Rules for Werewolves (9 page)

—We need to get all the bags, the backpacks and the small rolling luggage shit and the good purses, and we’ll each make a bag for ourselves of the best clothes and the best food.

—We’re not leaving this place.

—I’m not saying we have to pack up and leave immediately. I’m saying we should pack so that when we
do
go, we don’t waste this house. We’re each gonna want to take a little bit of this house with us.

—That’s smart.

—I don’t wanna go. We just got here.

—We don’t have to go.

—I just want one place to be a good long home.

—We can try to make this that home. At least for the month they’re gone.

—Turn off all the lights.

—How are we supposed to check out the new house?

—If you wanna stay here a long time then turn off all the lights so the neighbors don’t see us.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

—That’s worse. The flashlights darting around a dark house and shooting beams out into the neighborhood night?! That’s ten times more noticeable.

—Fine. Everybody turn off your flashlight.

—It’s pitch-black now.

—Who’s in here?

—Where are we?

—I think we’re in the kitchen.

—Just open the fridge.

—Open the freezer. I want that frosty mist to be our only light.

—Aiiiieghhh!!!!!

—What the fuck?!

—Oh, my god, he’s wearing the fucking African mask.

—You’re gonna break it.

—That is scary as fuck.

—I thought you were some kind of monster.

—I am.

—Look at this freezer.

—That scared the shit out of me.

—It’s wall-to-wall ice cream.

—Find the silver-spoon drawer.

—What do you wanna start with? The fudge ripple? Or the rocky road?

—You can’t eat that.

—Why not?

—We have a bet, Mr. Malcolm, or so you forgot. Neither of us eats for three days and three nights. It’s after midnight. Susan, please confirm with your watch. Our three days have started now.

—She’s right.

—When you’re right, you’re right. Here. You eat it. Somebody eat it.

—Sorry.

—What’s there to be sorry about? You and I both get hungry at the same rate. After three days we’ll go out and get something incredible, for everybody.

—But there’s so much food here already.

—Hey.

—It doesn’t matter.

—Hey guys.

—Imagine how incredible it’s gonna hafta be to impress you in the midst of this bounty. We’ll have to steal live lobsters and one-hundred-year-old bottles of wine.

—And, Angel, I think there should also be a rule that neither one of us leaves this house.

—Guys!

—Hold on! I have to go out tonight. I told someone I’d meet them!

—But he might take you to a restaurant for your date. Or get you a corny dog at the fairgrounds and then you would have broken our rules but nobody would know.

—Fuck you.

—And who are you trying to impress with all your swearing, anyway?

—I don’t give a fuck what you think about how I talk.

—I think Malcolm’s right.

—Thank you, Anquille.

—This isn’t cool. Look at me!

—What is it? What? Did you hear something, Susan?

—I just don’t feel right.

—Are you gonna puke?

—No.

—What is it?

—I don’t know.

—What do you feel like?

—I don’t know. Look at my face and tell me what I look like.

—What? I don’t see anything, Susan. What is it?

—I don’t know. I think I’m changing.

—I can feel it. I swear I can feel it.

—Susan, I want you to try to stay calm.

—It’s happening. It’s happening right now.

—I’m only gonna talk to you. Do you understand? You have to trust me.

—All right, Malcolm.

—You’re my focus. But I’m going to ask everybody else to listen so they’ll know what to do when someone starts to change.

—All right. I’m cool.

—Is that all right?

—All right.

—Susan, we need to find a safe place to put you.

—All right.

—I want Anquille and Angel to go find a safe place to put you.

—All right.

—Have you ever changed before?

—No.

—Have you ever had a seizure, or been knocked out, or had anything happen that you didn’t understand that might have been a change?

—I don’t think so.

—I want Bobert to stop the dog from barking.

—It’s loud.

—Bobert’s gonna take care of the dog. The dog can sense things we can’t and you can hear the dog better than we can.

—I don’t mind it.

—But the neighbors might.

—I think I’m starting to feel better.

—All right. You’re gonna be locked up for three days.

—I don’t want to be alone.

—We’re gonna be right outside the door. Everybody is going to be focused on you. Tanya is gonna be responsible for feeding you.

—All right.

—And Tanya is gonna go get all that ready right now, and just get it lined up for you so that every six hours or so we’ll get you some food and water.

—I’m hungry now.

—You’re going to be very hungry. But Tanya will feed you.

—All right.

—That’s right. I can hear your throat starting to close up.

—Is it? Oh, no.

—No, that’s good. You won’t be able to talk while it happens. While you’re in the safe place that Anquille and Angel are getting ready, the whole three days we won’t hear anything you say, we won’t be able to understand anything you say. But we’ll be there.

—A’right.

—I’m going to ask Bobert to be your reader.

—Uh-huh.

—He’ll be with you the whole time.

—Uh-huh.

—I bet I’m not the best reader out of everybody.

—That’s okay—isn’t it Susan?—if Bobert just does his best? He’s never been a reader before and you’ve never changed so I think it’s actually gonna be nice for both of you.

—It’s all ready, we put down blankets and pillows in the closet in the master bedroom.

—Angel and Anquille have it all ready for you. Are you ready, Susan?

—Uh-huh.

—You don’t have to be scared. We’re all gonna be with you the whole time. Just right outside the door.

—It’s a huge closet. It might as well be its own bedroom.

—Now I’m gonna tie your hands and feet. All right. Just to protect Tanya when she feeds you. You don’t want to hurt Tanya, do you?

—She can’t talk anymore, baby. Can you?

—That’s all right. Don’t be scared.

—It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be okay.

—I’m proud of you.

—We’re all proud of you.

There was a flier in a coffee shop. It said “Artists Wanted.” I misread it to mean “If you want to be an artist you should call this number …” I usually read things really quickly and then always hafta go back and clear up my mistakes. It was a flier for a really cheap room. It was one of seven artist studios on one floor of an old flour mill. I still had some money at the time. Not a lot of money. Not enough money to live in an apartment for more than a month, but the studio I could afford for three or four months. I figured with that much time I could get things together so that I wouldn’t go totally homeless.

I’m not an artist at all. I draw sometimes, but it comes out all messed up. Still, I called the number. I was the first one to tear off a little strip from the bottom. The guy said I must’ve just missed him because he had just posted the flier that morning. I said I could come by around noon. He said great. I went back to the flier and tore off all the other strips and ate them for good luck. Then I sat down with my coffee and tried to figure out my story. I decided to tell them I was a sculptor working with found objects. I figured that way I didn’t need to have any supplies and I could just show up with my bag. Plus, I had been going through the trash, anyway, looking for stuff I could sell. I had seen plenty of stuff I thought was nice, but not actually worth anything at a pawnshop. So I knew there was
a lot of material out there to work with. And what if I turned out to be an artist after all? Stranger things have happened.

The guy showed me around the studio and he was pretty straight about the situation. His name was Reggie and he said the ambient flour in the air was bad for asthma but it would keep you from starving while you worked. Haha. I never smelled it or felt it in the air or in my lungs. Reggie worked in oil, and he said the flour messed up his mixes or something. I don’t really remember what he was talking about. He was pretty straight about the fact that everybody lived in his or her studio even though technically we weren’t allowed to. We all had to share one big kitchen and one bathroom. He said the rent was cheap for an apartment but expensive for a studio, so I “have to decide.” He said if the fire marshal or the landlord ever found out we were all living there then we would all get kicked out and we wouldn’t get our rent back. But he also said that would never happen.

I tried to keep my door shut because I thought I would be in trouble if anybody found out I wasn’t making anything. I went out in the day and went through trash around the university looking for cool stuff. I would bring home old textbooks and bicycle tires. I tried to also find useful stuff, blankets and good clothes. It got confusing. I remember dragging a banged-up old Japanese screen up three flights of stairs because I thought I could use it to separate my sleeping space from my studio space. But I didn’t really have a studio space because I never made anything. I just stacked up the prettiest trash I could find on one side of the room and the most useful trash on the other side of the room.

I had an idea once. I don’t know if it was while I was there in the studio or not. But I had an idea that I would make a calendar of my entire life and I would chart what drugs I was on during what years. I imagined this calendar as a giant mandala of pills radiating out from the first pink aspirin I took as a kid. I thought it would show patterns. I thought I would be able to chart certain life choices based on the antidepressants I was coming off of. I thought certain boyfriends would make sense because of the speed or the dope. I never made it, though. Hell, if I had all the pills I ever took all laid out and all the dope and everything, I wouldn’t use it for art. Not most days.

I kept my door shut tight the entire time. I was so nervous about being found out. I came in by opening the door only a crack and sliding my body
in, and mashing my tits and belly to fit. And I went out the same way. It made me a point of interest. The other artists there started saying, “When can I see your work?” I was afraid they were going in while I was out so I started going out less. I was afraid they were going to band together and break down my door and force their way in. It only takes one person to kick in a door, but groups band together to do it so that no one feels bad about it. I know that now. At the time I was just getting paranoid. Maybe “can I see your work” is just something artists say to each other no matter what. When I had to go out I would drape a big sheet over a trashed-out bike I had on the art side of the room. I figured the sheet made it look like a work in progress. I put hairs on the sheet to see if it was disturbed, but it was hard to remember where I had put the hairs and there was a breeze from the window, even when I closed it, so the fact that they were gone, I don’t think it meant anything. When I was in the house I would act like I was gonna go take a shower and then as soon as I turned on the water I would act like I forgot my soap and have to go back to my studio to get it, but I never caught anybody in my room. I was on a lot of cheap speed at the time, maybe that would explain my actions on the calendar of stupidity.

All the other artists left their studio doors open most of the time and didn’t mind if you leaned in the doorway and talked to them while they worked. They didn’t mind if you sat in the corner against a wall and drank wine and asked them questions about what they were painting. It was pretty much an open-door policy with everyone except for me and this guy Paulie.

Because we shared a kitchen we all ate a lot of meals together. It was almost never planned—you would just hear someone yell out “spaghetti” or “pancakes” and if you were hungry you would come running, because there wasn’t always enough for everybody who was hungry because it was almost never planned. The exception to the lack of planning was Paulie. Paulie, I remind you, is the only other artist besides me who was super private about his work. Except I wasn’t an artist. And I’m still not. I figured Paulie wasn’t, either. But one day there comes a knock on my door. I say, “Hold on,” and I make a big show of noise and banging, like I’m putting away my work. And even though the sheet was never off, I mime like I’m throwing the sheet over the bike and then adjust it, just to take up the right amount of time. I don’t really know why. I never even opened the door all
the way. Nobody ever really wanted to come in. It was always like, “Hey, I’m going down to the Pic Quik for a six-pack. Wanna chip in?” Or “Did you happen to find a credit card on the kitchen counter?” A lot of them had credit cards.

Maybe it was my secret hope that one of them would push past me and say, “Hey, I have to marry you, so get on your knees on the bed and let’s fuck and then be boygirlfriends forever and see a movie.” That’s the sort of abstract psychosexual cloud that drifts around my mind most of the time. It’s the kind of thing that would look monstrous if it got out into the real world, but as long as it stays in the mist, it seems kind of romantic to me.

It was Paulie knocking on my door. The other secretive artist, as I said before. I didn’t open the door more than a crack. He said he wanted to invite me to “a thing” he did. He was finished with a new piece. He said there would be a dinner and I could come. But I had to say for sure if I could make it. Plus Paulie said there were only going to be three people invited and I was one of them.