Rules for Werewolves (11 page)

—I wish I didn’t care so much what other people think of me.

—Why do you care what other people think of you?

—Fuck if I know.

—I wish I could be more organized.

—That’s a funny thing for a homeless person to say.

—Huh, I guess we are homeless. Technically.

—We’re more than
technically
homeless. If the cops come we have to run. If the people who own this house come home, we have to run. If a big fight breaks out among us, the whole thing is over.

—That’s why Malcolm wants us to pack a bag.

—What do we have to fight about?

—When we run, there are some of us who are gonna run right home.

—And some of us who are gonna get run right into the ground.

—I started packing my bag already.

—I thought we were going to do it all together tomorrow?

—I didn’t want all the good stuff to be gone.

—That’s what we’ll end up fighting about.

—This place has too much good stuff to fight over.

—That logic’s not borne out by history.

—Let me see your bag.

—Here, honey, do your best.

—Jesus, you
do
need to get more organized. It’s all string and tape and shit.

—I know. But I can imagine my bag being perfect. A couple cans of beans. A can opener. A change of clothes rolled up tight. A book. A roll of toilet paper. My toothpaste and toothbrush in the center of the toilet paper tube. And the whole thing wrapped up in a trash bag.

—I can organize this for you.

—What good would that do?!

—I thought that’s what you wanted?

—I don’t lack the physical ability to organize my bag. I lack something else.

—That’s right. For almost everything that’s right. I mean, I can imagine being stronger. I can imagine being calm when I talk to the cops, but—

—I wish I was a natural leader. I wish I could just say, we’re gonna take off for the woods and find a farmhouse and live off the land, and you guys would follow me.

—I wish I could fuck all night.

—I wish I could stop snoring.

—I wish could lose about forty pounds.

—I wish I didn’t get so sulky. I wish I didn’t sulk so much.

—I wish I could tell jokes. And remember jokes.

—I can’t remember jokes, either.

—I wish I wasn’t scared.

—I wish that when I saw something I wanted—I wish I would take it and I would do it with so much … intention … that no one would try to stop me, whether I was taking it from one of you, or in the Speedy Stop, or taking a gun right out of a policeman’s hand. A stronger intention. That’s what I wish for.

—Wait ’til you change. You’re gonna love the change.

—You’ve changed already?

—Before you came.

—What’s it like?

—Everything everybody is wishing for seems available. It’s right there. What Tanya said, about physically being able to organize her bag, but something
else
is missing … That other thing isn’t missing anymore.
You have the mental power to do with your body what you can think with your head.

—I wish I would change.

—Me, too.

—Me, too.

—You will. You will.

—What are you doing in here?

—Don’t talk to me. Don’t fucking look at me. You’re supposed to be talking to Susan.

—Susan, what do you think Angel is doing in here?

—Is she asleep? Is that why you’re whispering so soft?

—Angel wants to know if you’re asleep. Are you asleep?

—Wouldn’t you love it if that’s all there was to this? Your friends grab you and throw you in a room, bring you food and water, talk to you day and night, take care of you, and all you have to do is sleep for three days. We could start a business where all we do is kidnap people and give them a three-day break from the crushing pressure of their shitty lives.

—Sleep as much as you want, Susan. I’ll be here. I’ll keep watch over you.

—You don’t “keep watch.” You can’t see her. There’s a door in between you and her.

—It’s a turn of phrase.

—Say it into my tape recorder. I’m collecting turns of phrase.

—Stop it.

—Don’t talk to me. Talk to Susan.

—Susan, Angel is standing here like a … I dunno … like a roving reporter. She’s got a little black tape recorder, from like the seventies. It’s the size of a loaf of bread sort of squished flat. Like a little black loaf of bread. And there’s a little handheld mic attached to it by a long black cord and she’s pointing it at me. And you can see the reels spinning so you know it’s on.

—Tell her what I look like.

—Mascara. And glitterly makeup. And a too-tight T-shirt—it looks like a Powderpuff Girls shirt.

—They’re called the
Power
puff Girls, not the
Powder
puff Girls. That’s the whole point.

—It’s looks like she got into the little girl’s stuff—that’s what she’s wearing on top. But she’s wearing the same tight jeans she always wears. And it looks like she found a pair of combat boots.

—From the wife’s closet.

—They look used—they’re really good sand-colored combat boots.

—I’m wearing the three ages of femininity. Girls on top. The wife on my feet. And me in the middle. I can’t wait to show you the house, Susan. You haven’t even been able to enjoy it yet.

—In just a couple more days, we’ll open up the door and you’ll come out and we’ll make everyone else give us a tour of everything that’s great about this house.

—You’re gonna love it. There’s a collection of tapes in the basement. It’s all live bootleg concerts. Music seems to be somebody’s thing in this house. Right now I’m recording over Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the Rolling Thunder Revue from 1975.

—Stop it. That’s a part of history.

—It’s old history. We’re making new history.

—Does anybody else know what you’re doing? Does Malcolm know you’re recording over shit?

—I dunno. I think almost everybody’s asleep. They wrote all night. Did you read it all yet?

—I read everything y’all wrote tonight. It goes pretty fast. I’ve got some of the old pages Malcolm gave me from some of the earlier changes. But I was gonna save that for the middle of the night. I thought I would just talk for a while. How about that, Susan? I’ll just talk to you for a while and then
later, if I get tired, I’ll have something new to entertain the two of us. And then we’ll just do reruns until everybody wakes up to write some more.

—Tell Susan how I look.

—We already did that, Angel. Are you still drunk?

—You told her what I was wearing. But you didn’t tell her whether or not you liked it.

—Angel’s feeling goofy or something, Susan. She’s goofing around.

—But I got nobody to goof around with.

—I can’t goof around. I gotta watch Susan.

—Well, let’s read the old pages. Let’s get them onto tape so they can be preserved! I got out the tape recorder because I wanna record Susan’s entire change. I wanna update our records from paper to something more modern. What time is it?

—I don’t know.

—Ask Susan what time it is. She has the watch.

—What time is it, Susan?

—These pages are ancient. The paper’s yellow. It’s weird, isn’t it, to imagine older werewolves? Who do you think is the oldest now?

—Anquille. Or you.

—It’s not me. I’m eighteen.

—Me, too.

—I know you’re not eighteen.

—How would you know?

—Susan told me. She told me the two of you hooked up.

—So?

—You think she’s jealous? Listening to us out here? While she’s all tied up in there?

—There’s no reason to be jealous, Susan.

—We could give her a reason to be jealous.

—I’m supposed to keep watch.

—We could do whatever we want and then when she comes out we could just tell her we were joking and she would never know the truth.

—I’m not gonna try to make Susan jealous.

—Well, what about you? You jealous that she was gonna go out to meet some guy tonight?

—She’s not going out.

—She might.

—She’s tied up in the closet.

—You don’t know that. You can’t see her.

—I don’t need to. I know. My attention is focused on her.

—But you’re getting tired and once you fall asleep you can’t control what your attention gets focused on. You fall asleep, you might start dreaming about me.

—I’m not gonna fall asleep. I’m Susan’s reader.

—Fine. Then read something to her.

—This is the story of Doug. Doug was the first one of us to change. Not the first change ever, but the first change in our group. This was back when we all camped out behind that bar on Navasota called Nasty’s.

—That’s in San Antonio.

—How do you know?

—I know where famous bars are. I make it my business to know. I’m gonna write a book someday about getting thrown out of all of ’em. Wouldn’t you buy that shit? A history of the circumstances under which I get thrown out of all the most famous bars in the world. The White Horse in New York. Heinold’s in Oakland. Harry’s New York Bar is in Paris. And Nasty’s is in San Antonio. It’s not famous. But I think I’ve been kicked out of it.

—Did you know Doug?

—No, I think that was back before I was a part of the group. When I had a separate life.

—“The guys at Nasty’s knew we were camped out back there. The cops knew. It’s different now with the cops. I mean, this is before we were breaking into houses. The cops would come back and visit us, but not really chase us.”

—I don’t know which is worse, getting chased by the cops or getting “visited.”

—“We kept a little campfire fire going back there. And everybody had a little area. If it rained we would put up a tarp, but if you built a permanent shelter—of any kind—if you propped up a corrugated aluminum sheet of metal as a wall and sloped a tarp down from it to make a triangle, the cops would come along during the day while we were away and tear it down.”

—What do we do with Susan if the cops come?

—You’re safe, Susan. The cops won’t come.

—Did Malcolm say anything about that what if?

—Susan, if the cops come we have a plan about what to do with you.

—No, we don’t.

—I’m just trying to tell her good stuff.

—But it’s not true.

—It is true. If the cops come I’ll make it true.

—You’re in love.

—Shut up and listen. “Doug was having a rough night. We
all
drank a lot. Especially in the winter, ’cause, as you know, it does get cold down here in winter. And we were sitting around the fire and Doug just all of a sudden got really mean and started hitting people.”

—Sounds like Malcolm.

—You think Malcolm wrote this?

—I mean, this guy Doug turning mean and hitting people. That sounds like Malcolm.

—Yeah, but who do you think wrote this?

—Could be Malcolm, I guess.

—’Cause it sounds way nicer than Malcolm. Kind of sad.

—You mean nostalgic.

—Maybe.

—Keep going.

—“Doug was going crazy. He was falling into the fire and hitting people.”

—That’s what Susan would be doing if we let her go.

—Susan wouldn’t hit anybody.

—Wanna bet?

—Everybody’s different.

—But the change is the same.

—Let me finish. You keep saying “keep going” and then you interrupt.

—Fine.

—“Doug was the sweetest guy in the world and even, usually, a sweet drunk. But once he started changing, he was swinging a log from the fire, flaming on one end, and he hit this woman named Val—”

—See? Doug was sweet like Susan.

—Shut up.

—Go on.

—“And then Malcolm just became Malcolm.” So it’s not written by him. It’s by somebody about him.

—It could be propaganda. He writes it from some other point of view about how badass he is and then gives it to you as a historical artifact.

—Maybe.

—Go on.

—See?!

—I won’t say another word.

—“He started telling us to get one of the ropes we used to put up the tarps and he lured Doug away from the fire. He tackled him and we tied him up and Malcolm started talking to him.”

—What was that sound? Did you hear that? Oh, sorry. Go on.

—“And in the firelight you could see Doug’s teeth grow longer, all of them, not just like fangs, but like his mouth was growing out like a snout. And he bit Malcolm more than once, so there was blood. And Doug’s eyes were crazy. I mean, we didn’t know what was happening back then, but you could tell Doug wasn’t human. Not when he was changing. And his hair thickened up. Like every hair follicle on his body doubled in size.”

—I bet it itches.

—“Doug was shaking and struggling. And Malcolm was straddled over him, sort of riding him, keeping him away from the fire. And he was asking him over and over again, stuff like ‘What are you fighting against?’ And ‘What are you afraid of?’ And ‘What’s the most important thing in the world to you?’ And we were all so scared we started answering Malcolm’s questions—for Doug—to Doug.”

—All right. Is that it?

—It says: “He changed back after three days, but he was so burned, and that got infected. He wouldn’t let us take him to the hospital. He just wanted to stay drunk for his last few days and have us tell him about the change and imagine what he could have done with all that power.” That’s it.

—All right. Let’s rewind it and see what we sound like.

—Malcolm, baby, wake up.

—I’m awake.

—Bobert’s gone.

—Where?

—I don’t know.

—What do you mean, he’s gone?

—I’m telling you straight—I woke up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I went down to the kitchen, and they have fresh fruit. So I decided to make Susan a snack.