By Ed Staskus

   Maggie Campbell cut her teeth lifeguarding, then slicing bologna at a deli, and finally scissoring curls at a hair salon. She never lost a swimmer and never cut off a finger. But she never saw the headaches at the hair salon coming. What’s a simple girl to do?

   She worked as a lifeguard at the Bay Village Pool, but after her parents threw her out, she moved to Westlake. She lived with a friend from high school. When she got a part-time job at the Bay Deli she hitchhiked to work, because in the middle 1980s there wasn’t anything nearby, no Crocker Park, no nothing, not even buses. When she finally got a car it was a bucket of bolts.

   Her first hair job was at Cadillac Cutters, which she got after she graduated from the Fairview Beauty Academy. Her sister had worked there and got her the job. The Cadillac Cutters was a hair salon owned by two friends. They shared a white Gucci-branded Cadillac Seville. They were flamboyantly gay. Terry was tall, had short blond hair, while Tom was short and had long flowing black hair. They were always impeccably dressed. Terry came from money. He seemed to think he was better than everyone else. He was a prima donna. He always had something on that was ultra cool, which were usually custom suits, while Tom always had something on that was silky. He was the lady of the house. They were good at what they did, but they didn’t seem to care much about anybody except themselves.

   From beginning to end Maggie was only allowed to be an apprentice. An apprentice is someone who hands the stylist their combs and brushes. She was supposed to pay attention, too, watching how the backcombing and highlights went. She never got the chance to get past the apprentice stage, get on the floor on her own, because the gay guys screwed up bad, committing insurance fraud, among other things.

   They told everybody they were paying their employer’s share of health insurance for them. They took every employee’s share of the payments but never paid the premiums. A stylist took her child to the hospital and found out she didn’t have insurance. It was an unexpected surprise.

   The gay guys did nose candy all the time, some of it with the insurance money. Health care went up their noses and down the drain. They were a pair of conniving stinkards.

   Maggie wasn’t allowed to talk to clients, which she thought was strange. One day she started talking to a client. One of the gay guys spotted her. He took her in the back and gave her a piece of his mind.

   “Shut the hell up when you’re on the floor,” he ordered.

   “OK,” she said.

   “No one wants to hear what you have to say,” he said. “You’re just a nobody assistant.”

   She was hurt by what he said because she had always worked hard. She worked late without pay when she had to. It was embarrassing. She felt stupid. She got so upset she called her father, no matter that he had thrown her out of the family house.

   “No one talks to my daughter like that,” her father Fred exploded. “I swear to God, if you don’t walk out of that place right now, I will yank you out!”

   She didn’t walk out, but then her paychecks started bouncing.

   “Oh, Maggie, sorry, but we got you these earrings instead,” Terry said

   “Yeah,” she said, “but I can’t pay my rent with those.”

   “They’re really expensive earrings.”

   “I’m sure they are,” she said. “But again, I don’t think my landlord is going to care, and besides, I don’t know if he wears earrings.” She didn’t tell them her landlord was her roommate’s mother.

   She called her father again because they got mean and dirty with her about the money they owed her.

   “Walk out!” he bellowed from his stock broker’s office in downtown Cleveland. He was a vice-president.

   “Where am I going to go?”

   “Walk out. Call me when you’ve walked out.”

   She didn’t walk out, but when another of her paychecks bounced, things came to a head. The day she told her father the news he got beyond mad.

   “You walk out of there right now and I will make sure they pay you. You are my kid, for God’s sake!” Maggie hightailed it out of Cadillac Cutters faster than pronto.

   Her father went cold-blooded on them. He did some digging, found out what they were up to, and talked to somebody at the Anthony Celebrezze Federal Building about it. Somebody got the  taxman on their tails. The next thing Terry and Tom knew, the IRS was looking into their dirty laundry, and their business was being closed down. They lost their big bad Caddy to the repo man.

   Fred was never the kind of father who could take it easy and sit to the side. You didn’t screw with one of his kids. He was the kind of father who believed that if you don’t stand up for your children, you don’t stand for much. He was always ready to attack anyone who was mean to Maggie. She was always his happy girl who smiled all the time. He closed down the Cadillac Cutters never to be heard of again, at least not under that name.

   When Maggie had to go back to the hair salon and get her stuff it was awkward. She didn’t know if they knew she was the reason for their business closing. After a while Terry and Tom  opened up under another name. It didn’t last long. Cheating is easy. They didn’t know to stay away from easy. Their new staff got tired of them and their hugger-mugger. They walked out before long.

   Terry and Tom were a couple and lived in Rocky River. Maggie saw Terry at the Heinen’s Supermarket on Detroit Rd. now and then. He eventually dumped Tom and got married, but married to a woman instead of a man. Marrying a man was illegal, anyway. It was weird, but he came from a lot of money, and Maggie thought his family demanded he marry a genuine woman.

   Maggie called her father near the end of the year, even though he had kicked her out of the house, to wish the whole family happy holidays.

   “Are you coming over to go to church with us?” he asked.

   “No,” she said.

   Fred could hear her crying over the phone. She was so happy she was crying.

   “What happened? Was it him who made you cry?” He thought her boyfriend had done something bad.

   “No,” she said.

   “I swear to God, Maggie, if I need to come over there!”

   “Dad, I’m not sad crying.”

   “Then why are you crying?”

   “Because my boyfriend got me a puppy.”

   “Oh, that’s cool, bring the puppy over,” he said.

   Her father could be bossy and rough with them, her brother and sisters and her, but he loved them, and their dogs, too. He was the man who taught them everybody has to stand up for their rights. He wasn’t right about everything, but he was right about that.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. 

“Cross Walk” by Ed Staskus

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Late summer and early autumn. New York City. A Hell’s Kitchen private eye. The 1956 World Series. President Eisenhower at the opening game. A kiler in the dugout.

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