Rules for Werewolves (8 page)

—Why’d you lie to everybody, baby?

—So I could tell you the truth.

—I don’t like the difference you’re making between me and them.

—You think I’m using you.

—I know you’re using me. I just don’t know what you’re using me for, exactly.

—I want the truth to be something we have just between the two of us.

—I don’t think the truth works that way.

—I want them all to think that cop is my friend.

—But he’s not.

—No one’s gonna find out.

—They’ll find out eventually.

—Only if you tell.

—No. They’ll find out no matter what. The truth wants to be found out.

—The truth doesn’t want anything. It’s a description we give to words. Like, “that sounds sad.” “That sounds angry.” “That sounds truthful.”

—We have different points of view on this one.

—What’s your point of view?

—I think sadness, anger, and especially truth—I think they represent the spirit of the event or the person the words describe. I’m sad you’re
separating me out from everybody else by lying to ’em. They’re gonna hear that sadness every time I keep your secret.

—You want me to lie to you, too?

—I want you to separate me out by doing something nice for me. Pick me some fucking flowers. Steal me a necklace or something. Don’t just take me aside and whisper to me. Don’t just play bullshit games with traded shirts so everybody knows I let you fuck me.

—Everybody knows ’cause you’re shouting.

—That’s just the spirit of the truth trying to make itself heard.

—What was the name of that street we just passed?

—I dunno. But that dog likes you. Every time you talk he looks up at you.

—I like him, too.

—What are you gonna name him?

—I’m not gonna name him anything. I think it’s disrespectful.

—How is giving a dog a name disrespectful?

—I don’t want to talk about the dog. I want us to pay attention to the route we’re taking.

—We’re going west.

—No. You have to pay more specific attention to the little details, the address numbers, the style of mailboxes they prefer, the flowers they’re trying to grow in the gardens.

—The little corners of the curtains getting peeled back to watch a pack of crusty freaks walk by.

—Where?

—The little blue house over there with the gnome by the front door.

—Oh, did you see her drop the corner when I looked? That’s good. The little details you notice are bread crumbs you can use to find your way back home.

—I don’t want to get home.

—I mean to find me, to find the rest of us.

—Why should we be separated?

—It happens sometimes.

—Not for long.

—You weren’t there when Malcolm was smashing up my game.

—That game belonged to everybody. Now none of us can play it. So that’s something Malcolm did to all of us.

—But you weren’t there. So it’s something Malcolm did to me.

—I’ll stick with you.

—Anquille is sticking with me, too.

—Then where is he now? I don’t see him.

—He’s trying to stay close to Malcolm. He’s trying to hear what Malcolm hears and what he says. That’s how Anquille is sticking close to me. It doesn’t have to be physical.

—What do you want me to do?

—I want you to pay attention to the route we’re taking.

—All right.

—I think we’re going the wrong way.

—What do you mean?

—These houses are getting fancier and fancier.

—We’re moving up in the world. That’s how it works.

—I don’t want to move into a fancy neighborhood.

—Why not? Nicer neighborhood means nicer house. Nicer vide games. Nicer couches for you to sleep on. Nicer pantries for me. Nicer towels.

—We stick out in this neighborhood.

—So.

—I hate that feeling. All the neighbors looking at us through their blinds. If we walk into a store in this neighborhood everybody’s going to think we’re shoplifters.

—We
are
shoplifters.

—We only shoplift when we have to sometimes.

—Sometimes counts.

—Of course it counts. Everything counts. But it also counts when people look at you like you don’t deserve to be here.

—We don’t deserve to be here.

—What about civil rights?

—What about ’em?

—Civil rights had to be passed because everybody didn’t think everybody had the right to be in the voting booth.

—So you think there needs to be a “nice neighborhood” civil rights movement?

—I think there is. I think we’re part of it. But I think Malcolm is leading us in the wrong direction.

—I don’t think he should’ve broken our game. I think he’s trying to make it up to us, to get us a new one, a better one.

—Look at this neighborhood.

—I like it.

—Is this the kind of neighborhood you come from?

—Fuck off.

—These people are gonna notice us more. Notice us until someone decides to do something about it. And “doing something about it,” in this kind of neighborhood, means calling someone else to do something about it. Calling the cops. You already found one nosy neighbor spying on us walking. Spying on us when we’re not doing nothing. Just walking home. For all that nosy neighbor knows we just got off work.

—We
all
just got off work at the same time?

—Have you been in a supermarket recently? It takes a hundred people to run a supermarket. Probably more. There’s probably a bunch of people running the supermarket that you never see. It probably takes as many as there are of us just to watch the security cameras and wrestle the shoplifters to the linoleum.

—We should all apply for security jobs. We’d be good at security.

—Why couldn’t twenty or so people who work at a fancy supermarket go in together on a house that’s actually in the same neighborhood as the supermarket? If half of us worked the day shift and half of us worked the night shift it could work out pretty handy.

—I don’t think they’re gonna sign a mortgage over to a bunch of checkout girls and bag boys.

—That’s my point! That’s my point! We need to be around the bag boys and checkout girls and the security people. We don’t need to be hanging
out with the people who reject mortgage applications and turn down health insurance requests and deny our civil rights.

—What do you think Malcolm is up to?

—He’s leading us into battle to cement his shaky leadership. But what he should be doing is taking us somewhere where we can get some more recruits.

—How are we going to recruit people?

—You were recruited. So was I.

—Recruited for what? What’s the cause?

—It doesn’t have words yet.

—We’re just getting by.

—That’s the center of it. The civil rights to not be looked down on just because of the way we live off the land.

—We don’t live off the land.

—We do.

—We break into houses and we steal canned goods.

—Listen, if they cut down all the forests and poisoned all the streams and put up a bunch of ridiculous super-supermarkets—then I don’t think it’s right to arrest us for living off the land they gave us. People didn’t shoplift in the Wild West.

—That’s because you would get shot.

—It’s because on the way from your house to the store you passed trees with fruits in them and fields with corn and woods with little rabbits and streams with trout.

—You make it sound like a supermarket, too.

—Food used to not come from stores. It used to be something that was around. So if they filled up the land with bullshit they can’t say I’m bullshit for saying I live off the land when I help myself to what I find.

—I don’t know what the fuck you’re even saying. You don’t know. So how am I supposed to recruit people?

—Do you want to be close to me or far, far away?

—I want to be close to you.

—Then pay attention to the route we’re taking.

—I am.

—And look for recruits.

—You just said these aren’t our sort of people.

—If we can’t recruit the people then pay attention to the trees. We can recruit bushes to hide behind. We can recruit rocks to throw. Anything we can use when they try to come get us. Look over there.

—It’s a back porch. What?

—The barbecue grill has a propane tank we can recruit.

—How much farther do we have to walk?

—It’s bracing. The night air will wake you up. I feel more and more alive the later it gets. Fuck!

—I feel like shit.

—Are you sleepy?

—I’m drunk.

—So you’re not really gonna go meet that guy later tonight?

—Do you think we should?

—We
didn’t tell him we would, Susan—
you
did.

—You were there.

—Yeah, I was standing right there beside you, wondering what the fuck you were doing.

—He wouldn’t let us go unless we promised.

—No one can make you do anything, Susan. No one tells you when you can leave a party. Or what you have to promise. Not if you’re the sort of person who sticks to her word. That kind of person has willpower and nobody can ever manipulate her.

—Are you saying I don’t keep my word?

—I’m saying Malcolm expects you to break it. He thinks if he tells us to stay inside that we have to. But you already told someone else you
were going back out. You have to decide what sort of werewolf you’re gonna be.

—What do you mean?

—Malcolm’s not your boss.

—Neither are you.

—I don’t care either way.

—You’re trying to get me to cross Malcolm so that he’ll look stupid. That’s not cool.

—He doesn’t need my help.

—Then why are you bothering me about it?

—You got me involved. When I asked Craig if you could borrow his watch so you could be there on time, I didn’t know you were lying.

—You didn’t borrow anything.

—It’s only stolen if you don’t keep your word. That means
you’re
the thief. Not me.

—I’m not a thief.

—There’s no bad karma from stealing food or anything you need to survive. The universe understands necessity. But if you steal things by lying or by stealing someone’s affection—that can bring you a serious curse. You’ll see.

—Will you go with me?

—You’re gonna go meet him?

—Tell me what you think I should do.

—I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, Susan. I’m gonna wait until we get to this new house, then I’m gonna see how far it is and how safe it is, and wait until we get settled, and see what kind of bed I’m gonna be able to curl up in, and how late it is. Then, no matter what, I’m gonna make myself get up and go meet him, because I fucking said I would.

—I didn’t take you for being a “man of your word” kind of girl.

—Doing what you say is the only kind of magic I know. It’s the only real magic. If I say I’m gonna transform into a werewolf, then I have to do it. Otherwise it’s just a fairy tale.

—Say you’ll help me. Give me your word on that.

—I’ll make sure that Craig gets his watch back.

—Cool. Thank you.

—You can just give it to me. If you’re too drunk or tired then just give me the watch and I’ll take it to Craig if you don’t wanna go with me.

—I didn’t say I don’t wanna go with you.

—All right. We’ll see.

—It’s a two-story house.

—Three stories. There’s a basement with a badass stereo system. The speakers are like four feet tall.

—And there must be five bedrooms upstairs.

—Did you see the clothes in the girl’s room?

—The
pink
girl’s room or the
baby blue
girl’s room?

—I’ve never been in a house that has three stories before.

—There’s
two
girl’s rooms?

—And they both have cool clothes.

—Food in the kitchen. Food in the basement. And there’s even a mini-fridge in the master bath.

—Who needs to eat while they shit?

—I’m gonna pawn everything brass in this house.

—The paintings are even cool.

—I think there’s two girls. I think one of them must be off at college. And I think there’s a young boy. Then I think there’s a mom and dad. Or mom and stepdad. Or stepmom and dad. Or whatever. And then I think there’s just an empty room for visiting dignitaries or whatever. It has a big fucking African mask on the wall.

—Did you see the stereo room, baby?

—Is it CDs? Or LPs?

—It’s fucking
reel-to-reel—
and the shelves are lined with bootlegs.

—What kind of bootlegs?

—Everything. Old-fogy shit like folk music and Dylan. But there’s also a lot of punk shit, old punk shit, Clash shows and Dicks.

—It’s like a fucking library. Alphabetized. And there’s a bunch of little portable reel-to-reel recorders. too.

—But there’s no CD player?

—There’s one in the living room but down in the basement it’s only reel-to-reel.

—Fuck me.

—No, that’s awesome, baby. It’s special. Like French.

—And there’s like a hoarder’s stash of food and flashlights and blankets and shit down there.

—Thank you Y2K scare. Thank you bird-flu panic. Thank you stockmarket crash. Whatever fucked-up thing turned these consumers into hoarders, I get down on my knees and thank you.

—Get up and let’s go check it out.

—It’s those silver blankets. And canned food and first-aid kits.

—They must be survivalists.

—I claim all the canned beef stew as dog food for the dog!

—What’s the dog’s name?

—You have to ask him. If he tells you, let me know.

—Did anybody see any backpacks?

—I dunno.

—In the girl’s room.

—Who gives a fuck?