Vin Tanner looked in the mirror, scratched his head and pondered his predicament.
Damn hair, he thought to himself. One of them crooks had tackled him
into some barrels in the warehouse bust earlier tonight and one oil drum
had spilled some awful smelling gunk all over him. He'd had to scrap all
the clothes he'd been wearing and a shower had dispersed most of what had
been on his skin but Vin had also gotten some of it in his hair and now there
seemed to be no way to get it out. He'd sneaked into the Men's Room near
Team Seven's office to deal with his sudden hair crisis. Trying to comb it
out was no good, as he'd soon found out. That just resulted in spreading
it around. The stuff had turned sticky, almost like glue, and it clung most
tenaciously to the tips of his hair. To top the whole thing off now the damn
comb was stuck in his hair too.
There was simply no way around it. He'd just have to cut it. He couldn't
walk around with a comb stuck to the side of his head fer crying out loud.
Just a few snips on the right side of his head there and that comb would
be free. Snip. Snip. Snip. Vin lowered the scissors and took
a second look in the mirror.
Well now ... that looked decidedly uneven. He wasn't particularly vain but
he'd been chided enough times on the job to know that looks seemed to be
somewhat important to other folks, and with his hair like that he felt he
looked kinda stupid and he just knew that no one would ever take him seriously
looking like that. Better cut away some on the other side to even it out.
Cut. Snip. Whoops, that got a bit short. He'd better cut away some
more on the other side and the back. Snip. Snip. Damn scissors! He
should have used a sharp knife instead, scissors just didn't cut it as far
as he was concerned.
Snip. Snip. Snip. Cut. Snip. Cut.
Hmmmmmmmm. Vin looked closer at his reflection.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
+ + + + + + +
It was peaceful and quiet in Team Seven's office. Chris was working in his
room behind a closed door and all the cubicles were empty except for one.
Finally finished with his report Buck Wilmington leaned back in his chair
and took it easy. He was in the process of swinging his legs up on the table
to stretch them out to their full length when he was distracted by Vin passing
by him on the way back to his desk. So distracted in fact that he leaned
too far back and ended up flat on the floor, chair and all.
Vin turned around when he heard the resulting loud thump and walked over
to Buck. He stretched out his hand and hauled Buck up on his feet again.
Since he hadn't really expected more than a simple thanks from Buck he was
a bit taken back when the man in question loudly exclaimed, "What the hell
have you done to your hair!?!"
Buck stared in disbelief at Vin's hair. It was short. Really, really
short. He even walked all the way around Vin to see if it looked short from
the back as well as the front. It did.
"What's wrong?" Vin asked as if he didn't have a clue.
"What's wrong? You look like some..." Buck searched for a word to accurately
describe what Vin looked like but couldn't quite find one. All he could come
up with was an accusatory, "- like some yuppie!"
Another thought occurred to Buck suddenly. "Oh, damn! Maybe I can leave right
away. I knew this job could be dangerous but I never signed up for this.
You gotta give me a head start. This is just playing with fire and I don't
wanna be anywhere near here when they find out. Nope, old Buck ain't
that much of a fool-"
"What are you talking about, Buck?" Vin interrupted his mutterings and frowned
with suspicion.
"Just trying to avoid getting lynched by certain parties when they find out
that I let you get scalped."
"I repeat - What are you talking about? Who's gonna lynch you?"
"The women. As soon as they find out that I was a party to you losing your
hair they're gonna string me up."
"What women?" Vin gaped. "Have you lost your mind?"
Buck shook his head and commented sadly, "Deaf, dumb and blind. Haven't you
noticed that about half of the female personnel swoons every time you walk
by?"
"I'd think I'd'a noticed something like that," Vin scoffed. "Iffen I'm so
popular as you say, then why just half and not all?"
"Cause the other half are only interested in me, that's why. It's okay, I
don't mind sharing."
"Nice to know you're so humble and generous, Buck. What's the big deal? It's
just hair."
A startled gasp from the direction of the break room disrupted their conversation
and they turned to where the remaining four agents stood frozen to the spot
and stared in horrified fascination at Vin's head. Ezra almost put his hand
over his eyes to block out the sight.
"I swear I had nothing to do with it," Buck hastily declared.
"Oh Lord," Ezra exclaimed when he had recovered from the initial shock.
"You took the words right out of my mouth," Josiah said and he had a strange
expression on his face as if he was desperately holding back what was certain
to be a really loud guffaw.
"We need to come up with a way to smuggle him out of the building," Buck
said. "So they won't know we were here when it happened. Then we can all
pretend we didn't know a thing about it, that he did it all on his own."
"Think that'll work?" JD sounded like he doubted it would. "Shouldn't we
have some back-up plan at least? I mean, if they corner us on the way out."
"Good thinking, kid." Buck gave JD a slap of approval on the back that almost
made him stagger a few steps.
"Maybe we can glue it back on," Nathan said. "That way it'll take them longer
to notice anything is wrong so they'll have no reason to stop us."
"What?" Vin interrupted incredulously but they all ignored him.
"Transparent tape," Josiah suggested.
"Think that will hold? Nathan's good with a needle and thread," JD offered.
"Maybe he can sew it back on."
"You're talking suturing," was Nathan's reply. "Nah, that won't work. Maybe
we can sort of staple it back on? Raine had some plastic pastel color weave
things in her hair one time, I think they used some really, really thin wire
for that but I'm not really sure."
"Whoa, just hold on a minute there-" Vin tried again. The others still ignored
him.
"Buck," Josiah said. "Didn't you date a hairdresser recently? Think she could
help out?"
"She's out of town right now, but I could go out and buy a wig and come back
with it."
"Have y'all gone loco?!!!!!!" Vin said in a voice that sounded more like
a squeak.
A creaking sound warned them that the door to Chris's office room had just
opened and they all fell silent and looked towards the man standing in the
door opening. Chris had stopped short with one hand still on the handle of
the door and with a manila folder in his other hand. He stared. He blinked.
He stared some more.
His eyes narrowed into thin slits but then they widened barely a fraction
as if he'd just gotten an idea. Then Chris spoke, just one brief word.
"Hat," he said.
A collective sigh of relief went through the five agents gathered around
a bewildered Vin. Of course, the perfect solution to their dilemma.
Or it would have been if everything had gone according to plan but unfortunately
for Vin there happened to be a party going on that day. Secretaries from
all over the building were gathering together to celebrate the retirement
of one of their own and Vin of course happened to try and sneak by at the
same time as a group of girls spotted him. They proceeded to effectively
rope him in.
And then there came the moment when one of them asked him why he was wearing
a hat and if she could try it on. She snatched it off his head before he
could protest and then he could see her go all pale and gasp for air. That
didn't last very long, just long enough for her to get enough air in her
lungs to let loose a scream loud enough to freeze the blood right in his
veins. Vin was reminded of a scene out of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
where the pod-people raised the alarm by screaming and pointing at the still
unaffected humans.
He also found that Buck hadn't been joking about half the female personnel.
There were a lot of them women, heck - he didn't know that many women worked
in the federal building - he was sure that he hadn't seen even half of them
before in his life and they were coming at him from all sides. They didn't
look too happy now. Not a single one of them, and unhappiest of all of them
was Judy, who was normally such a sweetheart.
"Vin Tanner," Judy said and sounded as if she was about to cry. "This time
you've gone too far. You are hereby accused of cutting your hair without
permission or warning, causing thousands of women grief all across the country.
You will pay dearly for this!"
And she was so upset that before he knew it she had thrown her drink right
at him. There were suddenly drops of it, hitting his face and running down
his skin. It felt almost like getting soaked in a rainshower-
+ + + + + + +
"Hey, Tanner!" Buck called from the locker room and Vin blinked against the
spray of water on his face. "You gonna stay in the shower the rest of the
night?"
Someone slammed a locker shut with a loud bang and that broke Vin completely
out of the strange dream state he must have been in for far too long, judging
by the prune like condition of his skin.
He turned off the shower, wound a towel around his hips and walked out of
the shower room. Having towelled his long hair into a state of reasonable
dryness he pulled some clean clothes out of his locker and got dressed.
Huh, that was the weirdest day dream ever. At least the stuff he'd gotten
in his hair earlier had washed out all right. For a minute there he'd thought
he'd actually have to cut his hair to get it out.
Vin paused in front of the mirror to drag a comb through his hair and stopped
for one second to contemplate how he would look if he had shorter hair.
Should he try? What if-? Maybe.... Nah.
He shrugged.
Why mess with perfection?
The End
