Life With A Werewolf

Thanksgiving

         So, last week was thanksgiving. Surprisingly Crash got the weekend off, a full four days. It was surprising to everyone because we didn’t really expect him to get four days off back-to-back. Especially given his job, whatever it was that calls him away so often to do, well God almighty only knows what, in the dead of night, to only come home at the mornings first few rays of light covered in mud, muck and fluids that I won’t even begin to ask what they are. He still wouldn’t talk about it, though occasionally now I hear grumbles that he’s going to have to talk to me soon about something if “things don’t change”, in that ominous tone usually reserved by Hollywood for tragic anti-heroes and war movies.

         I know I’m not messing up, so it’s not me that has to worry. After all, I pay my rent, clean up after myself and even help him on occasion with various individual things when he needs it. I suppose I do hope things change or he gets things figured out, or whatever, cause he doesn’t look too terribly pleased about whatever outcomes there maybe about whatever is going on that he won’t talk about.

         Mostly, we got a chance to pal around for the last few days, do things that we’ve wanted to do. It helps when your roommate has the same strange sense of humor you do. For example, when he was in the shower on Thanksgiving, I shouted the entire “Scooby Doo” theme song at him, complete with the hard-to-understand verse near the end. To get me back, he waited till I was about to sleep then began to shout the “Purple People Eater” song at me. Loudly. Off key of course. Thanks.

         But we didn’t get up to too many shenanigans over the holidays. It was a pretty regular, run of the mill holiday for a group of friends that has become a surrogate like family for all involved. We ate turkey and ham, and pumpkin pie. We even did the prayer over the meal thanking God for the good food and the ability for all of us to be there together as a family. Crash scrounged up a table cloth from somewhere, and it was set in the dining room table – right next to the old tube radio and other knickknacks and doodads that have been collected in this house by lord knows who over the years. The dark walls gave it a homely feeling and for a moment or two while we ate mostly in silence. I could feel dead relatives and battle buddies gone in one conflict or another sitting at the table with us, enjoying the moment together gathered around the breaking of our own bread. As strange of a family as we are, we are still a family in our own right. A pack if you will, according to Crash. And he will do anything to protect one of his own.

         It stood in a stark contrast to my last Thanksgiving I celebrated. Standing alone in my apartment, cold from the drafty windows and drinking Wild Turkey in celebration of the holiday. My darling ex was God knows where, but I wasn’t out of the military, not yet. Nor was I divorced yet. I was alone on my couch, watching Rocky, my favorite holiday movie. (Hey, it has both Thanksgiving and Christmas in it. If Die Hard gets counted as a Christmas movie, then Rocky is a Christmas movie, and a much better one, thank you!) I admit though, at the time I was watching it just to hear him tell Adrian “To you, it’s thanksgiving, to me it’s Thursday.” Which for many years had summed up my entire attitude about that holiday.

         In the military, Thanksgiving and Christmas is always done up well overseas. If you’re deployed you get the pleasure of witnessing your smiling chain of command hand out Turkey and Gravy in their best dress uniforms, smiling and joking the entire time like they’re almost just like you. It’s the two days of the year, Thanksgiving and Christmas, the food isn’t all that bad, and for once you get plenty of it. Of course, there is the deployments where you’re actually doing the job you train for instead of playing watchdog or security guard for an entire nation somewhere. Those meals for holidays can be iffy at best. But you understand it. After all, you’d rather be doing your job somewhere fighting for something important than sitting back on a military base in the states sweeping a motor pool waiting to be able to do something bigger.

         It’s strange. That a million light years from home you are at least distracted. A thousand miles from the previous life I knew, so far away from everything else that has come before I can find some semblance of family amongst the crazy cast of characters sitting around that table. From the body hair werewolf jokes, the bad puns, the teasing of everyone, and the various dishes we all attempted to cook (or buy. They wouldn’t let me do another Wild Turkey Thanksgiving), the awkward pauses, we all felt closer at that dining table than any of us had felt in the previous lives we had left. Crash was alone before we all moved here. Zack ran from a situation that he is still uncomfortable talking about, one that we haven’t pried into, but let him know we’re there for whenever he’s ready to open up about it. Kris and Shawn came from differing situations, ones that I won’t get into, but makes mine look tame by comparison.

         Despite the insanity of all of our schedules, the bad jokes we sometimes pull, the horrible horror movies. Despite vampires, werewolves, the neighborhood Troll going crazy, the lawn gnomes occasionally trying to kill me, despite the zombies coming to the least qualified person on the block for counseling, it’s a much more enjoyable life that I’m living now than I have in the past several years. Crash was right when he said we were a pack. That means we’re family. And that makes all the difference.

         Oh, I haven’t talked about the neighborhood troll yet, have I? Well, yeah. That’s kind of a crazy one. And for once, it is quite literally not my fault. I’ll get into that one, next update. I promise.