The Ghost of City Tavern

By Vicki Smart Penhall

Jenna Glynn and her crew are setting up to film an episode of a new documentary series, which she hopes will compete with the Biography Channel’s “Celebrity Ghost Stories.” The venue for this night is the City Tavern in downtown Dallas. The building was once owned, and is now haunted by Jack Ruby, the mobster who murdered JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
She discovers the disgustingly drunken Gash Peavy passed out in the restroom after the bar closes. He is a burned-out 90’s rock star, famous for his power ballads, who is now attempting a comeback in the Texas Music scene. He and Jenna inadvertently become entangled in a ghostly encounter that includes both channeling and violent telekenesis, and which has them both in fear for their lives and their sanity.
This paranormal experience forges a reluctant partnership between Jenna and Gash, and each makes plans to ruthlessly use the other in their voracious quest for fame and fortune. The Ghost of City Tavern is a fact-based fictional story of a present-day haunting, which is told in a setting of the historical events surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penhall Publishing
• Release date: Aug 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983633730

Vicki Smart Penhall

Vicki Smart Penhall is a truly engaging and readable author of short fiction novels. As a performing artist, she is an actor, comedian, director and a Texas singer/songwriter. She hails from Houston; was mostly educated at Texas Tech University, and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Texas A&M University. As an educator, she has taught high school and college writing and theater, and regularly serves as an adjudicator for UIL academic and theater competitions.

Book preview

The Ghost of

City Tavern

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Vicki Smart Penhall

The Ghost of City Tavern

Penhall Publishing

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Vicki Smart Penhall

Edited by Lindsay Penhall Haley

Contact: Cathy Wiggs Harper - [e-mail]

City Tavern Logo and photo courtesy of City Tavern Dallas; special thanks to Josh Florence.

Other photographs are public domain.

ISBN 978-0-9836337-3-0

1. Fiction - General

2. Fiction - Suspense

This book is also available in print edition at several independent bookstores and online

retailers, and at the author's website. Discover other titles by Vicki Smart Penhall at

vickismartpenhall.com

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This story is dedicated to the memory of

musician, sound engineer, and brother

Ryan Ace McNeely.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Epilogue

About the Author

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Preface

The question of whether JFK was killed by a lone-gunman or whether Lee Harvey Oswald was a Mafia hit is not determined in this book. Those facts are still being analyzed and debated by experts and amateur enthusiasts. Many questions still remain.

This story is fiction and speculation based on real paranormal events that have been recorded and passed down from former employees, management, and patrons of City Tavern in Dallas, Texas.

Located on Main Street in the throbbing heart of downtown Dallas, the City Tavern has long been a celebrated restaurant and nightclub music venue that attracts a young, lively crowd. Many fine musicians have launched successful careers from lazy Sunday brunch jams on the stage of the Tavern’s upstairs bar. The club generates high energy, even on slow days.

Fan loyalty for the musical guests of City Tavern is legendary, especially those whose lives have been tragically cut short. The atmosphere of remembrance generated in the building may account for the undeniable paranormal events that occur within.

Many of the ghostly activities are identified as long-established behaviors of the late Jack Ruby – his well-known love of fried pickles, for example. Since the installation of computerized orders, the kitchen staff has reported a dozen or more consecutive orders for fried pickles with no corresponding customer. Ruby has earned the nickname, Pickles.

In addition, Ruby is credited with popping the tops off bottles behind the bar and smashing pictures to the ground that have been bolted to the walls. Those events are grounded in fact. The story, however, is fiction and was fun to write. As much fun as the City Tavern itself.

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Chapter One

…And believe me, I am the last person to be objective about ghosts and supernatural events. Heck, I even believe that angels and UFO’s are the same things. I listen to George Noory regularly. I accept that appearances of ghosts only happen once in a lifetime to some people, that most people never see ghosts, and that a few very sensitive people see ghosts way too often.

Nevertheless, just because I have never actually seen a ghost and I am personally invested in trying to see one, doesn’t mean that ghosts do not exist or that other people cannot see them. The personal accounts of the staff here at this establishment bear witness of a strong presence, and these incidents are documented and even witnessed by others. What I mean is, all you skeptics and doubters, try to have an open mind as I conduct an experiment with the notoriously active haunting at the City Tavern in Downtown Dallas, Texas, by the playful spirit of none other than Jack Ruby.

Cut.

Jenna Glynn stopped smiling into the camera and stretched her long arms over her head. The statuesque thirty-year-old redhead put her distinctive glasses back on and turned to her crew.

Thanks for enlarging the teleprompter. I can see it now without my glasses.

You’re welcome, but I like the glasses. Your call.