My surname is an anglicized version of Cú-chrada, which is Gaelic for Hound of Destruction.
Although I grew up in the sticks of West Tennessee, not the hills of Ireland, I took being kin to the Hound seriously. As a boy, I called out to stray dogs. I paid attention to lunar phases and sometimes screamed at the sky. I played with havoc, nearly burning down my childhood home with a Zippo lighter. Throttling with testosterone, I groped and loitered. I fist-fought teenagers in ditches. My bedroom became a sanctuary. I preferred loud amplification on the stereo. Luckily, my brain developed alongside my hormones, and my passions took a turn for studies.
As a budding scholar, I expanded my interests into mythology and ancient lineages. I left my hometown for kingdoms abroad. I surveyed historic battlefields in countries not my own. I researched war cries. I took my research for what it was worth, every bit.
It became harder and harder to make a living with a thesis on destruction. With a couple of publications, I went as far as I could go in academia. I pursued a real job instead, a career in corporate communications, something I regret to this day. Even as a hobby, my research began to slack. I knew nothing of imitative and contagious forms of magic, nothing of transvection and lycanthropy, nothing of hellebore, nothing of unguents, nothing of purgation to transcendence.
I had completely lost touch with the Hound of Destruction until I found it once again. I just had to meet Lolly first.
Let’s get this out of the way: I met Lolly on the app.
The app worked for me. I considered myself a 7 out of 10. I was bald but well-groomed. I wore nice frames and a gentleman’s mustache. Back in those playboy days, I moved the conversation through text, and then on the actual date, I charmed the match with my country accent. I asked a lot of questions. Dating was never too hard.
I had a type—tall and awkward with a defined face. I couldn’t date anything else. Lolly checkmarked all of my needs, down to her green eyes and gap between her front teeth. Through the app, we swapped messages back and forth. I learned she was a part-time florist and preschool teacher. She enjoyed books and jaunts to the countryside.
During our chat, we came to the conclusion that we were both lefties. How cute, how neat. I knew of a low-key spot with intimate booths. I typed into the app’s text box: Drinks at Left-Hand Path?
It was a match! Lolly and James, what a pair.
In Lolly’s photos, her hair was either tied in a ponytail or flowing down like a dirty waterfall. I appreciated those looks. Now her hair was cut in half and rested near her ears, rounded and symmetric, like a shaggy halo. I still told Lolly her stylist did a great job.
We found a tight booth inside Left-Hand Path. Although located in a grimy part of the city, it was a cozy bar with a gabled ceiling and low lighting. I ordered the first round and jumped right into the date. I asked about Lolly’s role as a preschool teacher. She told stories of children who needed coddling and children who were naughty. I asked about her other job as a florist, and she showed me photos of well-arranged bouquets on her phone.
We covered obvious ground. I mentioned my career in corporate communications. I talked about the South. I spoke of my hometown, Lexson, a crossroads hamlet snug between Nashville and Memphis. I told her that I was a bit of both worlds, country and rock 'n' roll.
She laughed, twisted her hair, and sometimes adjusted her clothing. She was originally from Massachusetts, an only child raised in a Boston townhouse with summers on Cape Cod, a real WASP nest. Her father was an engineer for a petrol company. Her mother stayed at home. Lolly spent her youth riding horses, vacationing, and reading copious amounts of literature. She came to New York for college with research interests in esoteric herbology. She often considered obtaining a graduate degree.
Lolly wanted to know what my family was like.
I cranked up my accent and said our upbringings were nothing alike. My family is just good country people. We don’t know a thing about summers on Cape Cod. That’s for dang sure.
She covered her mouth and laughed again. We ordered another. She wanted a gin and tonic this go-around. It came to the part of the date where she asked for my last name. Usually when a woman did this, it was a good sign. She’d look me up online afterward and find what she found.
I gave her the answer she was looking for.
She said I had a cool last name, but I looked nothing like a crow at all.
I told her it’s Crow with an E. It originated from Cú-chrada, the Hound of Destruction.
The detail startled her. She didn’t know what else to say. She gazed into me with her green eyes. I held on to the little staring contest. Her irises reminded me of wet moldavite. I might not know how to forage wild herbs, but I instinctively knew that when eyes came together with no threat found, that gaze became desire.
Lolly blinked first inside the Left-Hand Path.
Since I was a descendant of the ancient war-hound, Lolly made it clear that she must learn how to properly pronounce Cú-chrada. What a delight to give her instruction. What a delight to hear her incant my surname, moving her lips to my origin: Koo-Crow-dah.
Lolly’s last name is of French provenance that I refuse to print here. It is an infernal maiden name. It is a hostile act. However, I will give you a clue. With a single letter added to an anagram, her last name appropriately spells Venom. Take that for what it’s worth, and beware of Lolly!
Actually, Lolly never betrayed me. She never complained or nagged. As far as I know, she never gossiped or told my secrets. I was never cucked. No blunt horns protrude from my skull. Her devotion was sincere.
I often rode the train uptown to her place on West 74th. She lived in an apartment far nicer than mine. If she wanted, she could fit a piano in the parlor and still have room to dance. Her ceiling was tall enough for a seven-foot money tree. She made her place a jungle, every corner stuffed with monsteras, spider plants, pothos, little cacti, et cetera. One wall dedicated to rare books. She played a vinyl copy of Hounds of Love on a quality sound system.
I wondered how a part-time florist and preschool teacher could afford such a place.
Lolly gave a mischievous laugh. She wore patinated silver rings and moved her fingers through the air as if casting a spell. She finally said a family trust paid the rent. That was the trick. Another lucky dweller in the big city.
Lolly was one revelation after another. She distilled her own rosewater. She spritzed her face with it and sometimes spritzed mine. She watered her plants while talking to me about big ideas. In her research, she came to the conclusion that Mother Earth was the only monad worth considering. She said Mother Earth’s name was actually Sophia. Mankind abducted Sophia long ago, cut off her hair, and left her body on the side of the highway. Lolly believed that trees transferred energies into our biofield, that certain plants expelled melancholic bile from our organs, that fungi helped with both clairvoyance and empathy.
Lolly also believed human consciousness was a flying chariot.
I asked what she meant by a flying chariot.
She laughed and disappeared into her lair. She returned with a broomstick between her legs, skipping around the parlor.
I told her she was being silly.
She said nothing more about a flying chariot and affectionately addressed me as Mr. Cú-chrada instead.
Before bed, Lolly sometimes asked me to tell her a story about the Hound of Destruction.
I told her to imagine an ancient battlefield where a tribe of Cú-chrada ran into some strange Britons. Now imagine being a Brit and hearing the tribe of Cú-chrada crying for destruction. From afar, the echoes would probably sound like they were repeating Crowe, Crowe, Crowe.
Lolly often thought out loud. She wanted an orange cat. She wanted to treat the animal like a relative. She also wished for a crystal ball made of lapis lazuli. She told me the object must be forged in Persia. Maybe she’d receive one as a wedding gift someday. I always felt hot under the collar when she mentioned marriage. We future-faked trips to Massachusetts and Tennessee. Lolly wanted to show me all the Luciferian houses and witch graves in Salem. I wanted to introduce her to my hometown with its endless soybean fields and territories ruled by methamphetamine. But I didn’t stick around long enough to visit Salem, and I never introduced Lolly to Tennessee. As far as I know, she never received a crystal ball made of lapis lazuli either.
However, I did bear witness to Lolly adopting a tabby cat from her neighborhood shelter. She named the cat Lizbet. Lizbet could be a sweet baby, maybe a little rambunctious. Sometimes Lizbet chirped lovingly at me. Sometimes she hissed.
Lolly said Lizbet sensed the hound in me.
The cat always came around, eventually giving me some purrs and weaving herself between my legs.
It was a fine three months between Lolly and me. Our season was filled with romps, goofiness, the Left-Hand Path, tabby cat snuggles, white-and-orange warmth, steak and fish, lit candles, salt circles, soundbaths, reiki, et cetera. I often returned to my apartment with books by lesbian-herbalist Billie Potts and theosophist Annie Besant. Lolly instructed me to read them because mankind depended on it. I went along with it all because she entertained me. I went along with it because I wanted to get laid. I went along with it until she gave me an evening I’ll never forget, and I never want to see Lolly again after all that happened.
We sat on her couch. I found myself only a few inches away from complete devotion. Lolly’s hair had grown out to her shoulders. I told her that I preferred her with longer hair because it accentuated her form. I tried to bring her close, but she pulled away.
She brought up the Hound of Destruction once again. She asked if I ever thought about giving the Hound a little pat on the head, a little stroke on its hairy ears. Did I ever wonder what it looked like? Did I believe the Hound could be tamed?
No, I didn’t think about such things anymore. I preferred to think about a soft woman who smelled nice. Not old dogs.
Lolly said that was boring. She thought about the Hound all the time. She believed it to be a mean-looking alpha with ham-sized jaws, copper-colored hair, eyes blacker than holes in the dirt. The Hound gorged itself on the spoils of battle. It lapped pools of blood and feasted on dying stars. She believed we could make the Hound of Destruction appear if we really wanted to.
I asked what she was going on about.
Lolly disappeared into her bathroom. She rummaged through the medicine cabinet. She returned with a tiny jar and uncapped it. The contents seemed to be a scentless jelly, a flesh-colored balm.
Lolly called it an unguent, a word I’d never heard in all my life. She concocted it by herself. She dipped her thumb into it. She told me to keep still so I didn’t get any in my eyes. She then proceeded to rub the unguent into the middle of my brow. She rubbed it on my throat, over my chest and waistline. She even rubbed some around my ankles.
I asked if she was going to apply it to her own skin. She said she didn’t need any.
Then I began the purge.
With time and reflection, I’ve come to believe the ingredients of the unguent contained lard rendered from children.
I sprawled myself across her cold floor. My skin buzzed with each medicated point, not painfully but a cool sensation, like contact with menthol. I became conscious of each node, each point. Electricity tuned itself to my heartbeat. Under the influence of Lolly’s unguent, I started to gag, and white fluids frothed from my mouth. I soon found myself in a catatonic state. My brain strobed between white heat and black maws, emptiness and form, everything and nothing. I accepted this personal void and took a magical flight from my body. I went into the beyond, man. The galaxy became a simple ligature. Like an acrobat, I swung between constellations. I juggled orbs. I juggled aeons. I scried into god-sized suns. I came face-to-face with deities in jeweled capes wielding swords made of meteorite. I revealed the ouroboros I wore as a silver bracelet. The deities uncrossed their swords and allowed me to pass into the portal. There, I found my lineage. It waited for me, hair aflame.
The Hound of Destruction smelled like boiling metals. Its mouth dripped with star-soaked silicon. To complete the process, I was to be devoured by the Hound. What an honor to pass through its throat, to move past its jowls. What an honor to rest inside its intestines. What an honor to await expulsion, to be baptized as vomit.
This experience with the Hound taught me that I was worthy of love before I tore everything apart, that I was worthy of love before I gnawed on the bone, worthy of love before I bared my teeth and decided to sic ’em, before I hiked my leg on the hydrant of the world and let my piss taint the water supply. Like all beasts, I carried the same instincts for food and warmth. For survival, I would lick the hand that feeds. If starving, I would try to kill.
I lacerated the universe with an abscissa and journeyed back to Mother Earth.
When I came to, my head rested in Lolly’s lap. I could barely move my limbs, the taste of bile still in my throat. She tried comforting me and patted my brow with a rag. She spoke to me like a pet. There, there, old fella. This would be the last intimacy. Things were never the same again. The discontent must’ve shown itself on my face like a muzzle.
She wasn't completely bald. A few strands draped across her scalp like a dustweb on an old potato. Any remaining hairs only pointed across her chin, nipples, and groin. Her ears stuck out like bulbous ornaments. Her pears sagged. Her peach wilted with bites and sores. Lizbet the tabby cat slinked across the crone’s mangy shoulders.
Lolly still managed to grin at me, showing me all those gaps of emptiness, and in a sincere but rotten breath, she even whispered: Koo-Crow-Dah.
Then and there, the moon turned. Yes, I howled.
-- Garrett Crowe was born and raised in Tennessee. His stories have appeared widely in print and online. He currently lives in New York City.
