Bewere the Night (31 page)

The way his voice drops several octaves unexpectedly, becomes a growl that makes guests’ hair stand on their arms. The way the moon pulls and stretches at his limbs, curves his spine, makes hair grow everywhere.

Learning to shave is embarrassing, the blades break and finally he has to go with a barber’s razor, and when he cuts himself the bleeding stops in seconds, the wounds heal—too quickly. At school the kids make fun of hairy boy until he growls and shows them nails like claws and then they stop and after that they mostly keep away from him.

Puberty is confusing, he gets a hard-on every other second, it seems, he has hormones raging through him and on full moon nights he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is, and he is naked, and covered in feathers and blood.

Oz lives in a small town where nothing much is going on, somewhere in those featureless plains of a sometimes-Americaland. Mostly, Oz goes to the movies. Alone. He sits close to the screen, in the first or second row where no one else likes to sit, and he watches movies in the dark. There’s the smell of popcorn and years of spilled Coca Cola on unwashed carpets. There’s the smell of wet hair, and a hint of blood. Kids make out in the back row and the attendant goes around with a torchlight and the smell of grass on his clothes.

Everyone leaves Oz well alone. Which suits him fine.

He watches horror movies and romantic comedies and family dramas, fantasies and sci fi and adventure serials. He watches sequels and prequels and the things that come in the middle. He watches
Wolf
with Jack Nicholson, which is kinda boring (but Michelle Pfeiffer makes him hard), and
Teen Wolf
with Michael J. Fox (an 80s classic, but he secretly prefers
Doc Hollywood
), and
An American Werewolf in London
, but to be honest, even though he won’t admit it, he prefers romantic comedies. He loves
Four Weddings and a Funeral
. He just wishes there was someone like him in it. Nodoes romantic comedies about werewolves.

Because that’s what he is, he is beginning to realize. He can no longer deny the changes. When he takes on the wolf shape he feels alive, free, strong. He loves to run, for miles and miles, snapping at the wind, scenting for prey. He loves the taste of fear in a chicken’s heart when it’s taken. He toys with it, listening to its heart beat, smelling its fear before jaws close shut with a snap over the creature’s thin neck.

He does okay at school and he does better on the football field but it’s not enough, and besides people are beginning to talk. There’s mention of pitchforks, not as an agricultural tool but as an instrument of maiming. Nolikes a teenage werewolf. Especially not the fathers or uncles of teenage daughters.

EXT. EMERALD CITY—DAY

OZ stands outside a bar. The sign, in flashing neon light, says, SHIFTER’S CORNER. He growls softly to himself and goes inside.

INT. SHIFTER’S CORNER BAR—DAY

The bar is dark, the lighting red. The counter is long and made of hard wood, scarred by cigarettes and fights. The few drinkers turn to look at OZ, then turn back, quickly. Behind the bar is a solitary figure. OZ walks forward, sits on a stool.

OZ:

Gimme a Jack on the rocks, Billy.

The bartender lifts his head and we get a good look at him. His face is very long and very pale. So are his fingers. His entire seems stretched, devoid of blood. There are bandages trailing from his arms, his neck. He stares at OZ, not moving.

OZ:

What’s the matter, Billy? Missing your mummy?

The bartender’s impassive face nevertheless registers a look of fleeting pain. Silently, he points at a sign on the wall. It says: NO MUMMY JOKES. OZ shrugs.

OZ:

Just gimme the drink, Billy. I’m good for it.

OZ slaps some money on the counter. The bartender nods and reaches under the counter for a glass. He makes OZ a drink and pushes it towards him.

OZ:

I’m looking for a girl, Billy. A missing girl. Goes by the name of Dorothy.

The bartender shrugs. OZ takes a sip from his drink and lights up another cigarette. He stares at the bartender meditatively.

OZ:

In this city, we’re all lost.

OZ:

Right, Billy?

The bartender shrugs again.

He loves detective movies and noir and
Casablanca
most of all. He loves Bogie.
Werewolf in a Women’s Prison
makes him wake up at night, sweating, with the sheets all damp.

There’s this girl at school . . . 

She lives with her uncle and aunt. They have a farm. It’s not a very successful one. They grow tobacco, but the season’s been hard. Her name’s Dorothy. She’s hard, she has the eyes of someone who knows what poverty is like, and hardship. Her parents are dead. They say her uncle beats her up. For all that, Oz thinks she’s radiant. When she smiles—if he can somehow make her smile—it transforms her completely, the way he is transformed. He wants to be her full moon. He wants to watch her when she changes.

They meet secretly. Oz’s parents don’t approve of farmer trash and her uncle doesn’t approve of Oz, or any other boys for that matter. They make plans.

Scram. Leave this town. Disappear. Across the vast featureless plains, towards the coast, east or west it almost doesn’t matter, only it does. There is only one place for dreamers, one place that is a magnet, drawing you inexorably towards it.

The city.

The
city.

Where everything is possible, and dreams come true.

EXT. THE EMERALD CITY PROJECTS—DAY

There are people sitting outside on stairs, not doing anything. Smoking, talking. Listening to the game on the radio. Boys stand at street corners, dealing. Cars go past slowly. Were-girls in short skirts and hairy legs wait, hopefully.

OZ comes striding into the frame.

WERE-GIRL:

Hey, Corn-fed! Wanna have a good time?

OZ doesn’t break stride.

OZ:

No, thanks, fur-ball.

WERE-GIRL:

Fucking were-rat.

OZ goes to a group of boys. They are all half-transformed, and growl when they see him.

WERE-BOY:

What do you want here, Daddy-O?

OZ:

I’m looking for a girl. Name of Dorothy.

WERE-BOY:

Take your pick, old man. Take any girl you want. Or any boy.

WERE-BOY

They’ll all be your Dorothy, for a price.

OZ reaches over and grabs the boy by the throat, easily lifting him off the ground. He growls, and his face shifts and lengthens, becomes that of a wolf.

WERE-BOY:

Shit, man!

OZ throws him against the wall. The boy crumples down and shifts, becoming wholly human.

OZ:

Well? I’m waiting.

WERE-BOY:

Dorothy, Dorothy . . . was she hooked up, man? She’s that wannabe-actress chick who got hooked on emerald dust, right? Shit, I know her. Everyone knows her. Why didn’t you just say so?

OZ growls. There’s a growing pee stain on the boy’s trousers.

WERE-BOY:

You should ask Tinny. He’s dealin’ the good stuff. The rainbow dust. If anyone should know it’s him.

Oz runs through the quiet fields on a night of the full moon. His tongue lolls out as he runs. He grins.

Miles and miles of quiet fields, with nothing but scarecrows for company. His wolf-mind dreams of bright lights and crowded streets, a gourmet restaurant and a take-away menu rolled into one, both buffet and a-la-carte. His human mind dreams of the ocean, and the sound of the waves as they break against the shore, and moonlit walks along the beach. He has never seen the ocean—only in movies.

She waits for him at the agreed place. They are on the boundary of her uncle’s farm. A barn, and she is waiting outside, in the cold, puffing on a cigarette. His wolf-nose picks up the smell keenly. Her aunt and uncle disapprove of smoking, as they do of most things. It’s why she does it, even though he tells her it’s no good for her.

But Dorothy doesn’t listen to him. She doesn’t listen to anybody.

Dorothy is going to be a star.

The city. Their shared dream is joined, entwined. He bounds towards her, jumping over her and they roll on the ground. He changes as he rolls, become a large and naked young man. Dorothy giggles. ‘You’re funny,’ she says. He licks her face. She pushes him away.

They make out in the hay, in the dark barn. She makes him cum with her hand. Later, they just lie there, in the darkness, and she says, ‘I wish a tornado would come and take me away from here.’

He wants to be her tornado. He says, “I’m saving up. I’m working two jobs.”

She laughs. “How much money can you make on a paper round?”

Which hurts, but he doesn’t say anything.

“We need to make enough for the city,” she says. “It’s not a place we can go to just like that.”

He is restless. “I want us to go soon!” he says, and she laughs. “Patience, my wolf,” she says. But he knows she is equally restless.