ONCE UPON a        TIME
                                                                                          ezine at l'atelier bonita
                                                     established since december 2002

Meet The Werewolf                            by   Heather M. Borstel In the wintertime, the backyard could get very dark, very fast. The entire space was dominated by a huge old elm tree, that, due to the relative costs of tree-trimming, rose up almost fifty feet from the ground, blocking out most of the light that would have spilled into the yard from the apartments standing on the lot behind ours. Those apartments, butted right up against the back fence, and although the foliage kept me from seeing what might be going on in them, I could always hear every sound that drifted over. Generally the music and laughter of the apartments mysterious inhabitants’ (we rarely, if ever saw them) Saturday nights, made it difficult for me to sleep, since my bedroom window practically sat on a direct line from their fire escapes. Billy Joel sing-alongs, arguments, deep discussions of memories from the womb and the odd flying beer bottle, all conspired on those long nights to deprive me of my rest. As a result, I always disliked those unseen loudmouths and came to dread Weekends like I dreaded spelling bee Mondays at school. One such Saturday evening, when I was about seven, I met the werewolf. At that point in the evening when the light began to fade down to a gray monochrome and the shadows lengthened to cover almost the entire backyard, I was playing near a pile of bricks. There was some loud activity coming from the vicinity of the apartments, the beginnings of another party. Clinking glasses and shouting and drifting cigarette smoke. AC/DC. Another typical Saturday night. I was throwing a tennis ball against the back of the house, deciding whether I should go inside and watch TV, when I heard a cough. The cough seemed to be coming from directly behind me, so I turned to look into the dark region under the elm leaves and branches. I couldn’t see anything except black and a glaring patch of light from one of the apartment windows shining above the top of the back fence. I was about to turn back and go inside, when I heard a voice. It was obviously the same voice that had produced the cough, and it said, “Hey there.” Now, at this point in the story I suppose I should point out that the world at this time was much less dangerous than it is now. We had none of the constantly ingrained fear of kidnapping that so constrains the children of the present era. Kevin Collins had yet to leave his last bus-shelter and “Treefrog” Johnson was but a dwarfy little pervert known by only his closest friends. There hadn’t been any abductions, no mutilation murders and no 24 hour cable news networks to put the fear of god into everyone, so I simply walked into the darkness to see who was saying hello to me. “Hey there, aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t I deserve at least a hello there?” Looking up, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the varigated light, dark on my side of the fence and bright on the other, but eventually him that was talking to me came into view. There he was, an average looking man, maybe 20 (although to be truthful, anything from 16 to 46 looked old to me then), with reddish hair, a scraggly white-boy mustache and jug ears. He was sitting on the lower ledge of the back fence, with his legs dangling down, a beer can in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He looked like he should be selling cheap leather-work or poorly made batik fabrics at a street-fair somewhere. The cigarette was not agreeing with him, because he coughed again, and asked, “C’mon, now, don’t I deserve a hello or something, huh?” Having been raised properly, I answered, of course, and asked when he was doing sitting on my fence. He laughed and flicked his cigarette in my direction. It fell to the ground in a mini shower of sparks and the tip kept glowing for a few seconds as it settled into the dirt. “Nothing much, huh,” he answered, “just having a little look around is all. I might come back around when I am making my rounds at midnight or whatever.” I had no idea what he was talking about, and began to feel a bit of a desire to go watch TV in the house. “Uh, OK, bye,” I managed to squeak out and turned to leave. “Now, wait up just a minute there”, he said lighting another cigarette. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I’m a werewolf and I don’t know how to act sometimes.” I stopped immediately. A werewolf? That was very intriguing. I had just read a book about werewolves, and, knowing that most of them were quite simply mad porphyriacs or unfortunate Mexicans with hypertrichosis, I wondered what one could be doing in my neighborhood, and sitting on my back fence. “Yes-siree. It’s kind of a problem, but the fringe benefits…whoo boy,” he said, standing up and swaying on the ledge. He windmilled his arm around so that the new cigarette’s orange tip made a circuit in the air, “running around, chasing the moon, howling. Best thing I ever did was put on that old wolf-skin. You’d be right to be scared of a guy like me.” He laughed. Now, I must admit, there were a whole litany of things I was frightened of at that time; spontaneous human combustion, demonic posession, getting the stigmata, cruise ships, those spinning doors often found at hotels, chickens, pictorial representations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, my father and the power of a vengeful god, but I was not in the very least scared of werewolves. Not being a sheep or a little French child, I was pretty sure I was not in the diet plans of any lycanthrope, even one so near as this one. “So what do you eat,” I asked feeling bolder, “I mean, when you are a werewolf?” “Oh, cats, dogs, but I was,” he answered raising an eyebrow in not very convincing menace, “looking to move up to bigger game.” “Really. That’s interesting.” “Oh, you can’t imagine the freedom,” he said. I could imagine. “Doing what you want. Barking at the moon. It’s great, lemme tell you,” he said, taking a swallow of his beer. The sound of laughter and music drifted over from the far side of the fence. Mr. Werewolf placed his hands on his hips and stared at me for a long time. I began to get uncomfortable and once again thought about going inside the house. This guy is a little weird, I thought. “You know, I could get you into the whole thing,” he finally said, “I know a guy, a guy that could get you all set up. You could definitely be one too. Just like me. Putting on the old wolf-skin.” I was going to say yes, I want to be one, running around, chasing the moon, howling, when a huge glass-shattering crash was heard, coming from the apartment side of the fence. “Jesus Christ! What the hell! Don’t drop everything, man,” someone with an unfamiliar masculine voice screamed, “where the hell is Mr. I’ll Bring The Beer?” A woman’s silvery voice slipped over the border from party to backyard. “Greg! Greggie! What the heck are you doing over there, hon? That’s somebody else’s property. Come on back, you need to buy some more beer.” Mr. Werewolf grimaced and turned back to whence the voice came. “All right, all right, I’m coming.” Swaying on the ledge, so much I was fearful he might fall down into the tree, he reached up and grabbed the top of the fence. Swinging himself up and over the edge he was gone. After a second of silence, his head popped back above the branches, cigarette between his teeth. “Hey,” he said smiling, “I’ll see you later. I’ll come howling under your window. Then we can do what we talked about, allright?” “OK,” I answered over my shoulder, heading for the back door, “sure thing.” “Good,” he shouted, pointing at me, “I’ll see YOU later!” Then his face disappeared below the edge of the fence, and some loud music started up followed by more laughter. I ran into the house, locked the door behind me and never ever mentioned the event to anyone. Later that night, I sat up in bed, waiting to hear howling under my window eaves with the same sort of anticipation that children have when they wait impatiently for it to get dark on Halloween night. No one ever came, and the next morning all that was left was a half-empty can of beer, and a couple of cigarettes in the dirt at the base of the fence. I liked to think there were some wolf-prints there too, but that is probably romantic embroidery on my part. ©2003 Heather M. Borstel _____________ Heather M. Borstel was born in San Francisco, California, at the dawn of the 1970s. She lives in the shadow of Twin Peaks, went to Catholic school and San Francisco State University, and is of average height, build and appearance. She enjoys contract bridge, falconry, Gandhian nonviolence and whipping up a nice pot of Vegetable Medley. Her favorite song is "Superstar" by the Carpenters, which she sings without shame at karaoke bars, and her favorite book is Anna Karenina. Heather was once said to have a wit which rivals that of Bennett Serf by her third grade teacher, but she has yet to find any evidence that Bennett Serf was witty. She has never had the stigmata, curses like a stevedore, and makes a mean White Russian. Heather would like the phrase "I told you I was sick!" chiseled on her tombstone.

                                                   ONCE UPON      a TIME
                                                                                          ezine at l'atelier bonita
                                                     established since december 2002