Winter Skin
by JR Boudreau
They say the first moon in January belongs to the wolf. Certain such moons grow complete as they approach the earth. The planet bulges, oceans shift, forests howl. And Lou slugs from a plastic bottle of vodka, charging around the living room to April Wine, pumping himself up. Through deep breaths and a cage of clenched teeth, he grunts, “Don’t forget my clothes.”
“I won’t,” says Shelly. She sips lukewarm beer, her eyes blue as Windex.
“There was nothin’ there last month.”
“I deserve a drink sometimes, too, Lou.”
“It was goddamn embarrassing, running home buck ass nude. Couldn’t even hitchhike! You drinkin’ tonight?”
“Might as well.”
He groans suddenly as if he’s stubbed his toe, and hesitates. He breathes through his nostrils, some form of prusten, as a muscle pops audibly within. He takes a final slug from the vodka bottle and tosses it empty onto the couch. His shoulder snaps as he grits his teeth, which are growing sharper. His five o’clock shadow thickens to midnight.
“Gotta go, baby,” he says and begins to strip. He bunches up his black t-shirt and hurls it to the couch, and then his jeans, too, until he stands naked in the living room, only his silver crucifix dangling from his throat like a collar. She winces at the thought of those years spent begging before the altar. Then the speakers blare, the tune crescendos, and he punches through the screen door, skin ripping as he stumbles down the porch steps.
“Be careful!” she yells.
He snarls, “Who do you think I am?”
Shelly goes to the doorway. By the time she glimpses him at the edge of those desperate acres, he’s fully four-legged. His fur burns copper in the full moonlight. The genuine boys, those wolves of all seasons, vacate the timberline to join him. They howl into the forest, into the night, as rainclouds amass on the horizon.
Shelly draws a blockish bag from the fridge, some vintage she picked up from the cooking club, and another beer. Then she grabs a grocery bag from the reserves under the sink, collects Lou’s clothes from the couch, and bundles them inside. Thoughtfully, she adds a sweat-shirt to the balled-up wardrobe. She slips into her coat and twists the key on the deadbolt behind her as she leaves. On her way to the truck, she hurries first to the barn. Sipping the new beer, she locks up the milk goats. They are pleading like people, strange and anxious, praying for one another.
At the crossroads, the truck stops. She exits, jetés the ditch, and aims for the tall oak tree branded with their initials. The carved heart glows white in the dark. On tiptoes, she stretches for the highest branch she can touch. She knots the handles of the bag around it twice and leaves Lou’s outfit hanging.
Back home, the bag of O-neg is perspiring on the counter. Twisting and sealing the blinds to the coming sun, she punctures the skin with a syringe and then dips in to the bend of her arm at the kitchen table. As the sap coats her pale-blue veins, she seeps from the wooden chair and puddles on the cold tiles. She pictures him in the woods, galloping through the frozen rain, automatic and demented.
The figure of torpor, she rises at dusk, skin dewy. But the house is hollow. Dusting pink crust from her eyes, she guides the engine along the roads, to verify the unburdened oak branch, to hitch him home. The branch still bows, though, and the clothes are still suspended in plastic.
The truck flies through the forest, gliding hills, parting branches. Her mind tastes the possibility even before she spots the lump at the roadside. She passes without recognizing and then hammers the brakes. A torn-up mess. A meal for other night creatures. In the red light of the blinking four-ways, she tracks a tire print in reverse to a ditch in the lacerated mound. It is clean and bloodless, washed out by the sleet and pale as moonlight. Eventually, she discerns the cross gleaming in the ruptured flesh, like a satellite downed in these north hills.
“Oh, Lou…” she whimpers.
Through cold tears, she kneels and gathers body parts to her jeans, hugging heavy chunks and lifting them into the truckbed like luggage. Somewhere in the winter distance, the boys salute him. Their howls crater the night.
JR is the best damn delivery driver that particular Shoppers Drug Mart location ever had. His stories have appeared in The Fiddlehead, New Millennium Writings, The Dalhousie Review, and The Puritan.