Animals We Made

Werepup | Part 7

A knock on a door in the heart of night.

A passing minute.

A silence.

A zigzag of lightning overhead.

A crack of thunder.

A second, louder knock.

A hiss of endless rain.

"Fuckib pleafffhh!" I wailed, my lips twice their usual size.

The door opened.

Soaked and rigid, I trembled before the journalist.

"My God," he whispered.

Did he see a child before him?

Was I the Lenny he knew?

"Your face!" he exclaimed.

I nodded.

He pulled me into his home and yelled for his wife to stay in her room.

"We've gotta get you to the hospital, kid." Adolfo mopped at my face with a towel. "Chin up. Don't move. Are you gonna tell me what happened? I said not to move! Jesus. Your nose is fucked. This is really, really bad. Lift your chin for God's sake! Bit higher. There. You alone?"

I nodded.

"Dear me." He went for his coat and hesitated before putting it on. "Who attacked ya?"

I nodded.

The journalist rushed me back into the storm.

He fidgeted with his tinkling keys.

"Adolpthhhfffo," I said as if into a void.

Entering the rear of his car, I kept the towel to my face. My ruined nose beat like a heart. I almost touched it but kept my fingers mere inches from it, unable to explore its damage. Glancing out the window, I held my breath. A deepening squall of rain pummeled the streets until they glistened and mirrored the clouds. It licked and it sizzled, causing the night to steam, making sludge of the grass-patched terrain.

Bushes nearby danced, and out of them poked an enormous, tufty head, its eyes glowing pinpricks, its fangs still red and dripping, its snout long and ghoulish.

I planted my fist on the car window.

Ralph immersed his mangled, bulging self in the leaves once more.

Oblivious to the monster I loved, the journalist drove off, and I watched New York pass me in streaks and flickers, sighs and rumbles, lightning and thunder and rain and headlights like ours.

"Adolpthhhfffo," I said.

The vehicle wobbled as it lurched over potholes.

Adolfo craned his neck to look back at me.

"Adolpthhhfffo," I said again. "Adolpthhhfffo."

He returned his gaze to the fog-veiled world before us.

I touched my cheeks at last. They were puffy and slick. My fingers roamed a face that didn't feel like mine. The nose in the center bent unnaturally toward my left ear, and my lips were an inflated pair of lumps. I couldn't open my right eye, its lids seeming merged into a fleshy balloon. Had I transformed into a monster like my dog? When the sun came up, would a boy return?

"Adolpthhhfffo," I kept trying. "Adolpthhhfffo. Adolpthhhfffo."

Defeated, I listened to the road grind beneath the journalist's tires.

"Betthind ufff." I sank in my seat. "Fhhe Cathhillac."

Adolfo glanced at his rearview mirror.

"Jeez," he said.