He didn’t just wake up one day and turn into one. This had been developing for years, but nobody, especially his parents, wanted to believe. For a long time, he didn’t want to either.
He walked out of his room, dressed in khakis and a long-sleeved button down, covering up the thick nest of hair on his arms and legs. He’d shaved his face as best he could, but already the stubble was growing back. His mother didn’t like to see any hair on him, other than on his head. Yesterday she’d left out pamphlets for electrolysis, which he’d taken with him but thrown in the trash at work. He was thirty years old, still lived with his parents, and worked at a bank.
His mother stood in the kitchen, eating yogurt and fruit out of a plastic bowl. “There’s coffee,” she said. “Better hurry, you’ll be late.”
He poured weak coffee into a travel mug, drank it black. He’d been out all night, running around his parents’ acre of land, staying on this side of the fence. His parents lived between suburbs and country on a dead-end road. At the end of the road stretched a field of milkweed and wildflowers and colonies of ticks, and beyond the field loomed a dark overgrown forest, which he avoided and from where he occasionally heard the howling of wolves.
His mother asked if he wanted to go shopping after work. “There’s a sale on sweaters at Marshalls,” she said. “You also need a new pair of loafers—those look worn out.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I won’t be home for dinner.”
She shot him a look of disapproval. “You already look exhausted. Don’t stay out too late.”
He grabbed a green apple from the basket on the table. His mother didn’t say what she really meant: don’t go out under the full moon.
His father walked in wearing his usual olive-green work pants, a T-shirt, and steel-toed boots. He spent his days driving a bulldozer and tearing down old buildings and abandoned homes. “Happy hump day,” he said. He patted him on the shoulder. “You look tired. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, the line they’d all been using about him for years.
He moved stiffly in his two-legged clothing, his broadening shoulders tightening against the shirt seams and the worn loafers pinching his growing toenails. He grabbed his car keys, said he’d see them tonight. The yip that followed his words startled him, and he covered his mouth. His parents ignored it.
“Come home for dinner,” his mother said. “Don’t stay out.”
For so long, all his life really, he’d tried to run from and deny his wolfness—avoiding full moons, ignoring the tight drumming in his chest whenever a wolf appeared on TV. Around his family and friends, he battled a constant ache within: a stranger in his own body, a fake.
One time, as a kid, he’d gone out under a full moon and felt another presence, outside himself, like a friendly hand on the back of his neck, but inside himself too: a pretty bell, struck. The sound chimed all through him. He’d shaken free of his clothes and darted around the yard, wild-eyed, until his mother found him and scolded him and covered him with a blanket. His parents never mentioned the incident, but he noticed the way they looked at him after that, and their shame burned into him and became his own, a burden he still carried. God, it was heavy.
Back then, in the ’80s and into the ’90s, the wolf-people did not have much of a voice or public presence. Occasionally, they appeared on morning talk shows like Phil Donahue or Sally Jesse Raphael, as freaks and anomalies, always lonely. But in the last decade, they’d become a more vocal, visible community. They appeared as sympathetic figures in pop culture, and a few left-leaning politicians wrote bills to protect their rights that always died in Congress. Men on TV, armed with military-style guns, said if they saw a wolf, human kind or not, they’d shoot first, ask questions later. Preachers called them abominations. The new president wanted to cage them: “If they’re real, then they belong in a zoo.”
After a life time of self-monitoring and repression, a couple years ago he’d summoned the courage to go out during a full moon, terrified but trembling with excitement. The sudden and immense feeling of belonging—of being at home in his own body—shook him. He’d stayed out the entire night, marveling at the changes—the hair on his hands, the claws on his feet. When he came in early the next morning, he’d shifted back to his human shape, but everything was different: he’d tasted what could be.
His mother was furious and disappointed. “I can’t ever see you like that,” she warned. “Neither can your father, it would kill him.”
They knew but didn’t want to look. He did his best to keep up the act of normalcy, but it was getting more difficult. Each time he sneaked out for a romp under the full moon, his body resisted returning to its human form. Instead, the wolf characteristics developed and stuck with him, even during the day: his voice broadened to include growls and his body hair was a force to be reckoned with. Eventually he’d have to make a decision: to live forever in hiding or to live openly as a wolf.
He parked his jeep in the lot, stalled as long as he could, and then walked into the bank, an old-fashioned fortress of a building built during the previous century.
“Steve’s in a mood, watch out,” Monica said, sipping a gigantic Frappuccino. Monica, a petite black woman in her early-twenties, dressed to the nines everyday—bright shirts and skirts, high heels. Even her hair was colorful, the spikey tips dyed eggplant purple. She’d always been nice to him. “You okay?”
He hung up his jacket on a wall hook. “Just sick of this place.”
“Same, brother.”
What had started as a boring, cush job had turned to a taxing grind. The constricting office clothes, standing in one place. Recently, his fingernails, no matter how often he clipped them, grew back long and thick, bulging out from his stubby finger pads, and made typing difficult. Counting bills was a bitch.
By mid-morning, a long line had formed. Smelling like mint mouthwash and musky cologne, Steve, the manager, stood looking over his shoulder, watching him fumble with a stack of bills. The customer, an older white woman with puffy red hair (the majority of customers were over 65), tapped her nails on the counter and clucked her tongue.
In his office, the door closed, Steve aired a long list of customer and co-worker complaints. He was too slow, made mistakes. He looked disheveled. He’d growled at a customer. And, frankly, he smelled. “Like a dog,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows. So he suspected, maybe they all did.
“Look, maybe you need to take some time off,” Steve said. “Get yourself right.”
What he wanted to do was curl up under the desk and sleep. The office, with its low-lighting and shuttered windows, resembled a cave. Maybe he should look for a job where he could work nights and sleep during the days. But the money here was good. His parents counted on him to help with bills.
“I’ll do better,” he told Steve.
After work, he went to happy hour with Monica. They ordered jalapeno poppers, but the spice burned his throat, and he pushed them aside. He had a sudden hankering for fried chicken and politely waved over the waitress.
“Steve’s a dick,” Monica said. “But you do look—” she stopped. “Maybe you should take a few days off.”
“Maybe,” he said. Although he wanted to tear his teeth into the greasy chicken leg, he forced himself to chew slowly.
Monica gave him a knowing glance.
“What?”
She reached across the table, touched his furry hand with her smooth, elegant one. Her gold nails glistened in the bar’s low lighting.
“My cousin was always such a shy kid, hiding from the world. Now he lives openly, a wolf-person. He’s so present now. So beautiful too, damn.”
Monica asked him if he was one. His mouth felt suddenly dry, and he reached for his glass of water. It dribbled down his chin. “Yes,” he said. Then, with a squeak of hope, he asked if her cousin lived nearby.
“Used to,” she said. “He used to live with his parents. They were freaked out at first, but they all went to family therapy, and now they’re good. Supportive. Still, he needed to go somewhere where he could feel free. Last year, he moved to Minnesota. He found a pack, and they roam the woods. He comes back for holidays and family get togethers.” She sipped her blue rum cocktail. “You have anyone to talk to? Ever been to a therapist?”
“Once,” he said. His mother had taken him to a Christian psychologist. “Conversion therapy.”
“That’s fucked up.”
He’d only tried one time to talk to his parents honestly about his condition. After a night out under a full moon, he approached them: Mom and Dad, can you please look at me? His father had quickly wiped away a tear and turned back to the TV, and his mother said, “We’ll get the curse lifted.”
“It’s not a curse,” he said.
“You’ve been brainwashed,” his mother said.
He tried to explain nothing was wrong with him, but his mother needed there to be a cause: if there was a cause, then she could find a cure.
“My parents don’t accept it—me,” he said. “I don’t want to lose them.”
What he didn’t say: I’m weak, I’m afraid. Suddenly ravenous, he shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. His sharp teeth mashed up the food. He wanted more, but didn’t allow himself another bite. He had to learn to stay in control. How to be satisfied.
“Well, let me know if there is anything I can do,” Monica said. “There are others out there like you. You’re not alone.”
He arrived home before dark and his parents were relieved. He watched a crime show on TV with his mother, while his father watched football in the other room. His father didn’t believe that a person could shift bodies or change—it was fake news, a delusion.
He couldn’t sit still, legs twitching, aching with a desire to run. He went to his room, closed the door. For a while, he fumbled with his phone, but his bulky, clumsy fingers couldn’t operate the buttons on the screen anymore. Back when he could still easily type, he’d done research. In addition to all the sensational lies and hateful rhetoric, he found testimonials and blogs by others like him. Monica was right; he wasn’t alone. They were all over the world, all kinds.
Some maintained their lives in the human world—working at hospitals, banks, Fortune 500 companies. They had their own children/pups, shopped for organic vegetables; voted. Others chose to live in the wilderness, far from suburbs and cities—Fuck assimilation.
Panting, he pulled down the blinds in his room to block out the silver light of the moon. But the otherworldly howls, echoing from the woods, still carried through the thin walls with the intensity of ambulance sirens. He stuck a pair of foam plugs in his ears, then stripped off his two-legged clothes and nestled in a pile of blankets in the darkest corner of the closet, the door closed.
Months passed. Though he avoided full moons, he still sometimes went out at night, picking up beats of the wildness, like echoes of a concert ringing in his ears. His wolf self wasn’t going anywhere. He gave off a strong dog odor, and found it increasingly difficult to operate a knife and fork. The two-legged clothing made him itchy. When he tried to muffle his natural growls and yips, a hefty weight pressed down on his chest, a tightening and shortening of air—he couldn’t breathe.
His parents treated him kindly, but didn’t look too closely. They ignored his discomfort or the way he sometimes started to pant. Pretended all was fine. But they also took steps to hide him from the rest of the family—cousins, aunts and uncles, his demented grandfather. Thanksgiving was just the three of them (after dinner, he took a bone to his room to gnaw), and instead of joining the big family gift exchange at his aunt’s, his parents claimed they wanted a quiet Christmas at home. Their shame slapped at his face like a hot, invisible wind. Except for the psychologist and pastor, they’d told no one.
On a lunch date with Monica, she complained about the terrible guys on the dating apps. “I’m about to give up and become a nun,” she said, laughing. “Except I’m not Catholic. Or religious.” She gave him a flirtatious smile. “What about you—you like men, or women, or?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I dated a girl in high school. In college, I dated women and men.” He had not gone out on a date or slept with anyone in a couple of years. “I’ve thought about going on the apps, but I don’t know what to say about myself.”
“Be truthful. People are pretty open.” She reached for a French fry. Now, she insisted they only eat at restaurants with a lot of finger foods on the menu. The last time they’d gone out for Chinese had been a disaster. “Honey, how are you?”
He shrugged, thinking about tonight’s forecast: clear skies, full moon.
“I talked to my cousin,” Monica said. “He said there’s a pack of good wolf-people not far from here.”
“I think I’ve heard them,” he said.
Whenever the pack called from the woods, he barricaded himself in the closet, afraid and nauseated and hating himself.
Back at work, Steve watched him closely, waiting for him to fuck up. It happened about an hour in. A cranky customer complained because he was taking too long to count out the bills, and he snapped—literally. He didn’t touch the old man, but the snarl and the glint of his teeth were enough.
“That’s it,” Steve said.
He didn’t care. He never wanted to wear khakis or loafers again. Monica gave him a hug. “Take care of yourself, honey. Call me if you need anything.”
That night, as he started to enter his closet, he stopped. Fuck it.
“I’m going out,” he said.
His father stared at the TV, tight-lipped. Tears sprang to his mother’s eyes. “Don’t,” she said.
“I want you to see me.”
“I see you.”
“The real me.”
“That’s not you.”
Outside, the moon shone huge and white, and the cool air smelled like dirt and decaying leaves and earthworms and bird nests and life. As he stepped into the grass, a current of electricity rippled through him. He tried to muffle his deepened, scratchy voice, but the howl rang out—mournful and powerful and frightening. The voice, his voice, vibrated inside him, and shook him all the way from the tips of his pointy ears to his clawed feet.
He ran his tongue across the tips of his growing fangs. Determined to show his parents his authentic self, he tried the front door. Locked. Then, the house went dark.
He didn’t go back home, but he didn’t leave—not exactly. He remained in his parents’ backyard, in this liminal space of betweenness. During the day, he slept in a den of leaves and pine needles, and, at night, ran up and down the pasture or the suburban road, stretching his muscles, admiring his own speed and strength. He didn’t dare journey into town, and he took care to hide himself from the conservative neighbors, who would surely shoot him on sight. He also gave the woods a wide berth; whenever he heard the pack’s howls and yips, he dug himself a hole, close to his parents’ house, where he waited out the night. Monica said the pack knew about him. But if he went with them, he might not ever be allowed back into the only world he knew. He was afraid.
Time passed. The air grew warmer, heavier, wetter. Buds appeared on trees, flowers burst like bright stars from the ground. The summer heat made him sluggish during the days, but at night, especially under the luminous moon, he felt wildly alive and strong and, like a snail curled in its shell, deeply and fully inside his own body. As he continued to grow and shape-shift, it seemed strange to him that he had ever been a human, though he still carried those memories inside him. Like the new sharp teeth in his mouth, they were rooted and strong, and sometimes painful.
He scratched at the tangle of hairs on his face, and when he lifted his flexed arm, he smelled himself. He smelled wild, like wet dog, like mud, like tree roots, and he sniffed harder because he liked the smell. His feet had grown callused, his nails sharper and longer. You’ll never be a real wolf, the Christian psychologist had told him. So what if he didn’t have a tail? He was no illusion or delusion. He was real all right.
He felt surprisingly calm and grounded, sensitive even. Though he had not been able to shed a tear, not even during the loneliest moments, he now experienced emotions with more vulnerability and alertness. His senses grew more sophisticated and attuned—he noticed the spider designing her web, the vibration of leaves dancing in the breeze, the orange lilies opening to the sun. He had worried that he’d be overcome by an animalistic urge to kill, but it wasn’t like they said on TV. Though he chased rabbits and squirrels—how fast he was, how strong!—he let the creatures go, not wanting to confirm all the worst stereotypes. He was not a monster.
He lived on nuts and berries and vegetables from his father’s garden, and ate the plates of people-food his mother left out for him. She felt bad about locking the door and was trying to lure him back. Sometimes, during the early mornings when she collected the empty plates from the back patio, his mother called for him. She said he could come back any time. She would get him the help he needed. There were doctors who could fix him.
After the sun descended, he crept closer to the house and peered in through the living room window where his parents were watching TV. He felt a pang in his chest—he didn’t want to go back to his old life, but he missed them. They looked so old and fragile, so human.
His father sipped a beer. Army-style buzzed hair, tanned arms from working outside, an expanding paunch. They used to go fishing together, and his father had been proud that he’d never been squeamish about pinning the squirming worm to the barbed hook, that he knew how to be as patient and quiet as the fish. His mother worked a crossword puzzle, occasionally looking up at the clock, wishing she could turn back time. Her hair-sprayed helmet of hair going gray. She had a pretty smile and tender eyes she’d passed onto him.
When she turned, perhaps sensing him, he scurried into the shadows. His heart pounded against his chest. Had she seen him?
Yes, he missed parts of his old life. Reading books, eating dinner at the table, sleeping in a warm bed. He didn’t miss working at the bank. He missed Monica. Would she recognize him now? He’d tried, unsuccessfully, to map out different paths that wouldn’t leave him exposed, but it was impossible. He couldn’t risk it. And, he couldn’t just pick up his phone and text her. Phones and apps and the internet were another country. This was the life he’d chosen—his mother’s words. He hadn’t heard anything from the pack in the woods in a long time. Maybe the politicians and pastors were right—he was a freak, destined to spend his life alone.
The air cooled, leaves dropped from trees. He had not touched anyone in some time, and he dreamed about finding friends or a lover—a boyfriend or girlfriend, a wolf or wolf-person. Hands or paws stroking him, teeth grazing his neck. He wanted to lick salty skin or silky fur. He wanted to be around others who were like him.
Overcome with loneliness, he stood outside his parents’ well-lit house, each window a perfect amber square of protection against the moonlit night. This was a world he knew well, a still-life: his mother’s pots of mums, two pumpkins on the steps, the empty porch swing, a wreathe of bittersweet.
He could return, play the part. Ask for forgiveness. Silence the wolf part of himself forever; go back to being what they wanted. Fulfill the parents’ lives by living out their dreams and expectations.
Could they ever accept him, looking like this?
He didn’t think so. The hair on his face had grown wilder, and he barked and growled and howled. Now, he would only scare them. Repulse them.
No, he could not just ring the doorbell and tell them, Look, it’s me, your child. They would not say, We know, we love you, our beautiful werewolf, our wolfman, our wolf. They didn’t want him. Even if he were to go to the front door, what could he say? He was losing the words that he once knew, survival language, the language of lying.
Fall passed, then winter. One warm spring night, under a full moon, he felt like he had as a child—that first time he’d ever gone out under its brilliant light, and run wild and free. He tasted the tingling layers of earth and sky, and he understood the old-world music of the crickets and spring peepers. They were singing of love.
He senses woke, like tiny, exposed radio antennas. He heard and smelled and saw the invisible and hidden—what humans could no longer discern, what centuries of progress had taught them to forget. Indigo blue and white moths flew up toward the beckoning moon. Then his ears pricked, catching the crescendo of growls and barks and murmurs floating out from the dark woods. The pack was back.
His parents’ house shone like a jack-o’-lantern, all the lights on—a blaze of gold. He scampered closer. His mother stood at the kitchen window, staring in his direction. She made a quick motion with her hand, and then his father stood next to her. It was the first time they’d really seen him, really looked. He held very still. He knew he was a brilliant sight—golden-red fur from head to toe, piercing yellow eyes, sloped back and muscled neck and massive shoulders. For them, his frightened parents, he threw back his head and let out a beautiful, spine-tingling howl. This is me.
They watched the wolf run across the yard and leap over the fence. He sprinted through pastures of queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod, following the spirals of scents as delicate and complex as the crickets’ music, heading toward the trees. The ancient path had been here all along. A final flash of silver, and then he disappeared into the wildness of the forest where his brothers and sisters were waiting.