The Ultimate Werewolf (18 page)

Chief O'Mara left Doc Kelly and went to speak with a vigilante group that was clabbering among the upended chairs.

A sound stopped everyone dead. They listened hard but heard only the rattle of trees in the wind. Then, from far away came the sound that had frozen time: the howl of a wolf. A moment later another howl answered it. People stood still for a long time, waiting. But no other howl was heard that night.

Nancy A. Collins

▼▼▼

I remember the first time I saw Raymond Fleuris.

It was during Mrs. Harper's seventh-grade homeroom; I was staring out the window at the parking lot that fronted the school. There wasn't anything happening in the parking lot, but it seemed a hell of a lot more interesting than Old Lady Harper rattling on about long division. That's when I saw the truck.

Beat-up old trucks are not what you'd call unusual in Choctaw County, but this had to be
the
shittiest excuse for a motor vehicle even to roll the streets of Seven Devils, Arkansas. The bed overflowed with pieces of junk lumber, paint cans, and rolls of rusty chicken wire. The chassis was scabby with rust. It rode close to the ground, bouncing vigorously with every pothole. The front bumper was connected to the fender by a length of baling wire, spit, and a prayer.

I watched as the truck pulled up next to the principal's sedan and the driver crawled out from behind the wheel.

My first impression was that of a mountain wearing overalls. He was massive. Fat jiggled on every part of his body. Thick rolls of it pooled around his waist, straining his shirt to the breaking point. The heavy jowls framing his face made him look like a foul-tempered bulldog. He was big and fat, but it was
mean
fat; no one in their right mind would have ever mistaken him for jolly.

The driver lumbered around the front of the truck, pausing to pull a dirty bandanna out of his back pocket and mop his forehead. He motioned irritably to someone seated on the passenger's side, then jerked the door open. I was surprised it didn't come off in his hand. His face was turning red as he yelled at whoever was in the passenger's seat.

After a long minute, a boy climbed out of the truck and stood next to the ruddy-faced mountain of meat.

Normally I wouldn't have spared the Fleurises a second look. Except that Raymond's head was swaddled in a turban of sterile gauze and surgical tape and his hands were covered by a pair of old canvas gloves, secured at the wrists with string.

Now
that
was interesting.

Raymond was small and severely underweight. His eyes had grayish- yellow smears under them that made it look like he was perpetually recovering from a pair of shiners. His skin was pale and reminded me of
j
the waxed paper my mama wrapped my sandwiches in.

Someone, probably his mama, had made an effort to clean and press his bib overalls and what was probably his only shirt. No doubt she'd hoped Raymond would make a good impression on his first day at school. No such luck. His clothes looked like socks on a rooster.

▼▼▼

By the time the lunch bell rang, everybody knew about the new kid. Gossip runs fast in junior high, and by the end of recess, there were a half-dozen accounts of Raymond Fleuris's origins floating about.

Some said he'd been in a car wreck and thrown through the windshield. Others said the doctors up at the State Hospital did some kind of surgery to cure him of violent fits. Chucky Donothan speculated that he'd had some kind of craziness-tumor cut out. Whatever the reason for the head bandages and the gloves, it made Raymond Fleuris, at least for the space of a few days, exotic and different. And that means nothing but trouble when you're in junior high.

Raymond ended up being assigned to my homeroom. Normally, Mrs. Harper had us sit alphabetically; but in Raymond's case, she assigned him a desk in the back of the room. Not that it made any difference to Raymond. He never handed in homework and was excused from taking tests. All he did was sit and scribble in his notebook with one of those big kindergarten pencils.

Raymond carried his lunch to school in an old paper bag that, judging from the grease stains, had seen a lot of use. Once I accidentally stumbled across Raymond eating his lunch behind the Science Building. His food consisted of a single sandwich made from cheap store-bought white bread and a slice of olive loaf. After he finished his meal, Raymond carefully flattened the paper bag, folded it, and tucked it in the back pocket of his overalls.

I felt funny, standing there watching Raymond perform his little after-lunch ritual. I knew my folks weren't rich, but at least we could afford paper bags. Maybe that's why I did what I did when I saw Chucky Donothan picking on Raymond the next day.

It was recess and I was hanging with my best friend, Rafe Mercer. We were talking about the county fair coming to town next month. It was nowhere near as big or as fancy as the State Fair up in Little Rock; but when you're stuck in a backwater like Seven Devils, you take what you can get.

"Darryl, you reckon they'll have the kootchie show again?" Rafe must have asked me that question a hundred times already. I didn't mind, though, because I was wondering the same thing. Last year Rafe's older brother, Calvin, got in on the strength of some whiskers and his football-boy physique. Not to mention a dollar.

"I don't see why not. It's been there every year, ain't it?"

"Yeah, you're right." Rafe was afraid he would graduate high school without once getting the chance to see a woman in her bra and panties. He looked at the pictures in his mama's wish books, but that wasn't the same as seeing a
real live
half-naked lady. I could understand his concern.

Just about then Kitty Killigrew ran past. Both me and Rafe were sweet on Kitty, not that we'd admit it to her—or ourselves—this side of physical torture. She was a pretty girl, with long coppery-red hair that hung to her waist and eyes the color of cornflowers. Rafe went on to marry her, six years later. That fucker.

"Hey, Kitty! What's going on?" Rafe yelled after her.

Kitty paused long enough to gasp out one word. "Fight!"

That was all the explanation we needed. Schoolyard fights attract students like shit draws flies. Rafe and I hurried after her. As we rounded the corner of the building, I could see a knot of kids near the science building.

I pushed my way through my schoolmates in time to see Chucky Donothan kick Raymond Fleuris's feet out from under him.

Raymond flopped onto his back in the dirt and laid there. It was evident that the fight—if you could call it that—was pretty one-sided. I couldn't imagine what Raymond might have done to piss off the bigger boy; but knowing Chucky, the fact Raymond had weight and occupied space was probably insult enough.

"Stand up and fight, retard!" Chucky bellowed.

Raymond got to his feet, his eyes filled with pain and confusion. His bandage-turban was smeared with dirt. With his oversized canvas gloves and shit-kicker brogans, Raymond looked like a pathetic caricature of Mickey Mouse. Everyone started laughing.

"What's with the gloves, retard?" Chucky sneered. "What's the matter? You jerk off so much you got hair on your palms?"

Some of the girls giggled at that witticism, so Chucky continued pressing his attack. "Is that your big secret, Fleuris? You a jag-off? Huh? Huh? Is that it? Why don't you take 'em off so we can see, huh?"

Raymond shook his head. "Paw sez I can't take 'em off. Paw sez I gotta keep 'em on alia time." It was one of the few times I ever heard Raymond speak out loud. His voice was thin and reedy, like a clarinet.

The crowd fell silent as Chucky's naturally ruddy complexion grew even redder.

"You tellin' me
no,
retard?"

Raymond blinked. It was obvious he didn't understand what was going on. It dawned on me that Raymond would stand there and let Chucky beat him flatter than his lunch bag without lifting a finger to protect himself. Suddenly, I didn't want to watch what was going on anymore.

"Chucky, leave him be, can't you see he's
simple?"

"Butt out, Sweetman! Less'n you want me to kick
your
ass, too!"

I cut my eyes at Rafe. He shook his head. "Hell, Darryl, I ain't about to get the shit knocked outta me on account of Raymond Fleuris!"

I looked away.

Satisfied he'd quelled all opposition, Chucky grabbed Raymond's left arm, jerking on the loosely fitted glove. "If you ain't gonna show us, I guess I'll
make
you!"

And that's when the shit hit the fan.

One second Raymond was your basic slack-jawed moron, the next he was shrieking and clawing at Chucky like the Tasmanian Devil in those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. His face seemed to
flex,
like the muscles were being jerked every-which-way. I know it sounds stupid, but that's the only way I can describe it.

Raymond was on the bully like white on rice, knocking him to the ground. We all stood there and gaped in disbelief, our mouths hanging open, as they wrestled in the dirt. Suddenly Chucky started making these high-pitched screams and that's when I saw the blood.

Chucky managed to throw Raymond off of him just as Coach Jenkins hustled across the playground, paddle in hand. Chucky was rolling around, crying like a little kid. Blood ran from a ragged wound in the fleshy part of his upper arm. Raymond sat in the dirt, staring at the other boy like he was from Mars. There was blood on Raymond's mouth, but it wasn't his. The bandage had come unravelled in the brawl, giving everyone a good look at the three-inch scar that climbed his right temple.

"What - the - blazes - is going on here!" Coach Jenkins always had trouble refraining from swearing in front of the students, and it looked like he was close to reaching critical mass. "Donothan! Get on your feet, boy!"

"He
bit
me!" Chucky wailed, his face filthy with snot and tears.

Coach Jenkins shot a surprised look at Raymond, still sitting in the dirt. "Is that true, Fleuris? Did you bite Donothan?"

Raymond stared up at Coach Jenkins and blinked.

Coach Jenkins' neck pulsed and he looked at the ring of now-guilty faces. "Okay, who started it?"

"Donothan did, sir." I was surprised to hear the words coming from my mouth. "He was picking on Raymond."

Coach Jenkins pushed the bill of his baseball cap back and tried to keep the vein in his neck from pulsing even harder. "Did anyone try to stop it?"

Silence.

"Right. Come on, Donothan. Get up. You, too, Fleuris. We're going to the principal's office."

"I'm
bleeding/"

"We'll have the nurse take a look at it, but you're
still
going to the office!" Jenkins grabbed Chucky by his uninjured arm and jerked him to his feet. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Donothan!" He hissed under his breath. "Pickin' on a cripple!"

I stepped forward to help Raymond. It was then that I noticed one of his gloves had come off in the fight.

"Here, you lost this."

Raymond snatched his glove back, quickly stuffing his bare hand into it. But not before I had time to notice that his ring finger was longer than the others.

▼▼▼

When I was a kid, Choctaw County was pretty much like it was when my daddy was growing up. If not worse. Sure, we had stuff like television and a public library by then, but by the time I was twelve the old Malco Theatre went belly-up: another victim of the railroad dying off.

One of the biggest thrills of the year was going to the county fair. For five days in late October the aluminum outbuildings dotting what had once been Old Man Ferguson's cow pasture became a gaudy wonderland of neon lights.

If you went to the fair every night, you'd eventually see the entire population of Choctaw County put in an appearance. It was one of the few times the various ethnic groups and religious sects congregated at the same place, although I'd hardly call it "mingling." The blacks stayed with the blacks while the whites stayed with the whites. There was also little in the way of crossover between the Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals. Families came by the truckload, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. I never knew there were so many people in the county.

Rafe and I were wandering the booths lining the midway, looking for the kootchie show. Rafe hadn't shaved in three weeks, hoping he could build up enough beard to pass for sixteen.

We bumped into Kitty, who was chewing on a wad of cotton candy and contemplating a banner that showed a dwarf supporting a bucket of sand from a skewer piercing his tongue.