A Canadian Werewolf in New York

Chapter Fifteen

IT WAS A LITTLE after 11:30 by the time I got back to my apartment, put some coffee on -- it was one of the little rituals I performed when I needed to “get into the mode” of writing -- and sat down at my desk.

I was careful, extremely careful, not to go anywhere else in the apartment, not to do anything else other than use the washroom -- I knew my weaknesses and that if allowed myself to stray from the task at hand, that I would end up distracting myself with other tasks, other duties, other chores that suddenly would seem important to get done.

I revived the laptop from out of snooze mode and sat there watching first the backdrop screen appear -- it was a simple photograph of the rolling hills of the Ottawa Valley in the spring, taken when I’d been hiking near Mont Tremblant in Quebec just a few months before I got restless and decided to hitchhike from my hometown of Ottawa to the Big Apple to seek my fame and fortune as a writer.

The whole thing still seemed surreal to me.  Yeah, I know, it’s strange the way the mind can accept some things but still have difficulty believing others.  During full moons I ended up turning into a werewolf.  But that seemed almost normal, easy to accept, easy to digest, to come to terms with.  The fact that I’d actually made it as a writer, that I’d actually succeeded in my far-fetched dream, regardless of how many years have passed, how successful I have been as a writer, how much money, fame and fortune I’ve acquired following that pursuit, I find that whole thing harder to believe whenever I stop and think about it -- a much more difficult reality to accept.  I mean, if my life were a novel, I’m sure the reader would likely have no trouble accepting the fact that I was a werewolf.  Given a fictional universe in which such things were possible, I’m sure it happened in a realistic way, in a way that would take the reader along, willingly suspending their disbelief as they enjoyed the tale.

But I somehow doubt, particularly knowing the writing industry the way that I do, that any readers who knew it as well, if not better than I, would balk at the thought that a young man could hitch-hike from a small Canadian city to one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas with a dream to become a writer, to succeed in that path -- and that within just a few years of setting out, he hit the big time, he became a bestselling success story; his novels were being turned into movies and the readers simply couldn’t get enough of his tales about an antiques dealer who solved mysteries.

Yes, that and not the whole werewolf thing, would likely be the harder thing to accept.  If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t even accept it as a reality.

But I suppose that my success wouldn’t likely have happened if I hadn’t been bitten by that werewolf, if I hadn’t developed this supernatural ability with heightened senses.

That, more than my half-baked dream of hitch-hiking into New York to seek my fame and fortune, was what was ultimately responsible for my success.

I mean, sure, I’d like to believe that I at least had a talent for writing, that there was at least some good, some knack to string words together that attributed to my success -- but it would have ultimately been my super senses, my ability to read, interpret and ultimately charm people -- the editors and publishers and agents who could make or break a career -- it was that ability, thanks to the wolf blood that coursed through my veins, that gave me the edge, that little “je ne sais quoi” which made a difference in my career, which afforded me the luxury of success.

So maybe, while at first seeming a bit far fetched, it could be believed -- so long as you bought the fact that I was a werewolf.

The screen saver started on my laptop screen, snapping me out of the mind-wandering episode.  I realized what I’d been doing, that while I’d done my best to avoid doing physical chores and tasks in the apartment to keep me from writing, that I’d taken a daydream break.