Rules for Werewolves (33 page)

—What about you? You still like me, don’t you?

—I’m pissed that you won’t keep walking.

—If you eat the dog while I’m asleep, you’ll double the power of your vote.

—Maybe tomorrow. If we haven’t been caught.

—All right. If we haven’t been caught by tomorrow, we eat the dog.

—Fuck you.

—What?

—I’m glad you came and got me.

—Me, too.

—I didn’t know if this was real until you did.

—Me, too.

—I was scared. I thought I was gonna go to jail and you were gonna disappear for good.

—If we disappear, we’re gonna disappear together.

—What’s going on?

—Tim, this is Susan.

—Hi, Tim.

—Are these your friends, Robert?

—He calls you Robert? That’s cool.

—How do you feel, baby?

—This is Tanya. That’s Anquille. And I don’t know all the others. Susan and Tanya and Anquille will have to introduce us.

—We all start to blend in together as you get to know us.

—You drink coffee, baby?

—Yeah. And I eat the shit out of eggs and bacon.

—He’s kinda got a mouth on him, doesn’t he?

—I tried to get him to cut it out, but it’s what distinguishes him.

—He sounds a little like Angel.

—No. He’s nothing like that.

—All right. All right. You like going by Timothy, or Tim?

—Tim, I guess.

—All right. It’s nice to meet you, Tim. I’m Tanya.

—How come
he
gets to say what he likes going by? I like going by Robert.

—But Bobert is what distinguishes you.

—Hi, Tanya.

—I want you to meet somebody special, Tim. This is Malcolm.

—No shit. I didn’t recognize him.

—Yeah. He got a little fucked up by Angel.

—I thought if two werewolves fought each other, they both died.

—Some of us think Angel wasn’t really werewolf.

—And some of us think we need to change that rule.

—The jury’s still out.

—Is Malcolm still our leader? I mean, if you’ll take me. Robert said y’all would let me into the pack.

—What exactly did Bobert tell you, Tim?

—Robert
wouldn’t tell me hardly anything.

—You gonna stick with “Robert” for your brother?

—Yeah. It’s what he likes.

—All right, baby, Robert it is.

—You didn’t answer Tim’s question, Tanya. Is Malcolm the leader?

—I take care of Malcolm. He needs help eating. In return he whispers to me what he thinks we should do, and I share it with the group. I’m the only one who understands him.

—And he told you to send me that postcard?

—He told us to come here and get you.

—Why’d you tell ’em that, Malcolm? Why’d you come back for me?

Mumble. Mumble. Mumble. Mumble. Mumble.

—He says you’re one of us, Bobert. He says you belong.

—That’s so cool. Come ’ere. Let me get a welcome home kiss.

Do you think she can really understand Malcolm?

Can you comprehend how serious it is that she came to get you? To save you?

You know what you did hurt people, right? What you did was wrong
.

Should you find some way to send Tim back to Mom? It’s not just Mom
.

Do you think you could even get Tim to go?

Take your time, think back through your whole life. Nobody ever came to save you before, did they? Not like this
.

This is it, isn’t it?

—Where are we going?

—We found a little place behind a
NO TRESPASSING
sign. There’s no one there. Someone owns it, or some corporation, but nobody uses it.

—How far away is it?

—Why? You don’t like being out in nature with your friends, Tim?

—I do. I’m just tired.

—Well, you’ll be able to rest a little when we get there. But not too much. There’s a lot to do.

—But why do I get to come with you? Is it ’cause of my brother?

—What do you mean?

—What if I’m not one of you?

—The story in the paper of what happened in the old lady’s house makes it sound like you’re one of us. The sheriff and the old lady say that the two of you stole a shotgun and overpowered the detective and went wild.

—Robert went wild. I was locked in the cop’s car.

—I see. Well, you hang around us long enough and you’ll change, too. And we’ll do it right. We’ll put you in a safe room and we’ll get everyone to write down everything they can remember about what you were like before. And what led up to your change. And what you want it to be like
when you come out of it. And then we’ll sit down and read it to you. And at the end, they’ll tell you all the rules of what it takes to be a werewolf. But first we have to get a move on. We started some crops, and some of us are gonna start families, and we need somebody to go out hunting for us. How does that sound?

—That’s what I want. That’s exactly what I want.

If two werewolves fight each other they both die, because every werewolf is the exact same strength as every other werewolf and werewolves can only fight to the death
.

You don’t have to get bit to become a werewolf, but it helps
.

You become a werewolf by prolonged contact with other werewolves
.

An actual physical change is required. It’s not a state of mind
.

A werewolf can’t own anything because you have to be able to drop everything and run
.

Eventually everyone will be a werewolf
.

You don’t have to have sex with a werewolf to become a werewolf, but it helps
.

Never look at a werewolf during her first change
.

If a werewolf is seen in a halfway state, she could get stuck or have trouble going back and forth
.

If everything goes fine for the first change, the werewolf can decide when and where and how much she changes
.

She can run faster. Eat less. Sleep lighter. Fuck longer. Like a wolf
.

Money is bad for werewolves, especially coins
.

In the same way you become a werewolf by staying in contact with other werewolves, you become normal by staying in contact with others who think they’re normal
.

A lot of the violence in this world comes from people who think they’re normal resisting the change and trying to act a way that they aren’t
.

There is no first werewolf. It began with two people who each made the other feel this way
.

When it comes to questions of violence, it’s the person who’s getting hit who gets to decide what’s too much
.

I think big cities are natural, the same way that an anthill or a coral reef is natural
.

Werewolves live off nature. They look at your home and they see a nest full of eggs. Werewolves look at an unlocked car and they see a fruit tree. A grocery store is like a big woolly mammoth carcass lying on its side
.

Sleep when you’re so tired you collapse. Eat when you’re so hungry you attack. Die when you’re dead
.

Every system has rules that conflict. Werewolves are the result of conflicting systems
.

Keep writing down rules as long as you live
.

The backyard is a wilderness. That shed in the garden is a cave. There are ten thousand hidden places in the city where no one ever looks
.

Every werewolf is related for now
.

We’re new, so this is all new. All the rules are new. And we’re still finding stuff out. We’re like the scientists of whatever this is. And this is just what we have so far
.

In the same way the moon changes, so do the rules
.

If you feel trapped, run away. Running away is a form of attacking a trap. Run until you find other werewolves
.

Thank you to Carrie Fountain. To Emily Forland. To Mark Krotov and everyone at Melville House. To Corrine Hayoun. To C. C. Hirsch and Olivier Sultan. To Peter Stopschinski. To Madge Darlington, Thomas Graves, Lana Lesley, Sarah Richardson, Shawn Sides, and all the Rudes. To James Magnuson and Suzan Zeder. To Bryson Brooks. To Naomi Shi-hab Nye. To Steve Moore, Jake Silverstein, and Steven J. Dietz. To Adam Greenfield and Tim Sanford. To Michael and Rachel Feferman. To Anita and Freddie Lynn. To Julia Bathke. To Jenny Larson, Katie Pearl, and Salvage Vanguard who helped develop Part One of this novel. And to my students.

Kirk Lynn is one of six coproducing artistic directors of Rude Mechs theater collective. He is the head of the Playwriting and Directing Area in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, and received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Lynn lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, the poet Carrie Fountain, and their children.