When I first met Tommy Two-Head he was tied to a tree in the desert, left to die by some bikers. The story goes, the leader of the biker gang, Bumperjack Joe, is one mean cat. You do not want to cross this hombre. I mean, if there are two things you never do in life, one of them’s got to be you do not mess with Bumperjack. Word is he earned that name in a bar fight in Modesto. He wandered into some backstreet dive, the kind of place you only go in if you don’t care if you come back out. He was on a three day drunk, looking and smellin’ like an easy mark to a couple of gypsy drifters. When Joe got hustled at pool he stormed out of the bar and returned with a bumper jack he took from the gypsy’s own truck. You could tell by the look on his face that those gypsies were through, which they were.

     Now there’s a couple of things you never see Bumperjack without, one’s that bumper jack. He’s got that thing all shined up and sparkling, hanging off the side of his bike. The other thing he never leaves behind is the love of his life, Molly the Midget. You wouldn’t think a midget girl would be the object of a man’s obsession and desire, but Molly ain’t no normal midget. There’s something other-worldly about her. She’s got powers. She has a magnetic aura and eyes you can’t look away from. When she catches your gaze it’s like a thousand volts charging through your veins. You get lightheaded and dizzy, as if you’re floating, hypnotized with desire. Molly’s what you would call, almost too beautiful. Sort of a cross between Cristina Ricci, Carmen Electra and a baby leopard. They say no man can resist her. I never wanted to find out, Two-Head wasn’t so cautious.

     Bumperjack Joe had Molly dancing in a strip bar in Bakersfield. Oh, he surely kept a close watch on her alright. Molly brought in more tips by dancing up there behind the cash register than all the other dancers combined. Once she casts that spell on you, it’s over.

     They say that’s because her mama, a fortune teller with a traveling carnival named Apollonia Stefanelli, taught her as a very young girl not only the ways of a woman, but also all the varied ways to warp a man’s mind. Rumor has it that Apollonia’s husband, a trapeze artist, was caught cheating with the snake charmer girl. They both came up missing as the carnival moved west from El Paso. Molly’s mama locked herself up in the trailer for two days, cutting and chopping and boiling up some witches’ brew in a big black cauldron. Finally, she emerged with a dazed look on her face. She began selling a foul smelling love potion out of the fortune teller’s tent. It’s said to be made out of flying snake’s skins and the blood and bones of jackals.

     She saved the most potent of the potion for Molly. Every night she’d rub it all over Molly’s head and arms and feet. She mixed it in her food and poured it in her bathwater. She’d recite the tales of the fortune tellers through the ages and tutored Molly repeatedly on the ways of love and all forms of witchcraft and casting spells. This was done from the time Molly was a baby, and even though she was so tiny and seemingly vulnerable, one look in those fathomless dark eyes and anyone knew within there was a fearsome passion and power.

     Bumperjack took one look at Molly and he was ensnared. He more or less kidnapped her from the carnival and they’ve been together ever since. Happy as clams, like two peas in a pod. Well, till Two-Head showed up.

     Tommy was passing through Bakersfield and by chance or misfortune wandered into Molly’s bar. Like every other sap who’d ever walked unsuspectingly into the web, he was immediately smitten with Molly. He spent all day and all his money watching her dance and trying to lure her from behind the cash register, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Bumperjack had one eye glued to Molly and other on Two-Head. Now after a while Bumperjack figures out that ole Two-Head wasn’t really much of a threat. The guy’s all of a hundred-twenty pounds, scrawny as a chicken bone, ain’t got no teeth you can see and has this sickly pale complexion. Tom could be out in the sun all summer and not come in with a tan, it just didn’t take. Plus, you can hardly understand a word he says, he mumbles badly. So Joe got tired watching Two-Head all day and relaxed. He even let Molly go sit with Tom. Heck, let her take this loser for all he’s got.

     So, Molly the Midget and Tommy Two-Head are sitting at the end of the bar. Tom’s all goo-goo eyed and sort of drooling. Molly’s leaning away with a look of disgust on her pretty face, just waiting for the evening crowd to come in, checking her watch every five seconds. Out of shear boredom Molly asks, ”So, Tommy Two-Head, why they call you that?” Well, Tom ain’t got too much of nothing going on that he’s proud of, but what he does have, what gave him his name, he confides to Molly. Even a carney freak like Molly was impressed with that, or curious. So much so, that she arranged for Tommy to meet her on her break, in the ladies’ room.

     When Bumperjack Joe got suspicious because Molly’s taking so long on break and he noticed that Tom was missing, he checked on her in the bathroom. Even Joe had to do a double take when he discovered Molly propped up on her side on the sink counter. Bumperjack had seen a lot of things in his life, a lot of strange, bizarre, weird things...But this, this was just twisted.

     That’s how Tommy Two-Head wound up tied to a tree in the desert, more than a mile from the nearest paved road. Bumperjack would’ve surely killed him right off if it weren’t for Molly’s protests. He’d have died anyway from exposure or thirst or buzzards, coyotes or snakes...if I hadn’t have happened along when I did. Now what I was doing out there, that’s another story altogether.