I was sitting on a couch once with a werewolf when she asked me, "Do you get out much."
Actually, to be honest, she was sitting on the couch, I was sitting on a ¾-inch RCA TV tape deck with my finger on the record button.
I was waiting for the moon. As was she.
Small Market TV.
She had green eyes, black hair, red lips, and cats.
I had bloodshot eyes, disappearing hair, chapped lips, and allergies.
To cats.
When a werewolf looks you in the eye, and asks you to go outside, do you go right away, or does your answer come with the moon.
I had been in the news/storytelling business all of about a month when the wolf asked me outside. None of the notes I took at college mentioned this. So I called the assignment desk.
"The werewolf wants me to go in her backyard…"
"I need a minute-thirty for the 11 (p.m.)."
"…in the dark before she turns into a wolf…"
"Are any of the other stations there."
"…and eats me."
"Let me talk to the Producer."
As I handed the radio off, I turned to see the werewolf leaning against a palm tree, her back against it, one leg bent up with her foot on the tree. On the porch, an unopened newspaper, envelops still stuffed in the mailbox.
And this is what I told the werewolf, "Can you hang on a second my producer is…"
And the wolf chewed her gum and looked to the sky.
So I said to my producer, "Dude come on,we got some sort of time issue going on here and you know how long it's going to take us to get back to the station this time of night…"
And the werewolf suddenly arched her back…
…at just about the same time my producer put the radio mic back in its clip…
…and as I turned to him I saw the wolf's gum slowly track through the spotlight on the palm tree and come to rest as a ball of dirt on the sandy ground.
"db … they called the News Director at home …"
"…oh great … what DID he say?"
"Dude, he said … go with the moon. Trust the moon."
Several years, and many News Directors later, ESPN sent me back to that town and one night I left my hotel room to get something to eat, and came face to face with the werewolf.
She was working the counter in Subway.
And I ordered a Veggie Sub from the werewolf, no onions, extra black olives, oil & vinegar, toasted.
The green eyed, black hair, red lips werewolf made my sub, wrapped it, put it in the bag, stamped my card and said to me, "You know I'm a vegetarian, too."
When you are served by a vegan werewolf you begin to trust the moon.
Which is why I'm beginning to worry about covering my first Bassmaster Classic.
An omen.
From the heavens.
Because when I arrive in Greenville, S.C., I will arrive during a Total Eclipse of the Moon.
And the wolves will be silent.
But the BASS will be howling.
— db