Life With A Werewolf

Charles (Not So) In charge

          It’s my theory that everyone is magnetic of some magnitude. Meaning, they naturally attract certain things. Some people attract riches and wealth, others attract fun people and parties, still others attract nothing but trouble. I try to stay away from those that do attract trouble, and stay near those that attract goodness and kindness. Those are the qualities I need, after all. The qualities we all need in our lives. I don’t need trouble around me.

          Charles had done every bit of those things. He was the kind of personality that attracted trouble. It’s not his fault, I suppose. Being hulderfolk, he rather enjoys human company. Even if he doesn’t fully grasp or understand it. Nancy does as well. These blond haired, blue eyed chiseled beauties could have before been seen just about everywhere about town if they weren’t at home. Working outside together, working out at the gym or going on runs. Doing all sorts of things. Until the divorce that is.

          After the attack, strange threats, and subsequent break up I thought I was done with those two. No amount of curiosity could make it worth chasing them down to find out what exactly happened to these tailed and crazy kids. But I suppose just because you maybe done with someone, doesn’t mean that they’re exactly done with you.

          Charles didn’t take the break up well. I could see that from the first moment I laid eyes on him outside of the grocery store. His face looked more broken up than the ancient, sun-bleached parking lot out front. He wasn’t in his Mercedes. He was staring longingly through the glass at the front door, like a kid at an amusement park that is just two inches shy of getting on the rollercoaster. “Charles,” I asked.

          “Jason,” he said, snapping his attention to me. There was a half-crazed look in his eye.

          “Look, if you attack me,” I said, starting into a standard threat.

          Charles cut me off as he turned, grabbing my shirt in both hands. “Look, I’m sorry, okay! I was grief smitten and bitten down by the terrible tragedy that had occurred at my domicile.”

          I held back a gag when he embraced me like this. Charles had undergone many things in the past several weeks, but it smelled like a shower wasn’t one of them. Neither was a clean change of clothing. His over priced designer pants and shirt looked as if they had rolled around in the dirt and been dragged behind a car.

          “Okay, okay. Apology accepted,” I grumbled, pushing against him to try and get some space and clean air between us. “What are you doing here?”

          “Nancy’s in there,” he said. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

          “Okay,” I said. “So?”

          “I don’t want to see her.”

          See what I mean about these head scratcher statements these hulderfolk always seems to give you? “Then, I have a great solution. Why don’t you, I don’t know, just go away. Let her shop in peace and you won’t see each other.”

          “But,” Charles said, “I have to see her.”

          I sighed. “I’m going to regret this. But why do you have to see her?”

          “Because, I love her.”

          “Charles, my sweet dear friend. Then why do you not want to see her?” I asked.

          His face darkened a moment. “Because I hate her.” He snarled. “I will piss on her toes if I see her again.”

          In as patient of a voice as I could muster, my anger rapidly increasing from the proximity of his stench and the strangeness of the conversation, I asked, “Charles? Is that why you have to see her again? Cause you need to pee?”

          He gave me that look he gives me sometimes as if a strange wart had suddenly sprouted out of my nose. “No! You humans are so weird. Why would you ask me that?” Why indeed. I slid my hands into my pockets to keep me from crossing my arms in annoyance and anger. After staring at him for a few moments, he finally said “I don’t know why. I hate her but I love her. Most of my kind mate for life, you know.”

          I didn’t, but I guess that makes sense in a…Charles sort of way. “Why don’t you go talk to her?”

          His eyes welled up for a moment, emotion breaking through on his face. “I tried that. She ignored me, made me run across five yards and through a ditch to just get her attention while she drove away. No amount of pontificating or vocalizing my emotions could over come the destructive volume of her audio equipment in her vehicle.”

          If you’re as tongue tied as I am about that mouthful of monstrosity, don’t worry. I’ve figured out what he was trying to say. He was chasing her car, and she was blasting her music. She probably didn’t even see him.

          “I followed her here. Shouted her name, but she didn’t even look around,” he said.

          I sighed. “Look, I got groceries to get.”

          Crestfallen, he slunk away from the door. “My life has no meaning without my Nancy,” he said. “Even after she betrayed me.”

          “Okay,” I growled. “Fine! I’ll talk to her. But, I want you to promise me, if I get her to agree to meet you, that you’ll stop staring through this door like a lost puppy. Okay?”

          Confusion painted his face for a moment. “I’m no lost puppy,” he said. “I’m Charles.”

          With a heavy sigh, I nodded. “Of course, you are. Give me about twenty minutes.”

          If he started literally counting the seconds when I left, I wouldn’t have been surprised. However, he simply nodded then stepped back, walking over towards my car. Turning, I stepped into the cool air of the super market, and grabbed a cart to begin shopping.

          The grocery store wasn’t some hi-tech marvel, but it had everything I was coming for at reasonable prices. Shelves stocked high with goods in crowded isles that were placed with just the right amount of space between them to get two carts to barely squeeze through: all so they can bring more goods to you the consumer. I rounded through the produce isles with their fresh fruits and vegetables stacked in as many arrays of pyramids and slanted display cases as they could possibly hold and grabbed a couple things. Then, maneuvering my way through the next isle, I found her.

          Nancy’s blonde hair was brushed backwards and allowed to fall down the back of her pants suit. She had selected one that, to me looked as if she was trying to be a stand in for Hillary Clinton at an appearance somewhere, but I guess made sense for her. She was staring at a list as if it seemed to mystify her with its’ confound nature. “What are you looking for?” I asked.

          “I cannot find this,” she said, pointing to the top item on her list. “It was nowhere in produce.”

          It’s not good to make fun of Hulderfolk. There has been more than one incident that has occurred when someone had been foolish enough to make fun of their unique nature. However, at times it is REALLY hard not to do it. “That’s because Apple Jacks is a breakfast cereal,” I said. “Come here, let me show you.”

          We went a couple isles over and I grabbed the familiar green box off the shelf. “Here you go.”

          “Jason, you are always such a great boon to one such as me when I’m in a time of calamity,” she said. It seems to me that hulderfolk will purposefully use larger words when they feel dumber. A sort of safety mechanism against a world that is, in all honesty, a bit harsher against their kind than seems reasonable. Anyone could make a subtle joke about them and laugh at their expense, but to me that is a bit like kicking a lost puppy. Especially when they’re so good at the lost puppy look.

          “Charles used to do all the shopping. May his toenails grow fat and fall out,” she cursed.

          I nodded. “You pay the bills?”

          She smiled. “Yes. I used to feel his was unworthy of my attention and time, but I see that shopping can be quite difficult.” She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps you’d like to help me finish my shopping list? I can make it worth your time.”

          At some point in time, that would have been an easy yes. Accept her offer, help her shop, go back to her place, bring in the groceries, and well, you know. But seeing the lost look in her eye, it awoke the protective instinct in me, I guess. Or maybe I’m getting softer in my old age. “It sounds like you and Charles make quite the team,” I said.

          “Please do not speak his name.” She snarled. “So what if I had intercourse with the mailman, and the gardener. And the pool boy. So, what! It’s not like he hasn’t had his flings either. To hear him talk, you’d think it was my fault for having sex with so many people.”

          “I know I’m going to regret this,” I said. “But how is it not?”

          I looked down and rubbed my eyes in preparation for the batshit insanity that was coming. I wasn’t disappointed. “Cause Charles was always too tired to give a good performance. I like more,”

          “Okay!” I interrupted. “Let’s not go that far. I don’t need a picture.”

          “What. It’s not shameful. I like it when a man gives me his full attention. And full,”

          “But all I am saying,” I said, talking over her. Look I know it’s rude, but standing in a grocery aisle next to the kids cereals is just NOT the place to be talking about how you enjoy having sex. “Charles seemed to handle more things than you give him credit for. One half of a whole team doesn’t work.”

          It wasn’t Shakespeare, I admit. Still, she paused in thoughtful reflection. “I believe you maybe right. Let us talk, me and Charles. You bring him to the house, tonight.”

          “Seven o’clock,” I asked.

          “Sure,” she replied. With that, she was done; walking away from me down the isle, staring at her grocery list as if deciphering it could give her the keys to life itself. I finished my shopping and to my complete lack of surprise, Charles was standing by my car. “There was some lawn gnomes who tried to come by,” he said. “I made them flee in fear, though. Told them that they’d better not mess with my friends’ transportation mobile or they would have to answer to me.”

          “Okay, well thanks.” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at the moment, but I didn’t ask. I was afraid I’d get an answer. “Tonight, at seven. We will meet at her place.”

          “It used to be ours.” Charles whimpered. His bottom lip quivered a moment, then he snarled. “I will bite her thumbs!”

          “You’re going to need help tonight, aren’t you?”

          He nodded.

          “okay,” I sighed. “Charles, I’ll go with you tonight. On one condition.”

          “Name it,” he said. “If it is within my possibilities to make this come true, I will.”

          “Stop with the weird and creepy threats.”

          “Done.” Charles nodded. “I will not threaten my beloved beautiful Nancy. Even if she betrayed me.”

          As I began to load the groceries in the trunk, he opened my passenger door and sat down. Remembering my zombie adventure, I grumbled, “I should just start a damned super natural taxi service,” and climbed in next to him.

          When we got back near the house, Charles insisted on climbing out in front of the drive way. “If I go back onto your property,” he said, “werewolf will eat my head.”

          I didn’t doubt that in the slightest. The last meeting between Crash and Charles didn’t go all that well. So, I let him out, and he sat at the stop sign at the end of the street, staring fore longingly at his own home, waiting.

          What did I do? I brought in groceries, then gave him a couple bottles of water. Saying our goodbyes, I told him I’d meet him there. I expected him to go back to where he lived, but he just sat there. When I asked why he didn’t go home, he said “I couldn’t figure out how to pay the rent. So, I lost my home.” Not much more I could have done from that point. And no amount of asking would get him to come into the house. Crash was on one of his day shifts, so he wasn’t around to give Charles permission – so there he sat.

          I did check on him every couple of hours, stepping out and having a conversation with the man. After a couple of refills on the water, a few strange conversations that would make any passerby believe he was dying of heat stroke or something, and a candy bar that he got somewhere, seven o’clock finally came. And with it, the dreaded meeting.

          Nancy, for her effort looked beautiful. Her hair was pulled back behind her head in a beret. She was wearing a blouse that complimented her hair and eyes. A skirt that seemed perfectly cut, and a smile that made you feel more at ease. However, Charles looked as if someone kicked him in the gut. They stared at each other for a bit, then both looked away.

          “Alright, I guess we should start this off with,” I began.

          “I’m sorry, I couldn’t perform.” Charles said. “But the scent of other men in here, on you. It made me ill.”

          “I grew bored Charles,” she said. “I just don’t want to perform intercourse the same way over and over again.”

          “But, I thought you were pleased!”

          “I was, but I wanted to try new things.”

          I held my hands up. “Okay! Before we go down that little road. How about this. Why don’t you Nancy write down some of the things you want Charles to do.”

          “That part is easy,” she said. “I wanted you to go away. And never come back.” Charles face fell at that comment. “But!” She shouted, looking at me. “It’s like what you said, Jason. One team cannot do what one person makes.”

          “Yeah,” I replied. “Or, something like that.”

          “We’re a team, Charles. I thought I was smarter than you cause I pay bills and you take care of the house. But maybe I’m wrong. It is very difficult to take care of this place without you.”

          Charles nodded. “Exactly! We are a team. We cannot do what one person makes. We must do together.”

          She had a pen and paper in front of her. To take notes with, I guess. She wrote down some, well, let’s just say explicit things that she happily showed me before she showed Charles. He didn’t seem to mind one bit. Charles added one addendum that seemed to be apropos on his part. “The only thing I want, Nancy,” he said. “Is for you to respect me. Not hate me because you have a better job and pay bills.”

          A tear formed in her eye for a moment. I sat there unsure of what was about to happen. But she walked around the table, and kissed him. Deeply. Then said, “I will, and always will respect you.” I think they forgot I was even there. The shirts started coming off next, and that’s when I turned and left.

          And that’s how Charles and Nancy re-united. Two halves of the same coin. They seemed to work out a system thanks to that little notebook. If she wanted to try something different, she wrote it down and kept it in that drawer next to their bed. If he did, it was the same thing. Communication on a different, yet strange level that seems to work for them.

          This little mis-adventure stuck in my mind for a bit, due to the strangeness on the surface. Yet, after a while, like anything with hulderfolk, it began to make a strange sort of sense. She cheated on him because she was bored. But really it was because she didn’t respect him. Didn’t think Charles was, well, troll enough because her job and role seemed more important than his in the relationship.

          Mutual respect is a earned and given thing. It’s not something you just automatically have. One party has to prove themselves to be worth it. And then the other party has to give it, and sometimes more than their fair share of it to see things through. Just because your role in a relationship may seem more important to you doesn’t automatically make your role better, or make you the better partner for having it. It’s that kind of ego and pride that erodes and destroys a relationship.

          And that’s what I see broke Charles and Nancy up. Ego and pride. Not just hers. Charles’ too for not talking to her, for not listening to her. Nancy’s for not talking to him. For placing herself upon a pedestal that shouldn’t exist between them. They do really seem like they’re happy together again. Charles is back at it, mowing in his boxers, trimming the occasional hedge. And Nancy is back at it as well. Occasionally, I do see someone enter their house at night and either Charles or Nancy or both answer the door. The way I look at it, it’s not my business. I don’t ask questions. Not because I’m afraid they’ll get offended. But because I’m afraid they’ll tell me.