Thoughts Contingent on The Big Bad Wolf
So.
We had a werewolf in my family. Actually, we had more than one, which is not unusual, really, given that the curse is usually passed on from monster to victim. My great grandfather, I’m told, had a taste for the flesh of children, and he sated himself within the confines of his family – relying on his human pack’s loyalty and fear of him to ensure they would fail to resist, fail to report, and never, ever fight back.
In various ways, he passed on his curse to two of my three uncles – that I know of – and through them, to at least one of my aunts. I have no idea how many of my dozens of cousins were infected by the monsters, but I know many of them were attacked, menaced, and abused by them.
Some of us, of course, managed to throw off the infection. Some of us grew angry and feverish with the curse once it was chewed into our souls along with a froth of guilt and self-loathing, but in the end, the heat broke into a purer, cleaner rage against the one who stalked and savaged the clean things we had been, and left us bloodied, bruised, and afraid to breathe. Some of us survived, humanity intact despite all. I’m sure there are others who succumbed, and who stalk their own darkened moors in search of the helpless and the innocent – that’s the point of the curse, after all, isn’t it? It thrives in secret, bursting loose only when its prey is alone, moon-dazed, and just far enough out of bounds to make screaming for help an exercize in futility. The wolves hide under boldfaced lies, threats whispered in secret, and in the doubt of the victim over what, exactly happened, and who, exactly, is to blame for it.
For we’re all warned about the Big Bad Wolf, about how he can take the shape of those we trust, of those we never had reason to question. We’re told that the wolf will menace those we love if we are not careful, canny, and secretive, and we’re told that if we are supremely lucky, a passing stranger with an axe will hear us scream, should anything go really wrong.
But most of the strangers who hear the screams and snarls have empty hands, and hesitant feet, and those who come near with axes aren’t often ready to deal with how charming the Werewolf can be, or how little sense a young thing that’s been savaged by a trusted relative makes when asked what all the screaming’s about.
And if it’s an imaginative child? One who sings, and dances, and makes up stories about imaginary friends, well, then even if she does manage to get the tale out whole, who would believe her when there sits Granny in bed, harmless as a cloud, and oh, so concerned at the poor darling’s sudden fit? Werewolves are very good actors – that’s where they differ from the wolves of flesh and blood, you know. A wolf who goes on four feet under the sun is nothing more nor less than he seems, and his pack knows him by his actions and allegiances, and trusts him in accordance with them. But a Werewolf… no, a werewolf is all talk and twist, all pretense and plausibility with no proof underneath it, should anyone actually swing that axe. The Werewolf’s pack is made up of his own victims, and as they never can know just what he will do, never know when his words are hollow, or loaded with deadly intention, never know whether he’s sleeping, or waiting for them to drift off, the only trust the pack has, is in the fact that it can always get worse. And that if they should ever get away, that the Werewolf will not miss them – he’s got others in reach that will suit his needs just as well. Often, that’s why they stay. Often, that’s why they die – hoping to shield the rest of their small, terrified band, hoping that their tears and blood will be enough to sate him, that if they just suffer prettily enough, then the innocents amoungst them will somehow get away untouched. And, even though he may well be savaging the lot of them, the Werewolf knows his pack well enough to foster this supposition, to feed it, and to insure that what is his never, ever forgets it.
Our Werewolf was my uncle jim Rich; a textbook sociopath, from the brilliant mind, to the devilish charm, to the savage temper, and the unhesitant willingness to take exactly what he wanted to take, regardless of what pain or fear it might be causing anyone else. He took delight in the fear of others, took pleasure in manipulating them, playing their fears and their guilts against them, all the while smiling through sparkling teeth over the family table. He had four victims of which I am certain, and seven or eight which seem fairly plausible to me, and given that he worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections as a prison guard, and also a prison psychologist, there could well have been hundreds who felt the tear of his teeth. But, as is the way of the Werewolf, at the time he had each of us convinced that we were the only ones. And that since we’d somehow deserved what he’d done, since it had been our own fault, we would be better served just to keep the matter quiet, and lie low when he might come around. To play along, and throw the ball as though the monster of our guilty nightmares was really just a big, friendly dog.
In the end, there was no woodsman, no axe, and no rocks sewn up into his belly. In the end, there was only a highway accident that left a mess too twisted to even allow for a viewing. Perhaps this was so that nobody would be tempted to show up to his funeral with a silver plated machete, and a fistful of aconite to stuff into the hollow cavity where his heart ought to have been. Perhaps this was so that none of us would spit on his cold, clay face, were he to be presented to us thusly; serenely smiling and at his ease.
I never wished him ease. I wished him gone, but not with ease. I wished him his full measure of fear, of helplessness, and of the same kind of self-loathing that he inflicted upon his pack. I wished him guilt, and I wished him fear of discovery, and I wished him utterly powerless, and utterly out of range to ever darken my cottage door again. I wished him shamed, and revealed for the monster he was, and I wished that I might live to see it all done, but peace was never a part of my wishing. And in the end, from what I understand, he had precious little ease, too.
Which is as it ought to be.
I can have sympathy for the child he was when his own Werewolf first showed him how his innocence could be used against him, how he could bleed sweeter than sugar candy, and scream prettier than a summer’s day, and how his tears could paint him in the loveliest colours of shame, blame, and disgust. I feel sorry for that little boy’s terror, his pain, and his sorrow, but that little boy died the first time he bared his teeth beneath the baleful moon, and fixed his angry, lustful intent upon another child. And the werewolf who took that little boy’s place didn’t even give him a proper burial.
It makes one wonder, sometimes, if a potion couldn't be developed to stop such lycanthropy in its tracks. Some say that the chemically neutering drug some courts prescribe to physically stop the 'transformation' is the answer, and perhaps that would be so, if the matter revolved around sex. It doesn't though. It revolves around power, dominance, and an urge for destruction which finds sex to be merely a convenient tool.
In my opinion, the only defense against the Wolf is to point to him in the street, to list his crimes aloud, and to say it to all who cross his path, so that children know he is not to be trusted, and adults know he will not keep his word when he promises to behave, so that the woodsmen know what to do when they come running in answer to screams, and find him dressed up in a harmless granny's clothes, with a naked, screaming child in the room. So that, when the moon is high, there is no excuse save carelessness for heeding his word, or answering his call. Carve off a scrap of innocence, to better defend the whole, and make the moonlight safe for those savaged to tell the tale of the monster who waited in the woods.
And then to make it plain to all who pass through the villages: the only place for wolves who choose to stalk as men is in cages. And if not in cages, then in the fastness of the earth, or the close clasp of deep, still water, with a belly full of stones.
We had a werewolf in my family. Actually, we had more than one, which is not unusual, really, given that the curse is usually passed on from monster to victim. My great grandfather, I’m told, had a taste for the flesh of children, and he sated himself within the confines of his family – relying on his human pack’s loyalty and fear of him to ensure they would fail to resist, fail to report, and never, ever fight back.
In various ways, he passed on his curse to two of my three uncles – that I know of – and through them, to at least one of my aunts. I have no idea how many of my dozens of cousins were infected by the monsters, but I know many of them were attacked, menaced, and abused by them.
Some of us, of course, managed to throw off the infection. Some of us grew angry and feverish with the curse once it was chewed into our souls along with a froth of guilt and self-loathing, but in the end, the heat broke into a purer, cleaner rage against the one who stalked and savaged the clean things we had been, and left us bloodied, bruised, and afraid to breathe. Some of us survived, humanity intact despite all. I’m sure there are others who succumbed, and who stalk their own darkened moors in search of the helpless and the innocent – that’s the point of the curse, after all, isn’t it? It thrives in secret, bursting loose only when its prey is alone, moon-dazed, and just far enough out of bounds to make screaming for help an exercize in futility. The wolves hide under boldfaced lies, threats whispered in secret, and in the doubt of the victim over what, exactly happened, and who, exactly, is to blame for it.
For we’re all warned about the Big Bad Wolf, about how he can take the shape of those we trust, of those we never had reason to question. We’re told that the wolf will menace those we love if we are not careful, canny, and secretive, and we’re told that if we are supremely lucky, a passing stranger with an axe will hear us scream, should anything go really wrong.
But most of the strangers who hear the screams and snarls have empty hands, and hesitant feet, and those who come near with axes aren’t often ready to deal with how charming the Werewolf can be, or how little sense a young thing that’s been savaged by a trusted relative makes when asked what all the screaming’s about.
And if it’s an imaginative child? One who sings, and dances, and makes up stories about imaginary friends, well, then even if she does manage to get the tale out whole, who would believe her when there sits Granny in bed, harmless as a cloud, and oh, so concerned at the poor darling’s sudden fit? Werewolves are very good actors – that’s where they differ from the wolves of flesh and blood, you know. A wolf who goes on four feet under the sun is nothing more nor less than he seems, and his pack knows him by his actions and allegiances, and trusts him in accordance with them. But a Werewolf… no, a werewolf is all talk and twist, all pretense and plausibility with no proof underneath it, should anyone actually swing that axe. The Werewolf’s pack is made up of his own victims, and as they never can know just what he will do, never know when his words are hollow, or loaded with deadly intention, never know whether he’s sleeping, or waiting for them to drift off, the only trust the pack has, is in the fact that it can always get worse. And that if they should ever get away, that the Werewolf will not miss them – he’s got others in reach that will suit his needs just as well. Often, that’s why they stay. Often, that’s why they die – hoping to shield the rest of their small, terrified band, hoping that their tears and blood will be enough to sate him, that if they just suffer prettily enough, then the innocents amoungst them will somehow get away untouched. And, even though he may well be savaging the lot of them, the Werewolf knows his pack well enough to foster this supposition, to feed it, and to insure that what is his never, ever forgets it.
Our Werewolf was my uncle jim Rich; a textbook sociopath, from the brilliant mind, to the devilish charm, to the savage temper, and the unhesitant willingness to take exactly what he wanted to take, regardless of what pain or fear it might be causing anyone else. He took delight in the fear of others, took pleasure in manipulating them, playing their fears and their guilts against them, all the while smiling through sparkling teeth over the family table. He had four victims of which I am certain, and seven or eight which seem fairly plausible to me, and given that he worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections as a prison guard, and also a prison psychologist, there could well have been hundreds who felt the tear of his teeth. But, as is the way of the Werewolf, at the time he had each of us convinced that we were the only ones. And that since we’d somehow deserved what he’d done, since it had been our own fault, we would be better served just to keep the matter quiet, and lie low when he might come around. To play along, and throw the ball as though the monster of our guilty nightmares was really just a big, friendly dog.
In the end, there was no woodsman, no axe, and no rocks sewn up into his belly. In the end, there was only a highway accident that left a mess too twisted to even allow for a viewing. Perhaps this was so that nobody would be tempted to show up to his funeral with a silver plated machete, and a fistful of aconite to stuff into the hollow cavity where his heart ought to have been. Perhaps this was so that none of us would spit on his cold, clay face, were he to be presented to us thusly; serenely smiling and at his ease.
I never wished him ease. I wished him gone, but not with ease. I wished him his full measure of fear, of helplessness, and of the same kind of self-loathing that he inflicted upon his pack. I wished him guilt, and I wished him fear of discovery, and I wished him utterly powerless, and utterly out of range to ever darken my cottage door again. I wished him shamed, and revealed for the monster he was, and I wished that I might live to see it all done, but peace was never a part of my wishing. And in the end, from what I understand, he had precious little ease, too.
Which is as it ought to be.
I can have sympathy for the child he was when his own Werewolf first showed him how his innocence could be used against him, how he could bleed sweeter than sugar candy, and scream prettier than a summer’s day, and how his tears could paint him in the loveliest colours of shame, blame, and disgust. I feel sorry for that little boy’s terror, his pain, and his sorrow, but that little boy died the first time he bared his teeth beneath the baleful moon, and fixed his angry, lustful intent upon another child. And the werewolf who took that little boy’s place didn’t even give him a proper burial.
It makes one wonder, sometimes, if a potion couldn't be developed to stop such lycanthropy in its tracks. Some say that the chemically neutering drug some courts prescribe to physically stop the 'transformation' is the answer, and perhaps that would be so, if the matter revolved around sex. It doesn't though. It revolves around power, dominance, and an urge for destruction which finds sex to be merely a convenient tool.
In my opinion, the only defense against the Wolf is to point to him in the street, to list his crimes aloud, and to say it to all who cross his path, so that children know he is not to be trusted, and adults know he will not keep his word when he promises to behave, so that the woodsmen know what to do when they come running in answer to screams, and find him dressed up in a harmless granny's clothes, with a naked, screaming child in the room. So that, when the moon is high, there is no excuse save carelessness for heeding his word, or answering his call. Carve off a scrap of innocence, to better defend the whole, and make the moonlight safe for those savaged to tell the tale of the monster who waited in the woods.
And then to make it plain to all who pass through the villages: the only place for wolves who choose to stalk as men is in cages. And if not in cages, then in the fastness of the earth, or the close clasp of deep, still water, with a belly full of stones.
