Marty’s werewolf skin was seen as more of a collective blessing than an ancient curse to many across the state of Idaho. Underneath the ravenous jawline of Styrofoam teeth, the stocky, muscular body of loose, artificial fur over pleather padding, people, most of the time, forgot about the man buried underneath the fathoms of industrialized polyester and rubber. Not only did people across Boise refuse to run and scream in terror of the beast standing before them. They’d cheer for him, asked for his autographs, took photos with him, paraded him, as if his body was more floatilla than flesh. A snarl here, a growl there, and a howl everywhere, and all of Idaho’s largest city becomes unglued, erupting with unhinged joy. No one ever sees past the bright blue hooves and teddy-bull eyes of Billy Buffalo. No one ever sees past the stale, rogue smiles of Sourdough Sam. So why the fuck would Marty be seen as more than just the costume he adorns? No one has ever seen him transform behind the stench of chlorine and leftover B.O. In the cold, trenches of an emptying locker room, every gameday, in the wee moments of half-time. It’s just me, him, and his werewolf skin, before he’d go into the field and hype a crowd of frenzied, belligerent Idahoans looking for a hero.
***
Before Marty was given his werewolf skin he was a plumber. It was dirty work, but the money made, and the sanity provided were all the thanks he needed. Yet it was on that day, a few years back, early September, dancing with two left feet, piss-ass drunk, but with the energy of a Freddie Mercury impersonator, at his brother Ted’s wedding, that a viral video moment was born. As millions of views and clicks poured in, NFL caught wind of the late-forty-something year old doing the running man to Bell, Biv, Devoe’s Poison, and then leaping across the dancefloor to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. Two weeks after Marty spent his free time, licking his own mid-life crisis wounds, he got a call from the NFL commission looking for the new cheering, monstrous face of a brand-new franchise.
For the longest time, I put up with it. I stomached the monster I saw him turning into. I saw the curse so many weren’t able to see. The pressure, the tour dates, the missed family events, spending his autumn-winter nights in hotel rooms, pinching his thumbs between the skin of his forehead, scrambling across a mosaic of torn-up alimony statements, angrily throwing finished bottles of bourbon, smashing the glass against the drywall. I could see how much of this was slowly killing him. But it was killing me too, and last night, any empathy I had was thrown far over the rim, across that giant eyesore of a stadium.
***
I was in the locker room, hearing the same lecture, the same grandstanding about a torch I have no intention to carry, as he slowly transmogrified again. With spittle sprinkling from beneath his tongue, his saliva almost bubbling, almost foamy, my concern grew. He zipped up his werewolf body, mitted the Velcro paws, wiggled and flexed the plasticized claws like freshly sharpened knives, recapitated his faux skull and started caterwauling to the fluorescent lights above us like an encroaching moon. He leapt on top of a steel bench growling, snarling, and howling hoping his noise would echo across the locker room.
“Stop dad you’re scaring me,” I cried.
He jumped in my direction, trying to make me flinch, chomping the air around me as if it was a chunk of fresh meat, as if I was a chunk of fresh meat, as if I was more prey than offspring.
He blitzed his way through the tunnel and into the field, and I couldn’t help but scream, tears falling sideways from my eyes, “This is why mom left you!”
He turned his head back to me, and growled again, only to turn his face forward, embracing his new family; the diehard fanbase of the Boise Werewolves. Before Marty was given his werewolf skin, he knew what projections looked like, knew that bright lights were meant for sunny days, and not swollen egos. He never let a compliment turn into a reason to make others feel like an insult. Before Marty was given his werewolf skin, I wasn’t ashamed of him, I never felt like a surrogate babysitter. It never got to the point in my life when I’d stop calling him dad.
