“Any Yohimbe bark?” Marc asked.
“You must respect a man who knows his aphrodisiacs.” She sounded pleased, almost proud.
“It’s the only herbal aphrodisiac listed in the PDR.”
“You are familiar with the Physician’s Desk Reference?” Brenwyn said, not really a question.
Marc was impressed that a so-called witch would be up on her medical texts. “With my family, I always keep one on hand to check the drugs they’re taking. Nothing to worry about. Mostly just anti-psychotics.”
“Oh, I understand.” Brenwyn looked steadily at him. Marc felt that she understood everything about him and Allen, completely.
“Well. I’d better go,” said Marc. He actually would have liked to stay and chat, which was always a good sign he should leave. “Otherwise, Michael and Eleazar will be unsupervised on the streets of Arcanum. And who knows how much damage they can cause?”
Brenwyn leaned towards Marc. “I could tell you.”
“I’m sure you could. Later.”
“Definitely.” Her smile was warm and inviting. Marc again felt that familiar twinge at the base of his skull and he embraced the pain.
Marc slipped out the door and strolled down the sidewalk. Brenwyn followed and stopped at the door.
“Blessed be,” Marc thought he heard her say, in an appreciative tone that made him uncomfortable. There was something else about the whole conversation that bothered him, but he couldn’t isolate it until he was nearly at the park. The witch had said he was looking for “strong backs and weak minds,” the phrase Michael wouldn’t let him use.
Either Brenwyn was possessed of real psychic powers, which Marc considered impossible, or he was the target of some extensive conspiracy. Neither proposition made him very comfortable.
* * * * *
Eleazar sat on a park bench and threw chocolate-covered pretzels to the squirrels. Michael simply sat on the opposite end and twitched. Marc quietly approached the two from behind.
“Isn’t that a bit rich for squirrel food?” he asked.
Michael jumped at the sound behind him. Eleazar remained calm and aloof.
“Of course,” said Eleazar. “Chocolate gives them gas. You ever hear a squirrel belch, milord?”
“See, he tortures small animals, too,” complained Michael.
“Well, any luck this morning?” Marc asked. He decided to sidestep the whole squirrel thing.
“You mean like coming away with our lives? I think I made out all right.” Michael was more nervous than usual.
“A little run-in with the Arcanum Metaphysics Department, milord,” Eleazar explained.
“I just met one of their rising stars. Moderately scary,” Marc said. “We could probably chain him up in one of the dark corners of our maze to frighten the customers.”
“It would work until he chewed off a limb to get free.” Michael muttered.
It seemed that of the three of them, only Eleazar, who thought with his codpiece, wasn’t bothered by Arcanum. Marc resolved he wasn’t going to let a bunch of rank amateurs, even a whole a town full of them, out-prank him. He had a faire to build.
“Any signs of interest, though?” Marc asked.
“I’ve lined up about a dozen serving wenches, but no one with any real muscle,” said Eleazar.
“Humph.” Maybe Brenwyn was right about there being no manual labor pool in Arcanum. Marc started working on plans “B” through “E.”
“I’m hoping no one from the university takes any notice,” said Michael. “I tore down all the fliers in St. Germaine Hall and posted them all the way on the other side of town. I was thinking of burning them, but—”
“Easy, Big Guy. Let it go,” Marc murmured soothingly. “Keep this up and I’ll have to slip you some Risperidine.” Marc still had stocks of sedatives and anti-psychotics from the old days. Maybe they were at half effectiveness, but he could adjust the dosage.
“Sorry, Marc,” said Michael. “Lost my head.”
“Why don’t we go get some lunch?” said Eleazar. His tone was strangely solicitous. “It’s probably just low blood sugar.”
“You’re probably right,” said Michael.
“Besides, a brush with the terrors of the occult could unhinge even the strongest mind,” Eleazar added. He punctuated this with a maniacal laugh.
“Put a sock in it, Eleazar,” Marc said. “I’m buying—over at the Thai-Vegan restaurant.”
Eleazar and Michael stood and started walking across the park with Marc.
“Good. I just met a waitress from there,” said Eleazar.
“And after lunch, we can drive up to Dayton to post some more fliers.”
“Oh, goodie,” said Michael and Eleazar sarcastically. Marc was glad to see that sometimes they could agree on something.
Michael lagged behind and Marc noticed immediately. He wasn’t going to leave a man behind, especially when all day he had felt like a lonely “Y” chromosome in enemy territory. Michael was looking across the park at a pompadoured young man standing beneath a clump of trees. The stranger didn’t seem to be doing anything more dangerous than smoking. He easily fell into the group of those Marc could take in an unfair fight.
“Someone you know?” Marc asked.
“Someone I met earlier,” Michael said. He sounded embarrassed. “We talked a bit.”
“Ahh, cruising the park,” Eleazar crooned. “I’ve heard about you people.”
“Cruising the park?” Michael lashed into him. “You can’t even get me to take a leak in the woods when my bladder is about to explode and you think I would do that?” He grimaced in disgust. “Besides, I think you’re the one with the indecent exposure arrest.”
Eleazar put on an air of innocence. “’Twas a simple misunderstanding. That poor lass in the park had fallen out of her clothes and I was giving her some of mine.”
“Enough, children,” Marc said wearily. “Michael, if you’d like to catch up with your new friend, that’s fine. We’ll meet you at the restaurant. Just look for the big, brick Buddha.”
Marc started off for lunch without waiting for debate. Grabbing the front of Eleazar’s shirt, he dragged him along before the rennie had a chance to taunt. It was late and Marc was getting hungry.
Though it clashed with his red-meat-and-sausage upbringing, he had a secret weakness for Khao Phad Jay. It reminded him of his happy days with Judy Blumfeldt, the vegan. Of course, that was before he had completely destroyed her life just like Allen’s.
Chapter 3
All Done By Elves
AT SUNRISE OF THEIR FIFTH DAY at Camp Arcanum, Eleazar was hard at work, moving as a man on a Quest of Great Import. This would, no doubt, have surprised Michael, who often called Eleazar indolent, self-indulgent, and incompetent. However, it took hours of rehearsal and discipline to make a moment of buffoonery seem effortless and Eleazar counted himself as one of the best. The only thing for it, Eleazar had decided, was to give Michael a definitive demonstration.
Eleazar tore off a piece of duct tape and lovingly adhered the last stereo speaker across the gleaming aluminum skin of the trailer. He pressed out the wrinkles on one side, knowing any sloppiness would offend his audience’s delicate sensibilities.
Shaking his head to throw his long red hair clear of his face, Eleazar stepped back and inspected his work. Six small speakers clung securely to the outside of his good friend’s trailer like limpets. The wire leads connected to a small portable CD player.
Eleazar gently pressed the “play” button and then carefully nudged the volume knob barely above the lowest audible level. The morning movement of “Peer Gynt,” a tune recognizable from any number of cartoon depictions of the dawn, played through the speakers. The entire skin of the Airstream vibrated with the notes like a violin’s sounding board. Eleazar judged the volume inside would be just enough to invade Michael’s dreams without waking him.
The gentle first selection played out, followed by an eight-second silence. Eleazar poised his ha
nd above the machine’s volume controls.
One one-thousand, two one-thousand, he counted silently to himself. Seven one-thousand. He cranked the volume to its maximum and danced away to a position of safety.
A single peal of a church bell rang out at a decibel level equivalent to a jet engine, followed by the thunderous strains of Sousa’s “Liberty Bell.” The metal skin of the trailer flexed to the beat.
There was a girlish shriek of surprise from inside, barely audible over the music. Eleazar crept closer to Michael’s door to catch every moment of the grand event. Several crashes and shouted obscenities followed shortly thereafter.
The trailer door flew open and Michael spilled out onto the wooden porch. Wearing only his pajama bottoms, he screamed bloody murder as he brandished a T-square.
“Eleazar! You simple son of a bitch!” Michael rushed Eleazar, swinging his T-square like an ax. He nearly gave the jongleur a new part in his hair. Eleazar folded double, easily ducking beneath the arc of the swing.
“Didn’t you put in a six a.m. wake-up call?” Eleazar asked disingenuously, as he stood, circled Michael and then danced away.
“I’m going to do humanity a great service,” Michael said as he tried to spin to keep up, “and neuter you!”
Eleazar rolled to one side and took up the walking stick he’d left out for just such a fencing exigency.
“Parry!” With a well-executed braced block, he stopped the T-square in its descent towards his skull. Michael pulled free with a grunt.
“If it’s all the same to you,” said Eleazar as he bounced to his feet, “I would prefer it if you killed me, milord.”
Eleazar performed a moulinet, a windmill-like flourish known in stage combat circles as an “Errol Flynn.” With a sardonic wave, Eleazar settled into en garde position.
“Just give me a minute!” Michael snarled as he rushed Eleazar with T-square held high.
“I see you intend to counter my classic fencing technique with the Screaming Pict with a Stick style,” Eleazar quipped.
Eleazar first sidestepped Michael’s lunge and then swatted him sharply across the buttocks.
“Riposte,” Eleazar exclaimed.
Michael, pushed past the point of witty repartee, bellowed and swung again. Eleazar dodged and danced away and Michael whirled along behind.
“Dodge, parry, riposte,” Eleazar called out as he executed each maneuver.
Their fight, a surreal tribute to the “The Prisoner of Zenda,” twisted across the gravel drive slowly in the direction of the barn.
Eleazar was about to impress Michael with a dazzling lunge-and-jump combination when his legs suddenly flew out from underneath him. He relaxed in the short moment of free fall so that the noise he made as his shoulder blades struck the ground was more one of simple pneumatics than pain. Before he could move he found a size twelve steel-toed work boot planted in the center of his chest. Marc Sindri, dressed like the little black hole of social responsibility he always was, stood inside the boot.
Michael was still flailing around with the T-square and was in serious danger of putting out their employer’s eye. Marc reached out and snatched the end of it with one gloved hand. Michael was panting and still furious. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, release his end of the aluminum and wood cross. Marc gently peeled back Michael’s fingers and pulled the implement out of his hands. Eleazar lay quietly on the ground, as if he spent every morning flat on his back under his boss’ heel. Marc looked down upon him, his dark bulk blocking out the morning sun.
“Glad to see you two up,” Marc said in an insincere sunny tone. “Had any breakfast yet?”
“Broke fast with a muffin and a cup of coffee already,” chirped Eleazar. “Thank you, milord.”
“I was thinking of cutting something off and frying it,” Michael grunted.
“Don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been.” Marc stepped off of Eleazar to take Michael by the shoulders and turn him back towards his trailer. “Now, why don’t you go get dressed and find something healthier for breakfast? You have a long day of making Eleazar regret he was ever born.”
“Thanks,” said Michael. “I’ll hurry.”
Marc put one hand around Eleazar’s throat and lifted. Eleazar sprang to his feet like a jack-in-the box to avoid being strangled.
“And you!” Marc grunted. “I told you we don’t have time for this crap.”
Eleazar shivered and threw up his hands theatrically.
“You’re not going to hit me in the face, are you?” he cried. “I make my living with my face.”
“Since when were you afraid of me?” Marc asked.
“I’m not,” said Eleazar, “but I’ve always wanted to use that line.”
Marc released him gruffly. Eleazar stumbled backwards a few steps before regaining his balance.
“I won’t hit you. But if you don’t do everything Michael says today, I’m sending you back to Alice,” Marc said. “If he decides to harness you up as a pack mule and ride you around the forest, your response will be ‘Hee-haw.’”
At the mention of his spouse’s name, Eleazar felt a dropping sensation in his belly. He and Alice had married early, and, in their years together, she had steadily ascended in the hierarchy of Unfortunate Life Choices from “High Maintenance” to “Castrating Harridan.”
“I’ll call her to make sure she’s waiting at the door with a list of demands,” Marc continued in a tone of sick pleasure. “How long is it until your next engagement? Twelve, Thirteen months?”
“You are a sadistic bastard,” Eleazar hissed. “My compliments.”
Marc smirked like the Devil himself. “That’s why I’m management.”
* * * * *
By the time Marc had fueled and oiled his favorite chainsaw, Michael was dressed and making final preparations of his own. Marc had turned away to hide his face when the artist made his appearance; Michael looked like a color plate from the Banana Republic catalog in crisp, creased khaki shorts and a safari jacket, all the same color as his hair. As far as Marc ever knew, Michael had never spent more than a prolonged lunch break in the Great Outdoors.
Michael leaned over the map of the faire that he spread on the picnic table in the center of the camp. Though he had spent the better part of the last two days poring over sketches and topographics of the property, Michael was still doing some final figure checking with the GPS locator and an engineer’s rule to pinpoint boundaries and vertices. His fingers tapped out quick rhythms on the device and then scrawled pencil coordinates on the map. After several minutes of peevish activity, Michael stowed the instruments in his matching canvas bag, then rolled up the map and stored it in a document tube. With a bob of his head, he picked up his canvas boonie hat and aluminum walking stick.
“Come on. Chop, chop,” Michael shouted tersely. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
Eleazar slogged up to the table, wearing his usual fencer’s shirt, black jeans, and boots. He leaned heavily on his blackthorn club, as he had a water cooler and a lunch cooler strapped onto his back, and a mesh bag full of spray cans hung over either shoulder. Marc couldn't help but smile at the way the morning had turned out.
“Be careful out there,” Marc warned. “Don’t fight, kiddies.”
“I think we’ve come to an understanding,” said Michael. “Don’t drop a tree on yourself. We’ll all be in trouble then.”
“I’ll be careful.”
As Eleazar passed, he gave Marc a pathetic look and a long-suffering sigh, a perfect impersonation of the burros that carried tourists down the Grand Canyon trail.
“Hee-haw, milord,” Eleazar groaned.
Michael watched Eleazar trudge away and then almost jauntily followed him down the trail to disappear into the woods.
Marc listened for a moment, waiting for an argument to break out between the two once they were out of sight. With only the sound of whistling from Michael, Marc assumed his attempts at personnel management were a success. He gathered
up his chainsaw, safety equipment, and a stuffed Barney doll. As he made his way around to the back of the tool barn, he sang the purple dinosaur’s theme as it had been taught to him by his big brother Allen many years ago:
You love me
I sell toys
Make big bucks off girls and boys
With the backpacks, lunchbox, and the videos
I get ten percent of gross.
Marc dropped his equipment at the base of the first tree on his to-do list, a maple with its leaves already turned red for fall.
He picked up the toy animal and paced out the approximate height of the trunk through a clear space. He set it down and trotted back to the tree.
Donning his goggles and hard hat, Marc fired up the chainsaw. Holding up his thumb like an artist sizing up his subject, Marc targeted the purple nuisance. He quickly cut out a wedge in the front of the tree.
“Tree!!”
Marc made the back cut, and the tree fell directly onto the toy. A cloud of red leaves flew everywhere like fire and smoke. The stuffed animal’s tiny purple feet stuck out from under the fallen trunk—a near perfect hit.
Marc exalted in a small sense of victory as he fell to trimming the fallen tree.
I’ve still got the touch.
Exaltation quickly changed to nagging worry as calculated he’d have to repeat this process several thousand times before first snow.
* * * * *
Michael and Eleazar had unloaded their burdens and set up a temporary camp beside a fallen tree. Michael was pleased to see Eleazar collapse in exhaustion on top of the cooler. He was feeling a little footsore himself, but he would rather die than admit it. He slowly unrolled the map and checked it against the GPS.
“Okay, Eleazar. This is going to be the southeast quadrant of the faire. We’re going to partially clear this area, so we need to mark every tree we’re going to keep. Everything under sixty inches in circumference has to go.”
“That’s sixty inches around, right?” Eleazar asked.
“Right,” Michael said curtly.
“And how might I be figuring that out, milord?” Eleazar seemed to be twice as dim as usual today.
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