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We’re an economy outside the mainstream: tables of outdated processed food, goats, chickens, geese, rabbits.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 Bachelorette. 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 hand-breaking 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.
. . .
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