But Goldwin seemed very happy with the fish dip. On their last date, he took her to a fancy restaurant in St. Louis. He had memorized dozens of the “Did you know?” sections from The Jackson and Pisgah Herald. Why were there so many who knew nothing about how to converse, how to listen, how to tell the simplest of stories, to remember and reflect? How was it that so many, born sensitive and intelligent, turned into Calibans, becoming increasingly eccentric and isolated? After his “Did you knows?” ran dry, things became awkward until she mentioned Fifty-Three. On the subject of his own hunting hounds, he came to life, telling wonderful and hilarious stories, impressing her with his arcane knowledge of breeding, training, and canine physiology. When the check came, he paid with all the crumpled small bills from his barber business. It made her feel almost tearful, the way he cleared his throat and frowned as he counted out the notes, as if this were important, though slightly unpleasant, male business he was sorry she had to witness. When they got back into town, he asked if she wanted to see his hounds. Agreeing, she experienced him in his medium. Those hounds were his body, his senses, his history and mythology. Firm but benevolent, he was the apotheosis of anus and olfaction, the true north of all those whining, whipping bodies. (Her cruel snake uncoiling.) Needing to use his bathroom, she entered his little cabin: stacks of The Jackson and Pisgah Herald funnies; socks drying over the footboard of his bed; piles of pennies and bottle caps; two enormous freezers, filled, no doubt, with butchered meat; and a bathroom so unimaginably filthy it was as if she had walked straight into his bowels. But it was a life no less singular and contracted than her own, which set off that old and echoing shudder in the place of her emptiness. When he dropped her off, he got out of his truck. She knew he would try to kiss her now, this shy man. Before he even shut his door behind him, she broke it off, said she was done with relationships, a hopeless case, and apologized. As she watched his taillights recede on the blacktop, she felt deeply for him; things might have worked fine if he had always been driving away.

That night she had dreamed he was butchering her with an almost crazed intensity and tenderness, conducting her out of her skin before an audience of hounds.