The Center

I hear the weekly Group Session starting down the hall: folding chairs dragged into place, sneakers squeaking, small talk, a flutter of laughs, then silence as Gina takes command of the room to begin breathing exercises.

I’m still in Cell 9 down the hall. You wouldn’t need to be a doctor to know that I’m not currently fit to be around other people. The staff put it as nicely as they could: I’m a danger to myself and others. 

But mostly others. 

My fellow patients seem to have been making progress over the past few months, but for some reason I haven’t at all. And it’s not like I have any distractions. Since I can remember, it’s the first time I’ve been screenless. No phone, no laptop, no TV. I don’t even have a clock.

It was hard without my phone at first. I itched for it, had this overwhelming need to resist any inkling of boredom. There was that pull to see, to know things, look up the details on any little thought that popped into my head. I think back on my last search: how old is Jerry Seinfeld? What a waste. 

I realized people my age have no idea how to just wonder. How did people used to live, never quite finding out? Walking through life just wondering, never having access to a source that will tell you then and there? Thankfully this gnawing feeling has pretty much faded.

Now all I can really think about is meat. And a gentle breeze in the open air.

I have no pen to write with, although not sure how I would grip it with these long ass nails. (If only I could paint them.) 

I have no book to read. All of my other heightened senses would probably distract me from such a visual act. Smells and sounds around me are as clear and identifiable as a fluorescent traffic cone or a flame in the dark. (And let’s be real, I have never really been a reader.)

So, I fill the time by howling with rage. I imagine I’m a singer hitting the climactic note in a song, the one so unattainable it sends chills down listeners’ spines. I pretend that the moon can hear me through these solid soundproof walls. I picture my bellows shattering everything, the bulletproof glass window on my cell door, a passerby’s eardrums, teeth, mind. I think any time now my lungs might collapse like curtains, the grand finale, my final bow when my body gives out and crumples.

But even intoxicating adrenaline-fueled fury can get boring after a while. And so, on this night—the eve of yet another full moon—I sit still and listen to tonight’s Group Session. 

Tonight, I pretend I’m there. I can’t see what’s happening, obviously. I don’t have X-ray vision. But if I sit still and breathe slowly my keen hearing can fill in the blanks and the voices will penetrate the walls as if they are paper. 

In my mind’s eye I pull up a seat between Trevor and Janice (and as far away from Zeke as possible.) This is what my ears tell me.

***

I can’t see Janice, but I imagine she is staring at the floor in the center of the circle avoiding eye contact with the others sitting around her. 

“You know…I go through the motions everyday. I pick up my kids, I feed them, I bathe them, I love them with all I have,” Janice said, her voice cracking. “When I look into their eyes I know they don’t just love me. They need me. But they have no idea…how do I tell them that…I’m…a monster,” her voice cascades into lilting sobs. 

“Now Janice, remember what we said about that word,” Gina reminded her, tapping her clipboard with her pen. “No one here is a monster.” I can picture her making a point to look at each of her patients with attentive eyes. 

Janice hiccups through her tears, probably throwing her hands up in surrender. “Sorry—I’m stressed, because,” she sighs, shuddering. “I’m pregnant again. And I’m…fucking terrified.” 

Well shit, that’ll be interesting.

I assume her face is scrunching into what would become a wail. But she’s too polite to howl with abandon (like me.) So, I imagine she buries her face in her manicured hands, her diamond wedding ring glinting in the hideous fluorescent light. This is confirmed when I hear her muffled sobs.

Having met her only briefly, I know that Janice is petite, perky, and athletic thanks to daily pilates classes she loves to mention. She smells like roses and baby powder. She was bitten one early morning while jogging training for a marathon. Her husband always told her to be careful jogging alone in the dark, so she always brought pepper spray. But it did little to help. 

Gina, who is leading the meeting, is stout, with large searching brown eyes winged with laugh lines, and an untameable head of curly auburn hair that is usually held up by her purple drugstore reading glasses. Her ID badge identifies her as the Night Counselor. It hangs from an orange lanyard around her neck and always rests comfortably on her enormous breasts. Many wonder (ok, I wonder) if she sleeps with it on. She smells like oranges and tobacco.

Janice’s eyes probably move from the floor to the ceiling so she can dab the corner of her eyes, wielding a crumpled up tissue with precision. She’d then brush her expertly highlighted, blown-out blonde hair from her eyes. I hear her expensive bracelets clink.

Zeke, sitting to the left of Janice, is most likely slouching deep into his chair, his hands buried into his pockets. The hood of his maroon zip-up sweatshirt (it’s all I’ve seen him wear) is definitely pulled over his greasy hair. Though 24, his small stature, acne scars, and pathetically sparse facial hair make him look much younger. He smells like weed, armpit, and very faintly, of a chemically-forward soap. 

I hear Trevor pipe up. “Maybe we’re not monsters, we just have monsters. Like…an annoying misbehaved pet, or, a gross toddler…” He trails off, probably eyeing Janice, who he knows is a stay-at-home mom. “Lady Gaga has tons of monsters,” he ventures, picking at his chipped neon green nail polish. I laugh inside at this aside, but no one else gets it. He smells like sandalwood and mint gum. I can hear his knee bouncing.

“That’s right, Trevor. You are not here because you are a monster. You are here because you have a condition that is out of your control. But with commitment and practice there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to contribute to your community, maintain relationships with your loved ones, and set goals for yourself,” Gina says. 

The group members all seem to tune out her spiel. We’ve heard it before. We are victims of the latest “epidemic,” as the program leaders call it.

A lull in conversation has fallen over everyone. Their plastic foldout chairs groan as they squirm in silence. I know the room they are sitting in is drab, and the overhead light is probably casting unflattering shadows on them that make them all look tired and aged. The one window that could offer natural light is opaque and gray from the outside safety grate.

The weight of the upcoming full moon makes us all irritable (feral is a better word). Gina, the program counselor, has told us she can feel it build around us, like static in the air or steam off asphalt. 

“Alright, I think this is a good place to stop and head to your dorms. I can tell you all are feeling it tonight,” Gina says. I can hear the group sitting around her acquiesce with sighs and grumbles, their foldout chairs scratching the floor as they stand. 

They follow her in silence through the double doors that lead to the cell block where I’m housed. A light flickers above, the pipes clang as heat is piped through. Though we tend to run hot, we're told they can’t control the building’s heat in the winter.

One-by-one, each group member is taken into a side room and given their monthly physical: weight, blood pressure, signs of injuries. Any increased meat consumption? How are your energy levels? They shine a light over our eyes, check our gums. I’ve heard many say their eyesight is now perfect, that their glasses and contacts are no longer needed. A rare perk.

Then we are given a short psychological evaluation. How is your anger? Have you been sleeping enough? Any blackouts? Have you noticed your pets acting differently towards you?

We are reminded of our progress, where they are trying to improve during our training sessions. We don’t usually remember these, so our sessions are filmed. We watch them together with our therapists. As you can imagine, it is jarring.

Everyone is then escorted further down the bleak hallway to their very own windowless rooms, each with a pile of blankets, padded walls, and a basin with a drain. Outside of each of our rooms are colorful posters with positive catchphrases in garish fonts.

“Yes Ly-can!”

“Howl…with laughter.”

“We’re over the MOON to serve you!”

“WERE we care”

“Don’t let your struggles WERE you down” 

The use of “were” is an infuriating mental bait and switch. I’ve heard Trevor complain about this. He says he could come up with better puns, but not unless they paid him. I heard Janice try to solve it, reading it outloud over and over. I’m not sure she ever did.

“Goodnight y’aaaaallllll,” Trevor sings out from his cell, holding the last note. I try to harmonize, but my howl is off-key. “Goodnight Annie,” he shouts to me. I appreciate the acknowledgement. 

The others murmur their farewells. Once everyone is safely inside their “dorm” a loud buzzer sounds and the thick metal doors slide shut with a hollow clang. 

***

I first turned many months ago, three weeks after I had been bitten. Since then, I haven’t been able to turn back into my “baseline form”, even between moon cycles. Gina suspects it’s not that I’m not able, it’s that I simply refuse. For once, she is correct.

Since my intake (an eventful night), I’ve learned that The Lycan Center is the first-of-its-kind non-profit, HIPAA-compliant facility to help prepare newly turned lycanthropes to safely rejoin society. The somewhat progressive idea was established to address the uptick of violent, inexplicable crimes occurring across the nation. While politicians attributed it to animals or menacing human criminals (AKA immigrants), at the urging of several medical bodies, the current administration conceded that lycanthropy needed to be addressed head on. And forces started refusing to do anything about it after a few of them got killed trying to wrangle a lycanthrope in distress. Anyway.

The aim is to complete the four phases of The “W.E.R.E.” Program: 

Welcoming (intake, withdrawal until baseline)

Evaluating (determining needs, goal-setting, personalized course of treatment)

Reforming (out-patient residence, monthly in-patient behavioral training sessions)

Engaging (out-patient sessions only, submission of course completion to government)

The trouble is, I don’t want to be Reformed, and no amount of Evaluating is going to change that. No matter what form I’m in, I’ll be imprisoned for the murder of my father (oops). 

And while he’s dead, I’ve never felt so alive, so like myself. If I’m going to be locked in a cell, I’d rather stay like this, at my most monstrous. Why else would I have gotten bit on purpose?