It seemed that she had unwittingly enslaved his heart, and now there was nothing she wanted more than to give it back. The more smitten he acted, the more everything he said and did turned her stomach. And yet, she dialed his phone number every time she needed a ride somewhere. She felt a wave of self loathing that did not show any signs of subsiding, while he waited patiently for her next order with a perplexed puppy dog smile on his face.

“Buck, I think I need to lie down again. Do me a favor. I was planning to go to my Mom’s this afternoon. Can you give her a call and tell her I’m sleeping?”

“Sure thing, Punkin,” he replied and pecked her paternally on the forehead. As she heard his truck pull out of the driveway she opened the bottle of pain pills and turned on the TV. There was a Barbie commercial on the cartoon channel.

Suddenly Candy remembered the “Clarinet Commando” Barbie that her friend Jane had made for her birthday. It was on the shelf in her bedroom. She loved her clarinet commando, but she also didn’t really want to try out the hair burning on herself. Barbie was going to have to undergo a treatment. Actually, she had noticed that Barbie appeared a bit stiff sitting there in her cardboard box, maybe she could use something beneficial to the spine.

Candy had a trunk that she used as a coffee table, in which she kept all her really cool sentimental stuff and funny letters from Jane, who was now a studio musician for several TV Game shows. She was pretty sure she had kept her phrenology chart from the museum machine, and that it was somewhere inside the mound of papers in the trunk.

Aha! Under a half smoked cigarette butt that had belonged to Bob Eubanks, (or so Jane’s letter claimed) there was a big squashed furl of paper that looked hopeful. This, unfortunately, was just an inspirational poster she had taken home from an acting retreat she had attended in Belgrade, Montana. It was from a support group game called “paperback writer” where each participant got to write uplifting comments on big sheets of paper taped to the other people’s backs. That way you couldn’t tell who wrote what about you.

She leaned back on the couch to read the comments. “Candy, keep trying! You’ll get there!” “I’ve never met anyone so possessed!” (What was that supposed to mean?) One said “Candy, you are absolutely full of …” but the last word was illegible. Full of shit? Full of genius? Full of what?

She tossed the poster in the trash and continued to dig, more frantically now, but did not find the elusive head map.

“Oh well,” she thought, “It won’t really make much difference to Barbie.” She decided to go outside in case Barbie torched off in a big way. She took an empty spaghetti sauce bottle of water, a box of kitchen matches and several feet of toilet paper.

Candy’s back yard was a former dog run, four feet wide and fenced on all sides with eight-foot chain link. There was one metal lawn chair facing the length of the run, and a sorry looking hibachi filled with snow. It was sunny, and the snow was melting, but it was not comfortable for Candy in her bare feet, and she was in a hurry to get her first experiment over.

She plopped Barbie in a sitting position on the lawn chair and hastily wrapped her head, turban style in toilet paper. In Barbie’s case, it would have to be luck rather than science that decided which patch of hair would alleviate her chronic back pain. Candy managed to find a loose strand peeking under the turban and it was decided that the area of the skull over the left ear corresponded to the spine.

Realizing that Barbie looked all too flammable swaddled up like an enormous Q-tip, Candy decided to douse her in the water to wet the protective toilet paper. Right away, she noted that gauze would have been preferable, as the toilet paper began to droop and disintegrate. None-the-less, it formed a sort of matted papier-mâché that did at least appear somewhat scientific. “Okay!” thought Candy, as she hopped from foot to foot on the cement pad out her back door. “It’s time.”

She nervously lit a kitchen match and held it up to the free strand of hair.

Nothing happened. Leaving Barbie wedged in a snow bank, she ran inside to get the charcoal starter. Struggling for some time with the painfully tight cap, she finally got it open, and by now her frozen arches were sending little electric locomotives of pain up her calves. She gave Barbie a squirt and tossed another match in her direction. This time, a blue flame puffed all around the doll for a moment, and then Candy watched it climb the hair strand like the fuse on Mission Impossible. But instead of actually burning, Barbie’s hair simply melted into a hard, black plastic blob on the side of her head. When it reached the wet toilet paper it sputtered evilly for a moment and sent up a wisp of smoke.

By that time, Candy was watching dismally from inside the kitchen doorway, trying to warm her feet by wrapping them in a crocheted area rug. Barbie wasn’t showing any immediate signs of relief, but on the other hand, her whole head hadn’t gone up, so Candy had to consider the effort a success.