Rules for Werewolves (21 page)

—Now let’s go find you each a hiding place that nobody’s taken.

—Wait.

—What?

—What’s the signal song?

—Oh, I was looking through their music. They have good music. It should be something by the Pogues.

—No fucking way.

—The Pogues are awesome.

—Yeah, but if we made them the signal song then we can’t listen to them any other time—even in some other room at low volume, we can’t listen to a bootleg on the reel to reel, ’cause someone will get confused. So we made it something totally shitty that we would never listen to.

—What is it?

—It’s Sting singing “Mack the Knife.”

—I like that song.

—You would, Anquille.

—It doesn’t really fucking matter. If you hear the song, you run to your hiding place. And you stay there as quiet as you can be while Malcolm and Tanya and Anquille try to convince the maid to give us one more week.

—Anquille doesn’t have to hide?

—The three of them are college students. That’s what the fake note from the daughter said.

—This is never going to work.

—If it doesn’t—if one of us screams out: “It’s happening,” or if the visitor opens one of the closets and finds your hiding place, you come out, ready to attack, screaming “it’s happening,” and everybody’ll come out and join you. Don’t try to kill anybody or anything, we’re just gonna tie up the visitor long enough for us to get out of here.

—So then we’re gonna go to Tom’s house next, huh?

—We’re not gonna let Malcolm hurt Tom’s family.

—Seriously Susan, if it came down to it, would you join us against Malcolm?

—Who’s
us
?

—You are—if you’re promising not to hurt Tom’s family.

—Just ’cause I have a half ounce of mercy for Tom—that doesn’t mean I’m an
us
.

—So you’re with Malcolm?

—I’m not with anybody.

—Malcolm’s dangerous. Look. I’m gonna open my other fist.

—What’s that?

—It’s soot and ash from the Baxters’ place. Malcolm did go back and set it on fire, probably when he was crazy from being hungry for three
days. I rubbed this hand in the ashes of it and then kept it in a fist the whole way back so I’d have some sort of proof.

—Y’all need to reconsider what you consider proof.

—Malcolm’s out of control. That’s the point. He’s not gonna tie up the maid if she comes back. He’s not gonna
prank
the Peugeot guy. He’s gonna get a gun from that safe and kill him and then it’s going to be all of
you
who go to jail.

—How are
we
gonna go to jail for what Malcolm does?

—Bobert’s address was spray-painted on the chimney, on the bricks, as a clue to get him in trouble.

—Maybe Bobert put it there so we could find him? Hell, maybe Bobert burned the house down because he was mad at Malcolm for enforcing some discipline.

—That’s bullshit.

—You guys need to get on board with what we’re doing here. Find a hiding place and then take a shower. You stink.

—Malcolm’s gonna shoot the Peugeot guy and write one of our names in blood.

—He can’t shoot the Peugeot guy. He doesn’t have a gun.

—He doesn’t have a gun
yet
.

—What did you tell Anquille, baby?

—I told him to give up. I told him he’d never figure out the code. I explained that it wasn’t just a matter of figuring out what number to add to the combination, but that it might be adding one to the first number of the combination and two to the next number and three to the last number. Or it might be adding someone’s birthday to the combination, the day, the month, and the last two digits of the year … It’s impossible.

—So how do we get into the safe?

—It’s simple. Watch this.

Spin. Spin. Spin. Click. Open.

—Holy shit! Will you look at that?

—Wow. Money and guns. I guess it figures. These Baxters seem to be some sort of survivalists.

—How’d you do it? How’d you figure out the combination?

—The combination was written in the book. It always worked. I only acted like it didn’t when I tried it in front of Anquille. I said the right numbers but I just spun the dial randomly so everyone would think it didn’t work. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was whether Anquille would double-check me. It turns out he trusts me.

—That’s gonna be my downfall, too.

—How can you say that? I just made you rich and well-protected.

—How much do you think is in here?

—Oh, I don’t think it’s very much. It’s probably just a few thousand or less. Two thousand, is my guess. I mean it’s a lot to us, but I bet the Yorks don’t even count it as part of their assets.

—That’s a lot. We could pay the rent on a place for a few months.

—That’s a weird idea.

—It’s not. It’s normal. You’re the one who’s weird.

—You don’t know what I want to do with it.

—You wanna use it to keep yourself in power.

—I wanna find someone, an artisan, someone who works in leather and metal, maybe one of those Renaissance Festival freaks who build chain mail and jerkins. I wanna hire that person to make us a really beautiful set of matching leather straps and a harness and a muzzle. I wanna formalize our transformational practices and get it all official. That’ll do more to keep this group together and grow it.

—You wanna consecrate our rituals.

—Yeah, that’s a beautiful way of saying it.

—It’s a kind of a beautiful thing to wanna do, Malcolm.

—See? I can be surprising.

—You can be surprising with money, but the guns you’re gonna use in the traditional way, right?

—No one’s gonna get hurt. I’m only going to use them for protection.

—That’s the traditional way people get hurt by guns.

—Give me a kiss, Tanya.

—You really wanna leave everybody alone up there?

—They’re not alone. We got a maid, a cop, Angel, and probably two or three nosy neighbors keeping an eye on the house for us.

—I don’t trust Tom. Do you think he really found the real Peugeot house? I mean, how? It’s weird.

—Bobert probably told him about it.

—Bobert knew where the Peugot house was?

—And Anquille, too.

—Is that it?

—And me. I heard them talking about it and I thought—later, when it’s the right time, I’ll reveal it to the group.

—And now’s the right time?

—No, it’s way too early. But I think that’s what Tom wants. He wants to show everybody how scary this is gonna get. He wants to break us up.

—But you’re gonna go to the Peugeot house, aren’t you?

—You are, too, Tanya. We’re all gonna go. We’re gonna find a street map somewhere in this house and we’re gonna draw up a plan. We gonna break up into groups and we’re all gonna take a different route so we don’t seem too noticeable. We don’t want this cop who’s already suspicious of me to bust all of us. So when your group gets to the Peugeot house you’re gonna hide somewhere nearby, in the bushes or in the shadows and you’re gonna wait until all the groups are there, in position, watching the front door. And then you’re gonna see me running down the block toward the Peugeot house. I’ll be transformed, hair covering my entire body. My eyes wild. Running at top speed. And it’s gonna look like I’m on fire. Shooting guns off at the moon. Screaming bloody murder. And I’m gonna run right past you all and kick the door down and go into that house. And whoever wants to can come with me as I explore. But even if you stay outside, you’ll know which room I’m in, because I’ll be lighting it up from the inside. You’ll see the curtains glow and you’ll know I’m in the living room, I’m going up the stairs, I’m in the bedroom, and I’m on fire. But first I want you to kiss me. I want you to kiss me and kiss me. I want you to kiss me and I don’t wanna think about anything else. I want you to kiss me and fuck me again and again right now without thinking anything. Right now. Kiss me. Please.

—If you decide to stay with me we’ll have a big family. We’ll move out to the country. We’ll live off the land. We’ll grow corn all around the house in every direction to make a green wall. We’ll keep goats that we’ll train to eat only weeds in among the corn. Old farmers will laugh and tell us it’s not possible, ’til they see the way we train ’em. When a goat kid bends its neck for a weed, we’ll pet it. But if it opens its mouth for an early stalk of corn, we’ll slap it on the face. We’ll take the time to make the kids learn. We’ll perfect nature. We’ll keep bees without a mask. When the mailman comes he’ll cry when he sees us standing there in a cloud of bees, perfectly understood by our insects. Unstung. A honeycomb in each hand. Offering him the opportunity to join us. Offering him a handful of gold if he can only get over his fear and reach out. Honeycomb and a cup of black coffee in the morning.

—

—We’ll get a lot of mail because people will write to us for advice. That’s what I want to do for a living. I want to give advice. Big picture or little details. I want to be the person people come to. “How should I live?” In perfect nature. “What should I eat?” Raw meat and vegetables. Honey. Coffee. Cigarettes are good for you because tobacco is native to this place. Put money in the next envelope you send me if you like my
advice. “Does he love me?” Does he make you come? It only takes time and attention. If you love something, make it come. I love coffee. I pour the cream in real slow to watch it swirl. I let the honey drip down into it from a mile above. If I have whiskey, I put a finger in to warm the coffee up. I expect the same from a man. And you can expect the same from me toward you, if you decide to stay. “What time should I wake up?” As often as you can. Your mind should want to be awake. If you have a dream you should wake up right away and write it down and send it to us to read.

—

—That’ll be our only TV, reading America’s dreams to each other. You can read everything from east of the Mississippi and I’ll take the west. If you decide to stay with me those’ll be our subjects. We’ll teach our children to read from these dream letters. We’ll teach ’em spelling and psychology and geography. Imagine raising children on nothing but letting ’em play outdoors and reading to ’em from a great big compendium of dreams. If those were the only two sources of input they were allowed: running around and listening to Mom and Dad read dreams? Perfect nature.

—

—And we’ll have lots of children. We’ll have seven children. We’ll have three girls and three boys and one that’s just wild. We’ll set it loose the day it’s born. We’ll put out food at night on the back porch. We’ll lie awake in bed at night and listen to it while we eat, holding each other. Proud. Frightened. The seventh child will be a test of our faith in perfect nature. At any moment it could break into the house and kill us all, eat the children, fuck me to death while it fights you back from saving me. But that won’t happen. We’ll trust in perfect nature and the seventh child will be kind to us and the goats. We’ll tell the rest of the brothers and sisters, “You have another sibling. Out there somewhere. Running wild but close enough to keep an eye on you.” And we’ll say, “Your father and I believe,” if you decide to stay with me, “that this other sibling,” in perfect nature, “if you ever get in real danger,” come with me, “will break down the door to save you.”

—

—That’s why I spent all this time training you. Breaking you. Preparing you to make this decision. So that when you decide to stay with me it can be perfect nature and we can come together forever.

—

—Amen.

—Where are you going?

—Nowhere, honey. Not for a couple more hours, anyway. What time is it?

—’Bout ten. What are you looking at all those maps for?

—Malcolm said to find a city map and I remembered seeing somebody else move around a bunch of maps in this big flat desk in the Baxters’ office when we were shifting everything up a drawer. But these aren’t city maps.

—What’s it maps of?

—I don’t know.

—Does it look like any place you’d wanna go?

—I think this is Mr. Baxter’s job.

—That’s cool. What is he? Some kind of land-lawyer?

—What does that mean?

—How should I know? There’s more kinds of jobs in the world than I’ll ever understand.

—That’s what college is for, sweetie. So you can make up the job you wanna get.

—I wanna do something for animals.

—Like what?

—Animals haven’t done shit to anybody and they get all their land taken away and treated like they don’t own anything. Animals own just
as much shit as we do. They own trees and caves. And they have contracts with bushes for berries and nuts for the winter. They just need someone to translate their contracts into human language and to draw up the deeds to their homesteads.

—Haha. So, what? You wanna be an animal-lawyer?

—It’s like “lawyer” has become a suffix you can put on anything.

—I’m gonna be a “sandwich-lawyer.”

—I bet there’s such a thing. He probably works for some mayonnaise company.

—What about a “dildo-lawyer”?

—Totally. Whoever makes ’em—the manufacturers, they have lawyers. Why wouldn’t they?

—How about a “magic-lawyer”?

—In Las Vegas.

—One of these maps is from around there. Look, Vegas is over there.

—What’s the area all covered in red?

—It’s probably where an evil spell has been cast over the land and Mr. Baxter is suing the magician who cast the spell.

—It might be where people have died, or been poisoned.

—Same thing. Right?

—Tanya, I don’t wanna go out and beat up the Peugeot guy.

—You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, baby.

—I know. That’s cool. But sometimes it’s just easier—

—What’s easier, baby?

—It’s easier to do what other people want than to want on your own.

—What do you wanna do, Susan?

—I dunno.