Rules for Werewolves (12 page)

—That’s a problem.

—It was fine. There was nothing wrong with the fruit.

—The problem is—if they left fresh fruit out that means they expect someone to come eat it.

—Not necessarily. Rich people let shit go to waste all the time.

—I bet we should be expecting a maid or a cleaning lady or something. We’ll just have to plan for it.

—The point is—Bobert’s gone.

—All right. I’ll get up. Keep telling me while I get my jeans on.

—I cut up the fruit and put it on a plate and took it up to Susan. I could hear Bobert reading to Susan, like whispering. He didn’t say anything to
me when I told him I was going to feed Susan. I figured he was just in the zone. Just focused. So I told him I was gonna go in, but he didn’t stop reading. Whatever. But then I asked him to hold the tray for second while I got the door unlocked. By then my eyes were adjusting and I was putting two and two together. And I saw, in his chair, it was just a tape recorder playing Bobert’s voice and the door to the closet was open.

—Is Susan all right?

—I don’t know. I came to get you.

—Fuck. This is all we need right now.

—Turn off the lights.

—No. I’m not gonna turn off the lights. Get up.

—What the fuck, Malcolm?

—Get up. Is everybody here?

—Don’t hit me with that thing, Malcolm.

—I’m not hitting you. I’m tapping you. I’m waking you up. You’ll know when I’m hitting you.

—What the fuck is so important?

—I don’t see Angel.

—She’s probably passed out in some other room.

—We’re having a house meeting.

—What time is it?

—Susan’s missing.

—What happened?

—Bobert took off.

—I left a tape recorder playing.

—Where were you?

—I went to go to the bathroom.

—I told you to go in the bucket.

—No one ever brought me a bucket.

—Then ask somebody for a bucket. Call out. Start screaming. I would have come running.

—There was nobody to ask.

—Are you sure?

—Yeah. You were all asleep.

—We have to find Susan.

—All right. Everybody search a different room. Just search the house first. I don’t think she’s gonna get far. We’ll meet back here in five minutes if nobody finds her. And somebody let the dog out. He probably needs to shit. Not you, Bobert. You stay and talk to me.

—The dog likes me.

—I don’t care. Your privileges are revoked. Everybody else start looking! Bobert, no. You stay and talk with me.

Search. Search. Search. Search. Search.

—No one ever brought me a bucket.

—You should have asked somebody.

—There was nobody to ask.

—You shoulda asked the person who brought you the tape recorder.

—That was Angel.

—You think I don’t know? I can hear her on the tape. In the background. Breathing.

—You can hear that?

—I’m a good listener.

—What are you going to do to me?

—What do you mean?

—Are you going to beat me up?

—You want me to tell you what we’re going to do to you?

—Yeah. Just tell me. Then I don’t need to worry about it. I think once you say it, then it’s over, in its own way.

—I like that theory.

—If you say you’re going to hit me, then I know it and it’s like it’s already over. Even if you say everybody’s gonna hit me, one by one, or something. I can take it. If you hold me down. Or even if I have to just stand here and take it. Whatever. Just tell me. Or are you going to brand me?

—What do you mean, brand you?

—Like bend up a coat hanger into shape and heat it up on the stove
and brand me, like an animal. You could use the wolf shape you spray-painted on driveway of the other house? Just tell me. I don’t really care.

—I’m gonna send you home.

—How?

—We’re gonna make you leave.

—But I don’t have to go home. I can go anywhere I want.

—You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Including look after Susan.

—If you kick me out I’m gonna call the cops and report this house.

—If you send the cops to this house, we won’t be here when they show up. You know that.

—Don’t kick me out.

—It’s like you said—once I say it, it’s already done.

—I’m sorry.

—At least you’re not getting branded. That sounds messed up. Where’d you hear about that, anyway?

—Give me another chance.

—I am.

—I’m gonna die wandering the streets. I’m no good at it.

—Don’t wander the streets. Go home.

—I don’t want to go home.

—If you don’t go home we’ll have no way to get in touch with you.

—You don’t know my home address.

—Write it down before you leave. Then, in one month, I’ll write to you and tell you where to meet us. I promise.

—What about Angel?

—Don’t sell her out. In the first place, you don’t need to. And in the second place, it only makes me like you less.

—Why does she get to stay?

—I didn’t say she did.

—But she does. Doesn’t she?

—She didn’t break any rules.

—But she distracted me. She gave me the tape recorder. It was her idea. She said it was my voice that mattered and as long Susan could hear my voice it wouldn’t matter if I took a break to go to the bathroom.

—It was your job to stay. In some ways it was Angel’s job to try to talk
you into leaving. But it was your job to stay. Nobody told Angel to do anything. She didn’t, like, violate the will of the group.

—But why do I hafta go home?

—Where else are you gonna go?

—Why can’t I just live in the backyard, in the bushes or something?

—No. If you don’t go home, you are never gonna see us again. I’m telling you it’s already done.

—Who’s gonna take care of the dog?

—That’s disrespectful. The dog can take care of himself.

—What if I change while I’m home?

—You got any brothers or sisters?

—I have a younger brother.

—Then let me give you a piece of advice: Don’t eat him.

—We found a trail—

—The dog found it—

—Susan’s shoes are on the other side of the fence, and then her socks are in the street!

—Get the fuck out of here, Bobert. Now! Before I change my mind.

—Change your mind.

—Are you sure? I could change my mind into something worse. I could change my mind into we all kill you.

—I’m gonna die just getting home. I’m terrible on the streets.

—You know what? Here’s fifty bucks. Get a cab. Or else try to live on tuna for a month and keep track of us. You won’t be able to. And if I see you anywhere around here I’m going to personally kill you. Take it. I don’t need it. I don’t need money. I do better when I have to scramble to figure shit out.

—Thanks.

—Don’t fucking thank me. That’s disgusting. Just leave.

—Can I say goodbye to everybody?

—Just leave your address. Write it down.

—Where?

—Find a fucking piece of paper. Write it on the fucking wall, for all I care. Write it down. Now.

—Ow. Jesus! Fuck. Someone. Help. You broke my arm. Don’t hit me again.

—I’m only gonna hit you that one time. Like I told you. Just so you know I’m true to my word. So you’ll know I will write to you and tell you where we are. And so you know I will kill you if I see you snooping around here. All right? Now finish it. Good. Now leave.

—You better write to me.

—I said: Leave.

—He promised to write to me, everybody. Malcolm promised to send me your address in a month.

—All right. Now, everybody else. Let’s go get Susan before she hurts somebody.

—The dog found you in the Speedy Stop.

—How?

—Everybody said it was the dog, but we were just following a trail of your clothes.

—My feet are all cut up.

—You ran across pavement without any socks or shoes.

—Who are you?

—I met Tanya at a coffee shop. I told her I liked her drawings, and we started talking. She was so nice. The way she called me “baby” and was just nice to me.

—When the dog found me in the Speedy Stop, was I awake?

—You didn’t look like it.

—Was this recently that you met Tanya in a coffee shop or, like, years ago in college?

—A few days ago.

—Weird.

—She brought me home. To the last house. Before we moved. I met everybody. I met you, too.

—I guess I don’t remember anything from the past week all that well.

—You took off your shoes in the backyard and your socks were in the street. And then we found your shirt down the road.

—Oh, no.

—Yeah. You took off everything in a straight line pointing to the Speedy Stop. Your pants were in the intersection at Cresswell. And by then your feet were bleeding pretty good.

—It’s funny. I’m embarrassed, but I remember it felt so good.

—I bet. That’s the reason they made up embarrassment. To keep us from doing the stuff that feels good.

—What did I want at the Speedy Stop?

—By the time we caught up to the dog, we found you in the middle of a big pile of beer and potato chips and candy and shit. It looked like you had been running, trying to smash through the glass doors, but the magic eye saw you and opened the doors and you just crashed right into the big potato chip display and all the shit around it fell down onto you. You weren’t trying to eat any of it. You were just in the middle of it. It was kind of funny. It was kind of a good thing you smashed into it, too, because the next thing to crash into was the glass wall of fridges and they don’t open automatically.

—Why was I running?

—I dunno. Why do people run?

—To get away from shit.

—Why do kids run?

—Because it’s fun.

—Maybe you were just having a new kind of fun for you. Or an old kind of fun you forgot about.

—I’m all cut up.

—Malcolm’s guess is that Angel cut the belt off you with a big knife from the kitchen. We found the knife block tipped over in the kitchen, and all the knives were scattered on the kitchen counter, and when we put them back the biggest one was missing. But Angel wasn’t trying to free you. She just wanted to get the watch off your wrist. But once your hands were free, you clawed the ankle rope off yourself. Plus, who knows what happened to you between here and the store. You might have killed an alley cat or attacked an old lady.

—I know I said I don’t remember anything, but I do remember some things.

—Did Angel take the watch from you?

—I remember Malcolm coming up to me in the store. I would have sworn I was still in the closet. But it was so bright. He was glowing from the fluorescents behind him, and I remember him brushing the hair back from my face and asking me if I wanted to get out of there, and I tried to say yes because I thought I was still in the closet. And he just kept brushing my hair back over and over for forever.

—Then you let him have it.

—I don’t remember that.

—You went for his face, clawing and scratching. You bit his arm, bad. It looked like you wanted to kill him. But he got you by the hair and held your head away from his face so that you couldn’t bite him and then you started scratching the shit out of his arm.

—I don’t remember that.

—Malcolm was totally calm. He didn’t call for help or ask us to do anything.

—That’s unusual.

—Is it? I don’t know him very well yet.

—Yeah, I guess you could say he’s our leader, but the main way he shows it is by bossing people around. Asking for help. Making other people do this and that.

—Tanya said you didn’t have a leader.

—You said she was drawing? I didn’t know she drew.

—It’s all portraits of you guys.

—Do they look cool?

—Yours looks like you.

—I wanna see it.

—Ask her.

—I remember thinking this was my chance. That now I could go somewhere I always wanted to go to. I don’t remember Angel cutting the belt or getting free. But I remember a feeling, like, now a door in my life is open, and I can go get something I always wanted. Like,
if I wanted for Tanya to show me something all I had to do was go get it, or if I wanted money from a bank, or sex, or anything, I could just have it.

—You looked calm when the dog found you. But as soon as Malcolm touched you …

—Now I just feel like I want to get that way again. I mean, I’m tired, too. But mostly I just want to get that way again. Not just to change, but to change and be free.

—You would have killed Malcolm if he hadn’t held on to you.

—Is that how I got so cut up?

—No. Malcolm didn’t fight you. He just held on to you as you tried to kill him. You got cut up on your own.

—I wouldn’t kill anybody. Ever.

—You weren’t yourself.

—I feel like if I wanted to I could have gone to a stranger’s house and just walked in and gone up to the bedroom and gone to sleep and nobody would have bothered me. Like everything available in the world belonged to me.

—You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.

—I did.

—I mean, you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt to death.

—What did I look like?

—You should ask Tanya to show you her drawing.

—Is it me now or me changed?

—You looked totally different.

—Did I have more hair?

—No. But you looked totally different.

—Did I look bigger?

—No. I guess you were about the same size.

—Did I look scary?

—I was scared. But not because of the way you looked. It was because you suddenly possessed this really broad range of expressions all at once. Like, most of the time, most people, we’re happy when we’re happy, and sad when we’re sad, and we have to move along really slowly to get from one to the other over the course of a day. But you could go instantly from
calm to totally attacking to happy to see me and fall into my arms to carry you out.