Jenna’s dad was a magician who ran with packs of wild gods. Sure, they started as dogs, these gods, but two decades of running with a real practicing magician can do a few things for a canine. You rise a few pegs when you cast a few biscuit offerings to the Grand Canine Forces that drive the dog world ’round.

And so Jenna would pack up in the trailer, a 1989 Winnebago with no distinguishable marks or discernible qualities, to avoid unwanted attention, and they would roll out on the highway, going from town to town to town, the real practicing magician and his pack of wild gods.

Jenna sat on the pump at the gas station, thirteen years old, pushing on the bubble of adolescence.

“Daddy, “she said, drinking a Monster through a straw, “When do I get a boyfriend?”

“Don’t drink guarana drinks through a straw,” he said and dropped another twenty dollars into the tank. Mr. Buster, dog god of thunder, lightning, rain and wet fur, watched through the back window.

Jenna slurped at her straw anyway. “I want a boyfriend who can fly, wears long green pants, and plays electric guitar with no amplifier so only ghosts can hear him.”

“Some day,” said her father, “But tonight we have to play at the Kiwanis Club of Desert Pines.” It was The Great Zarkanis and his magical dogs. He’d even trained the dogs to cut him in half. “Then we will run with the gods by moonlight across the desert, far away from the Best Buy and the Home Depot and the Jack-in-the-Box.”

“I want a boyfriend who can make hamburgers in his mind,” she said, and threw the can away, imagining green pants running across the desert of their own volition, empty legs and an invisible torso bounding toward the horizon.