Life With A Werewolf

That Time Crash Accidentally Cast Fireball

Sometimes we all need a little adult supervision. Whether we’re standing on a rolling chair to reach that item on the top shelf, racing through the house with our birthday suit flapping in the breeze so we can grab that pair of underwear and towel we forgot for the shower, or something else, we need that person there to tell us “Hey! Not smart!” Usually, for me, it’s Crash who fills that roll. I try doing something incredibly dumb, and he’ll place a heavy hand on my shoulder and say ‘dummy, you’re gonna get yourself killed.’ However, this time it wasn’t me, it was Crash. And amazingly he didn’t hurt himself, even though he tried to blow himself up.

          It started a couple weeks back. Crash was on day shift after the whole Rougarou business. After a major incident like that, you know the kind that normally pulls me in to some crazy adventure that gets blabbed about on here, he’s put on day shifts to handle paperwork, destress, that sort of thing. Apparently, there was some incident that no one ever really talks about but in hushed tones of a werewolf working too long and going feral.

          Crash had decided, in his infinite wisdom, to burn a brush pile. It had become more brush than pile with weeds growing through the middle, a ring of dead leaves around it, and enough dead limbs and twigs to hide a good portion of the trees from visibility. The first step of course was to kill the weeds that grew in the middle. And naturally, you’d use the old, varnished gasoline to do it. After all, it isn’t like it’s going to blow up now, is it?

          He doesn’t say exactly how much he used, but will still chuckle and say “don’t worry, it was only a few gallons.” He figured there was rain coming, so in two weeks’ time, he’d just come and burn it. The gas should be gone by then, right? Right….

          Unbeknownst to Crash, there was a mole tunnel right beneath the brush pile. The gasoline pooled inside the tunnels, becoming a natural pipe bomb. It stayed through rain and shine, waiting, like a lingering demon, to unleash its hellish might from just one foolish man, or werewolf’s, spark.
          Crash began transitioning back to nights after a couple weeks. There was only one or two nights left, and he decided that burning that brush pile would be a good way to spend the evening. So, as the sun began to dip, Crash shifted, grabbed a lighter, and went outside. He began his prep work, grabbing a fire extinguisher, a couple of water buckets, the works. He didn’t get a water hose though, cause it wasn’t like it was going to be a big fire.

          I was inside, working on another story that would be summarily rejected by another magazine, when I heard it:

          Boom!

          Zack was asleep by then, and he could sleep through almost anything. Sean was still at work, and Kris beat me outside by about 3 seconds. When we both arrived, we could see a raging fire that reached to the heavens. It looked as if we were giving a Viking funeral to a forgotten king. A very crispy werewolf stood in front of it, an embarrassed grin on his face and ears, holding an empty water bucket.

          “Well, I got the brush pile lit,” he said and grinned.

          Now, Crash wasn’t completely stupid. After all, he did have buckets of water and a fire extinguisher nearby. A water hose was soon hooked up as well, and Kris and me spent the better part of the next hour evening wetting down the surrounding area to ensure the fire didn’t spread and become our neighbors problem instead of just ours.

          The mole hole provided just the right amount of air and compression to make a decent sized fire bomb. It was a miracle none of us were out there with him. A miracle that in the two weeks’ time that gasoline sat, we didn’t have an errant spark from one of our other neighbors, or something else to set it off without us being out there to watch it. A miracle that Crash was alive. His only protection being his very species. It was also a miracle that we didn’t kill him.

          “You moron,” Kris shouted at him after hearing about the gasoline. The fire in his eyes rivaled the fire at its hottest and highest point. “You could have killed yourself!”

          “What,” Crash said with a soft smile. “I was protected. I ducked.”

          I knew better than to interrupt Kris in a rant like this. And did he ever go off. Crash stood there with his soft sheepish smile, taking everything Kris gave him. He called Crash irresponsible, dumb, called the move childish. I never stopped him and Crash took it because we both knew that he was right. What Crash had done was all of those things.

          “You realize you almost killed yourself?! What do you have to say for yourself, huh? For what you did?!”

          Kris stood at the edge of the fire that had now burnt itself down, raging as hard as the flames had, heaving, clenching his fists. Crash looked at him, still with that sheepish grin on his werewolf muzzle and ears and said, “I used no more than five gallons! I promise.”

          Before Kris could literally skin Crash alive, I pulled him back and patted him on the shoulder. “I got this,” I told him, and began to lead him back inside.

          “You handle him then,” Kris snarled, then walked back inside, still understandably very upset.

          I stood with Crash for a while, watching the fire, helping him tend to it. After a while, I looked at him, and sighed, “you scared him you know. And me.”

          “I was being careful,” Crash said, “I lit it like I was lighting a bomb.”

          I smirked, “Apt phrasing.”

          He blinked. “I just never figured that would happen.” Which makes sense. We never figure that when we’re grabbing that quick item from the top shelf the rolling chair will shift and spit out from beneath us, leaving only the counter to catch our chin on the way down. That when we’re sprinting back to our bedroom, our neighbors will pick that moment to knock on the door, or that we could slip in water, and hurt ourselves when we’re most vulnerable. That the gasoline we figured would have been gone and killed the weeds would still be around, pooled, ready to explode.

          But it happens. The counter almost breaks our neck. The neighbors screech, laugh, then snap photos as we blush like a kid at a recital, trying to cover up the goods. The gasoline ignites like a fireball from a movie set. We’re left hurt, bleeding, embarrassed, and usually, none the wiser for our injuries.

          Everyone needs a little adult supervision at times. Someone to step back, tell them, “No dummy, that’s not going to work. You’re going to kill yourself.” It’s at these moments though you find out just how much people care about you. It’s in relation to how upset they get. If all they do is laugh and ask you to take photos next time, re-evaluate your friendship.

          I think Zack though summed it up best when he asked “what did you learn,” in a sing song voice later on. Crash laughed and said something like “that varnished gas lingers.”

          He did apologize though at least. Promised us all that he’d be more careful. But I guess it shows in some ways why we get along so well. We’re both the right level of crazy and stupid. He attempted to blow himself up in a fire. I attempted to get two vicious proven blood thirsty killers mad at me so they’ll chase me. Zack, Sean and Kris? Well, I promised them I’d keep their dumbest moments off of here. And I’ll continue to do so, as long as the payment comes through.

          The results of all of this is that the house still smells like singed fur almost a week later. Crash laughs every time he talks about it, but promises to be safer. And that I’m analyzing my own actions. I’m not always the safest at times. But I wouldn’t have poured gasoline on weeds to kill them. I’m too paranoid for that. Cause knowing my luck, some hapless soul would have walked by and flicked a cigarette into the brush pile, even though it was piled at the furthest point from anything on our property.

          Crash promised to be safer. I perhaps should take his lead and try to be safer as well. After all, I only have one life to live, and no one can age backwards. This pain in my joints does wake me up on occasion at nights now. It would be nice to see eighty and not need a wheel chair. But we’ll see. Knowing my luck, I’ll be in a wheel chair, in a nursing home next to Crash, who will be stuck in his werewolf form for some reason, peeing in one bag and drinking from another. All while nurses check our pulses every three hours and tell us things in singsong voices as if we’re mentally handicap instead of just physically.

          But we’ll see. It’s best not to plan that far ahead in the future. After all, when we make plans, God, the universe, or whoever, sends us fireballs.