There's a Leash Law, You Know

         The worst part of being a werewolf is the taste left in your mouth the day after a full moon.  It's that nasty metallic taste of blood, but kind of stale, not fresh like when you bite your tongue or get a nose bleed.  It's more like you had a huge mouthful of blood, held it in there long enough for it to really soak in, get a little coagulated around the gum line, and then swallowed it.  It makes it even worse that I never remember where the blood came from.  Really gets the imagination going in the wrong direction.

         That's one of the very few things the movies and stories did get right about werewolves.  We don't remember the shit that happens when we are, you know, wolves.  Well, maybe kind of remember sometimes, but never with enough certainty to know for sure we aren't remembering a dream.  Like this one time, I'm pretty sure I fought with another werewolf over a deer I killed, but when I run it through my mind, it doesn't play through in order and it's not vivid enough imagery for me to be sure it was real.  Or for that matter, to be sure I wasn't just scrapping with some husky over his Alpo.  Maybe my mind just filled in the blanks with more intense images.

         Now that I think about it though, maybe the blood taste thing isn't the worst part.  Maybe it's the transformation.  That shit hurts.  Hurts as in I'd rather get kicked in the balls for an hour straight kind of hurts.  Imagine this:  someone takes all the bones in your hand and doesn't break them, but stretches them out a few inches and at the same times compresses the bones in your forearms, your uhh, radial and ulca bones or something like that, so they end up about 6 inches shorter.  You know how a dog's leg is shaped?  Image someone bending your bones to match that shape without them breaking.  Image your jaw bone being pushed out, all long and narrow, along with, well, your snout.  And the teeth.  Oh, man, the teeth.  I'm just glad I never remember the changing back part.  I'm sure it hurts just as much. 

         I've ruined a lot of clothes, too. I try to strip down when I feel it coming on, but sometimes it hits me so hard ands so sudden that I don't really have time.  Once it starts, I don't really stop to think, "Oh, no!  My loafers!"  It's the same way you wouldn't think of the pants you had just ruined if your leg was fractured and the bone was poking through your jeans.

         While not quite as bad as all that, the whole full moon thing is a real pain in the ass too.  Oh, yeah, that's another thing the movies got right.  It does have to be a full moon for it to happen.  The weird thing is, you can kind of fight it off for awhile. It's tough and it most likely won't last more than a couple of hours, but you can hold off if you really try.  It's kind of like holding in a poop.  You may be able to delay it, but eventually, it's coming out.  You just want to try to hold it until it it's more convenient to let it go.  The wolf thing I mean.  Well, same goes for the poop, too, I suppose. 

         Anyway, I am the only person I know that schedules everything around the lunar cycle.  Even my vacations and especially dating.  I can tell you the exact date of every full moon for the next five years, in order, just off the top of my head.  Beyond that, I'd have to do a little figuring, but after a while, it's about the same as figuring what day of the week your birthday will be on next year. 

         I've missed a few important events over the last several years because of full moons.  Christmas dinners, a few of my nieces and nephews extracurricular activities, softball games, nights out with the boys, shit like that.  I fake sick, claim I have to work, pretend to be going out of town, whatever I can think of. 

         I could imagine how being a werewolf might limit your choices as far as careers go, but me being an artist, it's never really been a problem.  I actually think my paintings have been better since I changed, but I couldn't begin to explain how or why.  Probably just a coincidence.

         So, I mentioned there were only a few things that the legends and the movies were accurate on, so I'll explain some of the bigger things they totally missed the target on.  Silver bullets would just be an expensive way to kill me.  A werewolf is not immortal or even difficult to kill.  I got a lot stronger and faster after I became a werewolf than I was before and I know I can take a bigger beating than I could before without getting injured, but I‘m not invincible.  Oh, I'm pretty sure I age a little slower, too.  Not a lot, but enough for people to notice when I tell them my age.  They always guess me about 10 years younger than I am.  Anyway, two guys I knew that were werewolves were killed, both pretty easily.  One was shot while he was a wolf, and no, he didn't turn into a naked guy as soon as he was shot, he just stayed a wolf.  The other guy was killed in a car accident on a non-full moon night, and no, he didn't rise from the dead on the next full moon. 

         Also, there is no reversing the process by killing the wolf that bit you or severing the bloodline.  There's no wolf's bane cure.  There's no exorcism to perform.

         We don't turn into a wolf-like creature, we turn into a wolf.  No walking around on two legs.  Well, maybe there was a time that I balanced on my hind legs or something, but you know what I mean. 

         Me being turned was pretty uneventful.  It lacked any real drama or mystery that any Hollywood tale throws into a story like mine.  I was riding my bike in the city park and was attacked by what I thought was just a big dog.  And it was no fighting-for-my-life type of attack.  It ran up along side of me, barked and growled threateningly as he paced me, and, like an idiot, I'd kicked at him to scare him away.  That's kind of funny looking back, me trying to intimidate a supernatural beast with a sideways flick of my leg.  HE, of course, snapped at my ankle a couple of times and, being a true diehard idiot, I kept kicking.  Kept kicking until he bit me on the ankle.  I didn't even wipe out on my bike.  I just wobbled a little bit and yelled at what I assumed was an irresponsible pet owner somewhere in the park, "There's a leash law, you know!" 

         Like I said, pretty uneventful.

         The eventful part was the next full moon.  Despite the painful experience, the shredding clothing, and the abundance of wolf hair scattered about my house, I remained in werewolf denial for about the first three lunar cycles.  Then, I started seeking answers.

         When I first started facing up to what had happened, I rented every lame-ass werewolf movie I could get my hands on, I guess as a coping mechanism or something, or maybe just to get some "how to" type of ideas.  I'm sure the library has a ton of books on the legends, but reading's never been my thing.  Why do all that work when I could just shovel junk food into my mouth and have the stories played out for me?

         In my search, I even rented this awful one about these cops who voluntarily became werewolves so they could be super cops or something stupid like that.  Didn't get much help or guidance from that one.  Or entertainment either.

         As I sat through hour after hour of amateur script-writers' attempts to add their twists to the legends, I found myself contemplating the dumbest things.  The details even the cheesiest screenwriters didn‘t think to tackle.  Like, for example, do I mark my territory when I'm out and about?  Before I go to sleep when I'm a wolf, do I do that circle around three times thing dogs always do?  Is there a werewolf mating season?  I mean, those times where I just suddenly pop an inexplicable boner, is it really random or am I subconsciously picking up the scent of a female werewolf in heat?  Do female werewolves even go into heat?  If a female werewolf gets pregnant, would she have a kid or a litter?  Then, even worse, after thinking about the possibility of having a litter, I find myself wondering if we grow a few extra nipples when we change. 

         And I won't even go into the thoughts I've had about my penis changing into that weird lipstick-looking thing dogs have

         Anyway, I saw this one flick where a guy who had been turned decided to build a cage for himself to be locked in every full moon and I figured it was a good idea.  I was a little worried about the shit I was doing on full moon nights.  I mean, as a human, I find myself buying extended warrantees and forwarding those emails about Bill Gates sending you $250 bucks if you send it to enough people, so who knows the kind of stupid crap I was pulling as a wolf. 

         So I spent a small fortune at a hardware store, buying stuff sturdy enough to hold me in.  Okay, well, not at first.  I hate to admit this, but at first I just bought a big dog cage, the kind people send their dogs on planes in, but I busted it up pretty easily.  Really, I was kind of glad it didn't work.  I felt really stupid crawling into the cage naked, sitting there waiting for it to happen.  Must be what it feels like to be one of those performance artist weirdoes that I somehow always get stuck talking to at every one of my unveilings. 

         So, having destroyed the cage, I went to the hardware store and bought some iron bars, the type of stuff people have over their windows and doors in California.  I got the thickest I could find and welded it together in my basement.  I went through a stage with my art where I was experimenting with scrap metal sculptures, so I had the skills and supplies necessary. 

         And boy, did it ever work. 

         I woke up the next day, absolutely covered in bumps and bruises.  I must have acted just like those moron dogs you see that just never get the leash concept, choking themselves half to death after trying to run seven feet ahead on a six-foot lead time and time again.  I tried padding the cell, but it's not hard to guess that I'd just woken up the next day covered in bumps, bruises, and stuffing.

         It wasn't the beating I was taking that caused me to ditch the cell idea, though.  I've always been worried that the cops were going to show up with some evidence or lead that suggested I'd killed someone or ripped someone's arm off, all the junk you see in horror movies.  Even though I was pretty  sure I'd never hurt anyone, it still was a paranoia I could never shake. 

         One night as I was taking a load of laundry down to the basement, I glanced over at the cell and that phantom threat of a police raid on my house popped up again.  As I thought about the S.W.A.T. team kicking my door in and holding me at gunpoint as the forensic team searched for evidence of murders, I realized, The locked cell would be a little hard to explain.  I spent the rest of the evening with my welding torch turning the cell into scrap metal.

         So, what do I do instead?  How do I manage the werewolf lifestyle?  I just try to suck it up and ride it out.  On full moon nights, I load up on the biggest dinner I can pack into my stomach in an attempt to stifle any late-night hunger pains, strip down, and hope for the best.

         After all, if Michael J. Fox can accept his destiny as a werewolf, then I can handle the burden, too.