BANG OUT

I see you every Friday, standing on the 14L, even if there is an open seat, or a whole row of open seats, even if the bus is half empty, you never sit-your neck wrapped in a plaid scarf, the broken pair of reading glasses, one lens missing, balanced on the bridge of your prominent nose, and always the white earbuds stuffed inside your hairy ear-holes and your plain brown shoes tap-tapping away, your left foot aflutter as you hum a nervous tune through closed human lips, lips sealed tight, never showing your teeth. You spend a lot of time pretending to be in the throes of some tune, but I know you are not. Your ipod is turned off, or maybe broken, I’ve seen its little dead screen.

It is just before dusk in December, the bus driver has pulled over at 12th street, and she’s talking to another driver, they’re chatting it up, laughing about the full moon, and the 14, and the crazies who get even crazier on a night such as the one we will have. We’re late. Off schedule. But they reminisce on the man who swallowed three nitrous balloons, and the woman in socks and a bath robe talking to an empty dog carrier; they talk about tweakers and zombies and men with no shadows. And because it is winter and because of the particular angle of the earth, the moon will be closer than usual to our city, and will appear 14% larger over the winking skyline and 30% brighter than normal moons, and I’ve known about you for a while, and I prayed for the bus to go and the bus driver sang Mississippi John Hurt. She sang Mmmm hmmmmm. No no! ohhhhh sweet baby! I don’t want to go! Yea yeahhhhh…

But we do go, finally, the bus shifts forward and you grab the metal handle on the chair in front of mine and I saw that thatch of hair on your knuckles, dark thick hair on your fingers, just before you thrust your hand back into your pocket.

I see now that you were nervous-maybe just as nervous as I was. The sun sets early in the winter months. At 24th street I imagined that you are the right sort of werewolf-a tameable werewolf. I could take you to my home at the top of the Hill, I could take you by the arm because some werewolves can’t help it, some are kind and gentle in human form. I’d keep you underground, locked in storage for this night. There’s a dead bolt on the door.

“Excuse me,” you said to the lady sitting next to me, “Excuse me, do you know where this bus goes?” You had removed one of your silent earbuds and it dangled and swung at my cheek like a pendulum. The woman was smart and did not answer you and so I waited the requisite moment and then looked into your face, and maybe you recognized me because you nodded, and you tap tap tapped even louder after you put your ear-bud back inside your ear.

You grumbled something.

I said your welcome even softer.

What was that strange accent-was it Russian? Were you born on Christmas Eve? Were you the seventh son of an Argentinean? Were you attacked and bit in the night overseas? It probably isn’t such a sad story. No, I’ve seen inside your bag: you carry a copy of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, and what was that warm bit of color?-a fur, the skin of the Bernal Hill wolf you draped over your naked body in your shitty apartment in outer mission, the smell of wild dog coating everything-the couch, the lamps, the wine glass, the bed sheets, you had to bathe in tomato paste, you had to scrub your floors with arm & hammer. The neighbors complained. Then they were never found.
My heart skipped as we passed the Precita stop. You had moved to the back of the bus, and I pretend to be asleep.

“Back door!” You said tugging at the bus door poll. “Back door, back door!”

“Let him out!” I yelled.

And the bus slammed on the breaks, Mission traffic honking and you pushed your way out and, I rose and followed you, powered by some insane jolt of courage. I could lie at your doorstep and expose my jugular, just as the last slice of sun sizzles green over the ocean. Or I could gather silver and mistletoe and mountain ash leaves or the yellow wolfsbane flowers watered by the saliva of Cerberus when he was brought to the surface world, and lay them in a heap at your feet. But I have cheap earrings, nothing silver at all, and besides, deep down, I want to watch the transformation. To see if the old genre movies have it right, the stretching of the skeleton, your spine thrusting forward, the sound of trees falling, fabric tearing, your jaw bone reaching inch by painful inch, the hair on your fingers suddenly everywhere, you poor man cursed by lunar cycles, sent into this state. I think now that you can even hear my thoughts, you are walking faster, you are trying to avoid me. You spend the night boarding up your doors, your windows are sealed in cement. You nail the final planks across your front door, the nail gun popping like a giant, panic-y heart. Your construction permit glows, crooked in the window. I suppose this method works and we are safe: The bus drivers continue to sing, they hate zombies, and tweakers and people who enter the back door without paying, and the busses are always late and your downstairs neighbors are phoning in their noise complaints, and no one, I mean no one, is saying anything about werewolves.

Copyright © 2009, Lindsey Wolkin.