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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 |
| 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. |
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