"Aunt Bea, I'm home" cried Andy as he shut the front door behind him.

"Oh good!" replied the kindly old woman as she flitted in from the kitchen. "Opie's bringing a new friend home for supper tonight, and I'll need help setting the table."

"A new friend, huh?" mused Andy as he followed her back into the kitchen. "Must be that Coleman boy whose family moved into the old Foster place."

"Well, whoever it is I think it's nice of Opie to make friends with him. It must be terrible for a young boy like that to move to a new town not knowing anybody."

"Well, Aunt Bea, you know Opie's always been good about befriending new people. I suppose before long that Coleman boy'll be thinking he grew up right here in Mayberry, what with the hospitality of kids like Opie and all."

"Paw? Aunt Bea? I'm home!" came a shout from the next room.

"Come on Andy, let's go meet Opie's new friend."

Barely had the two of them entered the living room when they stopped dead in their tracks, for there beside Opie stood a 9-year-old with the longest hair on a boy either of them had ever seen.

"Aunt Bea... Paw.... this is my new friend, Timmy Coleman. His family just moved into the old Foster place."

Several moments passed while Andy and Aunt Bea stood in stunned silence, their eyes glued to the boy's thick, layered mane of dirty blond hair.

"Paw? Aunt Bea? Ain't ya gonna say hello?

"Why, sure Opie..." Andy said as he extended a hand toward his son's new friend. "Timmy, it's nice to meet you, and as Sheriff of this here town may I say it's a real pleasure to have you and your folks livin in Mayberry."

"Thanks Sheriff!" replied Timmy excitedly. "And Aunt Bea, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Aunt Bea barely managed to put her hand out before Timmy's was there to shake it. He didn't seem to notice that Aunt Bea hadn't taken her eyes off his hair since the moment she'd stepped into the room.

"Paw... Aunt Bea... can Timmy and I go outside and play for a while before supper's ready?"

"Sure boys," answered the Sheriff, "you go out and enjoy yourselves, but make sure you're back in half an hour, and don't go getting all dirty, ya hear?"

"Sure thing Paw! Come on Timmy, lets go play some catch in the backyard."

Aunt Bea held her tongue until she heard the back door close.

"Andy! Have you ever seen such long hair on a boy? Why, if I were those Coleman parents I'd be embarrassed to have my boy come to a new town looking like that! And what about those bangs? It's a wonder he can ever see through all that hair! My goodness, I only hope that boy doesn't have a sister -- how could Mr. and Mrs. Coleman be expected to tell them apart!"

"Now Now Aunt Bea...," said Andy in a tone of mild rebuke, "folks from outside Mayberry live all kinds of different ways. Doesn't make 'em bad or anything, just... well, just different is all."

"But Andy, that poor boy! I shudder to think of the hard time the other boys will give him when he starts school next week. Why, they're likely to tease him something awful. If I were his mother, I'd be sure to cut all that hair off before he reports for the first day!"

"Aunt Bea... folks around here will just have to get used to it. After all, it's just hair!"

************

"See Timmy, I told you my Paw wouldn't mind your hair" whispered Opie as he and his new friend huddled near the back door, evesdropping on the adults' conversation.

"Yeah, but your Aunt Bea sure doesn't like it."

"Well... I sure like it" replied Opie as he reached out and fingered the thick blond locks that overhung the collar of Timmy's shirt.

The boy smiled back thoughtfully. "I know you do, Opie. Do you think your Paw would let you grow your hair out too? It sure would be nice running my fingers through all that long, red hair."

"Come on Timmy," Opie said somewhat startled, "don't talk that way around here. Someone might hear you!"

"Hey, I'm not the one fingering my gorgeous blond locks, am I?" replied his friend smiling.

Sheepishly Opie smiled back, and the two of them went out to the backyard to play a while before supper.

************

"Hey Coleman! Your Mom take you to the beauty parlor to get your hair cut?"

"Come on Timmy, don't pay them no mind," urged Opie as he and his new friend continued down Main Street. It had been a truly awful first day at school for the new boy. From the moment he walked in, kids did nothing but make derogatory remarks about his long hair. Even now, nearly an hour after school had let out, a gang of them were following Opie and Timmy as they headed downtown for an ice cream.

"Hey Coleman! Ever think of putting curlers in all that hair? You'd be the spitting image of Little Orphan Annie if you did!"

"Better not let us catch you alone," came a taunt from another boy, "if we do, that hair of yours is gonna get the cutting it deserves!"

"Yeah, little Opie the Sheriff's boy ain't always gonna be around to protect you!"

Baited by the reference to himself, Opie turned and faced the group. "Timmy ain't afraid of you just because I'm here," he shouted, "but I promise you, if you so much as touch a single hair on his head my Paw's gonna be showing up at your door to arrest you!"

Opie could hear the boys in the group continue making comments, but he was too far away to hear exactly what they were saying.

"Gee Opie, I kinda wish you hadn't done that," whispered Timmy. "I mean, if I'm gonna live in this town, I hafta learn to fight my own battles. And besides, I don't like the thought of you gettin hurt on my account."

"I know, Timmy. It's just that, whenever they talk about getting you alone and cutting all your hair off, I... well, I just can't bear the thought of it."

Timmy stopped walking and looked directly into Opie's eyes. "I know, Opie. I get scared when they say things like that too. But I know how much you love my hair, and I promise I'm never gonna let anyone do anything bad to it... except you, of course!"

It took Opie a moment to realize what his friend meant by the remark, but when he did, he smiled wider than he had in his whole life.

**************

As fate would have it, Deputy Barney Fife chose just that moment to glance out the window of Mayberry's police station.

"Andy?" he said as a broad grin slowly overspread his face, "Looks like Opie's reached that age when little girls aren't just something to shoot spitballs at."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" replied his boss, the Sheriff.

"It means your Opie has found himself a little sweetheart, based on what I'm seeing out this here window."

"Opie's with a girl?" asked Andy, somewhat surpisedly.

"Yip. Seems to be a real looker too, what with all that blond hair and everything."

Andy smiled so wide he could barely contain himself. "Barney, take a good look at that young 'un Opie's talking to. You sure that's a girl?"

"What do you take me for, Andy, some kind of fool? You mean to tell me you don't think a highly trained law enforcement officer like me can't tell the difference between a boy and girl? Why if that doesn't beat all!"

"Barney, are Opie and his little friend headed this way?"

"Why, yeah, they are. What does that have to do with anything?"

"If that were a girl Opie's talking to, do you think he'd be walking her right by this here police station, what with him knowing I'm on duty and all?"

"Well, probably not. But here's one for you, Mr. Smart Guy... how do you explain that shoulder-length blond hair on the young 'un he's talkin to?"

"You'll see when they get here," replied the all-knowing Sheriff Taylor.

A few moments passed in silence before the door to the police station swung open.

"Hi Paw, Hi Barney! Barney, this is my new friend Timmy Coleman. His family just moved into the old Foster place out on Route 7."

Barney's reaction wasn't new to Timmy. In fact, he'd seen the same one from Aunt Bea just a few days ago.

"It's nice to meet you Deputy," said Timmy, politely holding out his hand.

"Barn...," said Andy after several awkward moments had passed, "aren't you gonna shake hands with the boy?"

Barney caught a hint of Andy's I-told-you-so tone, and he was damned if he was going to stand here and take any more of it. Quickly he shook Timmy's hand, muttered something under his breath about having some work to do, and stormed out of the station.

When Andy caught up with him twenty minutes later, Barney was down at Floyd's Barbershop talking to Goober, Mayor Pike, Howard Sprague and some of the other regulars who assembled there daily.

"I tell ya, you've never seen long hair like this on a boy before! A regular Marilyn Monroe this kid was, that's for sure. How any self-respecting father can have a boy who looks like that and still walk around town with his head held high I just don't know! There's gotta be a law against something like this... there's just got to be!"

"Barney, you know as well as I do that there's no law against a boy havin long hair, and I don't want you goin 'round starting any trouble on account of this Coleman boy, you hear me?" warned Andy as he joined the gathering.

"But Andy! Are we supposed to just stand by and let this Timmy kid move into town looking like that? Why, pretty soon some of our own kids from here in Mayberry will be asking to grow their hair long. How'd ya like that, Andy? Huh? How'd ya like it if Opie came home from school one day and says: 'Paw, can I grow my hair down to my shoulders so I can look more like Timmy Coleman?' Would you like that Andy? Is that how you want kids in this town growin up? Huh?"

"Now Barney, don't go gettin yourself all worked up over this. Timmy's hair isn't gonna have any affect on the kids in this town, and you know that. After all, it's just hair!"

"B... B... But Andy," chimed in Floyd for the first time, "if the boys in this town do start to wear their hair long like that, why, it could put me out of business! I derive a lot of my income from boys' haircuts, you know."

"I know that Floyd, but you gotta believe me... this is no big deal."

"No big deal, huh Andy?" countered Barney again. "No big deal that all the kids in this town are gonna be walking around with hair down to their shoulders. What if they start wearing it down to their you-know-whats? You gonna think it's no big deal then too, Andy?"

"Barney, there's no talking to you when you're like this, but hear this loud and clear: you will not create any problems for that Coleman boy because of his hair, is that understood?"

As much of a whiner as Barney was, he knew enough to back down in the face of a direct order from his boss. When Andy could sense that his Deputy had nothing more to say, he turned on his heel and walked out the barbershop.

Goober waited a moment before asking the question that was on everyone's mind: "What are you gonna do now Barney?"

**************

It took nearly a week for the situation Barney was hoping for to present itself. Glancing idly out the police station window one day, Barney grew excited as he spied young Timmy Coleman duck out from between two parked cars and begin crossing Main Street.

Springing into action, Barney was there before Timmy even reached the other side.

"You! Young man! Halt right there. You are in clear violation of section 123.66 of the Mayberry penal code, prohibiting the crossing of a designated street except via use of a clearly demarcated path of pedestrian traffic."

"Huh?" asked Timmy, confused by all the legal mumbo-jumbo.

"Jaywalking! That's what I'm talking about young fella! You ever hear of jaywalkin where you come from?"

"Yes, sir, I've heard of jaywalking, and I'll admit that that's what I was doing just now. I'm awful sorry. I promise not to do it again."

"I'm afraid it's not that easy. You see, the law allows me to impose a penalty on anyone who violates the law. Now, you're a juvenile, so the law further states that I can take appropriate steps to set you on the right and proper course, thereby better ensuring that you don't lead a life of crime."

"W...What does all that mean, Deputy?

"It means that if I ascertain a certain something about your being that might be predisposing you toward crime, I can do something about it. It means that if I think there's something different about you -- something that I believe might cause you to get in trouble in this town in the future -- I can take steps to address that thing."

Realization began to set in as Timmy recalled his awkward first meeting with Deputy Fife nearly a week ago. He'd known immediately that Barney -- like most people in this town -- disliked his hair, but little did he imagine that the Deputy would use such a minor offense like jaywalking as a way to resurrect the issue.

"Look, Deputy Fife... I know I did wrong just now, and I like I said, it won't happen again. But I don't know that we need to make a big thing out of this."

"Talking back to a law enforcement officer, huh! That's it young fella, turn around and put your hands behind your back. You are now my prisoner, and as my prisoner you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to..."

Timmy couldn't believe what was happening, but he figured the best thing now was just to keep his mouth shut and not get into any more trouble.

*************

Floyd was sitting in his barber chair reading the newspaper when Barney and Timmy burst through the door.

"Floyd, this is Timmy Coleman. He's my prisoner, having just admitted to the crime of jaywalking on this very street. I, as the second-in-command law enforcement officer of the town of Mayberry, do hereby request that you perform the service of barber upon this young boy, for the purpose of eliminating what I consider to be a predisposing factor to his further criminal involvement."

"Predispo... crimin... what?" stuttered the not-too-swift Floyd.

"I mean shave his damn head, Floyd!" shouted Barney. "You're a barber, that's not too difficult for you, is it?"

"Why, no... no, I... I can do that. It's just that... that..."

"Floyd, as a sworn law enforcement officer I'm ordering you to shave this boy's head!"

Floyd was so nervous he practically fell out of his own barber chair. On wobbly legs he made his way over the counter where he kept all his barbering instruments. He'd given some short haircuts in his time, but never before had he shaved anyone's head -- let alone a boy's and, well, a boy with hair like this.

Floyd steadied his hands enough to pick up a clean barber cape from off the counter. Turning around, he saw that Barney had already seated young Timmy in the barber chair. No, seated wasn't the right word... Barney had handcuffed the boy to it!

"Come on Floyd, can't you work any faster than that?" screamed Barney. "Give me that cape and I'll put it on the boy!"

Floyd felt Barney rip the cape from his hands. Not knowing what else to do, he turned around and headed back to the counter to fetch a comb and scissors.

Approaching the chair, he saw that Barney had done a rather hasty job of wrapping the cape around the boy's neck. He considered fixing it, but decided against doing anything that might further incur the Deputy's wrath. Instead, he began combing out the long, thick locks that overhung the collar of Timmy's shirt.

"Come on Floyd, I don't have all day!" interjected the anxious Barney.

"Yes... Yes... don't have all day now, do we?" Floyd said to nobody in particular. Gingerly he dabbed the comb into the thicket of hair covering Timmy's nape. He'd never been asked to work on hair like this. It was thicker and more luscious than anything he could remember, and though he'd raised the argument a week ago that long hair like Timmy's could be a detriment to his business, today he hated the thought of dropping even an inch of these precious locks onto the barbershop floor. Knowing, however, that he needed to do something, Floyd used the comb to scoop up a small, one-inch section of hair and slowly raised the scissors toward it.

Shhh...Shhh...Shhh... Shhh...Shhh...Shhh... Shhhniik!

"Dammit Floyd, you gotta be kidding me!" erupted Barney when he saw how little hair Floyd had cut. "I said shave his head, not clip a lock of his hair for the family album! If I don't see some serious hair on the floor by the time I count to three, I'm gonna take over this operation myself!"

"But Barney, I... I... Wh... What about the kid's paren... W... we could both get in a lot of troub..."

"Oh forget about it Floyd!" screamed Barney. "If I want something done around here I guess I'll have to do it myself! God, you'd think a man facing the imminent demise of his business would care a little more about saving himself! Floyd, as a law enforcement officer of the town of Mayberry, I hereby commandeer this barbershop for official government business. I ask you now to leave the premesis. You, as the proprietor of this establishment, will be reimbursed for any materials used or damaged as a result of this government operation."

"Huh? Leave the prem... But Barney, I can't just leave the shop unatten..."

"Get out Floyd! And hang up the 'closed' sign on your way out!"

Shaking like a leaf, Floyd did as he was told. He felt bad about leaving little Timmy behind, but at the same time he knew he wouldn't be able to bear the sight of all that boy's hair falling in clumps to the floor.

As soon as the door closed, Barney walked over and locked it. Then, taking out his handcuff key, he undid the metal bracelets from around Timmy's wrists.

"You lettin me go, Deputy?"

"Hardly!" shot back Barney with a sadistic grin on his face. "I'm moving this little operation to the back room. I don't need townspeople hovering around the window gettin a look at official police business. I think the best way for you and me to take care of this is in private."

Grabbing a pair of scissors and an electric hair clipper from off the counter, Barney led his young prisoner to the little-known back room of Floyd's Barbershop. There, in the middle of the small, dimly-lit room, stood an old barber chair that Floyd had taken out of commission many years ago.

"Sit down Timmy," ordered Barney as he hoisted the boy into the chair, again cuffing his wrists to the armrests. Then, using a rag he found in the corner of the room, he carefully wiped away the thin layer of dust that covered the mirror in front of the chair.

Approaching the now shaking little figure in the chair, Barney grabbed a thick handful of hair from atop the boy's head and gave it a quick, sharp pull. "You know why I wiped off the mirror like that, Timmy?" asked Barney as he slid his face to within a few inches of the boy's. "I did it because I want you to have a good view when I start taking all this off," he sneered, slowly releasing his hold on the hair and watching it fall back into place.

"Y... You're getting off on this, aint ya?" said Timmy softly, his voice quivering badly. He knew it was a risk -- that it would either work the way he wanted it to, or else cause Deputy Fife to respond in a fit of rage -- but, handcuffed to the chair as he was, he knew he had no other choice.

"What did you say to me?" asked Barney incredulously, his voice suddenly quivering almost as much as Timmy's.

"You know what I said," replied Timmy, trying to sound a bit bolder, "I said you're gettin off on this, aint ya? You're getting hard just thinkin about runnin your hands through all my hair. I know you are... I can see it in your eyes."

Nervously averting his eyes, Barney's mind raced to find a way to address this unexpected turn of events. He considered for a moment just letting the boy go -- just uncuffing him from the chair and letting him go on his merry way -- but he was afraid it might give the boy some sense of power over him; something that maybe the boy could use to blackmail him in the future. Still not exactly sure of how to respond, Barney nonetheless knew he had to say something.

"You certainly know a lot about adult things for a boy your age," stated Barney, pleased that he'd thought of a somewhat neutral response.

Timmy's mind raced. He sensed he'd gained the upper hand with Barney, but knew that pushing too hard might cause the Deputy to respond with anger. Staring nervously at the clippers Barney had brought with him to the back room, Timmy knew that what he said in the next few moments would likely mean the difference between keeping his hair and being shaved bald.

"I think we both know some pretty adult things," said Timmy coyly. "Look, you could cut off all my hair right now, and as exciting as it'd be for you, it'd be all over in a few minutes, and you'd never have this hair to run your fingers through again. Think about it. Wouldn't it be great to have me and this hair around to play with anytime you want? To have me swish it all in your face like a big, blond pom-pom?"

Timmy could tell from the look on Barney's face that indeed the Deputy had considered such a scenario before.

"Come on, Barney...," continued Timmy even more seductively than before, "you and I can both get something out of this. You know I don't want my hair cut, and I know there's probably a whole bunch of other things you'd like to do with me. The Sheriff's out of town -- he aint gonna catch you -- and that queer barber who owns this place ain't got the balls to come back here and tell you to stop what you're gonna do. Come on, whaddya say? Strip me down to my underwear and act out the fantasy that I know is going through your mind right now."

The words cut through Barney like a knife. All his life he'd feared meeting someone like this; someone who would see into the darkest regions of his soul. He'd always thought it would be another police officer -- someone trained in picking out the "criminal element," so to speak -- but never had he considered it'd be a 9-year-old boy. Moments passed like an eternity as Barney paced back and forth before the barber chair, struggling against the demons within.

The answer came not in words but in the form of Barney's hand upon the zipper of Timmy's jeans.

"Oh stop! Please stop!" cried Timmy in a falsetto voice that meant the fantasy had begun. "Please... please don't take off my pants, I'll... I'll give you anything... really, anything!"

Looking up after unzipping Timmy's fly, Barney saw the boy flirtingly lean his head forward and swish his hair from side to side.

"A boy like you shouldn't be allowed to have hair like that," said Barney nervously but in his best Sheriff-of-this-here-town voice. "Hair like that oughta be on little girls," he said with a sneer as he deftly unfastedned the button of Timmy's jeans and slid them down past the boy's ass to his knees.

"I know, but... but the older boys in school really like it."

"So that's it," said Barney, clearly growing more comfortable with the fantasy. "You've become the little bitch of Mayberry Elementary, haven't you? Lettin all the bigger boys treat you like a little girl, grabbin all this hair of yours and jammin your face against their crotches like they gonna make you suck their cocks."

"Oh please, Deputy! Please don't cut my hair... why, without it, I'd be just another fourth grader, and none of the older kids would pay any attention to me."

"Sure would be nice shavin all this off," muttered Barney as he sat atop the boy's lap, straddling him and pressing his face hard against Timmy's forehead, burying his nose in the boy's thick, velvety soft bangs. "Yes siree, sure would love to see what the 'ole clippers would do to all these girlie locks of yours."

**************

"What's the matter Floyd?"

Seated on the bench outside his shop, Floyd turned and beheld the approaching figure of little Opie Taylor. Having never been able to hide his emotions well, and knowing that the boy already sensed something was up, Floyd decided to unburden himself completely.

"It's... It's Barney. He's got that Coleman boy with him in the back of my shop, and he's gonna shave his head. Threw me outta my own shop, I tell you... said he was commandeering it for official business!"

A look of utter disbelief overspread Opie's face. "Whaddya mean, Floyd? My Paw ordered Barney not to make any trouble for Timmy!"

"Barney said he caught the boy jaywalking. At first he wanted me to shave the boy's head, so I tried to just cut a little off but..."

"Floyd, how could you!" cried Opie, pressing his face against the barbershop window and spying the inch-long snippet of Timmy's hair that lay on the floor.

"I... I know, Opie. I feel just awful. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on that hair that I could never shave it all off the way Barney wanted me to. And then when I felt it... oh my goodness, I... I just knew I didn't couldn't do anything to it! Why, it... it reminded me of the hair on a girl I used to have a crush on back in high schoo..."

"But you did do something to it Floyd, didn't you!" spat Opie angrily. "You took the scissors to it even though you knew you had no right to!"

"I... I know, Opie... and, and like I said I feel just awful about it. But whatever I did to it, well... it was nothing compared to what Barney said he was gonna do it!"

Floyd was right, of course, and suddenly Opie knew what he needed to do to.

"Come on Floyd, let's go in there and put a stop to this!"

"But... Barney locked me out and... and I have no way of getting in," stammered the now embarrassed barber.

"No way of getting into your own shop?" retorted Opie incredulously, "what kind of a man are you Floyd?"

The remark cut Floyd to his core, but thankfully Opie didn't dwell on it.

"Come on Floyd, there's gotta be another way to get in there... think!"

"Well, I suppose there's the opening on the roof, but it's awfully hard to get up..."

It took Floyd a moment to realize that he was talking to thin air.

************

"You know what they'd do to this hair over at Juvenile Hall, don't you Timmy?" asked Barney rhetorically. He'd spent the last five minutes sitting atop the boy's lap, randomly tugging at handfuls of Timmy's hair and running his face through every inch of it while telling the boy all the ways he wished he could see it sheared off.

"You wouldn't be there two minutes before they'd march you off to the barber shop and shave every bit of this off," he muttered laciviously, the outline of his throbbing cock clearly evident beneath the crotch of his pants. "They'd probably shave you first, you know that? Of all the kids, you'd be the first one they put in the chair. There you'd be -- sitting like a pretty little girl with all your golden locks splayed out on the cape for all to see -- and then some guard would just start shaving you down, dumping all this hair of yours on the floor like the trash that it is, while the rest of the boys stand in line and laugh at the sight of this prissy little faggot being turned into a man. Would you like that, Timmy? Huh? And then they'd start shaving the heads of the other kids, and you'd have to stand there and watch as all these other kids' hair -- even nigger kids' hair -- starts landing on top of yours. What do you think of that, Timmy? You want a buncha that kinky nigger hair gettin mixed in with yours... getting ground into all your soft, pampered locks by some guard's boot... then watch it all get swept into a big nasty pile and thrown in the garbage?"

The thought of Timmy's velvety locks undergoing what Barney considered the ultimate humiliation was too much for the Deputy. With his cock feeling like it were about to explode, he slid off Timmy's lap as nonchalantly as he could and made his way to the bathroom at the back of the shop.

"Going in there to crank one off," thought Timmy, disgusted by the image it brought forth, but pleased that the Deputy didn't seem to want to go any further with him today. The time would come, of course, when Barney would want something more from him -- after all, the Mayberry Deputy wasn't the first guy Timmy had met who got that look in his eye whenever a good-looking kid was around -- but at least for today he'd been able to persuade the man to let him keep his hair. "And that's big," he muttered to himself, thinking of how much his best friend Opie had come to love playing with it.

"There, didn't I tell you it'd be better this way?" chimed Timmy cheerily as Barney re-entered the room, wiping his hands dry with a small towel from the bathroom. "And we can do this anytime you wa..."

"Shut up."

Mometarily taken aback by the gruff statement, Timmy paused before trying again. "I mean, we can meet whenever you wa..."

"I told you to shut up!" sneared Barney, grabbing a towel from off the counter and stuffing it into Timmy's mouth. The nervous look that instantly overspread the boy's face wasn't lost on the Deputy.

"That's right Timmy," said Barney as he brandished the clippers he'd just taken from off the counter. "You thought this little plan of yours was gonna work, didn't you? Well, I'm here to tell ya it didn't. As far as I'm concerned you and these clippers have had a date since the moment you set foot in Mayberry, and what just happened between you and me doesn't change that one bit. In fact, it's gonna make me happier as I shear every inch of hair off your head."

Later on, Timmy would regret not having gotten a final glimpse of his hair in the barbershop mirror, so quickly did Barney's hand descend upon it and push his head down toward his lap. The next thing Timmy would remember feeling was the whirring steel blades against the nape of his neck, resting there momentarily while Barney used his free hand to drape the thick, shaggy ends of his mane over the plastic body of the clippers.

...BZZZZGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR...

The labored sound of the clippers quickly filled the room as Barney propelled the clippers up the back of Timmy's head. Within moments he'd deposited a thick slab of velvety shorn locks atop the boy's crown, letting it rest there momentarily while he returned to the nape for more.

...BZZZZGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR...

It wasn't long before the shorn hair piled atop Timmy's head began to slide down toward his forehead. The final glimpse Timmy would have of his wonderfully thick blond mane would come not as it normally did -- lapping at the back of his shirt collars as he turned to look at it in the mirror -- but rather from the slowly descending, cobweb-like mass now sliding down past his eyes.

"What do you think of all this hair now?" snarled Barney as he ran his free hand down the length of Timmy's crown, expediting the descent of the cut hair and directing a big pile of it to land atop the crotch of Timmy's underwear. "Bet there'd be a whole lotta kids over at Mayberry Elementary crying their eyes out if they were seeing this."

"Well, at least one...," thought Timmy, conjuring up an image of his pal Opie. So troubled was he by the sadness Opie would feel at the loss of all this hair that he barely noticed Barney pushing his head hard to the left.

...BZZZZGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR...

...BZZZZGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR...

Timmy's thoughts of Opie were finally interrupted as a torrent of blond hair landed on his chest. With his head now positioned upright enough that he could see the mirror, he watched sadly as Barney raked the clippers along the side of his head, shearing diagonally from behind his right ear forward toward the temple so that the bulk of the cut hair landed atop his bare chest and arms and slid down to his naked legs.

"Lookin pretty bald on this side Timmy," Barney chided before tossing the boy's head to the right and resuming the diagonal shredding of Timmy's locks. Weary of the Deputy's sarcasm, Timmy cast his eyes downward and thought once again of Opie. His friend had clearly been drawn to Timmy by his hair, but now the boy hoped desperately that their friendship would endure the shearing of his locks -- a shearing that proceeded steadily as wave after wave of long, velvety-soft hair blanketed his legs and chest.

***********

"Yes!" thought Opie as his sneakered feet landed atop the porclain sink in Floyd's bathroom. Climbing onto the roof and prying open the trap door had taken longer than he'd expected, made worse by the awful thought that he might already be too late. Clambering down off the sink, he made his way to the bathroom door just in time to hear the flick of the clippers.

What he saw at that moment would confuse and excite him for years to come, for handcuffed to the chair was his friend Timmy, clad only in his underwear, a towel stuffed in his mouth. Standing behind him was Barney, his father's trusted Deputy, who at this moment was draping Timmy's long blond locks over the body of the clippers, feeding them into what would be the path of the well-oiled blades. Opie knew he had to act, but for reasons that would take him a long time to fully understand, he instead crouched down in the doorway of the bathroom and looked on as Barney pushed the clippers up the back of Timmy's head.

For Opie, the next few minutes were like none he'd ever experienced, transfixed as he was by the sight of the very thing he'd presumably tried to stop. Were he more aware at that moment, he would have felt his heart beating faster than he ever thought possible, and would have noticed the strange throbbing coming from his groin as clump after clump of Timmy's velvety-soft hair rained down upon his chest and lap.

"Lookin pretty bald on this side...," he heard Barney say as, moments later, the action moved from one side of Timmy's head to the other. As exciting as it was watching Barney push Timmy's head around like a doll's, Opie couldn't help but conjure up other images of how Timmy's locks might have met their end. In his mind, he saw the boys he and Timmy had met up with earlier this week -- saw Timmy kneeling before them, head bowed, as three sets of hands armed with big rusty scissors shears groped his head, chopping away at his locks while a fourth boy worked hard to restrain a grieving Opie. In another image, he saw the same boys crowded around the window of Floyd's barbershop, hooting and hollering as Barney shaved Timmy's head to the scalp. For a second he even glimpsed himself standing barefoot beside the barber chair, his feet trodding upon a thick mat of his friend's luscious blond locks.

The sound of Barney flicking the clippers off brought Opie back to the present. "My goodness, who ever thought there'd be a real live boy under all that hair!" he heard the Deputy say as he fetched a comb and scissors from off the counter. "I'd bet there'd be a lot of little girls who'd love to have this hair," he added, lifting a pile of Timmy's shorn locks from off his lap and letting them rain down once again before the boy's eyes, "probably wanna put all this up in curls and look like Mayberry's own version of Shirley Temple."

Opie winced at the sarcasm, and winced again moments later as Barney combed out Timmy's bangs and snipped them off at the scalp. "Wanted you to have a good view of when I take the rest of this off," said Barney, retrieving the clippers from off the counter and walking back over to the chair. Though he now blocked Opie's view, Opie looked on in the mirror as Barney plunged the comb into the still-untouched locks atop Timmy's crown, shearing them off with quick strokes of the clippers and flicking thick combfuls of hair in all directions. "There we go...," mumbled Barney as he cleared away the last of Timmy's locks, "that's what I call a niiice short haircut."

FLICK!

"Don't have no fancy brush to clean you off," said Barney almost apologetically as he ran a bare hand across Timmy's freshly stubbled crown. To Opie, the brushcut on top was barely distinguishable from the rest of the boy's head, so short had Barney cropped it.

"Now, you're gonna put your clothes back on and walk outta here like nothin else happened, you understand?" ordered Barney as he unlocked the handcuffs and let Timmy pull the towel out of his mouth. "So far as anyone's concerned, this was an official police response to the charge of jaywalking you incurred earlier today. If I ever hear anything else, the loss of all this hair is gonna be the least of your problems."

Opie didn't understand what Barney was talking about, so he contented himself watching Timmy use the towel to brush away the long strands of hair from his legs, chest, and shoulders.

"I'm gonna go check on Floyd," added Barney as he looked disgustedly at the piles of hair that'd fallen from Timmy's lap when the boy stood up. "This mess better be cleaned up when I get back."

Opie waited a few moments after Barney left before emerging from the bathroom doorway.

"Opie! How'd you get in here?" cried Timmy when he saw his friend. His surprise turned to a look of awkward self-consciousness as he glanced down at his still-unbuttoned pants.

"I... I climbed through the trap door in the roof," stammered Opie, embarrassed by his friend's near nakedness. Then, as if anticipating Timmy's next question, he added: "I... I just got here."

Their eyes met, and for an instant Opie was certain his friend knew he was lying.

"Well, I suppose there's not much to see anymore," muttered Timmy, turning his gaze toward the floor where lay the remnants of his once luscious mane. "I... I hope we can still be friends, Opie."

Opie looked back, as surpised as Timmy had been just moments ago. "Of course we're still gonna be friends," he sputtered, "just because you ain't got no hair don't mean anything." Then, as a thought suddenly occured to him, Opie sprinted over to the counter and grabbed the clippers.

"Here!" he cried, lowering his head and pushing the clippers toward Timmy, stretching the cord as far as it would go. "If you're not gonna have any hair, I don't want none either. Go ahead Timmy... shave my head!"

Staring down at Opie's carrot-topped crown, Timmy's first inclination was to take his friend up on the offer. Opie's hair was shorter than his had been, of course, but ever since the two had become friends, Timmy wondered what it'd be like to watch someone shear his little red headed friend bald.

"No... that's okay, Opie" replied Timmy, gently pushing aside the clippers with one hand while reaching out with the other to lift Opie's chin. "I'll tell you what," he said when their eyes met. "You take all my hair home with you, okay? Just find a bag to put it all in and sneak it out of here so no one sees ya. Then, when you get your Paw to let you grow your hair out like mine used to be -- you know, after getting him feelin all bad about what his Deputy done to me -- you and me are gonna sneak back through that trap door one night, and I'm a gonna shave you balder than a Marine recruit." As if to emphasize the point, Timmy placed his hand on Opie's forehead and, spreading his fingers wide, pushed it slowly back the length of Opie's crown.

"It's a deal," replied Opie, excited as much by the thought of owning all Timmy's shorn locks as he was about the plans for his own. "It's a deal."