by H. T. Night
It was my 21st birthday and I was finally street legal, I thought, jokingly, as I flew through the Inland Empire sky. I arrived in Victorville in minutes and headed toward the house. I flew into a trap door that led to my room and landed on my bed.
Damn, I had become a stud at this landing thing.
I was feeling bad about the day before and I decided to speak to Tommy and make sure he was cool after being sucker-punched by me. It really wasn’t a sucker-punch because I stood right in front of him, but we had established rules, and I had broken them.
I knocked on Tommy’s door.
“Yari, go away!” he yelled. “Seriously, I’m tired of you fucking with me!”
“It’s not Yari,” I yelled, through the door. “It’s Josiah.”
Tommy didn’t answer right away. After about two minutes, he finally opened the door.
“You’re not going to punch me again, are you?”
“Of course not.”
Tommy opened the door completely and let me into his room. I noticed his chin was split open and he had a half-ass bandage on it. It almost appeared that he was trying to show off his battle wound, even one that was the result of a Scrabble game.
“Sorry about the chin,” I said, as sincerely as I could.
“No worries, Josiah. I deserved it.”
“You didn’t deserve it. I had already forgiven you.”
“Obviously you didn’t,” Tommy said. “Your eyes went red and you wanted to kill me.”
“My eyes didn’t go red.”
“I saw it in your eyes, Jo. You forget I’ve trained you since you were fifteen. I know when you get that look in your eye. That’s when all bets are off and you’re just going pound someone’s ass. Instead of it being someone’s ass, it was my face.”
“I always said you had the face of a horse’s ass,” I said, jokingly, and Tommy smiled. “How was Yari screwing with you?”
“Oh, she is pissed off because I didn’t want to go to the store and pick up some items for the party. I told her I’d go in an hour but that wasn’t good enough for her. So she has been blowing into a dog whistle all morning.”
“A dog whistle? That’s a crack up.”
“Oh, no, it’s not, Josiah. Those things should be illegal.”
“I know what I’m buying the next time I’m at the pet store.”
“You would.” Tommy looked at me and seemed happy that he and I were being cool. “Hey, I got something for you.”
“You didn’t have to do that, Tommy.”
“Shut up. It’s your birthday. Of course I got you something. I’m not going to be the douchebag that doesn’t give you a present.”
“Well, it’s good to know your heart was in the right place. Not wanting to be the douchebag and all.”
Tommy walked over to the closet, “I know this isn’t going to compare to the island that Hector plans on getting you, but it was in my budget.”
“Seriously, an island?” I asked, laughing.
“Maybe not that extravagant, but he did mention something about seventy virgins.”
“It pays to know royalty, what can I say?”
“Come here.” Tommy opened his closet door and pulled out one of his nicest leather jackets I had ever seen. It had a military collar and was gorgeous.
“Is this for me?” I asked.
“Of course it is.”
I picked up the jacket and put it on. I looked in Tommy’s long mirror and damn, I looked fucking good. “Wow, Tom. Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, check this out.” Tommy went back to his closet and pulled out the same identical jacket.
“You got us matching jackets?” I asked slowly.
“Sure did.”
“I’m not sure what to make of that,” I said, laughing.
“You don’t like it? I think we look good.”
“Well, I think BFF bracelets would be less gay.”
“Oh, shut up, Josiah. The jackets are badass.” Tommy put on his jacket and looked in the mirror with me.
“All we need now is a big T-birds emblem on the back of them and then we can go out and meet up with the pink ladies.”
“Very funny.”
“Seriously we should go down and drag race later,” I said, laughing.
“All right, Josiah, if you don’t like it, I can take it back.”
“Listen, Kenickie, it’s awesome. I love it.” Tommy was a good guy and I was just giving him a hard time.
“Hey, you’re Kenickie, Blondie. I’m Zuko,” Tommy stated.
“I am so more Zuko than you are.” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“What are you talking about? Kenickie has blonde hair and Zuko has black hair.”
“All right, you can be Zuko.” I said. I looked at both of us in the mirror and we did look good even if we looked like we were about to break out into the “Greased Lightning” song
“Thanks, Tommy,” I said. “The jacket is awesome. Again, I’m sorry about hitting you in the face.”
“It’s cool. It didn’t hurt.” Tommy snickered at me.
“I’m sure it didn’t,” I said, as I turned around and left the room.
I went back to my room and relaxed until it was time for my party. Yari told me to stay away and not do anything.
People started showing up around 9:00 p.m. And by 11 o’clock our new home had become a full-blown, raging, crazy-ass-vampire bash. The funny part about it was I didn’t know hardly anyone at the party. I counted seven people out of about 120 that I had met or at least seen before, one thing was for sure, they all knew who I was and wanted some alone time with me. I felt like Don Corleone in The Godfather.
It was like everyone wanted to say the right thing to please me. To be honest, it was making me feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t good with unprovoked adoration. I wasn’t even good with provoked adoration. I was happy that everyone had accepted me and seemed to be on board with whatever was to come. It was clear that there were two sides growing. Krull had his crew and now, I was slowly getting mine together. All my instincts were pointing to a shit storm of epic proportions coming very soon and I knew we all needed to be ready.
I purposely didn’t consume any alcohol because I didn’t want to be drunk when Lena showed up. Tommy, on the other hand, was throwing back shots and beers like they were Tic-Tacs.
I was nervous in the anticipation of Lena showing up. I really wanted her to be here with me. I wanted to share this party with her. All the adoration from everyone else didn’t mean a thing to me without having her by my side.
I wanted to make a statement that we were together. That this was the person I chose to be with. I knew I could have any woman at this party. Shit, I could probably have most of the men if I swung that way. I didn’t want anyone else. I only wanted Lena. And unfortunately, it was now past midnight and there was still no sign of her.
I went out to the front yard and looked in all directions for a red hawk. There was nothing. ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’ seemed to be appropriate right about now.
I was now leaning toward drinking, and if I was planning on doing any kind of alcohol intake tonight, there was only one guy to party with, and that was Tommy.
I went inside the house and looked for him and I couldn’t find him in the house. Eventually, I found him in the backyard sitting by the pool at a table surrounded by Wyatt, Hector and Cyrus. I walked out to the backyard and made my way over to them.
“Look guys!” Tommy yelled out. “He honors us with his presence!” Tommy was very drunk and saluted me like I was a five-star general.
“At ease, soldier,” I said. “Have you been behaving around all these vampires?”
Tommy stood up and said, “Why is it that whenever any of you Mani dick-holes talk to me, you find it necessary to always point out that I’m a werewolf?”
“Sorry, brother,” I said taking a sip of his beer. “I wasn’t aware that you didn’t want me to recognize.”
“Oh, you best recog
nize, homey!” Tommy said taking the beer from me and sat back down.
“Trust me, I always do,” I said, laughing. I pulled up a chair at the table. “Are you guys having a good time?” I asked the others.
“There’s a lot of hot Mani ass here,” Cyrus said.
“You better not let Yari hear you talk like that,” Wyatt said to Cyrus. “She pissed her circle around you.”
“Is that why none of these hotties are even looking at me?” Cyrus asked.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said “Yari can be possessive.”
Tommy then stood up again. “How come you guys always have to say I’m a werewolf?”
“Didn’t we already have this talk?” I said.
“Listen, Choseniah, I wasn’t finished talking.” Tommy walked over to me.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were done,” I said, as condescendingly as possible to a drunk without him realizing you were indeed being condescending.
“I’m not your gay friend,” Tommy said to me.
“No one said you were,” I said, surprised at the absurdity of his statement. “But, I could bust out our matching T-bird jackets and people might think differently.”
“You know what I’m saying. Don’t act like you don’t.” Tommy looked down at me and took another swig of his beer.
“Actually, I have no idea what you are saying,” I said to him.
“You know, whenever a group of friends have a gay friend, they always have to bring up that he’s gay all the time. Well, I’m not gay. I’m a werewolf. Not that there is anything wrong with that. You know, being gay and all.” Then Tommy busted up laughing. “Get it, Josiah? Seinfeld.”
“I got it, Tommy,” I said rolling my eyes.
“Believe it or not,” Cyrus said. “I understand what he’s trying to say.”
“Actually, so do I,” I said, laughing.
Tommy collapsed back in his chair and said, “Hey, Josiah!”
“What buddy?” I said to Tommy.
“Where’s Lena?”
“That’s a good question.” Tommy must have been drunk to bring her up to me.
“I think she didn’t show up because she’s doesn’t want to face the truth,” Tommy said.
“What truth would that be, Tom?”
“Hey, Tommy! Shut up!” Wyatt said. Wyatt knew Tommy was about to say something very stupid. What Wyatt didn’t know was that I was intimate with Lena the night before and there was really little Tommy could say to me that would set me off.
“Tommy, why don’t you slow it down?” Cyrus said to Tommy.
“I’m not that drunk. I’m just having some fun.”
“Okay, then answer my question. What truth would that be?” I asked.
Tommy looked at me and his wheels were spinning. I knew he wanted to say something, but even as drunk as he was, he filtered it out and didn’t answer me. “Nothing, Josiah. I was just talking nonsense.”
I looked over to the back door and Rubidoux walk out and I called him over to us.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “What’s going on? When did you show up?”
Rubidoux shook my hand and gave me a bro hug. “I got here about a half hour ago. I heard you’re living here now.”
“Yup, it’s a pretty nice set-up.”
“I bet,” Rubidoux said. “Hey, there was some weird guy outside looking for you.”
“Where?”
“Right outside.”
“What did he look…?” I looked up at the backdoor way and Yari came walking out with the smallest cake I had ever seen. It had one lone sparkler on top. The cake was the size of a Hersey bar. “I’m sorry, hold on,” I said.
Yari walked over to where I was sitting, “All right everyone! It’s time for the cake!”
No one was paying attention. So she walked on top of the diving board and screamed, “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION!”
Now everyone stopped talking and listened. There was probably half the party in the backyard.
“This is Josiah’s 21st birthday,” Yari continued to yell. “And I got him a cake.”
“Way to go all out on the cake, Yari!” Tommy yelled out laughing.
“Well, considering you and Josiah are the only two that can eat it, why splurge?”
“True dat, home-girl,” Tommy sat back down.
“All right everyone! Let’s give Josiah our Mani birthday chant!”
Then the entire party that was in the backyard did a weird birthday chant that sounded like some kind of Mani war cry. It sure wasn’t the Happy Birthday song, but it definitely was heartfelt. I closed my eyes and wished for happiness and blew out the candle.
“Anyway, Rubidoux, what were you saying?”
“There is some weird guy out front that wanted to speak to you.”
“Weird, how?”
“Well, he’s in a costume,” Rubidoux said, laughing.
“A costume?”
“Yeah, and he’s a little person.”
“A little person?”
“You know, like a dwarf.”
“Oh shit! It’s Goshi!” I yelled. “Where’s he at?”
“He’s in the front yard.”
I ran through the house and everyone followed me to the front yard. There he was! Goshi was standing in the middle of the grass He was wearing a white robe, and if this dude ever looked like Papa Smurf, it was now.
“Goshi!” I yelled out to him.
“Josiah,” Goshi said, with his arms extended out to me. I ran up to him and hugged him.
“You showed up!”
“Yes, I did.”
“Wow, how did you get here?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t ask questions when you look the way I do. They tend to go out of their way to make me feel accepted.”
I turned to the party and said, “Everyone, listen up, this little blue guy here is the toughest Mani I have ever trained with.”
I heard some giggling.
“You think I’m kidding! I am not. This is my...” I looked at Goshi and said, “We never established what you are to me.”
Goshi said, “Guidance counselor?”
“Huh?” I said.
“I don’t know, how about mentor?”
“This is my mentor!” I yelled to the crowd.
Everyone cheered in a drunken fury.
“You want a drink?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Josiah, this meeting isn’t of the hospitality nature.”
“Oh, it’s not?”
“It’s time,” he said.
“Right now?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You want to do my final training at this moment?”
“Yes.”
“Right here in the front yard?” I asked.
“No, there’s a place near here that I have been told about. We should go there,” Goshi said.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
“You all refer to it as Flatlands.”
“You want to go to the Flatlands? You’ve heard of that place?”
“Yes. I think that would be an appropriate place for our final training.”
I turned and faced the party. “Listen up, everyone! I’m going to need to leave the party!”
“Josiah, wait!” Goshi interrupted me.
“Yeah?”
“Let everyone come! Let’s have everyone see your final training session. Let’s have everyone witness you becoming all that is in you. You should share this last part of your journey with all your friends.”
“Okay,” I said. “Hey everyone!” I yelled. “We’re moving the party to Flatlands.”
Everyone cheered, mainly because most of them were very drunk and would have cheered anything I would have yelled out.
I said, “Every one of us has been drinking. Nobody here wants a DUI. Instead of driving, we better just fly.”
Chapter Twenty
A sea of drunken ravens and hawks made their way to the Flatlands. Hector, Wyatt, Cyrus and
myself all transitioned and dug our claws into Tommy’s clothes and air lifted him to Flatlands like air cargo. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have allowed such a bold visual to take place over the San Bernardino Mountains, but I needed to make an exception on this one.
Everyone had made their way up to the Flatland parking lot. We let Tommy go from a few feet up and he landed safely. Tommy looked over at me as I transitioned and said, “Talk about sobering your ass up!”
“Did you lose your buzz?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I think I lost it for the rest of my life. I have officially been scared sober.”
Soon all the Mani that were at the party had arrived. Everyone had transitioned and we all stood on one side of the Flatlands facing Goshi. Goshi made his way out to the middle of the group and said, “Meet me out here, Josiah.”
I walked out to where he was standing. I turned and faced the Mani crowd. There was now over 150 Mani watching this take place. These were my people. This was my crew. I felt like it was graduation, but this wasn’t a graduation, it was my final test and I needed to be on my game. I looked at Goshi and asked, “So, what exactly are we going to be doing?”
“You and I are going to...” I stopped Goshi from speaking as a red hawk made her way down and landed near the back of the group. I watched as the hawk transitioned. It was Lena.
“Hold on, Goshi!” I made my way over to Lena. She seemed nervous and apprehensive.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Please don’t embarrass me, Josiah,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, please don’t let me interfere with what you guys are doing,” Lena said.
I reached out my hand and took hers. She took my hand and warmly smiled at me. “Please Josiah, do what you need to do. You need to focus. Please go back out there.”
I nodded my head and looked back at Goshi. He seemed particularly interested in Lena, but then turned his focus back to me.
“Come back to me, Josiah,” Goshi announced. I turned around and walked back over to him. “Like I was saying,” Goshi said to me. “You and I are going to battle.”
“Battle?” I asked.
“Yes,” Goshi answered.
“That’s it? We’re just going to spar?”
“Not spar. Fight.”
“Fight?” I asked. “To what degree?”
