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says, ‘You better watch it, missies,’ which gives me an emery-board chill that isn’t exactly unpleasant.
    We move forward in line silently. Pooh turns to me now and then and mimics a lizard’s face in various sordid sex acts; the ‘choking on a pork bone’ face, the ‘sat on lickin’ butt’ face, and the ever-popular ‘drunk trucker penis in the ear’ face. That one makes me laugh out loud when I recognize it. I turn my face down expecting to be chastised, but I hear Pooh say JesusFuckShitFuck, and other lizards around us murmuring the same in reverent tones so I look up and I see the glowing aura of the Jackalope from inside the bar not six feet in front of us and I say it too, ‘JesusFuckShitFuck.’
    Pooh steps inside the stone entrance and I nearly smash my face following her.
    I’ve heard it said many bars have tried to copy Holy Jack’s by mounting up and doing dramatic lighting on a Jackalope. But just ’cause a bug squashed on a windshield looks like the Virgin Mary don’t mean it’s gonna be turnin’ no bitters into brandy.
    I’ve heard it said the barkeep at Holy Jack’s had done some school way up North and he was just applying the crafty trickery you can’t help but acquire being up North, but I saw no hidden spotlights hanging from the pine rafters. No hot-air vents or red coils either. Besides the candles all the lizards light and burn at its base, I saw nothing preternatural to account for the unearthly glow and intense heat radiating down on us from the Holy Jackalope. It’s so bright that those wearing shades don’t even notice to take them off.
    Mine and Pooh’s mouths hang as we make our way into the small side room, past the lizards sobbing, filing out through to the bar.
    I’ve heard it said too that women have brought their husbands that won’t quit drinking their hairspray and nail-polish remover. Mommas have brought their strip-mine babies born with arms growing out of their heads like rabbit ear antennas. Grandparents have brought their grandchildren blinded from masturbating. Not one of them was ever cured.
    It’s been said that it was Highway Patrol that hit and killed this Jackalope and a pack of renegade lot lizards held the wild run-over beast in their arms, cradling its bleeding head next to their exposed bosoms, warming its paws under their skirts and in their privates, and sucking on its once tiny antlers with their painted mouths. And when the Jackalope passed, the lizards not only had the first real orgasms of their lives, but they suddenly were transformed into the most desired lot lizards at any truck stop ever. How that run-over Jackalope made its way here is of great mystery, but its charm for down-and-out trucker hoes spread to every lot lizard the world over.
    I have to shield my eyes against its glow, but slowly I take it in. Caught in mid lead it lunges out, all four and a half feet of it. Steel brackets support it and bolt it to the wall. Every down-and-out pimp has made an attempt to steal this Jackalope. That’s why a true-life Pinkerton guard sits off to the side, scowling.
    The Jackalope has the most beatific smile on its face, and clouded eyes the color of wasabi. Its lush silver-brown fur looks so forgiving and noble, every lizard in the room cannot help but reach out to it sumptuously.
    But what everyone is astounded by, including the cast and crew from the national TV news show that filmed here and is well documented by framed autographed photos which the Pinkerton also must guard, are the antlers. Apparently they keep growing. I’ve heard it said the roof has had to be raised five times just to accommodate the miracle. I can even make out the phosphorescent buds of new antler.
    The smoky sanctified air combines with various evaporated alcohols laced with moonshine’s embalming fluids and causes actual storm clouds to form around the uppermost antlers. So as Pooh and I are glugging our mouths like fish do, it suddenly starts to rain pure