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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack First compilation book will be available soon on Amazon. My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| Everyone could feel the fight brewing. This wasn't going to be a simple neighborly spat. The kind where we come in, say a mean comment, and leave before the cake is sliced and everyone talks shit about each other behind our backs. No. This fight was brewing up to be a knock down, drag out Christmas Eve fight. The kind of fight that destroys Christmas gatherings. The type of fights the police end up knowing everyone by name for. Judith pulled me into a conspiratorial whisper. "What happened between them," she asked. Denise and Crash were still glaring at each other. I knew they could hear us in the kitchen so I just gave Judith a simple shrug and whispered back "We'll probably find out. Don't pry too much." I had hoped she would take the hint. "So," Crash said loudly. A bit too loudly. "Are you still in horticulture? Perhaps doing any extracurricular gardening?" "No, I swear," Denise said back. A hint of fear and anger in her voice. "I haven't been doing any of that. I don't seem to find the time anymore. Darin keeps me pretty busy." Before we could hear anymore, Darin came storming out of the garage. "No dad! Denise isn't like that!" He rounded the corner and glared at Crash. "And she doesn't need any flea-bitten cop wannabe harassing her. You got a problem? Get a warrant. Come on Denise." Crash had that mischievous glint in his eye. "Goodbye Denise. Or should I say, Clara Gartner." Everyone in the house stopped at that moment and turned to look at Denise. Everyone but me. A look of horror washed over Judith's face. Me? I was just surprised. "Who?" Denise snarled at Crash, fur bristling on her arms. "Oh, Fuck you," she snarled, shoving Crash backwards. He giggled, landing on his back foot and coming forward again. Fur had grown down his arms, and his fingers were starting to form claws. "Okay, okay," I shouted. Raising my hands I stepped between them. "Before we destroy someone's house, why don't we all take a deep breath. Explain what's going on. And tell it like we've never heard this story before." "Clara Gartner's dead, Crash, I told you that," She snarled, pointing a finger at him. Her head horns were beginning to show. A muzzle was forming on her face. "I made a mistake, and damn it I paid for it! Isn't losing my home enough?! You have to take my love, too?!" Crash had a muzzle forming on his face as well. It wouldn't be long before we were standing in a warzone. "I want to know, Clara, if you're up to your usual bullshit, or if you're truly done! You know what I'm supposed to do if I ever saw you again!" Darin stepped in front of Denise, holding his arms out. "You'll have to go through me." I looked at Darin. "That's sweet. And a good way to get a concussion for free. If you're lucky. Step away." Darin glared at me. "I don't know you. I know him and her. You step away before I hurt you." I laughed. Even Crash blinked at my laugh. It was a dark laugh, something you'd hear a Saturday morning villain give. "Oh, son. I'm going to do your parents a favor and pretend I didn't hear you say that." I looked over at Crash and said "Start talking." It was Denise who began. "I made a mistake. I paid for it. I lost my house, my job, my life..." Crash laughed. "Your job was literally selling poison to humans. You're lucky you didn't get killed." She snarled. "It wasn't to humans! I was selling to werewolves, minotaurs, creatures to who could partake and enjoy the high, not to humans. How was I to know!" What shook me about all of this, was that Darin wasn't. These revelations appeared as if it was something he had already known. He kept glaring at Crash, kept his hands held out like he's trying to stop traffic. "Denise, you don't owe that asshole anything. He has no probable cause. Come on." He even tried to grab her shoulder. Crash looked at her and said "You better explain things to him or I will. He won't like how I'm gonna do it." She sighed and touched Darin's shoulder. "We don't get those kinds of rights, Darin. It's different for us different creatures." She glared at Crash. "But I literally have done nothing! You have no right to threaten me or attack me here." Judith stepped in the middle at this moment along with Gary. "Now this has gone on far enough!" She glared at Denise first. "You can't sit at a table like that. Shrink back down proper, now." Gary glared at Crash. "I didn't ask you over here to destroy my home! Get to normal, and lets eat!" We all made our way towards a dining room table near the back of the house beyond the kitchen. Darin grabbed his father and growled in his ear where he didn't think I could hear it. "Why did you invite them? To interrogate Denise? Or to change my mind?" Gary's face went sheet white for a moment. "I'm just trying to protect us all." The table was set. Burgers in the middle with dogs, buns on either side. Toppings was within easy reach and passed around. A large bowl of french fries too. Ketchup, mustard, mayo. The table was topped with a vinyl cloth that would be easy to wipe clean. The room was a normal size, but felt smaller due to Crash and Denise both rather large sizes. Judith tried to set them away from each other, but the table wasn't big enough to separate them too far. We all sat down, me next to Crash, Darin next to Denise. With Judith and Gary on opposite sides of course. This meant I was across from Denise, and Darin across from Crash. There was more than enough snarls to go around, with all of us staring at our empty plates or the food, no one looking at each other. Gary started us off in a prayer of sorts. "Why don't we all go around the table and name one thing we're thankful for. I'll start. I'm thankful for the wonderful food, my son, his new fiance, Judith and our understanding neighbors." Next it was Denise's turn. "I'm thankful for everyone sitting here," she said. Darin glared at Crash one last time and said "I'm thankful for Denise, and my parents." It came around to Judith who said "I'm thankful for peace." Then it came around to me. I was trying to lighten the mood. I swear I was. Given the circumstances it was the exact wrong thing to say at the exact wrong time. I am many things, but smart in this kind of a crowd of people is not one of them. I opened my mouth and gave a smile. "I'm glad Denise didn't grow any of the vegetables." Darin snarled at me, Crash suppressed a giggle, and Denise sighed. I didn't see the responses of the other two, but that set the ball rolling. "Well, I'll have you know," she said, "I have a very green thumb. I'm pretty good at growing vegetables." "Most minotaur's do," Crash said. She glared at Crash. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Crash sighed. "It's your religion, 'Denise' what the hell do you think it means?" She stood, and snarled "I think it means it's about time I gored ya." I stood and shouted "ALRIGHT! It was a joke! I'm sorry, just a joke! Trying to lighten the mood! I didn't mean anything by it! Please sit down, let's calm down." Darin grabbed Denise for a moment and left the room. Judith and Gary did likewise, having some sort of family discussion. I turned to Crash and asked "Are you being too hard on her?" He whispered "she indirectly poisoned a fourteen year old child. One of her associates was reselling her crop. She claimed she didn't intend for him to do that. I had to kill her associate and banish her. The child she almost killed just barely made it out of the coma six weeks later." I swallowed hard. "Oh." When Darin returned with his head down, and his fists balled up. He forced himself to unclench them, and took a deep breath. "For everyone's peace of mind. I am aware of Denise's past. She's very apologetic, and I, for one, believe her. Though we don't worship the same God, I allow her to do her work in the garden, and she comes to church with me on Sunday. Every year, she makes a deposit in that child's name to a bank account. The kid thinks they have some sort of college scholarship. Now, are we ready to put this behind us? Please?" We all looked at each other. There was a period of silence. Crash looked at Denise as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. She snarled at him. "I want a peaceful meal. But, mutt, you have insulted me for the last time. After dinner, me and you, outside." I had one hot dog, one hamburger, a plate of fries, and a slice of delicious Devil's food cake to attempt to convince Denise and Crash not to fight. Cause I knew if they did fight, something inside the family, and our neighborly friendship, would be damaged forever. |
| It was warm for about four days in our area. So, I'd hoped for grilling for about five seconds or so. But alas, the weather seemed to laugh at my intentions and gave us more of it's unwanted dandruff. The cold blanket of snow covered everything, making grilling the frozen dream of a madman. Live in the north for more than a year and you won't be dreaming of a white Christmas, you'll be dreaming of warmth. Still, Gary had intended a simple meal. Hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries. Soda and beer. Nothing too terribly complicated and nothing that me or Crash was going to complain about. We'd arrived at the given time for the get together with smiles and root beer. Root beer because when everyone else goes for a beer, it gives me one of my own to grab. Usually a Barq's but sometimes an A&W. Root beer lets me have a 'cold one with the boys' still, but without the alcohol. I don't even miss the alcohol. Well, miss it as much, in truth. And in truth, I wanted to be sober for this entire ordeal. Gary himself was pleasant. Almost jittery to be honest. He greeted us with smiles, a nervous handshake and a quiet grimace hidden beneath everything. His conversation was too fast, as if he was attempting to cover for something. "I'm glad you could make it, boy, I sure hope you guys are doing okay. Say, Jason, how's that car running, you take care of those plug wires like I told ya? Yeah, I looked into getting a new clock for it, I think I have one cheaper than you can get on those collector site...." On and on and on. Many times he didn't stop to wait for me to answer questions, just barreled right across it onto the next statement. Gary's wife Judith was pleasant. An older woman with a nice smile, welcoming laugh and the disposition that makes you feel as though she'll be in the kitchen at any moment to bake you fresh cookies. She stood with Gary part of the party, went to grab things for the other part, and well, was in general a good hostess. The house had an open floor plan. It was the type of place where you could stand in the living room and insult the person cooking, and they could throw a biscuit at you from the stove and smack you in the back of the head with it. It was outfitted with older style furniture that reminded me of grandma's good couch from back in the day. Family photos hung in antique looking gold leafed frames. Vacations taken together. Marriages, graduations. The typical family affair. All in all, it was a nice home where under other circumstances I'd have felt normal being inside of. But with the looking possible fight on the horizon, it felt more like stepping into the octagon at the start of a UFC match. We were welcomed with wide open arms and smiles. Darin and his fiance' hadn't arrived yet. Judith, trying to be the loving host, stepped inside the kitchen and pulled me aside. "Does Crash have any um...special diet restrictions?" I blinked at her. "Like what?" "Well," she wrung her hands for a moment. "Does he need to eat more meat, or special meat, or maybe...." The thought I had was this: virgins. The younger the better. In fact, if you could get the Mormon tabernacle choir over, he'll tear through four of those young singers in about five seconds, then the rest of us will be safe. I didn't say this, mind you, but I did think it. You see? Progress. Either I'm growing up, or I'm growing tame. Instead I told her "no ma'am, he'll be fine with just about whatever you set out." Then as an after thought I added "don't worry, he's house broken." This got me an 'oh dear' look that I've come to recognize. I suppressed a giggle and walked away before any other trouble could occur from the conversation. I only had so much self control and what little I did have was slipping. You see, I did have a couple of jokes I could have played on crash. "Extra bloody, in fact, just scorch the hamburger on both sides and give it to him." Or, "Actually, he's going vegan. You got a black bean burger back there? He adores those." Come to think of it, the black bean burger joke would have backfired on me when he got home later on. Knowing Crash, he'd have stunk us out of the house. So, maybe it was a good thing I didn't say that. After small talk had been passed around like the plate of deviled eggs that Judith had made, a familiar wash of headlights covered the house. Judith looked at Gary, then said "looks like Darin is here, dear. Why don't you go put some burgers on the indoor grill?" Gary stepped into his garage with barely a grumble. Crash and I didn't look at each other when this happened, but I knew we were both thinking the same thing: recent bad blood. Darin when he stepped inside the house, was all smiles. Darin was a younger version of Gary. Full head of hair, brilliant wide smile, no glasses. He was only about an inch shorter than me. Which I point out because his fiance Denise was almost six inches taller than him. She was pleasant, shook everyone's hand and in general a nice person. And I could tell right away, that she wasn't human. Thing is though, if they don't have some sort of glamour, some sort of disguise that the other mythicals use, then I don't have anything to see through. So, appearance wise, she just looked like a tall girl. Sunny personality, outdoorsy type of person. But, there was definitely something off. She had straight brown hair, a Greek complexion with bluish sort of eyes. She came in immediately behind Darin, all smiles, leaning down to hug Judith. When she came round to Crash, her face went serious for a moment. It reminded me of a speeder who see's a cop car behind a bush. Crash for his part nodded at her. He didn't smile, didn't hug her. Instead he gave her a hardy handshake. The look on Crash's face spoke volumes. It wasn't the look of a friendly neighbor. Crash went into 'official representative' mode. Something had happened between the two of them. I wasn't sure what it was. All I knew was that it wasn't something that he liked. "So, uh, 'Denise', where are you living these days," Crash asked. The question seemed pointed. "Two counties over," she replied. "I'm just working at the local Wal-Mart down there, and taking night classes. Nothing crazy." Crash nodded. The conversation seemed strange. Stilted. Almost as if Crash was making a point. She went out of her way to talk about her job and night classes. Crash asked the question as if he was trying to check up on her. Make sure she wasn't living elsewhere. Elsewhere like what? Here? In our county? What would have been so bad about that? The question sounded as if Crash had ran her off before. I knew he had done it, but even he tells me it's not something he does lightly, and is something he'd prefer not to do. So what did Denise do to make Crash chase her off? Which leads me to another line of thought. Why the emphasis on Denise? Crash said it as if he knew her with a different name. Perhaps he did. The entire interaction seemed so stilted and sore As if some sort of painful incident happened years ago, something both of them were still sore about. It reminded me more of ex's bumping into each other at Starbucks than it did of someone meeting someone else for the first time. Darin wandered into the garage to talk to Gary. Judith attempted to pull me away as well. I let her. It gave me a convenient excuse to allow Crash to do whatever official capacity thing he needed to do with 'Denise' or whatever her name was. Nothing was happening the way I expected things to go. What I had anticipated was: Crash shows up. Meets the fiance. They talk. Fiance tells Crash how much she loves Darin. Crash gives her some basic ground rules that she already knew and was probably following. We eat then leave. Easy, right? Instead, Crash was glaring at 'Denise' who was glaring back at Crash. Their conversation was terse comments and veiled threats made under hushed tones. It was a game of waiting, snarls and anger. And the night had literally just begun. |
| There are plenty of people out there who would tell me that schadenfreude is a good thing on occasion. If you're not familiar, schadenfreude is an old world European thing. I believe from Germany, but I'm a little too lazy to look it up, so don't attack me on it please. But schadenfreude is the act of taking joy and/or pleasure from the pain and suffering of your enemies or those who have wronged you. This is something everyone's done at one point in their lives. Whether it's laughing at the Karen in her White Ford Explorer who got pulled over by the cop for speeding after she chewed out the Starbucks employee for ten minutes for doing their literal job, or it's chuckling at your boss who ends up getting chewed out in the office for ignoring good advice you gave them, we've all taken a little bit of schadenfreude in our lives. Yes, Gary had all but avoided us after the whole "Meth-headed vampire takes over the town" thing, but so did several others. It wasn't because of anything that I or they did. Many of them, including Gary, felt more than a bit of embarrassment at what had happened. But beneath that embarrassment was a naked fear. A fear of the unknown - an unknown they'd at one point in time considered to be nothing more than fairy tales and nonsense. Kid stories told at bed time to frighten children or cannon fodder for Stephen King, nothing to be considered real. That fear is something I understood. The fear is what drove me to start this blog to begin with. It's why I wasn't mad when our conversations had turned to simple head nods and basic greetings on the street. I wasn't upset with Gary when our interactions discussing cars and parts, talking about how to keep simple cars like mine on the road became awkward dances around stones that cropped up between us, stone we both chose to disregard. A mind at times can only accept so many things. Crash built me into the life slowly, with things being revealed within their own time. Gary was pushed into the deep end and told to swim. When he approached me in the yard, I had thought that perhaps he'd finally got the gumption up to talk about things like we used to – that perhaps we could ignore the insanity and talk about cars again. Instead, what I got was an awkward, stilted conversation that only got more strange as it went along. He walked up, playing with his finger nails, looking every bit of a child trying to ask their parents for a new cell phone. His mouth was drawn into a nervous pucker, eyes wide as stop signs behind his glasses. "Jason, I uh....got to talk...." he said, standing by the car. I had been changing my oil at the time. It was a simple operation at that moment of pulling the drain plug off the oil pan and letting the used oil stream out. As I did so, I came up wiping my hands on an old rag. "Sure thing, dude. How can I help?" "It's well, I uh..." he began, and looked around conspiratorially. It felt like an old sitcom from the nineties. Steve Urkel trying to buy drugs as part of a sting operation. "I need...you know...." "I don't. You're going to have to be specific," I said. I wasn't unsympathetic, but I was a little confused. He gritted his teeth, and looked around one more time. Then whispered. "Werewolf." "Gary, are you sure you want to go down this road?" A gave him as sympathetic of a look as I could muster, and clapped him on the shoulder. He looked up at me, and there was a brokenness there I didn't expect. "My son is dating this new woman. She's great, very outgoing. Has a good appetite too, I've never seen a woman eat that much and keep her figure the way she does, heh. She's friendly, almost lively. Outside quite a bit, and I started to suspect that she maybe a....well...." "Werewolf," I asked, finishing the statement for him. He nodded. "Well, Darin proposed yesterday. We all gave our congratulations but..." "And let me add mine. Congratulations, Gary." He took a step back. "I'm not sure I want a...well..." "Werewolf?" "Yeah, that. It might not be...well..." "Gary. You'll be perfectly safe. She won't interfere with you. Your son will be safe." Gary's face darkened for a moment. He looked away down the road, his mind drifting into elsewhere. "It was like being locked away. Inside. I could see myself doing all of these awful things, and I didn't want to do any of it. But the images drifted by, like scenes passing on billboards on the highway. All I could do was watch. I...don't want that for Darin. For Julia, his fiance'. For anyone. Ever. If there's even the slimmest chance that could happen to him, I have to save him." Gary turned back to me, "could you ask your friend to just...well...you know..." "Crash won't scare away another werewolf, Gary." His eyes flashed with anger for a moment, and he turned back to the highway, still unable to look at me. "Just tell him to, well, talk? Maybe? Please?" There was a wild desperation in Gary's eyes. One that forced a nod from me. "I guess I can," I said. "Don't get your hopes up. Don't go expecting miracles." *** The rest of this interaction does come from Crash. When I gave him the question from Gary, he texted Gary and told him to meet him at dusk near the woods. Not the small clutch of trees near our home, but the real forest a couple miles down. Two roads cross in front of where Crash asked Gary to meet. A handful of houses press into the trees, but otherwise it's just forest. It wasn't dark for Crash. His night vision is well enough that he could identify the color of shirt Gary chose to wear. Could see the moonlight glinting off of his glasses. Could identify where his pants bent when he walked. Crash watched Gary approach then turn. Gary kept looking around at the road, at our house. At the forest itself. When Gary looked into the forest, Crash allowed him to see his eyes. The eye shine made Gary gasp, and he stepped back for a moment. Crash stood to his full height and stepped out of the trees in his wolf form. Gary fell backwards into the street, a cry caught in his throat. "P-please..." he stammered. "Crash? T-that you?" "Yes it is. Take a good long look." Gary's breath was coming in shallow gasps. He said "I need your help. P-please...I n-need...." Crash sighed, and reached down. Gary winced a moment expecting him to attack, but instead Crash picked him back up and set Gary on his two unsteady feet. "There you go." The older man winced as Crash gently brushed the dirt from his clothing, his shirt, his hair. "Gary, I perform a service to this community," Crash said. "I'm not a monster. I work with those you have chosen not to see. I work with them to support them and you. You interact with almost a dozen different creatures every day, and yet you don't know a single one of them." "But this is different. This is Darin, my boy. If you had a child....or pup...or is it wrong to say pup," Gary wondered for a moment. "Child works," Crash said. "Child, whatever," Gary replied. "What would you do? If it was yours and you were faced with something you knew very little about. But your only interaction terrified you? Wouldn't you do all you could to ensure your son's safety?" "Where is your son and his fiance'," Crash asked. "They're at home now. But they're coming over this Saturday. For a big outdoor barbecue." It was far too cold for that right now. But Crash nodded, giving Gary a slow smile. "Text me the time and I'll be there." Crash watched as Gary walked back towards his home. There was a slow sadness in Crash's heart. Gary thought he was doing the right thing. Gary thought he was saving his son. But Crash knew, if it was a werewolf, they would not tolerate interference and protect those they loved with their own lives. If it was something else, there was no telling what would happen. For Gary it would look like war on a scale he'd never seen before. He said a silent prayer as Gary walked away. "Please don't let this tear his family apart." |
| Ever get talked into something you immediately regret? That sort of thing, whether it's helping a neighbor or helping your friend, that's just far too much trouble than for what it's worth for anyone. It's not illegal or anything. It's just that whatever it is, whether that job is something to do with lawn maintenance, car care, or something gross, it's going to take you far more effort than what you want and get you farther involved than you ever cared to be. This is what happened to me recently with our resident hulderfolk. Charles and Nancy had decided to move. Leave the house, further down state to another werewolf area. Something without Nobility troubles and meth-head vampires running around. They found a nice place to rent, and attempted to sell the house here. I admit, I was intrigued. What and how does house sales work for a mythical creature? Do they sell the home to humans, or do they attempt to sell it to another mythical? I can see a real estate agent, walking around with a clip board pointing out several items. "And the doors here are tall enough for an ogre. The walls are thick and dark colored so any pesky mud or blood stains just wash right off! Neighbors are used to strange noises from the last family of mythical creatures who lived here, so they don't even ask questions!" Of course, Nancy wanted to try to sell the house herself. This lead to an entire debacle of her being too busy to show the home, too busy to answer questions, and it sitting on the market for six whole months. Then she got the 'brilliant' idea of renting it. If you have a home you want to sell, I always say go ahead and sell it. Don't rent. Renters aren't always careful with your property. Plus, a lot of property management companies are more than happy to collect your money and just let your property go to ruin instead of actually maintaining it. There's way too many hands, especially hands that just don't care about the quality of work they give you. Plus, everything always comes back on you. It just doesn't seem worth it in my eyes. The "For Rent" sign went up close to Christmas. They had a renter for a grand total of twenty one days. Twenty one agonizing, yard destroying, 'let's see if we can pour bleach on the lawn to spell funny letters' days. Twenty one 'I like hip hop and rap rock from 00's so now everyone else does at 3am' days. Twenty one 'it's fun to drunk drive at 2 in the morning blasting my stereo' days. Twenty one 'cops kicked in our door again' days. You know it's bad when a cop comes by and tries to ask Crash if he could find a reason to our new neighbors. He tried to disguise it as a joke, and even laughed at it, but I could see the desperation in his eyes. He wanted them gone. I don't blame him; we all did. By the time the cops had enough evidence to drag the neighbors from hell away in handcuffs, the once gorgeous home looked like a war zone. One of the bay windows in front was smashed out and hastily covered with plywood. The former tenants literally poured bleach on Charles' proud lawn. Apparently, they were trying to spell out 'Hi Neighbors!' But it came out looking more like 'Hiney Bears'. I still to this day don't know how many joints and beers it takes to get to the point where you're so drunk you make that mistake. I'd only seen Charles cry one time, and that was out of torture for the love of his estranged wife. This time, though, when he saw what they did to his property, he did shed a tear. Then he gave one of his infamous Charles threats. "May a horde of rats gnaw on their toe nails!" I had swung by just in time to hear the threat. I'd also seen Charles then smile at me. "Neighbor! Hi!" Trouble. "Hey Charles, how ya holding up?" His shoulders sunk down in his over priced designer shirt. "Not well. our hooligan tenants have decided to give our beloved home a not-so decorative remodel with spray paint and body fluids." Thanks Charles. Thank you so much for the extremely graphic description. At that moment I wished I still drank. "They were all sorts of trouble," I said. "The kind of people who appreciated their liquor more than their own lives." Charles nodded thoughtfully. "When Nancy found them, they said they could pay. They didn't have the money for a down payment. Swore they would pay. Never paid first months rent, kept swearing they would pay." "Where did she find them," I asked. "She said they were being forcibly removed from a movable domicile for a minor financial disagreement with their landlord. Nancy said they had given her a solemn oath that they had learned their lesson and would be no more trouble." He gritted his teeth at the end of it, staring down at the destroyed lawn. He was opening and closing his hands into fists. "An oath is only as good as the man who makes it," I said. "To some, their oath isn't worth the breath wasted on it." He gave me a dark look for a moment, and I held up my hands. "I'm not trying to preach to you, I'm sorry." Charles glared for a moment at me, still opening and closing his fists. Then, his shoulders fell, and he looked back at his destroyed lawn. "I'm not angry at you. You are correct. In troll culture, the ones who do this are dealt with very quickly. But, humans, you seem to get away with everything sometimes. It gets upsetting." Then came the question he was burning to ask me. The one I dreaded and was subtly trying to avoid. I was giving every subtle clue that I was leaving. I glanced at my watch four times. I took a step towards the car. I even unlocked my car. Still, Charles turned to me, his eyes full of hurt and said "Would you be willing to stay awhile? Help me clean up?" I wanted to grit my teeth, to stomp, to shout and scream. I wanted to run screaming to my car shouting 'LALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING!' Then stomp the accelerator and take that Topaz around the corner to my house at ninety. But, I didn't do any of those things. I did the reasonable thing one does for their neighbor. I smiled the classic 'I really don't want to do this' smile and said "Sure! I'll be glad to help you." That was the start of an extra long weekend. The stench hit me fifteen feet from the front steps. Liquor, despair, and shit. It smelled like a truck stop bathroom threw up inside the building after a bender at the worst bar in town. As I climbed the porch steps, I found that the smell was only seconded by the sight. The floor was covered in a sticky substance that had to be the remnants of a beer. The walls in the living room had been spray painted. I wasn't sure what the intended design was, but I knew it would require far more liquor than I intended to consume to read and understand them. The kitchen was splattered with a red substance that could have been blood, spaghetti sauce or ketchup. I didn't know which it was, nor did I want to know. As we moved upstairs, the smell of fecal matter and despair grew stronger. A thick musk like someone hadn't bathed in days. When we rounded the top, there was a pile of dirty laundry left at the top of the banister. The bathroom....well....it's disgusting. Using a turd like a crayon, someone had wrote the words 'fuk u' on the door. Someone else had given the toilet an upper decker. If you're unfamiliar, that's when you crap in the tank rather than the toilet bowl itself. It can ruin the toilet. Thankfully, these genuises didn't flush, but instead just left it floating there, like a departing gift. Poor Charles. He went through eleven different emotions of anger and hurt. He had no idea where to even start with things. How can you say no to that? To abandon anyone at that level of despair? I mean, besides just hiring a hazmat team to come burn down the house so you can rebuild it? We went outside. I put him on the front lawn, told him to start calling people to replace the window. Then, I went to the nearest Dollar General and bought out every kind of household cleaner they had. My credit card still hates me. Afterwards, we went to work. Starting on the top floor, we grabbed gloves and began to throw out every single thing those jokers had left us. Nothing of theirs was kept. Clothing, the few random pieces of crusty furniture, the actually expensive looking liquor bottle, nothing. Of course, as Charles began to clean he also began to talk. To tell me stories as we went room to room. Some of those stories are not fit to print here. I swear, hulderfolk or not, I'm going to sit him down one day and pound into him the concept of TMI! A lot of the stories he did tell though, was sweet ones. Like how he originally proposed to Nancy. Him trying his hardest to come up with the perfect phrases, to say the right things. He had the ring behind his back, right there at the bottom of the stairs and began, well, talking for ten minutes straight. He kept going, he was so nervous. She finally jumped up, kissed him hard to shut him up and grabbed the ring box out of his hands and shouted 'yes, I'll marry you!' How they planned their honeymoon by buying up a bunch of random postcards on the internet and taped them to the wall. They closed their eyes and literally just threw darts at them until they hit a tropical location. How, when money got tight, he began to gather wild flowers and berries for alternative food sources until things picked up again. All of these stories and others he told as we cleaned, working from top to bottom. I tried to be sympathetic, but I was a bit dizzy from the cleaners, which only added to my usual grumbly demeanor. It took us four days to get the house clean. Took almost that long for a contractor to get the window replaced. I pulled a couple of things away from that though. First was, a house is more than a collection of things. It's a collection of memories inside a building. When you rent a building out where you lived, you're essentially renting those memories out to someone else. Memories the other party may or may not cherish, and usually don't. Also, I learned that sometimes the act of doing something like cleaning a home, isn't just about getting things clean physically. It's about cleaning things mentally and spiritually as well. Charles felt a whole lot better after such things and even got Nancy to move back into the house with him. He's still working on the lawn. I hope he gets new sod brought in or something, cause driving by the lawn and seeing 'Hiney Bears' every single time I go to the store makes me giggle. I feel bad for it, though. |
| It should be the most natural thing in the world to see a werewolf at a horror convention. They have fantastic costumes of werewolves at most horror conventions wandering around. These conventions celebrate the fantastic and horrific nature of werewolves in their own way. They'd get constant compliments on the quality of the costume. So, why wouldn't a werewolf go to a horror convention? Yet, Crash has told me that he doesn't believe anyone ever has. "It's a little against our culture to be so exposed," he said to me finally, after I'd asked him the billionth time. I guess that makes sense in a way. Werewolves have stayed hidden among humans. I'd consider it hiding in plain sight, but Crash doesn't seem to think so. "A human who dresses up as a werewolf all the time for conventions is easier to see as a werewolf outside of one," Crash told me when I'd asked him about it. Makes sense in some way, I suppose. Though, in horror conventions unless your costume is really good people just enjoy the costume and ignore everything else. It's not like it is at other conventions. A furry convention I could see being a problem. Everyone would want to know his character, he'd get invited to room parties. People would ask about the quality, how'd he get the ears to move, the tail. The lips, etc...and sooner or later you're going to run out of lies you can tell people. But, still, I'd have to do it if I was a werewolf. I'd get a room at a horror convention, go wolf mode, put on a pair of overalls, maybe shred or tear the ends of the legs up a bit first, then wander the convention halls. Everyone seeing my real self and thinking it's a costume. The thrill of that alone would just be too much for me not to try. Suppose that's the reason he's the werewolf and not me. Or maybe, it's because my entire life doesn't depend on the anonymity of part of my entire being. But human living relies a bit on anonymity too, doesn't it? We just never think about that part of ourselves. There's a public face we give the world, and a private face we reserve for our most sincere loved ones and perhaps no one at all. The face that has all our dirtiest, meanest scars. The face that also pays all our bills and does the chores. How many of us ever reveal those sides of ourselves? The ones that if everyone knew would leave us as open and naked as walking around nude on a sunny day? I suppose in a manner, I understand Crash's reluctance in that. A werewolf's furrier side must be part of that nude side we reserve for loved ones or us alone. It's a side werewolves hold for their own loved ones. Their pack. Which leads me to other questions I just don't want to ask Crash right now. Like...are there games and things werewolf families play with their pups to teach them how to act? Certain things they do to ensure their children learn safety and security living in a mostly human world? I can see a werewolf family playing a version of 'house' the way small children do, only you're not allowed to be seen as transformed by the human! Also, does the entire thing happen at birth or do they shift around puberty? That would be a lot worse to deal with than zits! I can imagine a child at thirteen sitting in his room, playing on his cellphone. And instead of getting zits or discovering girls on the internet, he starts sprouting hair. His claws grows out and he tosses the phone and shouts for his mom, unsure of what to do. His mom and dad show up and smile at him with pride as he shifts into his werewolf form for the first time. Or, maybe it's rather like mom diapering her baby's butt for the tenth time that day only to have a tail sprout out from the bottom of the diaper and tear a hole in it. The mom holds the baby up and the she giggles at her as the child's tail wags. Then the baby starts peeing through the new hole all over the counter. Which scenario do you think fits best? I'm not certain at this moment. All I know is that I'm kind of glad I didn't go through either one. Zits was bad enough. Every one of us have our own struggles, I suppose. As much fun as it would be to be a werewolf dashing among the trees around some random forest somewhere hunting something with just my teeth and claws, there are downsides too. Like what exactly puberty might do to them. Or that first shift, not knowing the amount of pain you'd feel during the transformation. We're all meant to be in a way in the space we're given in the time we're given it in. God or the universe or whoever doesn't shuffle things around at random. We're placed like careful pieces on a Tabletop Gaming battlefield. That's the way I choose to look at it. Your actual mileage may vary. But there's too much evidence out there for me right now to believe that life is some great cosmic accident caused by a lightening strike in a puddle. But who knows? I've been wrong before. |
| It's a classic mistake to focus on the kidnapper's gun. The weapons is a natural focal point of fear. It's the object through which death will come, so we study every inch of the barrel waiting for that deadly flash. But the longer you stare at that object, the more you'll remember it and not the details police may need to help catch the person who kidnapped you. The trick instead is to ignore the weapon as best as you can. The manufacturers have literally made millions of them. It's better to instead focus on the features of your kidnapper, and study every inch of their person. Mine thought he was some sort of cowboy. Jeans that were so tight they looked painted on. A shirt with the typical floral flare on the shoulders. A black cowboy hat set upon his head at just the right angle to try and make him look as menacing as possible. And of course, the aviator glasses. His face was that of a younger man trying to look older. He had a bushy brown beard he'd grown out. His hair stuck out at odd angles and sides from his hat. In truth, I believe the only thing thought was criminal was that he didn't have any gray hair to complete the look. I didn't just study his face. The surroundings was a lonely hilltop at the bottom of a mountain range. Various trees jutted against the gray sky, their barren branches brushing against the clouds like a giant broom. Around us was just about nothing. Except tripwires and explosives. Traps rigged with silver arrows and guns loaded with silver bullets. On his belt he had a silver knife. On the trip out here, right from the moment I'd awakened from his needle jab in the parking lot, I'd studied just about everything I could. Trees, the road types, the route up the hill and through the mountain. The one thing I didn't study was the gun. Cause in the end, usually a gun is just a gun. "In just a couple of hours, you're going to see their true viciousness on display. Isn't it fantastic," The man who called himself Vincent said. He was giddy. Fidgeting this way and that, his hands rubbing up and down his pants every now and again. The man was about to be torn apart and he was excited for it. "You're not going to live through this," I said again. "Crash will tear you apart. I've literally seen him get through worse than this a lot quicker than you're thinking." He looked to the sky a moment, a heavy sigh escaped his lips. Then sat in an old rusty folding chair. "You say that as if it isn't the fucking point." He waved a knife around in my face again. Instead of looking at the blade or his aviators, I studied his shoulders. Studied his shirt and the decorative stitching on the shoulders. Every fiber of my being wanted to spring at him and fight to the death. But I was bound down in such a way that sent pain and needles through my sore hip, knee, back. Those pins turned into weakness that left me without the ability to do anything other than sit there and watch his shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "If I survive, I'm going to let you loose. You see that go pro? You're going to take a copy of that down the mountain for me." I rolled my eyes. "I'm doing this willingly?!" His mouth pulled up in a grimace. He looked more like the classic werewolf then than Crash had ever been. "After you see their viciousness. You see what I know they do, you'll do it willingly. The world must know. I will make the sacrifice to tell everyone." I laughed. "I doubt he'll kill you." He pressed the gun barrel to my non-swollen eye. "That's where you're all wrong! They are real! They enjoy it. They torture us and tear us limb from limb in our sleep, and they enjoy the terror they cause in us." "Killing is something they do," I said. "But they're our protectors. They run with..." "Blah, blah, blah." His face grew dark for a moment. "Tell that to my parents. To the rest of my family." "I don't know what happened to your family. I've lived with one. For years, I've never been threatened." "That makes you crazier than they claim I am! Living with a werewolf. Willingly! Not some hostage situation." A thought seemed to cross his head for a moment. Cause he looked up, then back down at me waving the pistol around casually. "You're not being held hostage, are ya?" I looked down at where I was squatting down on the snow covered hill. The rope was tied to a stake behind me. It was wrapped around my hands and ankles. I couldn't get up, I couldn't move. I arched an eyebrow at him as if to say, 'really?' "I mean besides me. Cause I know those werewolves. Vicious creatures. I'm going to show the world. I'm going to kill'em. I wouldn't put it past one to keep a human as some sort of freak pet." I tried for the billionth time that day to stand up and stretch something. My muscles in my legs and back were cramped bad. I was leaning on one leg, cause the other had no strength left. "What happened to you? To your family," I asked, gritting my teeth through the pain. "Not your fucking business," he snarled. I laughed. "I'm literally staked to a hill like a goat being used to catch Sasquatch. That kind of makes it my business." He still didn't talk, just snarled and looked down. "You're probably going to kill me, and you can't even tell me what I'm dying for?" His mouth grew thin. "I survived," he said. "Because she wanted me to. Wanted me to watch." He raised the pistol and held it to my face. It shook in his fist. It was holding my attention now, there was no way around it. "You're going to watch." A howl erupted through the woods then. It was followed by a second howl. Then a third somewhere. They were all around us. I shivered at the moment from the sound. That bastard giggled. "I can't wait, I can't wait. You're going to see. You'll show the entire world. Everyone will see!" There was an explosion somewhere behind us. He flinched, I stared at him. Another to our right. The werewolves were moving through the trees on the hill. Avoiding the traps. Even setting off some to disarm others. In less than a minute, they were around us. A tree shook, and something else went off. I couldn't tell what it was, arrows or knives or what. I could see that while one gray werewolf was cutting at my ropes, a dark brown and black furred blur that could only be Crash collapsed on top of Vincent. The damned fool was giggling. "Go ahead! Do it! Make my life complete. DO IT!!" Crash held him down and took his claw on his hand. He took the aviators off of his face and crushed them, tossing them aside. Finally, I could see his eyes. Vincent had ice blue eyes full of defeat and madness. He started to giggle again. Crash raised a single paw, claws out. His ears were back, he was snarling. "Vincent Ignatious Smith. You kidnapped one of my pack. You've made more than one attempt on my life in the past. Have made attempts on other innocent werewolves and creatures of the mythical community." He started carving into his skin on his forehead. It looked like he was carving two slash lines going diagnally. As if someone had been attacked with a claw. "Your punishment is banishment from our protection and community. Any outside the human family will shun you. They will remove you from their businesses. Your loans will be denied in any of our banks and interests. You chose to walk outside our protection, and now you must live there in the cold and dark." A cry rose up in his chest then. It built into a psychotic scream. "You must! You must kill me! Tear me limb from limb! It's what you do, what you're born to do! You hell spawn! Demons!" The insults grew worse from there. They devolved into just cursing. Crash carried me off that mountain top, holding me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He had to help me to a sheriff's vehicle that waited down the bottom, my back and legs were so numb. The sheriff sat outside his vehicle waiting, smoking a cigarette while he watched things unfold. He was a kind old man with a form that reminded me of the guy from the Longmire TV show. He took one look at Crash in his full werewolf form and crushed a cigarette out on the ground under his heel. "You sure you don't want me to arrest that sumbitch? He did take one of yours." Crash nodded. "I got something else in mind." Then he gave the sheriff a small tail wag. "Don't worry. It won't kill him." Whatever was planned took about a week, which I was thankful for. A week to stretch, to allow my body to recover from sitting up there on the hill top listening to the ravings of a madman. After I was able to walk around the house without a cane, Crash came home with an oblong box under his arm. He was in human form, and had a serious look on his face. "Come on," he said. "We got to finish this." He didn't explain anything else on the ride up to a mysterious cabin in the woods. We just started driving, arriving at the distant property at dusk. Faint light from windows in the distance glowed like guiding lamps in the dark. "Why am I here," I asked again for the millionth time. "Two humans most affected by this tragedy must have this ceremony performed for them," Crash replied. "Vincent is one, but he has no one else. You were kidnapped, so that makes you the second." "What am I supposed to do," I asked. Crash started stripping down. "Just follow me. Your confusion is part of the ceremony." He started forcing a change. The shifting was painful to hear. He grunted in pain a few times even as bone scraped against bone. Then he took two shuddering breaths and put on a red bandanna and grabbed a black leather loincloth. It was as if he was punishing himself. Or perhaps his pain was some form of penance? He took two shuddering breaths, then steadied himself. Afterwards he placed a red bandanna on his head, and a black leather loincloth over his waist. Each had a symbol of some kind in them hidden in the color. Later I'd come to find out those symbols were human hand prints. Holding the box out in front of himself, he took steps one a time towards the house. I swear I felt like I should have been playing a beat on a drum or something. I've been to plenty of Last Roll Call ceremonies. This had that sort of feel. There was a somber funeral feeling to the moment. One that for once, I didn't ruin with my chatter. With each step we came into the light. Vincent came out to greet us holding the pistol. There was a bandage over his forehead that looked old and used up. "What the hell do you want," he shouted. "You ruined my life! I lost my bank account because of you. They took my truck from me, now I can't even go to work. What am I supposed to do? What life do I have left?! Huh? Tell me!" When he raised his pistol, I pulled mine. He gasped and took a step back. "Jesus, that's fast." "Practice," I said. "Please, put the weapons down." Crash never stopped holding the box out in front of him. I looked at Crash, but he never took his eyes off of Vincent. I tucked my pistol into my holster and glared at him. Vincent's pistol wavered in his hand, but he lowered it to a ready stance, still not trusting us. Crash began speaking in a rehearsed speech. "As the two humans who are most affected by the tragedy of October ninth, 2010, I request of you permission to approach your home." Vincent snarled, "No you may not." I looked at Vincent, then at Crash. "I think you'll want to see this," I told Vincent. "I have no idea what is gong on, but I you might want to see this to the end." Vincent sighed, then looked at Crash. "It's not enough for you to carve your weird symbol in my forehead and destroy my life, now you have to come on my property to kill me too? Just fucking do it already. Just kill me!" "Look," I shouted at him. "Just point your weapon at me, okay? You don't like where this goes, you can shoot me. How's that?" He thought a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he said, then pointed the pistol at me. "If he attacks me, the last thing he'll see is you die." Crash turned his ears back, and tucked his tail. He lowered himself and crawled forward like a whipped dog. He stopped at the bottom step and held up the box. "The blackness of this wood represents the darkness of the sin that my extended pack has committed against yours." He took another step, walking the stairs and stopping within arms reach of the man. He turned the box so Vincent could see the hinges and clasp on it. "The golden buckles and hinges is but pitiful payment for such a heinous act. The gold has represented purity. Power. Honesty and innocence in ancient cultures. Innocence has a power of it's own. That innocence my extended pack has taken from you." Crash unclasped the box, and held it shut. "Long ago, when humans were hunters and gatherers, we followed you. Against the creatures and monsters of the night, we defended you. An agreement was made, between your kind and ours. You give us kindness and food. We give you protection." Crash took a breath, but his voice remained stoic. When I looked up at Vincent, I could tell that was crying. "We have many myths and legends as to how this agreement came into being. But one thing is common among all of them, is that it is a pact, between human and werewolf. Between human and mythical. We are allowed to take your form and live among you. You feed us and show us kindness. For that right, we protect you and promise to do no harm. That promise was broken for your family and you on October ninth, 2010 by my extended family. "A werewolf known as Elizabeth Donalds entered your home uninvited. She proceeded to attack your family and forced you to watch, slaughtering them for no known cause. With this action the extended pack has been disgraced. A greater disgrace was caused when you, Vincent where lost before we could complete this ceremony to restore some semblance of our honor and to start to give you peace." Then Crash opened the box. Laying on a bed of blood red velvet the ears and tail of a werewolf. Vincent gasped, falling backwards into the house, crying. "What the fuck is that!" "The red velvet represents the innocent blood she has spilled. In doing so, she has sealed her own fate. Elizabeth Donalds has been punished on Earth for her heinous crime. May she rest, but never in peace. May she forever be forced to toil for the protection and nurture of the human pack she has spurned." Crash raised his paw, then took a single claw and carved a line across the palm of his other paw. Blood splattered across the inside of the box. "My blood is given also in payment for the innocent blood that was spilled that dark day. It is but a small payment and cannot begin to make up for the loss that you felt at the hands of the extended pack. But may it one day bring you some small solace and comfort. May one day, you find peace." Crash set the box down at his feet, crawled backwards as he arrived. He then stood, bowed and turned. I have no idea what happened. I don't know if Vincent brought in the box or left it to rot on his front porch. But I do hope that he at least got some moniker of closure. On the way back, I couldn't hold it in any longer. "Why did I have to be there," I asked. Crash sighed. "At least two humans must be present for the ceremony. At least two. It is ancient, older than most nations on Earth." "Why didn't you do that before?" He drove a bit, then swallowed. "We couldn't find him. After his first pathetic attempt on me, we couldn't find Elizabeth Donalds remains to perform the ceremony." "Why the ears and tail?" "That part of the ceremony ties her spirit to his. Us werewolves are honor and duty bound to help you humans. If we break that honor, we are killed. The ears and tail are given to the living victims. If none are living, they're buried with them. This ties our spirits to theirs and forces us to be their guides and protectors in the afterlife. The role we spurned on Earth." I sighed. "Is all of that real?" Crash shrugged. "The ceremony is. So are the legends around it. The effects are real. I've seen people destroyed by a rogue werewolf actually come up to us and forgive us afterwards." "Vincent will never do that." "Crazier things have happened." He turned on the radio then. It took a little bit but we found 'Don't Fear The Reaper' on a classic rock station somewhere on the long trip home. Somehow, the song seemed to fit. |
| Snow. The arch nemesis of automobiles and sanity. My old Mercury Topaz dealt with it about as well as can be expected, especially for someone who was in the south for the holidays. The thing about mid-western states, is that they all have plows, and sand trucks and salt trucks and sorts of methods of dealing with the snow. They have the means and experience to make roads at least somewhat passable. Southern states though, they simply don't. They don't get snow at all, so when it falls down and you're visiting a distant relative in say...Alabama for the holidays, driving can get chaotic. Driving north through the snow was more than hectic. It was downright dangerous at times. My car is light to begin with. So with a good gust of wind and a decent patch of ice is all that's really needed to send it on a slow slide into the next lane. No amount of braking or turning will help. Heck, I even reversed and stepped on the gas one time. All I did was a semi-impressive burnout for such a light car as I drifted in front of a semi. Thankfully he had the exact same problem so he was barely moving. After our bumpers literally kissed, we both got out, assessed the lack of damage and laughed at a bad joke I made about exchanging insurance information just for the hell of it. "We can both call and annoy them at the same time," I said. We didn't even exchange paint! Talk about lucky. Cars aren't made for snow. Werewolves, though, are. Crash was having a ball at his parents place, running through the ice and snow, chasing down game. He caught three of their dinners with his claws hunting with his folks. He got time the time to spend in werewolf form for fun for a change instead of just chasing down villains or trying to rescue my broke ass. So much so, he nearly burnt himself out on it and was asleep for almost eighteen hours after he got home. Most of us went our separate ways for the holidays. I think Zack, Kris and Sean had a small celebration together of some kind at the homestead. Kind of like a lawn gnome survivors support group thing, I guess. Which was strange, cause our resident lawn gnome was also invited to whatever they were doing. Though Valyur insisted on staying outside and eating his own food while watching them celebrate. "Felt wrong to be inside with ya meaties. But I thank ye for the invite," he said. "But we're supposed to watch you." When we all got home, there we had a separate Christmas celebration here. Through the snow, slush and slog, we were all burnt out. There wasn't any Christmas music, though the decorations were still up. No more Charlie Brown on the TV, no more Garfield and Grandma in her rocking chair by the window on a snow filled night. Just us together. The food was a haphazard meal. It was my turn to cook, so I decided on a fried chicken dish that was easy to do. Which Crash, of course, had to add his own side dish to. Then Zack, then Kris and Sean. Before you know it, what was supposed to be a simple meal turned into a huge smorgasbord, with fried chicken, home made mac and cheese, biscuits and green beans. As well as something else I'm forgetting now, so we'll call it cabbage. Elouise even stopped by with a pie she took home from her own Christmas party a couple days prior. It felt abnormal it was so normal. No gunfire, no kidnappings. No strange threats from vampires. No gnomes plotting world domination. No werewolf hunters. Nothing. Just, plain, old food, family and fun. We exchanged gifts, and the occasional compliment veiled in an insulting joke. Exchanged stories of our childhoods and how we celebrated Christmas. It was wonderful. The snow of course still came down. It's still falling, and holds the promise of even more snow. It will eventually let up in a few weeks, I know. After what feels like a lifetime of being trapped within four walls the heat will slowly return, and with it the adventures. Those things that at times make me miss the slower things. The Christmases and holidays. You can miss it. From the near, nonstop celebrating that retailers do from June to January, Christmas can feel like it has lost it's magic and wonder. But there is still magic and wonder to it, there has to be. Cause snow, for all it's glistening white, frozen glory, is actually pretty dreary and depressing. It literally and figuratively sucks the life right out of you, like a demented vampire intent on killing you slowly. You're confined to your home unless you're lucky enough to live in a place where you can ski and snowboard. Sometimes you're stuck around the same people for days and weeks on and, and, well, you can at times be ready to kill each other. That's where Christmas comes in. Bright colors of green and red; the colors of life. To remind you that, despite all of the frozen lifelessness, there is still life out there within the world and within you. That's one of the things that I had forgotten about Christmas as an adult. Truth is, as soon as you can buy your own things, Christmas starts to lose it's appeal. It stops being magical. Why send a letter to Santa asking for a gaming console that your parents will just buy and put his name on? Just put it on the credit card. Pay it off later. Why stress over that leather jacket? You don't have to be extra good for your parents and do the dishes or what not. Just buy it yourself. Why wait till Christmas? When the getting has lost its appeal and the snow piles up, sapping your energy and even draining your mood, you have this bright tree and memories. Hot Cocoa and friendly conversations and jokes. You have this holiday to help you out. I'm not a very religious person. But this year, the holidays did warm my heart a little. The heart of a guy who had come home with the promise of writing a scathing blog post about winter and how it sucks. A small simple celebration turned all of that around. So, a belated Merry Christmas, from all of us. A belated Happy New Year, too. And if all your resolutions are already broken, remember, you don't need a year to start over. Sometimes all you need is tomorrow. Thanks everyone. And I hope you're at least somewhat enjoying the snow. |
| Certain holiday traditions just run deep for certain families. Some families must watch "Charlie Brown's Christmas Special" every year or "A Garfield Christmas Special". Some families have to cook some large, complicated dish that requires multiple hours and multiple people to help make. My family growing up did a mix of all of those things. Well, when we weren't pecking at each other or outright fighting. Upon moving here though, I've made certain holiday traditions. The week of Christmas, I'll post something crazy and outrageous on the blog. Pranks or a top ten list of some insanity cooked up by experience and tongue-in-cheek cheer. Crash has work slow down, and we gather around food and fun for a little bit while our resident werewolf takes a break from the fur. Some of those things have stuck around. Some of those things have changed this year. One thing is certain, Crash has bought more gifts than normal. To be fair, so have I. Everyone accidentally got two when I meant to get one. And I blew my budget on each gift by at least ten dollars. That doesn't seem like much, but when you exist on a fixed income, it becomes a lot. However, with Crash, it seems almost impulsive. Sean of all people noticed it. He's normally the type who greets you with a smile, share a cup of coffee with you. Say something that seems almost dumb at times in his chill, surfer dude like attitude. This time, though, he stopped Crash in the hallway, patted his arm with a look of sincerity on his face that pulled his smile downwards and said, "dude, it's not necessary. We love you." This made me and Crash both pause. It wasn't intended to tug at hear strings, but it did in his own way. Crash had two more gifts in his arms that he was trying to shuffle down the hallway. He stopped and smiled, gave an embarrassed 'thank you', then disappeared again into his room. "What was that about," I asked Sean. He just shrugged, pushed his hair out of his face and said, "My dad used to do that after being gone on a bender for days." Then went back up stairs. I had two thoughts. One was to sit in Crash's room like a Family Matters episode and have a heart to heart. I'd even have found that same song they played all the time and played it in the background while I did so. My second thought was....pranks! For this prank, I decided not to go all out. I wanted one thing, and one thing only: for Crash to freaking let go for a while! Crash's prank he first pulled on me when I moved in came to mind. This prank was going to be reminiscent of that one. First, I was going to need a couple supplies. Thankfully, the local Dollar store carried most of the stuff. And it was plastic, so if the prank went awry, nothing would get broken. After one of Crash's nightly excursions, he came in the house, a bit grumbly as usual. He was still in full werewolf mode, tired, his ears folded back in that manner that always made me think of a dog who's just exhausted from being a dog. "Hey," I said. Then pointed to the table. "Saved you some dinner." Sitting on the table was a dog bowl, with Crash's name carefully stenciled on it. Inside the bowl was a large ham bone Kris had borrowed from a neighbor. Crash's eyebrows and ears went up. "What?" Before his brain has a chance to process what was going on, Zack came in and smacked him with a rolled up newspaper. "Bad," he shouted. "Bad dog! Eat your supper!" Crash shouted, "Hey!" Then tried to take the newspaper from Zack. Unfortunately for Crash, Kris and Sean where right behind him with their own newspapers, shouting, "Bad dog!" And started smacking him. I had one, and tried, but I was too busy laughing. With a loud growl, Crash snatched the newspapers, and began firing back. It was about then, that I had the brilliant idea to begin balling up the paper and throwing it at Crash. This started a chain reaction of sorts, that devolved into a paper ball war, which ended up with me getting most of the paper shoved down my shirt. At the end, he stood over me, a grin on his face that I hadn't seen for a while. "This was for the whole dog food thing, wasn't it?" "Among other things," I grinned back. "You know we're a pack right? We understand." "I know." Crash turned and left back towards his room. He denies it, but I know he had a wag in his tail. Last Christmas I gave a list of pranks. This Christmas we had that prank. I'm hoping pranks don't become part of our holiday tradition around here. But if they do, this won't be the first family to have a prank war, and we won't be the last. I'm just curious as to how he'll respond now. Lets hope it's with another 'dogfood' bag full of Reese's Puffs. |
| I'm one of those weird people who do not quite feel like it's Christmas season yet. For me, Christmas season starts the weekend before Christmas and runs through New Years day. This current season is set up for one thing and one thing only: buying. Tis the season to be buying crap. That's what this season is to me: Buying season. What are we all doing right now? Wearing out the credit cards, wearing out the floors in the stores, ducking inside each one hoping against hope that we don't hear that Mariah Carey song or another bad version of "White Christmas". We're scrolling through Amazon and E-bay deals, crowding the isles in the grocery stores to get the goodies to prepare. What this is, is preparation. I have this belief because it helps me deal with the insanity of this time of year. I used to be one of those types of people. The type that hates Christmas, that HATES all of the crowding, the cheer, the blah, blah blah. It took me a long time to realize why I was that way. It's because it felt like I was always in Christmas. Stores begin playing holiday music in June so you are reminded to buy Christmas gifts. When they're advertising Halloween decoration and candy in August, the Christmas decorations are right around the corner, literally, sitting on store shelves in one or two isles, shoved near a wall or forgotten corner somewhere. As if lying in wait for you drop your guard before they pounce on you. Television, before streaming came along to replace broadcast TV, used to even show "Christmas in July" and do endless reruns of Christmas movies for a week or two. "A Christmas Story", "A Christmas Carol" (All 140 different versions), "It's A Wonderful Life", "Charlie Brown's Christmas Special", and even "A Garfield Christmas Special". Why, certain channels were nice enough to endlessly re-run "A Christmas Story" for the entirety of December! One year it felt as if I'd seen the entire movie in pieces just by channel surfing. You can overdo anything. It begins to feel as if you're drowning as you're trying to swim upstream through an endless supply of bad Eggnog. That's the reason I swapped my philosophy on things. It isn't the Christmas season. It's the Buying season. It isn't the season of good cheer. It's the season of credit card debt. Good cheer is coming. That's when we get together, share presents and memories, hopefully before that certain aunt or uncle stands up and blasts everyone with their political opinions. It's the delicious home cooked food we only get on those special occasions. It's the traditions that we keep alive, no matter how crazy they are to some people. It's hard at times though, especially when you're in the middle of Buying season, your bank account is closer to a golf score on the PGA than to anything resembling financially solvent, you've heard that Burt Ive's song a thousand times with no end in sight, and your Christmas list is still longer than your arm. It can feel a bit overwhelming, especially this year at this time. A gift from the heart is far better than one from the wallet. Getting Crash a werewolf coffee mug for example is a smart gift. He enjoys coffee, loves being a werewolf, and will more than appreciate it cause it's from me. Getting Zack a new headset or a gift card for his PlayStation makes sense cause of how much he loves video games. Getting Kris and Sean car parts for their vehicles makes sense cause of what they love to do. None of my gifts are expensive. That joke about how low my bank account is, is pretty close to accurate. So, those car parts for example, may end up being cheap lighting gimmicks from Amazon or something. That gift card may end up only being twenty five bucks. Crash's mug may only be a fifteen dollar thing. None of that matters. Tis the buying season. It's the season to get things for our loved ones. For our families. It's sometimes hard, especially in this day and age of Iphone 87s and Galaxy 99 Slim Pros to remember things like that. To remember that it's not the amount of boxes around the tree, but the thought and care that went into selecting what was in the package. Or the sacrifice made to get it. To be fair, I'm not expecting anything extravagant in return. When the Buying Season is harsh, it's harsh for everyone, not just yourself. Prices go up, but pay doesn't. When people's pay doesn't go up the way it should, those of us living on benefits gets an even smaller bump. But it's not about any of that. Not supposed to be anyway. I can't afford to get Zack an awesome new PlayStation, or even a new controller. Can't afford to get Kris and Sean expensive new items they really want for their car, like a Ricaro racing seat and such. Can't afford to get Crash much of anything, really. Which can hurt if you let it. This is the part of the Buying Season that is most painful for some, and makes us all hate Christmas just a bit. The things you want to get people is just two inches out of financial reach. Just two inches beyond your finger tips. This year, I'm doing what I can. Getting the gifts I can afford and not expecting much in return. It's Buying Season after all. Tis the season to prepare. Part of preparing is understanding that, although wants are nice, it's the effort that counts. And I'm putting all of my effort into this. And part of my grocery money as well. Cause Buying season is going to lead to a great Christmas season. And that will hopefully start next year off better. Happy Buying Season, everyone. And Merry Christmas. Early. |
| This was the first time I've ever felt like a holiday was needed and welcomed. Most people have thanksgiving filled with traditional foods like turkey and that cranberry gelatin stuff that comes from a can which everyone for some reason calls "sauce". It's a warm house filled with familiar bodies and scents. Warm hugs, a parade on television no one is really watching or a football game that people are watching. And of course, the traditional drama fest filled with political and social discourse, which leads to shouting, which sometimes leads to front yard fisticuffs. Our thanksgivings at the house have never been like that, thankfully. It's Mostly good food, discussions of what everyone is doing, and lots and lots of teasing. You can tell the health of a family, through it's jokes. Jovial attitudes and teasing means your family is good and healthy. If there's no teasing, no jokes nor any kidding, if you have angry shouts instead of love, then perhaps there's something you need to address. This year, Crash stayed human throughout most of it. Though, no fault of his own, he ended up having to shift to his night uniform and run out the door at about three in the morning. Sometimes horror shows don't take the holidays off, even if you wished them to. He cooked the turkey and the ham. And the pumpkin pies. And well, almost everything, really. Zack did his fair share of cooking as well: stuffing, reheating rolls and making gravy. Kris did his famous mac and cheese. Among all of this was a green bean casserole, a couple of other vegetables as well that currently slips my mind. We even had a bit of Cajun turkey, thanks to Elouise who brought over a fireball of pain cooked down to turkey form. This was started thanks to a bet that Elouise and Crash had going. I wasn't the only one Crash had been talking to at night. Elouise had taken to doing some nightly hunts with him as well, just to talk to him a bit and see what was going on. The subject of cooking had come up during one of these talks, and how he as a werewolf, could take just about anything. Of course, Elouise said, "well, not anything. Bet I could whip up something you couldn't handle." And somewhere between running through trees and running down deer or suspects he said, "My fuzzy butt can handle anything you put in front of me, you over grown handbag." Or something like that. I maybe embellishing a little bit. Their fault for not giving me the full story. So, when it came close to time to eat, Elouise stopped by with a 'real Cajun bird' she said. We wouldn't touch it. The turkey meat was a faint shade of reddish orange from the spices and peppers that it had been cooked with. It was injected with a special Cajun sauce, marinated in a different kind of sauce, and then basted with another kind of sauce as it cooked. I don't know all of the ingredients, but she later admitted that the peppers she used included names like 'Reaper', 'X', and 'Scorpion'. Just the scent of the plate made my nose run. She was kind enough to bring enough for everyone. Crash was the only one brave enough to try it. Zack literally covered his mouth and shook his head with an audible "Mmm MMm," when she offered. Crash called us all wimps and piled two big pieces on his plate. We watched with anticipation as he brought the first bite to his mouth. He smelled it and smiled, "You almost got it hot enough." Then took a bite. His face grew cartoon red. I swear smoke was coming out of his ears. He yelped in a high pitch that almost sounded like a whine and raced towards the kitchen sink. For five minutes he was spitting water on his face, rinsing his lips off and mouth out, and occasionally, rinsing his mouth out with milk. When he finally came back in, he said one word: "Uncle!" Elouise smiled and said, "wimp", then took the plate and started eating it. I wouldn't want to be her O-ring today, is all I'm going to say. Yeouch! This meal had something that we didn't have for a while. Something more was present at that table and ate with us. Something which felt it had been missing in the past several weeks. There was no polite smiles, no tiny talk for the big plates. Just genuine jokes, memories, and hugs all around had finally come to replace ignored bitterness and regret. It was a good meal shared with good friends that had grown closer than friends in some ways. We had a long time ago stopped being mere people who shared rent and bills in order to survive. We had become something more: a type of family. It wasn't the traditional family by any means, but it was family none the less. The people who sat around that table with me had grown to be more like siblings than distant friends. More like relatives than basic house mates. More like a bond that's needed by us all to get us through the toughest times. Though we had been pushed, pulled, hunted, attacked, cursed. We had been struck and insulted. We had been kidnapped. The past year shown us one thing: no matter how strained, how angry we may get, how small and insignificant we may feel at times, we're still more than a basic family. We're still a pack. And that is still more than anyone of us could ever ask for. |
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