Where is my werewolf?
When I was kid, we had a werewolf problem in our backyard.
Okay, I had a werewolf problem. Then I moved and the problem went away.
Or did it?
I had a whole other topic planned for this week, then I looked at a calendar and realized: it’s October. Halloween season. The holiday most ruled by imagination and stories.
And I’ve got a story right here. I’ve told this story before, during a Pandemic-era Halloween show some friends and I performed on Zoom. Like I said, it’s about a werewolf. And it’s a true story.
So, settle in by the fire with some hot chocolate, and I’ll begin. After the news.
What’s going on?
I’m not the only Halloween fan in the house.
- Mari is continuing with her series of cards celebrating the Day of the Dead. Here’s her latest gorgeous production (nestled against a seasonably appropriate companion):
- And Kat has been designing a series of knitting patterns for handwarmers, scarves, and other accessories based on each of the Universal Monsters. Here’s me in her Creature from the Black Lagoon handwarmers:
The most dangerous job in the house
Forget commercial fishing in Alaska. When I was a kid, I had to take out the garbage.
“Criminy,” you’re thinking, “I could be reading “Notes from an American” right now instead of this wimp."
Well, let me explain why this job was so dangerous.
First of all, I usually did this in the dark. After a full day of trying to figure out what the hell was going on at school, I invariably forgot to deal with the garbage until my mom got tired of stacking new refuse into a precarious jenga pile.
By then it was dark.
Now our garbage cans were actually behind the side fence in the backyard. This was way before bins. Sanitation workers would actually come into your backyard and haul the cans out to empty them into the truck. It was most bizarre, startling alarm clock ever.
So the cans were in the backyard, on the northeast corner of the property. The patio door into the back yard was close the southwest corner. That meant I would walk almost the entire length of the house, then make a right turn into the narrow back yard and walk the width of the house to reach the cans.
The chokepoint
It was dark in the side yard. A single street lamp a few houses away gave just enough light for me to see what I was doing. I would navigate just fine to the cans, pop the lid, and dump the trash. That was the easy part.
Then I turned around to get back inside. That’s when the werewolf trouble would begin.
Our north property line was at an angle, so the side yard narrowed into a bottleneck on the way back. A dark bottleneck. Solid shadow. As I walked toward it, I would realize, every time, that this was perfect werewolf ambush territory. Not back at the cans, where I could escape out the front gate. Not as I was walking to the side yard, because (thinking like a werewolf here) where’s the fun in that?
No, it would be on the way back. At the bottleneck. In the dark.
And when I say "at the bottleneck,” I mean right at the bottleneck. Right where I could turn and see the shadowy backyard open up in front of me. Right where I could dimly see the light of the back porch. Right where there was a patch of sky to perfectly silhouette the werewolf‘s profile as it let loose a howl of triumph before leaping on me to eat my guts, or my head, or whatever.
And it was this open patch of sky I looked to every time I approached, dreading what I might see there. But I had to look. I had to know. Was this how my eleven years of life was to end? A howl, claws, teeth, then the final darkness?
Spoiler: I survived. For now
You’ll be relieved to know I was never disemboweled in my backyard, or anywhere else. I continued to take out the garbage, and I survived. Every time. While bracing myself for werewolf attack. Every time.
Eventually I grew up (well, older) and moved away. The current lack of werewolves seems like a natural part of the maturing process. But I think it raises more questions than it answers.
Like, is that werewolf still there, at my parent’s old house? Have there been other kids who walked that bottleneck at night, waiting to see that monstrous silhouette howling with dark joy before the fatal leap?
Or did the werewolf move on to new ambush spots, leaving a trail of terrified but unharmed children in his wake? And is he still moving, searching for the prey he truly wants, The One That Got Away?
Searching for me?
I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out some night. In the backyard.
In the dark.
Fun facts to know and share
Some recommendations for Spooky Season music:
Lofi Girl
A perfect lightly spooky instrumental background to your October.
The heavy stuff. It’s, as they say on the tin, dark.
My single favorite Halloween song. Brings both the groovy and the creepy.
I asked the family: if you could only watch one movie to get in the mood for Halloween, what would it be? Here are their answers with no names attached:
Y0GII
pramsalim
rbverhoef
nycritic
(Not my pick, but Raul Julia is forever “my” Gomez Addams.)
Over to you
Finally, I want to say a quick thank you to blankets, those warm comfy shields that have protected so many of us from the monsters and ghosts of childhood. Truly technological marvels. I forget how I discovered the Monsters Don’t Want to Touch Your Head principle as a kid, but it meant that as long as the blankets were snug around my neck, I was safe. And I didn’t have to rebreathe my own exhalations with the covers over my head. Blanket science marches on.
Did you have a personal set of methods and talismans to protect you at night from monsters? Please share in the comments — I think we all could use the help.
Until we talk again, I remain,
Your pal,
Jamie
