Pink Gold, Black Heart

Brilliant blue spandex shorts covered long sun-seasoned thighs to a space four inches above her knees. Her loose cotton top was wind flattened against a pair of free spirited breasts. Lightning flickered down from the storm clouds above, illuminating the grounds and woods in front of me in one- quarter second increments.  The two- foot long tresses of her angel hair flowed in rhythm to the serious cadence of thundering drum rolls. Her body and face were poised to flight, but frozen still by the deadly strobes all around her, a confused fawn caught in the path of onrushing headlights.

The lightning paused for a second before resuming its quest for freedom from dark, containing clouds. I removed the binoculars from my eyes and slowly placed them on the small maple table to the right of my body from where I sat on the tin covered porch. The apparition was gone, and I questioned the fact of its existence and of my sanity as well.

I was high in the mountains of West Virginia, far removed from the hustle of my native Florida. The cabin I was in had belonged to none other than a recently deceased aunt, Mary Ashford, queen of Scots, as I had called her and would now belong to me, assuming that no other nephew showed to make a claim, of course.

I felt the chill in the night air around me and recalled some of the locals remarking about a blackberry winter. It was late June, one day past the summer solstice, the day the sun stands still, and the beginning of summer is marked, and I had no earthly idea what the hell a blackberry winter was, and I had no earthly idea what the hell a blue spandexed angel was doing roaming deep woods in the middle of the night, and I had no earthly idea what the hell I could do about it anyways, but I knew that I would do my damnedest to do something, after all every good soldier knows where his duty lies, and I was a good soldier, wasn’t I?

So it was that I turned the volume knob on the am radio tuned to KDKA, Pittsburgh, down to nothing, then with a slight twist turned it completely off. With a half-groan, half-sigh, I whistled for the dogs.

There were two dogs, Cato and Robin. I never really liked either one of them. The bark of each, at most times, seemed so nervous, so incessant, and so high-pitched in the range of their vocals. Their disposition was to please or displease, it didn’t matter which, as long as they received a daily ration of attention.

They were Mary Ashford’s dogs, that is, they were Mary Ashford’s dogs, until she died, and then they were my dogs. Somehow I had always assumed that when Mary Ashford died, the dogs would die with her, pining away as some are prone to do after a loved one, and after all, who would want to live with a half-dead spirit such as myself? But no, there they were, sitting at the foot of the bed at first light of day, as though I, a trained to rise and meet the day soldier, had less a sense of time than they, and just to be sure, they would check to see if I were properly awake.

Robin and Cato were the names given the duo by Mary Ashford, neither of which had anything to do with birds, ladies’ apparel shops, or old love affairs, but both of which had everything to do with crime stopping crusaders of the Saturday morning cartoon set.

“Almost any astute person with minimal powers of observation,” Mary Ashford had said, “Can see that Cato would be a fitting substitute for the real Cato, if he were a person. Look at the color of his coat. Perfect. And the cunning look in his sharp, brown eyes.”

“Yes, Mary Ashford,” I had agreed, “Cato is a perfect Cato.”

Then there was the snobbish, upper crust Robin, with a black mask around his eyes, and his affected pose with the little doggie sweater that hung around his neck in a cape-like manner.

In terms of dog personality, or any kind of personality for that matter, Cato was a little weird. Robin was just as bad, if not worse. Together they were a formidable pair, the former a proud Pomeranian, the latter a toy terrier. Their favorite con was to wait until I was engrossed in the preparation of a meal, any meal. They would then choose that moment of time to bark ferociously at the front door. There never was anyone at the front door, of course, but the deception never failed to fool me, and for that accomplishment the pair always expected a reward.  Scolding words of wrath seemed to please the two co-conspirators as well as any word of praise.