Don't Mind the Howl

I am just so embarrassed that I couldn’t have you over sooner. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I got here. I tell you, you start unpacking, and the next thing you know, it’s the middle of the night, and a month’s gone by, and you’re shackled to the wall going “Hey, what’s going on here?”

You ever had that happen to you?

The number of times I wake up, and I’m chained to a radiator or a doorknob or a pipe or something, and at first, it’s very disorienting. Usually I’m not wearing any clothes, because, well, so, you know, I try to buy clothes that stretch, but I don’t know what it is, but, uh, when I, you know, transform, lately, I am so much heavier as a wolf than I am as a person. Like, you know, I’m not the most athletic guy, but I’m no slouch, you know, and the moon comes out, and suddenly it’s like, Whoa, when did this tugboat get here?

I just do not understand it.

I don’t know what I’m eating when I’m a wolf, but it can’t be that much, because usually I try to make sure I’m chained up way before it gets to that point, but, you know, sometimes I forget. We forget. We’re human. Until we’re not. Then I hear about a missing cat, and I’m going “Oh boy, time to move again.”

Usually in most neighborhoods, you can eat one or two cats tops before it really becomes a problem. You don’t have a cat, do you? You know, you really shouldn’t own one regardless, because if you die in your sleep, a cat will start eating you after three days. A dog waits weeks, but a cat? No chill. None. Your nose is gone as soon as you start decomposing. That cat does not care. Doesn’t matter how much it liked you.

Do you want any sangria? I made sangria.

I used to know this guy who made the best sangria with daffodils, if you can believe it. Daffodils. Best sangria you ever tasted. I should have gotten the recipe from him before the villagers burned him alive. Man, he was a great guy. Oh sure, he ate every third son in the county, but to tell you the truth, most people back then had one too many kids, if you asked me. Not that it’s my business, but if you’re hungry, and it’s medieval times, and you got seventeen kids--How are you going to feed all those kids anyway? I know, for me, me personally, uh, I would only ever target the kid who looked like they ate the most. Because, you know, more meat for me, but also, that meant the family didn’t have to feed them anymore. It’s like--You know how, uh, you know, how sometimes they let poachers kill old rhinos, because if they don’t, the old rhino will kill a younger rhino who can still breed? So you think you’re doing something bad, but you’re actually helping the whole situation? That’s how I used to look at it.

You just can’t go to the funeral. Because if you go to the funeral thinking it’s fine, because nobody’s going to know that you’re a lycanthrope, and you’re standing there in your ripped shirt, because all your shirts are ripped, and you’re thinking, You know, maybe that Dad will notice me standing here and realize I’m the one who ate his portly son and thank me for it, because now his other kids won’t starve to death, well, you’re going to be wrong to think that. That’s not how it’s going to go down. It should go down that way, but it never does, and then you’re just standing at a funeral when you could’ve been home sweeping up all the fur.

Right! I need to apologize for the fur. You’re not allergic, are you? I guess you’d have had to be around someone like me before to know if you--Because it’s not really like being allergic to dogs. You can be allergic to a dog and not be allergic to me. Usually if you’re allergic to pears, you’re allergic to me, but not always, but most of the time. Are you allergic to pears? That guy I told you about? The sangria guy? He made the best pear sangria. You wouldn’t believe how good this sangria tasted. People were still drinking it as they were burning his house to the ground with him inside it. The villagers were all standing there, holding torches, talking about how sad it was that they had to murder him, because who was going to bring sangria to the public hangings now? It was so sad. The sangria was still delicious, but it was so sad. Right before they set the house aflame, they went in, and rescued whatever sangria there was left, but once that was gone, I never had sangria as good as that again.

Are you cold? I can put the heat on. I liked to keep it kind of chilly in here, because once the transformation starts, I’m covered head-to-toe in a bearskin rug attached to my skin, and my body temperature goes through the roof. No full moon tonight though, so I can turn the heat up a little bit if I can ever figure out how to work this thermostat. Do you have one of these at your house? And by the way, I hate to ask, but do you have a radiator? I don’t have hardly anything here I can chain myself to that won’t give way once old Mr. Hyde Wolf shows up to party.

How about a furnace? You got a nice, sturdy furnace by any chance? It’ll only be every full moon, which is hardly ever. I should do a better job keeping track of when they are, but you know, I, uh, keep buying planners, and I keep forgetting to write in them, and then I’m scratching at my wrist going, Wait, it can’t be--And sure enough, full moon. Then I gotta go find the chains and the handcuffs and the key to the handcuffs, because you don’t want to wake up with no key, believe me, that’s no fun. Take it from a guy who came to in the basement of an Arby’s locked up to what I think was a decommissioned deep fryer.

If you could just hook me up with whatever your best, strongest pipe or piece of machinery is, I would really appreciate it. Good opportunity to get to know each other as neighbors, right? Having the guy next door in your spare room with his skin peeling off and his snout forming and his eyes going all hahahahahaha boy oh boy, it is really disturbing.

But I guess I could always find something around here to secure myself to. Oh, and, yeah, I, uh, apologize for the howling in advance. It is very loud, and it is, uh, sustained, I would say, all through the night. It has a strange beauty to it, if you choose to look at it that way, and if I were you, I would really try to look at it, or hear it, I guess, hear it, that way, because, uh, you know, it just, uh, well, that’s how it goes.

Not easy living so close to people, is it?

But it’s a good thing you don’t have a cat.

That’s a very good thing.

That’s how I know we’re going to get along just fine.