Werewolves - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

London Wolfe’s alarm clock went off at 7:00 am. It went off at 7:00 am every morning except for Saturday and Sunday. It was one of those other days. That meant London had to get up for work. London wasn’t a huge fan of going to work, but who is? Even if you actually like your job, who the hell wants to get up at 7:00 AM to do it? And if you answered in the affirmative to both those questions, someone in your office probably wants to kill you. Luckily, that wasn’t something London had to worry about. The people in London’s office liked him just fine. At least they acted like they did. People were always acting nice around London. He suspected it had something to do with the way he looked. Anyway, all he had to worry about was getting to work in the first place. Which, admittedly, was more difficult for him than it would be for the rest of us. You see, well, you’ll see.

London reached out and reset his alarm clock. It was shaped like the head of Disney’s Beast. London was pushing thirty, but he didn’t give a damn. If he wanted a Beast alarm clock, he was going to have a Beast alarm clock. He related to the guy. Anyway, it wasn’t like the alarm clock was out of place. It fit in with his Scooby Doo poster, his Gromit coffee mug, his miniature Rowlf figurine, and the stuffed Tramp his first girlfriend had sent him. She had sent it with a note. “Thinking of you,” it said. This was just after she’d moved to Florida, and they were still trying to work it out. That’s a whole other can of worms, but we’ll probably talk about that later anyway. The point is, you could say that London had a thing for the cartoon dogs of his youth. Given his condition, it was a little obvious, but you couldn’t really be surprised that these were the sorts of things he collected. He found them comforting.

But what London really needed at the moment was a long, hot shower. He threw the Underdog sheet off his bed and stumbled to his feet. He rubbed his eyes. He figured he should throw on a robe or something (he slept in the nude) for his trip to the bathroom, but his roommate Veronica, Ronnie to her friends, was never up this early. She had a much more sensible job reporting for a newspaper that he’d never heard of. But she had late deadlines and always slept in. London was jealous. So he opened his door and trekked across the hallway to the bathroom. A minute later he was under a stream of hot water. He hoped it would last. His building was sort of old and the shower had a tendency for violent temperature swings.

One night Ronnie had been taking a shower when the old pipes worked their magic, and she let out a blood-denaturing scream. London had been asleep at the time, and bolted awake. Assuming in his sleep-deprived state that some sort of scene from Psycho was being played out, he broke down the door and burst into the bathroom. Which, of course, led to them staring at each other’s naked bodies through their mostly transparent Little Mermaid shower curtain.

“Jesus Christ, London!” Ronnie said. “What the hell?”

“Sorry, I thought you were in trouble or something.”

“Well, I’m not. It was just the damn shower again.”

“Oh, OK.”

“London?”

“Yeah?”

“You done staring?”

“Oh, sorry.” Ronnie’s form was quite admirable, and London had a weakness for petite, shapely blondes. But he turned away. He wasn’t a creep or anything. At least he hoped not. Luckily for him Ronnie wasn’t very self-conscious about those sort of things, and the next morning wasn’t nearly as awkward as he thought it’d be.

But on this morning, the shower behaved itself. London shampooed his body, rinsed off, and stepped out of the shower. This was the part he hated. He’d be able to get an extra hour of sleep if he didn’t have to wait for his goddamned fur to dry. God only knew how much electricity he wasted using the hairdryer every morning. Plus there was that spot on his back he couldn’t quite reach. And if he didn’t completely dry off, he’d have to sit in soggy clothes all day. He’d done that once, and he’d had to listen to his cubemate Eric complain about the smell all morning. So he busted out the hairdryer.

Once that was done, and he was waiting for his back to dry, he brushed his fangs and filed his nails. He had filed his nails every morning since his eighth birthday. He hadn’t quite figured out how different he was until he thanked his grandma at his birthday party for getting him Carnivac, his favorite Transformer. In his joy he had hugged her. Grandma needed eighteen stitches in her back. London didn’t think other boys sent their grandmas to the hospital when they hugged them. It had taken his parents quite awhile to get him to stop crying and come out of his room.

His nails done, and the memories passed, London moved on to his next morning ritual. He grabbed a wad of toilet paper and picked up a ball of hair from the drain in the shower. One of Ronnie’s biggest pet peeves was hair in the shower drain. He then cleaned the tub with a sponge and some Scrubbing Bubbles. He rinsed it out then dumped a little Liquid-Plumr down the drain for good measure in case some hairs had gotten down there. He washed his hands in the sink then went back to his room.

His back now sufficiently dry, he chose a suit out of his closet, a dark, pinstriped blue which went well with his chocolate-colored fur. The suit wasn’t really necessary, but London had learned that he had to look as professional as possible if he wanted anyone to take him seriously. He lamented for the millionth time that he couldn’t find a decent pair of shoes to go with his suits, but his feet wouldn’t cooperate. He tried to get some custom-made, but they all looked ridiculous. Either the sole only covered his toes, or it had to bend up and follow the rest of his foot to his ankle. His only real choice would have been high heels. And while he looked damned sexy in high heels, that really wasn’t the look he was going for. So he had to go barefoot most of the time. It wasn’t really a problem except for the occasional place that actually tried to enforce its ‘No shoes, No service’ policy. But London would flash his winning smile and that was usually enough for them to leave him alone. He just hated looking like a hobo. Who the hell didn’t wear shoes?

But London had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he’d never own a decent pair of footwear. All he could do now was get to work. He grabbed his briefcase and slipped silently out of the apartment so that he wouldn’t wake Ronnie. He climbed down the stairs and out into the morning sun. It was a pleasant spring day. London thanked God it was nice enough to walk. His office was only about a mile away, and he hated having to take the subway. It was hot and crowded and people always looked at him like he’d just mutilated a little old lady. But now he could walk down Prince St. and breathe in the fresh air. He passed the MTA station and turned right. His office was more or less a straight shot down Broadway.

By now, most of the people in the neighborhood were used to seeing him and ignored him the way they ignored everyone else. The only ones who pointed and stared at him anymore were uptowners and tourists. And luckily life wasn’t much like the movies. In the movies, some young damsel would always scream, shriek really, if she saw someone who looked like London. In real life, people didn’t scream that often. Most of them assumed it was a costume. Perhaps performance art. It was New York after all, and visitors to the city expected to see strange things wherever they went. London figured that it was helpful that he wasn’t running around naked trying to rip out people’s throats. That was the sort of thing that would send the populace scattering.

Instead he was enjoying a peaceful stroll downtown. His firm’s office was located in a building near City Hall. He walked into the lobby, said hello to the security officer sitting at the front desk, took the elevator upstairs, and got off on the sixth floor. There was a sign next to the glass doors leading into the office that read: Selvaggio, Hernandez, Ikawa & Toroka. The names were lined up one on top of the other so that if you read down the first letter of each name, well, let’s just say they had the sign made without really looking at it first. They kept meaning to get it changed, but somehow no one ever got around to it. The senior partners were too busy, and everyone else was too amused to do much about it.

Anyway, Selvaggio, Hernandez, Ikawa & Toroka were all first-generation Americans and in the business of civil rights and immigration law. For the last six years, London had been one of their paralegals. He suspected he was hired in part because of his firm’s blatant policy of having as diverse a staff as possible. Normally London was not a huge fan of things like affirmative action, he liked to know that everything he achieved was based on merit alone, but in this case, he had to take what he could get. He had worked at another firm before but quit after a conversation with one of the senior partners. London had mentioned that he wanted to go to law school someday and become a litigator. The partner said it was unlikely London would ever see the inside of a courtroom. He wouldn’t play well with juries.

“Why not?” London asked.

“Jesus Christ, London,” the partner had said, “you’re a werewolf.”

London quit the next day.

Yes, as you probably already guessed, London was a werewolf. Even if you weren’t sure that’s what he was, you at least guessed it was something close to that. He has fangs and fur for Christ’s sake. But you’re probably saying to yourself, wait a minute, a werewolf? Because you know, and everybody else knows, that there ain’t no such things as werewolves. Could never be any such thing as a werewolf. And there aren’t. Not really. London’s the only one. So perhaps an explanation is in order.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WEREWOLVES IN AMERICA

When talking about werewolves in America, there’s really only one person worth talking about, Thaddeus R. Wolfe, the father of werewolf research in America and the father of the only werewolf in America. Hell, in the world. Ever since he was a boy, Dr. Wolfe was fascinated by the animal that had given his family its name. Strong, noble, and family-oriented, the wolf embodied everything the young Thad valued. So when Thad arrived at Stanford in the fall of ’73 to pursue his doctorate in biology, his sole goal was to make Homo sapiens more like Canis lupus. Naturally his new colleagues wondered how the hell this nutjob had gotten into the Leland Stanford Junior University’s graduate program. Well, as is usually the case in these situations, the motherfucker was brilliant. He got his PhD in three years, thanks largely to his realization that not everyone shared his vision. He’d have to work on that on his own time. Instead, while around his colleagues at least, he worked on more conventional topics. His thesis was titled The role of paedomorphosis in the evolution of C. lupus familiarus due to the human selection of heterochronic traits. Now nobody has any idea what the fuck that means, but apparently it was some seriously groundbreaking shit. And if you do have any idea about what any of that means, why the hell are you reading this in the first place? You have more important things that you could be doing.

At any rate, the newly minted Dr. Wolfe was awarded a rather large grant to continue his post-doctoral research, a large portion of which he siphoned into his personal wolf-man studies. He paid close attention to what his colleagues were doing with recombinant DNA, and he incorporated their work with his own. Breakthrough followed breakthrough and by the summer of ’79 his preparations were nearly complete. He convinced his loyal, if naive, wife to assist him, and he artificially inseminated her with a carefully crafted sperm cell combining his own DNA with that of a wolf. Nine months later, this resulted in the birth of London. He was a beautiful, if somewhat hairier than usual, baby. Dr. Wolfe was ecstatic. This was the sort of research that should have gotten him a Nobel Prize. Except, of course, he couldn’t tell anyone about it because, you know, it was unethical as hell.

Dr. Wolfe originally intended to use the infant in his research, to learn how he might improve the process in the future. But something unexpected happened. London was one of the cutest babies ever. And Dr. Wolfe, for all his eccentricities and mad scientist tendencies, wasn’t evil per se. He did have his human side. And this was his son. He loved the little fella. So he was going to make sure London had as normal of a life as possible. He proclaimed London’s hairiness was due to a rare disorder known as hypertrichosis. Knowing his proclivities, Dr. Wolfe’s colleagues at Stanford doubted the claim but were unable to obtain any proof of unethical behavior. If they so much as suggested that perhaps little London should have some tests done to confirm his father’s diagnosis, Dr. Wolfe raged that doing so would be akin to human experimentation. And who the hell would do that to a baby?

Dr. Wolfe moved his family to a small town within commuting distance of the university. He figured the best way for the world to acclimate to his boy, and vice versa, was a little at a time. Dr. Wolfe had chosen his new home carefully. It was the kind of place where word traveled faster than the laws of physics indicated were possible. So before long everyone knew about the furry child that was now living among them. There were rumors and gossip at first, but as London grew up and started behaving like a normal boy, he was quickly accepted. The classes at his school were small and he was with the same children every year. They’d known him forever and were young enough not to know how unusual he was. Then when they got older and finally realized that London was a bit different, they didn’t care because he was their friend. Even when he hit puberty, and several of his rather wolf-like features became more pronounced (longer fangs, a bit of a snout, giant hands and feet), the kids didn’t even think to be afraid of him. Dr. Wolfe’s plan had worked perfectly. His son had as normal a childhood as a werewolf could have. It wasn’t until London had gotten accepted to Columbia, that Dr. Wolfe realized that it wasn’t quite enough. He tried to convince London to go to Stanford, but his son wanted to see the big city. He was afraid even the melting pot of New York wouldn’t be able to handle a werewolf. But like most people who have doubted the Big Apple, he was wrong. Mostly. London loved school, he made friends, and he had no problem finding a job in the city after he graduated. But when Dr. Wolfe talked to his son on the phone, and when London came home for holidays, he could sense that everything wasn’t all right. After his first and only girlfriend had broken up with him, London stopped talking about girls. Dr. Wolfe knew it couldn’t be easy for his son. For the first time, Dr. Wolfe started feeling guilty for what he had done. He expiated his sins by vowing to make sure that London had everything else he could possibly want. (For instance, that’s how a reporter for a paper nobody’s heard of and a paralegal could afford a decent apartment in Soho. Dr. Wolfe was footing half the bill.) But he wasn’t sure it would ever really be enough.

So that’s the story of how London came into existence and how he ended up in New York City.

*

So London, the world’s only werewolf, walked through the front doors of the sixth floor offices of Selvaggio, Hernandez, Ikawa & Toroka. He greeted Crystal the receptionist with a wave and a smile. She was on the phone but she winked at him. London liked Crystal. She was the person in the office who was nicest to him. If he was having a rough day, sometimes she would sneak up behind him while he was sitting at his desk and scratch him behind the ears. On one level it was sort of degrading because she was basically treating him like a dog. But London was always willing to suffer a little indignity if it involved being rubbed by an attractive woman. He wondered if he should ask her out sometime, but he was afraid it would make things awkward around the office.

Not that it was forbidden, mind you. On the contrary, the partners had very unusual ideas about working environments. All day long they had to deal with people bitching about discrimination and hostile work environments and whatever other awful shit they had to put up with. Which, admittedly, was why the partners had started the firm in the first place. To help people with stuff like that. It was important to them. At some point in their childhood and into their professional careers, they all had to deal with it personally. It had been even worse for their parents. But even so, they had to admit it was a drag to be so careful about what you could say and do at the workplace these days. So they had a rather lax atmosphere in the office. They kept their staff small enough so that they could handpick every employee based not on their professional qualifications but on how well they could take a joke. Around their clients they were very professional, but amongst themselves, they could not give two shits about political correctness. And this attitude filtered down through their employees.

If anything, London was probably the most sensitive employee they had. And it wasn’t like he got bent out of shape that easily. The closest he had come to actually being really angry at one of his co-workers had just happened the past Friday. London was trying to figure out what he was going to do for dinner when he got home from work. Eric, his cubemate, had suggested that London try a new Chinese place, Lee Ho Fook’s, that had opened in London’s neighborhood. He said they had great beef chow mein. So after he got off work, London walked home and looked for the restaurant. He couldn’t find it. Then it started to rain. By the time he got home, he was soaking, starving, and reeking of wet dog. When he walked in the door of their apartment, Ronnie looked up from the bowl of Captain Crunch that was, for her, probably her lunch.

“Jesus Christ, London,” she said, “what the hell happened?”

London put up a hand and didn’t answer the question until he had finished taking a shower and started a pot of water so he could at least cook a packet of ramen.

“Oh, London,” Ronnie said after London finally told her about it. She gave him a little shoulder rub. “I’m sorry, but that’s pretty funny.”

London didn’t think it was. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, you know what he was doing, right?”

“No. What do you mean?”

Ronnie took a step back and sang, “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand, walkin’ through the streets of Soho in the rain. He was lookin’ for the place called Lee Ho Fook’s, gonna get a big dish of beef cha-ow mein. Aaaooo! Werewolves of London.”

“Goddamnit,” London said. “I’m gonna rip Eric’s throat out.”

Ronnie cleared her throat. “Isn’t that the stereotype you’re trying to avoid?”

“Well, yeah, but… it’s a figure of speech. And I hate that song. My dad played it all the time when I was growing up. He named me after it.”

“If you heard it all the time,” Ronnie said, “why didn’t you know he was playing a joke on you?”

“I haven’t heard it years. I was trying to block it out of my mind. It’s all about werewolves running amok and ripping people’s lungs out. I find it offensive to my people.”

“What people? You’re the only one of your kind.”

“Well then, I’m in a perfect position to determine what’s offensive and what isn’t, aren’t I?”

Ronnie tilted her head a bit to the side. “Aw, you’re so cute when you’re defensive.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a big scary monster.”

Ronnie shook her head and stepped towards him. “Nope.” She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big hug. “You’ll never be scary to me.”

And just like that London wasn’t angry anymore.

*

Goddamn, that was some seriously touching shit. If you’re of a certain frame of mind, it might even make you gag a little, but you had to give it that. Just thinking about it made London feel as warm and fuzzy as his fur did. When he got to his cube, he didn’t even feel like killing Eric anymore.

“Good morning,” Eric said. He was already at his desk. He ran a hand through his spiky blond hair. He was the only blond who worked for the firm. Probably because he was the only white guy there. Technically, London was, too, but the fur kind of masked that. Still, they often joked how the two white guys had been packed into the same cubicle.

“Hey, douche nugget,” London said. Just because he wasn’t going to kill him didn’t mean he had to be nice.

Eric laughed. “I can’t believe you actually went looking for that place. I thought for sure you’d get the joke.”

“Well, I didn’t.” London put his briefcase down on his desk, took his jacket off, placed it on the back of his chair, and turned on his computer.

“I’d be sorry if it wasn’t so funny,” Eric said.

“Thanks.”

“Oh come on. How about I buy you a piña colada after work?”

“Ha ha. Sorry, but there’s no Trader Vic’s in New York.”

“But we could go to Otto’s Shrunken Head.”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure that’s my kind of place.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “It’s not a gay bar, if that’s what you mean.”

“I know. I’ve seen it. I’m just not into the whole tropical thing.”

“Why not? What’s not great about the beach and drinks with little umbrellas in them?”

“Nothing except, oh, I don’t know, my fur? Do you have any idea how miserable it is be under a hot sun with all this hair? It’s bad enough during the summer. All year round? And we're not even going to talk about the sand. No thanks.”

“Oh. Yeah, I can see that. That sucks.”

“No shit. If I ever tell you I’m heading south, get my head examined.”

Oh, poor London. If he only knew.