It mostly started at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon, and if that was a mite too early to be pouring George Dickel into his gullet and George Jones into his ears, well, hell, it was five o’clock somewhere, right? Even better, it was 11:11 somewhere else, and Johnny Ghost had survived enough second hand collisions to know that linear time wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, particularly when it was 104 degrees in Tarzana and even the Better Angels had skipped town for a long weekend. Setting the empty glass upside down on the bar in front of him, he stifled the urge to howl like a banshee and instead focused his wayward gaze on the Dark Lady behind the bar.
She was everything a man could want in a woman- a mysterious, cat-like face straight off the quarter panel of Tut's sarcophagus; thick warm black hair that smelled like the tailpipe of a turbo charged Jasmine 420 in a late spring rain; margarita glass titties that danced like a mountain girl after that second shot of sweet corn liquor; a back as long straight and smooth as the drag strip in heaven; strong firm inviting thighs that would wrap around a man like he was the last Harley out of hell; and tiny twitching tempting toes painted like a full bag of Skittles brand peyote©.
“Hey, good lookin, whatcha got cookin?” Originality wasn’t necessarily Johnny Ghost’s conversational strong suit, but he’d found that in a pinch, any country music lyric could be made situationally appropriate. The Dark Lady, busy skewering olives with toothpicks like voodoo heads of boyfriends past and future, looked him up, down and sideways, judging Johnny Ghost at somewhere near the molecular level. One elegant eyebrow slid slightly higher, one side of her lazy smile quirked a nudge north.
“I have a human heart on the hibachi in the back. Would that interest you?” Her russet eyes sparkled with something east of anticipation. Bar traffic was slow in these, the last days, and the Dark Lady wasn’t opposed to an existential roll in the hay with the occasional lazy eyed cowboy. Johnny Ghost sniffed the air, panhandling for that whiff of roasting sweetbreads to confirm her creative culinary choice.
“That would depend wholly on who the previous owner of said heart was.” Johnny Ghost grinned; his crooked teeth picket fencing charm like there was no tomorrow. “And how the poor, stupid bastard died.”
The Dark Lady of the Sun casually flipped his glass to the upright and locked position and drooled another dollop of Dickel down the side. “Who said you were dead Cowpoke? You look in the pink to me.”
Johnny Ghost guffawed, realizing the joke was on him. He tossed back the bourbon and placed his hand on his chest. “I pledge allegiance…” His voice trailed off as the realization sunk in- there was no beat beneath his bruised breast. On the verge of some seriously well deserved panic, Johnny Ghost focused back in on the Dark Lady’s suddenly challenging stare.
“You pledge allegiance to what? The list is awfully short lately.”
Johnny Ghost stood, the knuckles of his toes white in his boots, the hair on the back of his neck reaching for the sky. “Where is my heart? My achey-breaky heart?!”
The Dark Lady dimpled, did a pirouette and crooked a facile finger at Johnny Ghost’s getting paler by the second visage. “Right back here, Johnny Ghost. Join me and see what all the fuss is about.”
When the Dark Lady summoned him behind her bar, Johnny Ghost was wary of that voice slipping conspiratorially from those pearly pink lips. Earth girls don't speak like a snort of rock candy Tabasco straight from Bristol UK, and they sure as shootin' don't promise hayseeds with empty pockets a round-trip ticket to the Sun. Nevertheless, fueled by equal parts lust, fear and Dickel, Johnny leapt before he looked, and there waiting for him was the open trap door and no Dark Lady to be seen.
Note to Johnny Ghost – when slip sliding head first through a kink in space-time like Pete Rose on a four-day Meth bender, observe all posted caution signs, particularly those that advise the use of a helmet. He winced as detritus of the Big Bang lodged in his skull at warp six, displacing half his medulla oblongata and the recipe for Mama’s Christmas Chex mix. That was gonna leave a mark. Ahead, posed like Ishtar on the half-shell, the Dark Lady beckoned him, her charms playing peek-a-boo with his senses, her need broadcasting boldly on bandwidth Johnny Ghost didn’t know he was equipped to receive.
Settling his Luccheses on whatever passes for the floor of the infinite, Johnny Ghost found his bearings and prepared for the quick draw. Cuter than a day-old hound pup the Dark Lady may be, but nobody takes a California Cowboy’s heart for BBQ without express written consent, and this hombre hadn’t signed a piece since divorce number four hit the charts. “I didn’t buy no one way ticket on your tornado, Bonita. Draw your brakes or takes your chances!”
The threat only made Johnny Ghost’s stratospheric sylph wiggle, giggle and jiggle, a sight that led inevitably to a pistol more equipped for rootin and tooting than shootin. With a blink of her third eye, the Dark Lady was in the cowboy’s arms, her sweet pheromone cloud sending spiderweb cracks through what was left of an already creaky cranium. “You still don’t remember me, Johnny Ghost? Your first kiss. Kindergarten, out by the tetherball pole.”
Well slap him upside the head and call him Suzie. Johnny Ghost wandered widdershins into the picture in picture flashback of a sky-blue Fresno afternoon. There, clear as Crisco in the frying pan, a pint-sized Pardner planted one on the longing lips of a bucktoothed girl wearing Strawberry Shortcake sneakers. The Dark Lady was “Mindy Lou Looper?”
“You took my innocence, Johnny Ghost, and rode off into the sunset. Now I want it back.” Mindy Lou’s eyes flashed like a paparazzi tidal wave and her tongue snaked out to sand the first layer of skin right off his lower lip. “Your ventricle for my virtue. Sounds like an even swap to me, don’t it Cowboy?”
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