My Name is Puck

A coming of age story set in a fantastical world.

“Watch for the beast, for he may smile and say he is your neighbor, but oh my brethren, his teeth are sharp and you may mark the uneasy way in which his eyes roll.” - Cycle of the Werewolf

    My name Puck and I was born at the end of an era and the beginning of a decade. A time between wars but a time that was far from peaceful; in my country nor my home.

     Because I was born premature, underweight and overwhelmed by the sudden size of my new world, the hero of this tale wasn’t to see his new home on the sunny plain for ten days; ten days of remote warmth, bright lights and astringent smells. But, see it I did and over the next thirteen years I owned the sidewalks, the bike trails that ran the length of the trickle creek on the southern border, every alley and abandoned house, shack or forgotten zombie shed. Depending on the time of year, you could ask me where to procure lembas bread or sweet fruit and I could point you to the right alley, Miruvor cellar or backyard.

     Some nights I would climb the old airship mooring tower behind the Veterans Hall and survey all that was mine and then flick half smoked Pall Malls into the dark and watch the sparks explode off the terracotta roof below. Some nights I would sit for hours just waiting for the next train to slowly roll through and break the deafening silence the cicadas and I seemed to hate so much. 

     It was 1973 and with my puka shell necklace, long brown hair, floral collared shirts and partially exposed wand, I looked just like Doug Henning….if Doug Henning was a short, adolescent werewolf with a bad complexion and frequent puncture wounds and lacerations. 

     I admit I was not the most popular kid, but I was smarter than most and could detect the Strangers amongst us. I was just a social idiot, trying to relate to them with fantastic stories of unrealistic situations with plot points way above their heads. But I knew things. You bet I knew things. I knew how to calculate pi in my head, I knew what to say to the fog people when they asked “Why?”. I knew where Elmer Tofft buried all the pieces of his missing wife. I knew the father of the cannibal child that lives in the dumpster behind the Potterville Picture Palace. I knew the sound of half muttered hexes, condescending snickers and a teacher’s dismissive sniff at my raised hand. I knew when my dad was in a bad way. What I didn’t know was when to run, even after his claws appeared.

     My old man was the original old school Lycan. He was the real deal. Born into a large pack, they were professional ranch hands, and at the beginning of the depression, he was the youngest and smallest of nine males. To hear my dad tell it, he had to get up every morning and shed his brother's blood, and a little of his own, if he was to get any breakfast. He had to fight for every scrap of food. A torn throat or nose for a piece of goat was a fair trade and a great start to a day if a bit of sock coffee was leftover to wash it all down. His days were long and his nights were short. He loved the work and he loved the giant moonlit sky over Texas but he hated his family. The constant battling and unappreciation for his contribution to the pack went on for years until one day. As my old man tells it, one day his dad was tearing at his ears in the barn for the sheer meanness of it when he happened to get his hands on a branding iron in the corner. He beat him until his head caved in and then ran to catch the train rolling through the northern part of the ranch. That Rio Grande Pacific flat car he jumped on took him from his old life into a bigger world he had never known. My dad was thirteen and he never looked back. 

     On holidays or just a good day, my old man would tell my mom and I stories about his early life. Sometimes it would be about how he survived during the war by picking fruit from southern California to the Washington/ Canadian border. Following the harvest and living in fruit camps, or how he learned to speak many languages like Quenya and Spanish, among others, and play guitar or elven-harp from his fellow itinerant farmers. Sometimes he would just disappear into his stories as if he was reliving them instead of retelling them and I would be transported along with him. All of a sudden I would be standing next to him as he fought a giant in some back alley match in the under-city of Modesto just so he could get a meal and a bed for the night. Or standing beside him as he traded blows with a drunk Inland Pirate outside a honky tonk in Bakersfield while he worked the door for flat beer and a sandwich. But my favorite stories are from his short lived days as a Hollywood stuntman and bodyguard. Nobody could fall from a soaring dragon or take a punch (real or fake) like my old man. But sometimes, when my dad was in a bloody mood or his stories got dark and nightmarish. My father had the power to hold you trapped with his low decibel growling voice and unspoken threat of violence.

     Some nights, when I couldn’t sleep, I would walk the creek from bridge to bridge or just sit in my perch high above the town where nothing ever happens and smoke. Flashes of second hand horrors filling my mind with fear and loathing. Bloody knight fights and greasy, beard stubbled ghouls. Dead mermaid hookers with needles still in their arms. Bridge Trolls with a penchant for little boys in cowboy suits. Sick junkies, orchards of buried wee folk, starved and abused Lower Forms and farm animals. Tents full of frozen farm laborers and outright murder. I would sit under my mooring mast on these sleepless nights, flicking butts onto the clay roof below and looking for a distraction. One such night I climbed my tower sporting a ripped ear and two black eyes. After finishing a half a pack of Red Apples, I saw it. 

Through swollen lids, I found what I was looking for.   

     The last bell sounded at 2:40. The school day was done and that was alright by me. It wasn’t because of the taunting or the bullying or the loudly whispered insults from across the library, because there wasn’t any. It was worse. No one would meet my eyes. Not even the teachers. In fact, the teacher that was famous for giving me the most grief, Mr. Strong, my Phys Ed coach basically ignored me the whole period. So, with still heavy lidded eyes and heavy thirteen year old kid stuff on my mind, I headed home.

     Walking two blocks north and then three blocks east, I saw my way out and I sped toward it. Passing the line of cars now forming, a type of peace came over me. My body and soul felt lighter. If I had known this would be the last time I would see my quiet little town for ten years I might have told my mom I loved her. I couldn’t help my old man but I could help myself. So, like my hero, my enemy, I ran alongside a slow moving Southern Pacific flat car and boarded a stolen ride to my future.

I was thirteen and I never looked back.