The Goddamn Sorcerer of Love

The dog seller hawks mangy curs across from me at the flea market. Misty brings me a cherry slushie like she’s a woman who takes care of her man. Don’t think I don’t notice she makes a big show of it for mister dog seller. The son of a bitch wears clean overalls. He’s bigger than everyone else, muscly, and has a braided goatee.

“It looks like a shriveled snake biting his chin,” I say.

Misty says, “I think it makes him look like a Viking.”

I want to soak his goatee in gasoline. I’m thinking fuse. I’m thinking light that sucker and maybe his head explodes. The guy’s a real talker. I’m suspicious, as if he’s stolen something the rest of us need.

We’re an economy outside the mainstream: tables of outdated processed food, goats, chickens, geese, rabbits. Poop-splattered eggs. Cash only. The people, my people: dark whites, scrunched faces, dusty smokers, cancer ridden. POW MIA hats. Guns and ammunition, dying trucks and flashy new motorcycles. Mountain people.

And then there’s this guy. I’m sure he fights dogs. He has a giant one, white, chained to his table. “Half wolf,” he says. It’s a magnificent animal, a dog Jason Velasquez would be in another life.

Jason Velasquez is the greatest male romance cover model of all time. He beats the shit out of Fabio. If I could hold all of the beautiful women that Jason Velasquez has held, I would be a happy man.

I sell used romance books. Historical, contemporary, western, suspense, even erotic. Misty doesn’t read them anymore. She’s into reality TV nowadays. She binge-watches matchmaking shows like The Bache­ lorette. She criticizes connections, as in “they don’t have a connection,” like she’s an expert on connections.

I’ve taken to deer hunting out of season. I don’t even bring my rifle. I just carry novels up my deer stand to sit in the hickories for peace of mind. I don’t enjoy romances anymore, not even the covers. But I take pride in knowing my inventory. I gloss over chitchat and study passion scenes as if they might contain the secret to saving our relationship.

I sit on a camo cushioned chair twenty feet up a pignut with romance books stacked around me and I’m a goddamn sorcerer of love. But lately, it all sounds the same to me, all heavey bosoms and love muscles that move the ground beneath whatever Scottish or ranch people are getting some. My heart isn’t in it now.

I’m hungover and not very talkative. Bored, Misty walks over to the dog seller’s booth. Irked, I follow. The guy smiles. He acts as if he owns the place even though he’s a new vendor. He keeps his eyes focused on me the whole time. Misty cocks her hips and tilts her head. She can’t stand being ignored. She runs her fingers through her hair.

“Beau Prince,” the guy says and shakes my hand like it’s a handbreaking competition.

“Dan,” I say. Prince Beau takes me to his car and jerks out a squat speckled dog with droopy tits from the back seat. “This here’s a blue heeler,” he says. “She killed two coyotes last week.”

I’m like, Right, guy. Whatever you say. “How does she kill them?” I ask, calling him out.

Beau doesn’t blink. “Coyotes hunt in packs. She splits them up and gets them by their throats and rolls them till they’re dead. Two coyotes last week. She’s sweet with people, but when she meets a coyote, it’s a bad day for coyotes.”

I don’t believe half of what the guy says, but the bitch has a scar on her nose. She stands stiff under his command. She is, undeniably, a badass.

“I can’t stand coyotes,” I say. “They run all over my place.”

“Hundred and fifty bucks,” Beau says.

The heeler looks me in the eyes. We want no part of each other.

“Hundred,” Beau says.

Misty kneels beside a puppy cage.

“You better wash your hands touching those things,” I say and pull her back to our booth.

“What’s got under your skin?”

I start packing up my romance books and Misty’s discount healing crystals. Before that it was incense. She’s always looking for something new to sell. She says I don’t have vision, but she just hasn’t found her niche yet.

It takes me a few trips carrying our boxes to the car. I’m flushed and sweaty but calm down. I’m ready to go when Misty walks into the parking lot. She’s carrying the blue heeler. She smashes the dog to her breasts. Its legs stick straight down, funny. The dog has a freaked-out look in its eyes.

“Oh hell no,” I say. “Take that back, now.”

“The hell I will,” she says. She looks hurt. She gets into the front seat and holds the heeler to her chest. The dog smells like bad bologna. I roll down my window and spin gravel out the parking lot. I don’t act like trash unless I’m pissed, and then I can’t help it. Misty rubs the dog’s eyebrows as if it’s got a headache. I feel a migraine coming on myself.

“Pete needs someone to play with,” Misty says as we drive back up the cove to my house. Pete’s my boxer mix, a stocky old boy we both love. Misty treats him like a lapdog. She has an Alabama Roll Tide blanket she keeps folded under the coffee table. She calls it the invitation blanket. When she gets out the invitation blanket, it’s okay for Pete to climb up on the sofa and lie on her.

It’s been a long time since Misty has pulled out the quote unquote invitation blanket for me. There’s a Crimson-Tide-size elephant in our relationship. The bigger it gets, the more impossible it becomes to confront. Like if I said, Hey, I love you, let’s have sex, something straightforward and heartfelt, the elephant would crash down and ruin us.

If I close my eyes, I can make myself go crazy with the thought of her breasts brushing my chest, her hair hanging in my face.

In Caresses of the Cauldron, witches in the Middle Ages slept in nests of stolen penises. I hurt so bad I believe it.

The first time I saw Misty she was eating breakfast at Hardee’s. Thin blonde hair and stone-washed jeans. I drew upon my vast well of romance knowledge. I summoned Jason Velasquez. What would Jason do? I asked. WWJD? I walked up to Misty and asked if I could join her. My coffee burned my tongue. I waited for it to cool down. “You want some hash browns?” I said. “I was thinking maybe you’re still hungry.”

She shook her head.

“How ’bout a refill then?”

“Sure, I guess.”

I jumped up to get it.

“What do you do?” she said when I sat back down.

“Romance.”

She spat out her orange juice. “I didn’t mean to laugh.”

“I sell romance books.”

“Oh.”

“Romances,” I said, “have central love stories and emotionally satisfying endings. That’s what makes them romances.”

Misty sits on one end of the couch with the blue heeler in her lap. I sit on the other, flipping through my romance inventory. Coyotes start yipping behind the house. They come down from the mountain at night and sound like wolves on helium. Pete’s ears perk up, but the blue heeler doesn’t do shit. It lies there on Misty’s lap, and I can’t stand it: Pete, a good boy all these years, playing by the rules, and that blue heeler in her lap without the invitation blanket.

I pick up the blue heeler by the scruff of its neck and stomp outside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Misty says. The dog hangs in the air, eyes rolling back. I drop her in the yard. “Go kill some dang coyotes,” I say, expecting her to waddle back to the door and whine. The yipping kicks up again, and the heeler tears off barking after the coyotes. I’m thinking, Shit. Misty runs into the yard. “Angel!” she shouts.

“Come back!” She didn’t even tell me she’d named the damn thing. “Whoops,” I say. “I didn’t think she’d go after them.”

Misty shoves me in the chest and starts crying. “I didn’t buy the dog to kill coyotes,” she says. “I thought you wanted it.”

I might have finally done it. I shout after the heeler, but the dog’s gone and I go back inside. Misty’s locked the door to our bedroom. I stand there for a while, shrug, and sleep on the couch.

Misty drags herself into the living room in the morning. Her eyes are red, face puffy. “Tell me,” she says. “When does a romance suck?” I mull it over. “When there’s too many raised eyebrows. At the right moment, raising eyebrows tightens tension between the hero and heroine, but if someone raises an eyebrow every time someone says something, the book’s probably not any good.” Misty shakes her head. “You’re unbelievable.”

She doesn’t speak to me all the way to the flea market. We sit in the parking lot. I don’t feel like working and start my car to leave. “No,” Misty says. “We’re going. I’m getting my money back on that blue heeler.”

“No one gives refunds at a flea market,” I say. “The dog’s probably in the next county by now.”

“Don’t you worry,” Misty says.

I set up my table. Misty walks over to Beau. She’s business, all right, none of that flirty stuff she had done when he ignored her. She lets him have it. She screams at him, chews his ass out. Good on her. People stare. Misty looks like she’s about to hit him. Beau stands there taking it, so shocked he can’t do anything but smile. She spits in the dirt and storms back. The white wolf drops its head.

“He’ll return the money,” Misty says.

She sits at our table the rest of the morning, reading a western romance, face flushed as it hasn’t been in a long time. I’m thinking maybe we’ll break through in the love department. Maybe even this afternoon. We won’t even have to drink first.

But Misty drives over to Beau’s house and moves right in with him.

It’s in my best interest to avoid hard liquor. I’m keeping a strict regimen of two 24 oz. Coors per day. I drink them slow at night, driving past Beau’s double-wide on the ridge. Three times I see Misty, once in her bra, and it nearly kills me. There’s a kennel beside his house and a barn in back where cars gather on Wednesday nights. Sometimes I see the white wolf in the yard. I wonder if the white wolf gets the invitation blanket. But I know the answer to that. The invitation blanket is back at my place under the coffee table where Misty left it. I wrap it around my shoulders and stand beside a barrel fire burning romance books page by torn-out page. I catch a whiff of something dead, rotten. It’s been a while since I’ve heard coyotes.

Beau’s clean yard doesn’t fool me. The kennel, mean dogs, gatherings back at the barn. I know a dogfighting ring when I see one. I’m thinking we can challenge the white wolf and win Misty back. I scratch Pete’s jowls. “You can still chomp pretty good, can’t you, boy?” He’s been depressed since Misty left. I pour some beer into his bowl. He slowly laps it up with his big tongue.

I wait for the dogfight to start on Wednesday night. I follow the gravel drive past Beau’s house to his barn. I cut my lights, kill the engine, and coast in beside the trucks and cars. I put Pete on a leash. He rises up on his hind legs and lunges. I hold back my beast, arm straining, chain wrapped around my hand: my book-cover moment.

A howl, a whine, cuts the air. It comes from inside the barn. It’s answered by another howl. They build on each other, a rising chorus. I have a weird urge to join them. The howls aren’t wolf, or even canine. The howls, I realize, are human.

I slide open the door and Pete drags me in. The howling stops. A skinny guy’s doing pull-ups from the rafters. A big woman hip-hop dances without music. There’s a table with pitchers, funnels, a stainless-steel pot on a hot plate, Scope, herbs, and pill bottles. A man with goggles swirls liquid in a beaker. Everyone has Hello My Name Is stickers on their chests. Their eyes are glazed. The man closest to me wears camo pants and a greasy mechanic shirt. His sticker says Marty. Marty keeps slicking back his hair with a comb, over and over again. “We’ve got some samples left,” he says. “Get you some.”

Beau and Misty stand in the middle of the barn beside a chalkboard. His hand rests on her shoulder. She finishes writing something on the board. Her hair’s dyed turquoise and pulled back in a ponytail. Everyone in the room is zonked out, in the zone, doing their own thing. Apparently Misty’s thing is creating a business plan for “Beau’s Superior Nerve Tonic.” Benefits listed include instant relief, goatlike stamina, stimulates spirit animal, and sparks inner awakening. Under “Expansion,” she’s written the names of a half-dozen flea markets.

Pete breaks free. He wags his tail and jumps on Misty. She hugs him and weeps with happiness. He licks her face. “I’ve missed him so much,” she says. It hits me. I’ve just lost my dog.

Beau picks up a silver platter of vials off a crate. “Welcome to our sales-force training,” he says. “Partake with us. Unleash your inner beast and achieve success. It will cure your dark disease.”

He offers me a vial of turquoise liquid. What would Jason Velasquez do, I ask myself. WWJD? But Jason has abandoned me, and finally I must ask, what would Dan do? And Dan doesn’t have an answer. Dan’s never known what to do.

But I hope it will turn out okay, like in Mistress of the Magi. Misty will wake from her spell under the Dark Lord and return to me. What sets me off is her dyed hair. She was perfect the way she was.

Not every hero is a knight. I reach past the vials, grab Beau’s braided goatee, and yank it as hard as I can. He yelps. The silver platter crashes to the ground. Beau charges after me and slams into Marty. The comb flies into the air, and I’m gone, out the door, in my car. Light frames Beau in the barn door. I stomp the gas.

I crack open a Coors on my way home down a winding country road. I’m trying to wrap my head around whatever the hell that was in the barn. I pull up to my driveway and spill my beer. In my headlights is a dead coyote. The carcass wasn’t there on my way out to Beau’s. It’s a fresh kill. A breeze ruffles its coarse hair. Its teeth are bared, gums showing, nose wrinkled in a snarl. I get out, hoping to see bones breaking skin, a snapped back, shattered hip, anything to indicate collision with a vehicle. But what I see confirms what I already know: The coyote’s throat has been ripped out. There’s a trail of blood. Something’s dragged the coyote from the woods.

Beside its body, in a bright red pool of blood, is the paw print of a medium-size dog.

There are tactics for selling merchandise at a flea market. Say good morning and maintain friendly eye contact. Or stare off uninterested, let customers check out your wares with the promise of no pressure, no hard sells here. Anything besides what I’m throwing out: desperation, bad nerves. I’ve forgotten to take a shower again. My hair’s greasy. I’m not exactly the poster boy for selling romance. Waking up to the smell of rotten coyotes will do that to you.

Maybe it’s time for a run to the liquor store.

I’m packing my books when I see Beau and Misty walking down the center of the market. They’re wearing white space suits, or maybe hazmat suits. I can’t tell. I duck behind a trailer. Part of me is desperate for her, like in Pleasures of the Master when Lady Giselle chains Lord Marcus to the bed and he is driven mad from not making love to her, but another part of me wonders, if Misty’s changed, am I still in love with who she’s become?

Beau carries the turquoise vials on the silver platter. Misty carries a small cooler. She cracks it open every so often. Cold smoke pours out like from liquid nitrogen. Curious, some guy asks what they’re selling. Just when he does, another man appears. He limps with a cane. I recognize him in his camo pants and mechanic shirt, his hair slicked back: Marty from the barn. Marty hands Beau cash for a vial. He drinks it and walks off, straighter, his limp improved. Hucksters! The other man, the target, reaches for his wallet to buy a vial. Two more customers walk up, and a crowd begins to form.

“Come here,” I tell an old man selling geese. “Do me a favor. Go buy me a vial of that liquid.”

The old man squints. “What’s in it for me?”

I shove two ten-dollar bills in his hand. “Buy one for yourself too.”

“Deal,” the man says.

He returns with the vials. I pocket mine, and the old man shoots his. He coughs.

“Tasty,” he says and licks his lips.

Pulling into my driveway, I see another dead coyote in my yard. Its legs are gnawed, ankles stripped to bone. I’m tempted to drink the turquoise liquid, but I put it in the fridge, slam a six-pack instead, and crawl into bed. The sun’s working its way down over the ridge when I finally get up. My head aches with a slow dull pounding.

The odor of coyote carcasses creeps into my house, through cracks in windows and under doors. It settles in the carpet, in my bed. I’m thinking, Enough of this shit.

I get my rifle case from the closet. I pull out my bolt-action Savage .30–06 with a Bushmaster scope. I’m like McGregor unsheathing the necromancer’s sword in Seduction of the Scots. I open my dresser drawer. The flea market is an ammunition lover’s paradise. I survey my options. Wolf Military Classic brass bullets in gray steel casing. Cold to the touch. Winchester Ballistic Silvertips, Hornady Superformance Varmints, Remington Hog Hammers.

A high-powered .30–06 bullet enters clean, pierces with such force it splinters bone, savages soft tissue, and blows a crater exiting the body. All .30–06 bullets kill. Some say Fuck you when they’re doing it. Like the G2 Research RIP Out Trident, prototypes I paid top dollar for, not even on the market yet. RIP stands for Radically Invasive Projectile. The unique tip of the RIP Out Trident has eight separate brass spears that bloom on impact, shredding vital organs: the world’s deadliest bullet. I load a RIP Out Trident in the chamber, slot two more in the magazine, and pocket the rest. I pull a stocking cap over my head and tie on my Wolverine boots.

Moonlit clouds sweep the sky. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and start up the cove, toward the mountain. I enter the woods. Briars snag my overalls in the thick undergrowth. The forest opens into a stand of cedars. The slope steepens. I stumble up rock debris. Occasionally, I turn on my flashlight and sweep the woods for signs or tracks. I walk up the mountain, deeper into the woods. A breeze brings the scent of dead coyotes. It’s like the entire valley’s turned rotten.

I’m sweaty, thirsty. I should have brought water. Backup batteries.

“Come here, girl!” I shout. My voice echoes from the mountain.

“I have something for you! A treat!”

The cove narrows. Cliffs funnel into a thicket; nowhere to go but push into the briars. Thorns rip my overalls. I’m stuck in briars past my waist. I can’t see the ground. All about me is a sea of leaves, silver in the moonlight, as if I’m standing in a lake. A breeze stirs. Leaves wash against me like a wave. I try to free myself and unsling my rifle. Thorns snag the shoulder strap. The barrel’s tangled in the briars.

The heeler growls.

I spin around. Leaves crest, the blue heeler charging through the undergrowth. She rushes past and nips my leg. I struggle to rip my rifle free. She barks, a missile screaming through the thicket’s tunnels, and bites my other leg. Blood runs down my shins. She’s going to take me down. Or worse, eat me alive. I sweep the thicket with my flashlight, but I can’t see below the leaves.

I hear her circling the edge. She turns toward me. My rifle’s stuck, but desperate, I fire off a shot, and my rifle kicks back, loose now. The heeler stops. I work the bolt action, eject the empty shell, and fire another shot in her direction. I have no chance of hitting what I can’t even see, but the shot buys me time. I lunge, charging back the way I came. I tear through briars. Free, I shoulder my rifle and turn to face the thicket.

“Come for me now,” I say. But all is quiet and I’m alone again.

My legs throb. I struggle back home. I lock the dead bolt and fall onto the couch, exhausted.

I wake up cradling a loaded rifle. I’m caked with dirt and crusted blood. I fill a few boxes of junk from my house—old clothes, cans of beans, rusted tools—and take them to the market. Nobody’s interested. But I’m done selling romance.

Misty and Beau have taken their cure-all gig to another part of the flea circuit. They’re a traveling operation now.

I miss Pete.

I haven’t showered in a long time. I need a haircut. Maybe I’ll do some push-ups and get in shape. But nothing will really change unless I confront the beast.

The coyote population has dwindled.

The heeler is hungry.

At home, I open the refrigerator. The vial of turquoise liquid glows on the top shelf. I twist off the cap and drink. It’s fire and ice, alcohol for sure, but that’s only the base. A chemical aftertaste follows the minty burn.

The sun sets over the ridge. I enter the woods, this time without my rifle. I smell the sweet decay of leaves. Moss squishes beneath my boots. A breeze tickles my skin. I walk through shadows. I reach the thicket, drop to my knees, and crawl. I slide through tunnels beneath the leaves. A thorn snags my clothes, and I emerge shirtless on the far side. I climb over rocks and launch myself up boulders. I’m moving fast, surefooted like I’ve never been.

I climb to a limestone outcrop above the valley. I strip off my boots and jeans and walk out onto the point. Clouds wash across the sky. Moonlight flows over the valley. I step to the edge and take a deep breath. I fill my chest, suck the valley into my lungs, and yip. I empty everything inside me until there’s nothing left to empty. I’m feeling the turquoise liquid good now and yip some more. Everything, every branch and twig, every stone beneath me, from the closest ridge out as far as I can see, is mine. My land is my own.

I’m panting when I finish, naked. Now the heeler knows, this is my territory. Coyotes welcome.

I’ve started organizing romance inventory again. Someone asked me once why I sell used books, why I don’t sell new ones. For one thing, it’s a flea market. But there’s more to it. A used romance is special because someone enjoyed it enough to read it. Here’s an insider tip: Don’t just look at the cover. They’ll seduce you. Examine the spine. What you’re looking for are vertical creases, wrinkles that run the entire width. This will tell you if someone has read the whole book. If they have, you might just be holding something worth reading yourself.

I’m reading a romance on my couch when something scratches at the door, the blue heeler. I knew it wasn’t over between us. I let her in. She shakes herself in the living room. Her ribs are showing. She stares at me and tilts her head, hungry. I get the invitation blanket from under the coffee table. She raises an eyebrow at me. I spread the invitation blanket on the couch. She watches me from the corner of her eyes and climbs up. She growls and lifts her lip. There’s a shred of rancid coyote meat stuck in her teeth. She curls beside me as if to sleep. I go back to reading my book. It’s a hell of a romance and sucks me right in. Druid’s Curse: Conquest of the Vikings. Get your hands on a copy if you can. To the horror of the Celtic men, a sorcerer places a curse on druid maidens, which makes them go wild for surprised but willing Viking marauders. The antihero, a young monk, must race upriver to his home village to warn the love of his youth, a beautiful maiden, before it’s too late and her purity is forever tarnished. I’m completely absorbed, just at the point where we find out whether or not the antihero casts aside his monastic vows to claim the love of his life, when I lunge for the blue heeler. When two forces like us meet, sometimes it comes down to who makes the first move. I pin her on her back. She squirms and kicks. She nips and tries to bite me. Her chest heaves. Her coarse hair runs beneath my fingers, until, finally, she’s still. She drops her eyes from my gaze. She recognizes her alpha. I scratch the baddest bitch in the county’s tummy. Her tongue falls out of her mouth, and she grins and wags her tail as I pick her up and hold her in my arms.

I’m selling romance books at my booth again. God, it feels good splashing around the hot sauce, spicing things up. Hope springs in my chest. And what is hope but the first green tendrils of love?

The girl peddling knives is the best-looking woman at the flea market by a country mile. She’s the only one I’d want to see on a romance cover. She wears tight jeans and black T-shirts. I buy her a pint of boiled peanuts. Boiled peanuts beat the shit out of roses. You find me something more sensual than a boiled peanut. Splitting open that soft shell, searching for a delicate bean that gushes in your mouth. That salty taste that leaves you thirsty, wanting more.

Read more from Issue 16.1.