dan murphy

A Wolf Again

I wake up thinking I am in the forest again. I remember the feeling of tree roots beneath me, the smell of soot and wet leaves. I haven’t woken in the woods in years. Some part of my mind is telling me to run.

I spent my twenties changing into a wolf. I wasn’t imaginative. I didn’t know there was anything else to turn into. I’d seen other wolfmen in the streets, so that is the path I took. Almost every night I’d flex my shoulder and tear a shirt. I’d grow a fast beard, let my jaw widen, let my teeth loosen––like after a floss––then sharpen. I’d walk up on my toes and drink twice as much as any man. I’d break every glass in my reach, once I’d emptied them. By the end of the night, I’d be this animal daring myself further into the forest, pissing on trees, sleeping in dense shadows, against bark and earth.

I met my wife. I towered over her. I leaned into her when I spoke so I could smell the space between her shoulder and neck. She told me I should try changing into a bird. I laughed and picked her up above me, threw her over my shoulder. I told her I never thought of changing into anything else, let alone flying.

I was so good at being a wolf. People liked my back flips and my howl. I felt loved when they laughed. When I woke up a man, in the woods or on my couch, I would feel a kind of loss. Before she was my wife, Hazel would stroke the hair on my back with the tips of her fingers. I’d freeze and sink into her hands. I couldn’t trace the change, but I would slide back into being a man under her touch.

  *   *   *       *   *       *   *

The first time I became a bird, Hazel and I were at the lake. She showed me the wide view of everything below us. The crisp spring air filled our lungs, the smell of fresh-cut grass mixed with wafts of roasted nuts from the cart vendors. We watched children chase bubbles. Adults atop blankets drank wine from plastic cups. The wind swayed the grass in a wave that bounced the light from the sun back towards the sky. I remember looking over at Hazel as we glided in circles, a serene look in her eye. The tree leaves rustled loudly near us, the human voices blurred into a mumble in the background.

In bed, after we were married, Hazel asked me to turn into a bird, to use the soft feathers of my wingtips, to move over her like air. Waving my wings I felt out of control, to barely touch, to be air, to hover above her while also somehow making contact. I had gotten very used to women loving me as a wolf. I had control, perseverance. I was seasoned. I would lap against a woman with great care; even for a beast I was gentle. I didn’t think being a bird would be the only way my wife would want me afterwards.

We had our first daughter. I watched my wife pick and preen the small girl. Hazel had taken the form of a mother. The child was her first and last thought. I was a father but still felt I was everything else I’d ever been, too. When I asked my wife about the past, she told me she could only see now. I felt her watching me as I changed the girl’s clothes and diapers. Her doubts in my approach lasted for months. Although there is a part of my brain that told me not to be, I was heartbroken. The need Hazel once held for me shifted in service of the little one and, though I was half of her, I was suddenly outside of their shared bond.

The child squeaked when it slept in our bed. I attempted to act like a mother. I became a bird and held her in the soft feathers of my wings, but I could only rock her back to sleep as a man. I took her into the living room those nights, cradled in my arms, and played music while I bounced her. She would fall asleep on me; we would wake up together on the couch.

We had another daughter. I licked her face when she was born and swore to protect her. The girls became mice together. Squeaks of laughter and the sounds of their claws against the floor followed them from room to room. I liked to curl close to them in our bed while they went from sleeping to eating, and sleeping again. But I felt clumsy and tired as a man. I longed for an old confidence. Knowing anything at all felt feeble. Every time I understood the rhythm of my girls, they changed. I would sometimes deflate my body into the shape of a worm. I studied the wide grain of our wood floors. The apartment looked enormous and unconquerable.

Once, I was a worm a week before my wife called out my name. It felt like so long since I was needed; it awakened a great strength inside me. I shook my way out of a corner where I’d spent the night under a fabric toy. I rose quickly into my human form, then past it. I flexed and squeezed my arms. I could feel the familiar way the fabric pulled against my skin as I stretched my shirt. My wife said, Stop. I just need you to be a dad. Please take her. She handed me our youngest, wrapped in a blanket, buckled into a car seat with a thick plastic handle. We went to the doctor as a family. Everything was normal.

 *   *   *       *   *       *   *

I wake with an idea. The forest has beckoned me again in my dreams. I knock at my own bedroom door as a wolf and ask my wife to join me for the night and run away.

I am not interested in becoming a wolf, she says.

But how can you know? You’ve only ever been a bird.

All I ever wanted to be is a bird, she tells me.

Exactly. So how can you know?

I know, she says, folding her arms, I cannot spend all my time licking old wounds. 

I turn away from her dramatically in frustration and, forgetting my strength, I accidentally whip a coffee mug across the room. The porcelain nearly hits our youngest, then clunks against the hardwood. My wife races towards our daughter. I stumble out of the way, betrayed by my own body.

Our rug is ruined. A dark liquid stain runs across the middle. I feel my nails grow sharper. The joints in my fingers widen. In a fury, I rip the rug to bits and toss the mess out the window. My wife stares at me, holding one daughter while the other one crawls near her leg. I have failed them. I cannot deal with the look on Hazel’s face. An expected disappointment fills the room. I run downstairs, kick what’s left of the carpet into a pile.

When I look up I do not see their faces in the third-floor windows, only a reflection of the darkening sky. Heavy rain pours over me. I dash to the park. I feel my muscles grow against my shirt fabric. I run fast, upright at first. And then I can no longer bear it. I lean over into a trot.

When I reach the park my body is warm; my fur is grown and wet. I scratch an itch on my hind leg against the bark of a tree. My tongue slides out of my wide mouth. This is the way apples must feel when the skin is peeled off. Maybe I could be a wolf again for just half the week, to feel the wind against my fur, to race along a rocky path after I pounce through the creek and snap up raw fish in my teeth.

I seek the cover of the forest, worried someone might spot me. Though it’s dark, it is still daytime. This is foolish, of course. It has been years since I changed this way. But a familiar anxiety seeps in. As a wolf, I always thought I was going to drink too much, go too far, be cast out. I press my snout into the creek. The water is still cold from the winter; it’s only recently thawed. I see my reflection. There is age in my fur. I am huskier.

Early on, I would turn into a wolf in anger. I shoved raw hot dogs in the mouths of my enemies. I’d go days without proper sleep. I’d drink until I could not remember. I couldn’t get a fresh start on any day until I’d pieced together where I was the night before, how I’d gotten where I woke up.

Across the way, I recognize a large tree. I’ve been here. This is a place I have slept. It is like revisiting an old apartment. I leap through the creek to look closer. These are the roots from my dream. I clear leaves and prepare to make a bed. Atop the dirt, in the crux of the sleeping place, are the exposed ribs of a dead pigeon. Its wings are spread. The animal that feasted on this bird ate through its chest. I focus on my own heartbeat. I can picture the teeth sinking into the organ. My girls. They will be birds, too, one day.

The forest is quiet. The rain has stopped.

I reach a clearing deep in the park. A fog rolls through. Against the low white clouds, I see the silhouette of another wolf, pacing in the grass. I cannot stop myself from running towards it. The wolf freezes when it sees me. I realize this could be a fight. I am running very quickly towards this wolf. It opens its mouth and lets out a long howl.

I stop in my tracks. We are thirty paces away from one another. This wolf is younger than me. It has rich brown fur with a cream streak along the sides, dark brown eyes. The wolf places one paw in front of the next towards me.

I’ve never seen you here before, the young wolf says.

It has been years since I’ve been like this, I tell him. What are you doing out here? We pace in opposing directions as we talk.

I woke up in the forest, he says, not too long ago. A wolf, again.

It has been dark all day. Sometimes it would be days before I used to turn back, I offered.

I swear I woke as a man in the night, he says. He shakes his head, his jowls smack loosely. What day is it?

It’s Thursday.

Why are you back, after so long? The young wolf steps closer to me. Where did you go? 

I started a family, I say. 

The young wolf’s eyes water, he looks away. 

Are you ok?

Yeah, the wolf says then swallows. My mom.

Oh.

We buried her. He scrapes the wet grass with his paw, flicks some dirt behind him. Almost a month ago, he continues. I’m okay.

I’m sorry, I say. I see myself in him now. This is a good time for you to be a wolf. Sometimes it is all that you’ll have.

Do you want to come with me? I am going to leave this park. I know a great bar. They have karaoke on Thursdays.

I want to tell him I love to sing. It is one of my best things. But, instead I tell him, I sort of came out here to be alone.

You know, we’re meant to be in packs, he says. 

Are we?

Did you stop, he asks, when you started a family?

I stopped when I met my wife.

She asked you to stop being a wolf?

No. She never did. 

The young wolf stares at me. 

I wanted to stop, I remember now, even before I met Hazel. Meeting her showed me I could stop. 

Listen, I tell him, I’m very sorry about your mom. Good luck tonight. Howl from your gut.

  *   *   *       *   *       *   *

My wife and daughters are not at home when I arrive. I sweep the space where the rug was. I boil water on the stove. I watch the bottom of the pan mist to a gray film. The haze produces a field of small air pockets. Bubbles burst to the surface, first in small dispatches, then a chorus of pops. I used to hold my first daughter up to watch the water explode. She’d empty the box into the pot, giggling, the hard pasta always missing its target, clanging against the stovetop.

I step away from the water to listen for the latch to turn, wonder when their voices will echo from the hallway. I wait to put the pasta in the water. I wait to hear my babies climbing up the stairs. I make a camp for myself in the kitchen, underneath the butcher block. I wait until the water has long gone and the pan is glowing. I turn the lights out. The amber flames tickle the empty pot. The teflon cracks and pops, but I cannot turn the burner off.

  *   *   *       *   *       *   *

I wake on the floor in the morning, in my kitchen. My older daughter is standing over me.

She’s holding something up, a clump of limp black and gray fur. My pelt. Did I always shed these in the forest? I wonder how many I left on the paths where I once ran. She asks me what it is, and I look to my wife who raises her eyebrows before she darts to catch our younger daughter as she jumps from the coffee table to the couch.

I spread the pelt on the floor, smooth it over until it lays flat. I present the shiny fur to my daughter. I feel her eyes watching me. I am suddenly proud to show her. I guide her hand through the fur. It’s rough, daddy, she says.

Maybe so, I say smiling. I watch my human hands run along the pelt. My knuckles are wide and square. My gold wedding band wraps snuggly around my left ring finger. When I first put the ring on, it took months for me to stop fidgeting with it. With my eyes closed I move my hand, my fingers, but cannot locate the weight or presence of the ring.

What happened to the pan? Hazel says. 

I rise to meet her. I was making dinner, I say.

What’d you make? she asks.

Don’t you miss it? Popping into the sky. Being a bird? 

I just want to be with our girls.

I keep thinking, I say, I need to throw you up in the air every once in a while.

You don’t need to be a wolf for that, she says, with certainty.

Sometimes I do. I need to be the person you fell in love with. 

I didn’t fall in love with a wolf, she says.

Yes you did, I retort. 

Hazel doesn’t say anything. 

I miss us, the way we were.

We’re the way we are, now, says Hazel. 

I pause. The silence fills the room long enough to end the conversation. She turns and walks away. I smooth the fur in the direction that it lays again, listening to the girls play with cards in the next room. I am worried they won’t understand me; they’ll misinterpret me. Maybe I have misinterpreted myself. Hazel and I don’t speak the rest of the day. The girls play. It rains a bit in the afternoon. I make my family dinner with a pan I like less than the one I ruined. The adults go to bed not facing one another.

In the morning, Hazel is sitting up in our bed, staring at me. The girls are playing across the apartment, near the window I threw the rug out of.

I was a bird again, Hazel says plainly, after Annabelle was born. You two were asleep, so I flew out to the park one day. I found a tree when I grew tired of circling. I couldn’t have been on the branch for more than a minute before the calls began. All the colorful birds filled the silence. They were all shouting at me to join them, or for them to join me. I felt ridiculous. And then I saw a warbler chasing a hawk. This tiny thing, swirling around the huge red tail’s talons. She was frantic. She was panicking. The hawk must have stolen her egg. My wife looks me in the eyes. I am done being a bird.

I don’t respond. I’m not one of the birds she described. But before I formulate a thought my wife says, I never asked you to stop. Just be happy. Like you used to be. If you need to be a wolf, be a wolf. But you cannot start waking up in the forest again. That’s too much. I need to know that you’ll be here to take the girls to school.

She walks out of our bedroom. I watch her robe sway as she moves towards our girls. She positions herself on the floor, gracefully, as always. She was always planning to be a mother.

Even though the transition was immediate, it wasn’t easy on her, either.

I slowly follow Hazel across the apartment to join my family. The closer I get, the harder it is to hear my daughters’ whispers. Outside the window, the bird songs grow in volume. The individual trills and staccato chirps merge; they become indecipherable from one another. The noise shifts into this single thing, then the single thing becomes nothing, and the nothing––this loud cacophonous nothing, like the familiar rhythm of tires on the pavement outside ––fills me with peace. I feel my younger daughter tugging at my pant leg then, looking up at me. Daddy, she says, come play with us.