FA+
Shop
400
Views
Views
3
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / General Furry Art
Species Human
Size 96 x 120
File Size 73.6 kB
Report this content
More from Walt46
Listed in Folders
Dark of the Moon
© 2024 by Walter Reimer and E.O. Costello
Thumbnail art by
Pashtelle
Seventeen
You would expect things to change after all that, and you would be right.
The end of nineteen fifty-six saw a lot of angry yelling between the United States and the Soviet Union, all of it reported in the newspapers and over the airwaves. Most of the arguing had to do with the four-person hit squad the Russians sent over here to murder John Terhune, and what was to be done with the two surviving werewolves.
It didn’t quite drown out the angry yelling over Suez and Hungary, though.
My guess was that the New York County DA and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District did some haggling over what to do with them. The DA had a solid case for murder, and likely for giving the two guys the chair, while the U.S. Attorney would have played the ‘foreigners killing citizens on U.S. soil’ card. In any event, the DA gave in, and the trial was moved to Federal court. Made me wonder what the DA got in trade.
Their trial was held in February, with Lou Green as the principal witness. The Feds brought in an expert witness, a professor from Yale, who proved to the jury that werewolves had much better senses of smell than humans, and that Green could easily tell who had shown up in the barber shop that night.
It took less than an hour for the jury to find them both guilty, and they were both sentenced to life in prison down in Atlanta.
As you might expect, though, they never saw a minute of hard time. The minute they were sentenced they were both declared persona non grata and kicked out of the United States. It was a spy swap, these two and some others for a few of our own. After that, things calmed down a little.
I was called in to testify at the trial, but most of the time I just sat in the back of the courtroom taking notes. The editor told me that the W-T&S was seeing a slight increase in sales in the wake of the entire incident.
Green got his job back, after I gently suggested he talk to his union. A complaint from them, coupled with the owners of the Park Central not wanting any more bad publicity, saw the barber cutting hair (and fur) again. The manager, Lasky, retired.
Something told me that Lasky had help making the decision to ‘retire.’
Eisenhower got reelected in November, and the picture of the year was shot just before he got sworn in again in January. The picture showed him shaking hands with Ralph Akelewicz. The Alpha was photographed Shifted, signaling the start of something new. The civil rights struggle was going on, and Ike felt that it was a good idea to reach out to other segments of American society.
A close competitor to that photograph was one taken in mid-April of 1957, showing the Alpha standing by and watching as German and Russian werewolves shook hands at the first session of the Universal Werewolves Union. It was seen as a sign of reconciliation and cooperation after the terrible things that happened during the War, and it happened soon after some of the surviving POWs from Stalingrad were handed over to West Germany.
In September, Michael and I attended the last game at Ebbets Field before the Dodgers moved out to California. They played the Pirates, and the Dodgers beat them 2-0. It was a bittersweet victory.
I still have a lot of resentment towards the owners of the team I grew up rooting for. I heard a joke that made the rounds at one bar, which went like this: "If you asked a Brooklyn Dodgers fan if they had a gun with only two bullets in it and were in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley, who would they shoot?”
The answer was, “O'Malley, twice!"
Maybe not a funny joke, but there was a lot of gallows humor about the team moving.
Everything in Ebbets Field was auctioned off in 1960. I won a stadium seat, and although I have had people offer me a lot of money for it, I have never thought of selling it.
***
It wasn’t just the world going through changes, either.
The World-Telegram & Sun ended the year riding high, with subscriptions up and Mr. Howard generally happy with how things were going. I won an award and was offered a raise.
I didn’t take it, as the raise would have required me to give up my Newspaper Guild union card. I might be a bunch of things, but one thing I’m not is a scab. When I left the managing editor’s office, my mind was made up to stay on as the werewolf reporter for the W-T&S, but to start looking at other options.
One of those was the G.I. Bill, and I started taking night classes in journalism. The goal was to increase what I knew about the trade, as well as filling in any blind spots I might have had (and I had several). I graduated in late 1961.
Just in time, too. In late 1962, the camel’s back broke, and New York saw a huge newspaper strike that dragged on into 1963, at roughly the same time that the World-Telly was trying to merge with the Journal-American and the Herald-Tribune. When the dust finally settled, the merger went through.
Too late. The ‘Widget’ as it was called folded within a year. One casualty of the paper folding was the Wolf Queen comic, which found a new home in the Daily News.
The Daily News tried to hire me away from the W-T&S, after Armbruster retired. It was a good offer, but by then the city’s werewolves wouldn’t have used that paper to line a bird cage. I figured that if I had moved to the News, my readers would look at it as a betrayal, especially after all the attacks Armbruster made against weres.
But I had to do something, as there were increasing signs that the World-Telegram & Sun was heading for the exit. So in early nineteen sixty-one I typed up a resume, swallowed my pride, and went to have a look at the TV stations in the city.
The local stations were sort of interested, mainly because they would rely on the stories I’d dig up and record them for later broadcast. Live programming was still something you only saw in studios, and I found myself in the office of the head of programming for station WNEW.
“We’re exploring the idea of moving into an all-news format,” the guy told me.
I asked, “There’s enough news going around to make that happen?”
“We think there is,” he chuckled. “Basically you’d write your story, have it approved by an editor – “
“Same thing I’m doing at the paper.”
“Quite right. And you’d read your story out in front of the camera.” I guess the look on my face was something he’d seen before, because he smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Tell you what; come in tomorrow morning with one of your old articles and we’ll have you read it on camera.” He held up a hand before I said anything. “It’ll be recorded for review, not broadcast.”
“Thanks,” and we shook hands on it.
And that was how I started in television.
Others were starting in the new medium too. Blacks had begun appearing in leading and supporting roles in TV, so werewolves started making tentative steps in that direction. There were a few supporting roles, but one actress made it big when one of the major networks debuted a Wolf Queen series in January of 1966. She played both the crime-fighting character and her socialite alter ego, Dagmar Clapsaddle.
What’s in a name? Everything, apparently. It was pretty popular, though.
Another popular series that came out later that year was Star Trek. You might have heard of it, and if you know anyone who’s a werewolf, you’ll have heard of Lisa Daniels, who played Lt. Grrihan. More about her later.
***
I deliberately left the most important changes for last.
Mary and I attended Mass that evening with my parents, and I couldn’t help but sense that there were a lot of people in the pews eyeing us. Sure, Irish Catholic neighborhood. Like I said earlier, you kind of expect that.
Mom’s pot roast that night was fork-tender and delicious. I might be prejudiced, but Mom makes the best pot roast.
At one point my guest dipped her fork in the gravy and touched it to her tongue. She rolled the taste around in her mouth and asked, “You add whisky to the pot, Ma’am?”
Mom glared at me. “I didn’t tell her,” I said.
She stopped glaring at me and smiled at Mary. “Yes, just a little,” she said, “and now that you know my secret you’ll have to marry Pete so we can keep the recipe in the family.”
Mary blinked, and we all started to laugh. Her hand sought mine out under the table.
We took the subway and walked back to her family’s place, and on the front stoop she leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I had a great time, Pete.”
“I’m glad you did, Mary. Do you think we should get the families together?”
She gave me a look as she thought it over. “Thinking well of yourself, are you Peter Walshe?” Before I could say anything she chuckled. “Sure. I think it’s a good idea.” She gave me another kiss, and I kissed her cheek, and she went inside to head upstairs.
I walked home alone.
It was a little after the first of the year in 1957 that we were able to get something arranged. Both our families attended Mass on Sunday morning, and afterward spent some time together.
During a private moment, I couldn’t help chuckling and Mary asked, “What?”
“I’m sorry, but I was thinking of two werewolf families doing this,” I said, “and all I could think was ‘sniffing each other out.’”
She smacked me on the upper arm before she laughed. “That’s about right, really.” That made me laugh.
With the ice broken and both my parents and hers in agreement, Mary and I started dating. Not every night, of course; I was still working for the World-Telegram, which meant working sometimes well into the night to get a story. But I did get time to take her out to the movies and dinner, and sometimes out dancing.
But whenever I met her for a date, I was aware that there was at least one person keeping an eye on us. Mary was pretty sure of it as well.
Finally I caught a glimpse of him before Mary and I went into a theater to see a movie. I excused myself and walked over. “George.”
“Hiya Knocko.”
“Wally and Jack helping you out?”
My Army buddy gave me an embarrassed grin. “Wally can’t make it. Law school exams.”
“Uh huh. Do me a favor, okay?”
“What?”
I leaned in close. “Back off. In fact, just beat it,okay?”
George smirked. “Just keeping you safe, Knocko – “
“There’s ‘keeping me safe’ and cramping my style, George,” I said, and went back to Mary.
After that, we didn’t feel nearly as many eyes on us as we dated.
We dated for the rest of 1957, and into 1958, and I started thinking that it was time. I wasn’t getting any younger, after all, so I visited a pawn shop in Brooklyn and took a guess at the size of Mary’s ring finger.
The Spring of 1958 in New York City was very nice, and we went out to dinner that night at a restaurant near the Empire State Building. After our meal I asked, “Do you want to go up to the gallery? It’s a nice view.”
She eyed me. I guessed she sensed something. “Sure.”
The view from the observation gallery, New York at night, was spectacular. It was a clear night with the stars out, and down in the distance the lights from Times Square glittered like jewels on black velvet.
Mary snuggled up close to me. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.
I slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re beautiful.” She tipped her head up, and we kissed.
Now or never, Pete.
“Mary O’Donovan,” I asked softly, trusting to her better hearing, “will you marry me?”
She drew back slightly and turned away from the city spread out beneath us to look up at me.
“Yes.”
I have no idea how much time went past, but I finally fumbled the box out of my pocket. I took the ring out and slipped it onto her finger. It was a little loose, but we could get it resized.
Mary stared at the ring for a moment before she hugged me, and we kissed again. She Shifted, and we kissed again.
Then she tipped her head back, and a happy, exultant howl drifted over Manhattan.
It was a June wedding, at Old Saint Patrick’s, and among the presents were assorted gifts and checks from quite a few of the werewolf packs in the city and beyond. We spent our honeymoon down the coast, in Atlantic City.
I guess we did something right, because young Paul was born in early 1959.
<PREVIOUS>
<NEXT>
<FIRST>
© 2024 by Walter Reimer and E.O. Costello
Thumbnail art by
PashtelleSeventeen
You would expect things to change after all that, and you would be right.
The end of nineteen fifty-six saw a lot of angry yelling between the United States and the Soviet Union, all of it reported in the newspapers and over the airwaves. Most of the arguing had to do with the four-person hit squad the Russians sent over here to murder John Terhune, and what was to be done with the two surviving werewolves.
It didn’t quite drown out the angry yelling over Suez and Hungary, though.
My guess was that the New York County DA and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District did some haggling over what to do with them. The DA had a solid case for murder, and likely for giving the two guys the chair, while the U.S. Attorney would have played the ‘foreigners killing citizens on U.S. soil’ card. In any event, the DA gave in, and the trial was moved to Federal court. Made me wonder what the DA got in trade.
Their trial was held in February, with Lou Green as the principal witness. The Feds brought in an expert witness, a professor from Yale, who proved to the jury that werewolves had much better senses of smell than humans, and that Green could easily tell who had shown up in the barber shop that night.
It took less than an hour for the jury to find them both guilty, and they were both sentenced to life in prison down in Atlanta.
As you might expect, though, they never saw a minute of hard time. The minute they were sentenced they were both declared persona non grata and kicked out of the United States. It was a spy swap, these two and some others for a few of our own. After that, things calmed down a little.
I was called in to testify at the trial, but most of the time I just sat in the back of the courtroom taking notes. The editor told me that the W-T&S was seeing a slight increase in sales in the wake of the entire incident.
Green got his job back, after I gently suggested he talk to his union. A complaint from them, coupled with the owners of the Park Central not wanting any more bad publicity, saw the barber cutting hair (and fur) again. The manager, Lasky, retired.
Something told me that Lasky had help making the decision to ‘retire.’
Eisenhower got reelected in November, and the picture of the year was shot just before he got sworn in again in January. The picture showed him shaking hands with Ralph Akelewicz. The Alpha was photographed Shifted, signaling the start of something new. The civil rights struggle was going on, and Ike felt that it was a good idea to reach out to other segments of American society.
A close competitor to that photograph was one taken in mid-April of 1957, showing the Alpha standing by and watching as German and Russian werewolves shook hands at the first session of the Universal Werewolves Union. It was seen as a sign of reconciliation and cooperation after the terrible things that happened during the War, and it happened soon after some of the surviving POWs from Stalingrad were handed over to West Germany.
In September, Michael and I attended the last game at Ebbets Field before the Dodgers moved out to California. They played the Pirates, and the Dodgers beat them 2-0. It was a bittersweet victory.
I still have a lot of resentment towards the owners of the team I grew up rooting for. I heard a joke that made the rounds at one bar, which went like this: "If you asked a Brooklyn Dodgers fan if they had a gun with only two bullets in it and were in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley, who would they shoot?”
The answer was, “O'Malley, twice!"
Maybe not a funny joke, but there was a lot of gallows humor about the team moving.
Everything in Ebbets Field was auctioned off in 1960. I won a stadium seat, and although I have had people offer me a lot of money for it, I have never thought of selling it.
***
It wasn’t just the world going through changes, either.
The World-Telegram & Sun ended the year riding high, with subscriptions up and Mr. Howard generally happy with how things were going. I won an award and was offered a raise.
I didn’t take it, as the raise would have required me to give up my Newspaper Guild union card. I might be a bunch of things, but one thing I’m not is a scab. When I left the managing editor’s office, my mind was made up to stay on as the werewolf reporter for the W-T&S, but to start looking at other options.
One of those was the G.I. Bill, and I started taking night classes in journalism. The goal was to increase what I knew about the trade, as well as filling in any blind spots I might have had (and I had several). I graduated in late 1961.
Just in time, too. In late 1962, the camel’s back broke, and New York saw a huge newspaper strike that dragged on into 1963, at roughly the same time that the World-Telly was trying to merge with the Journal-American and the Herald-Tribune. When the dust finally settled, the merger went through.
Too late. The ‘Widget’ as it was called folded within a year. One casualty of the paper folding was the Wolf Queen comic, which found a new home in the Daily News.
The Daily News tried to hire me away from the W-T&S, after Armbruster retired. It was a good offer, but by then the city’s werewolves wouldn’t have used that paper to line a bird cage. I figured that if I had moved to the News, my readers would look at it as a betrayal, especially after all the attacks Armbruster made against weres.
But I had to do something, as there were increasing signs that the World-Telegram & Sun was heading for the exit. So in early nineteen sixty-one I typed up a resume, swallowed my pride, and went to have a look at the TV stations in the city.
The local stations were sort of interested, mainly because they would rely on the stories I’d dig up and record them for later broadcast. Live programming was still something you only saw in studios, and I found myself in the office of the head of programming for station WNEW.
“We’re exploring the idea of moving into an all-news format,” the guy told me.
I asked, “There’s enough news going around to make that happen?”
“We think there is,” he chuckled. “Basically you’d write your story, have it approved by an editor – “
“Same thing I’m doing at the paper.”
“Quite right. And you’d read your story out in front of the camera.” I guess the look on my face was something he’d seen before, because he smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Tell you what; come in tomorrow morning with one of your old articles and we’ll have you read it on camera.” He held up a hand before I said anything. “It’ll be recorded for review, not broadcast.”
“Thanks,” and we shook hands on it.
And that was how I started in television.
Others were starting in the new medium too. Blacks had begun appearing in leading and supporting roles in TV, so werewolves started making tentative steps in that direction. There were a few supporting roles, but one actress made it big when one of the major networks debuted a Wolf Queen series in January of 1966. She played both the crime-fighting character and her socialite alter ego, Dagmar Clapsaddle.
What’s in a name? Everything, apparently. It was pretty popular, though.
Another popular series that came out later that year was Star Trek. You might have heard of it, and if you know anyone who’s a werewolf, you’ll have heard of Lisa Daniels, who played Lt. Grrihan. More about her later.
***
I deliberately left the most important changes for last.
Mary and I attended Mass that evening with my parents, and I couldn’t help but sense that there were a lot of people in the pews eyeing us. Sure, Irish Catholic neighborhood. Like I said earlier, you kind of expect that.
Mom’s pot roast that night was fork-tender and delicious. I might be prejudiced, but Mom makes the best pot roast.
At one point my guest dipped her fork in the gravy and touched it to her tongue. She rolled the taste around in her mouth and asked, “You add whisky to the pot, Ma’am?”
Mom glared at me. “I didn’t tell her,” I said.
She stopped glaring at me and smiled at Mary. “Yes, just a little,” she said, “and now that you know my secret you’ll have to marry Pete so we can keep the recipe in the family.”
Mary blinked, and we all started to laugh. Her hand sought mine out under the table.
We took the subway and walked back to her family’s place, and on the front stoop she leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I had a great time, Pete.”
“I’m glad you did, Mary. Do you think we should get the families together?”
She gave me a look as she thought it over. “Thinking well of yourself, are you Peter Walshe?” Before I could say anything she chuckled. “Sure. I think it’s a good idea.” She gave me another kiss, and I kissed her cheek, and she went inside to head upstairs.
I walked home alone.
It was a little after the first of the year in 1957 that we were able to get something arranged. Both our families attended Mass on Sunday morning, and afterward spent some time together.
During a private moment, I couldn’t help chuckling and Mary asked, “What?”
“I’m sorry, but I was thinking of two werewolf families doing this,” I said, “and all I could think was ‘sniffing each other out.’”
She smacked me on the upper arm before she laughed. “That’s about right, really.” That made me laugh.
With the ice broken and both my parents and hers in agreement, Mary and I started dating. Not every night, of course; I was still working for the World-Telegram, which meant working sometimes well into the night to get a story. But I did get time to take her out to the movies and dinner, and sometimes out dancing.
But whenever I met her for a date, I was aware that there was at least one person keeping an eye on us. Mary was pretty sure of it as well.
Finally I caught a glimpse of him before Mary and I went into a theater to see a movie. I excused myself and walked over. “George.”
“Hiya Knocko.”
“Wally and Jack helping you out?”
My Army buddy gave me an embarrassed grin. “Wally can’t make it. Law school exams.”
“Uh huh. Do me a favor, okay?”
“What?”
I leaned in close. “Back off. In fact, just beat it,okay?”
George smirked. “Just keeping you safe, Knocko – “
“There’s ‘keeping me safe’ and cramping my style, George,” I said, and went back to Mary.
After that, we didn’t feel nearly as many eyes on us as we dated.
We dated for the rest of 1957, and into 1958, and I started thinking that it was time. I wasn’t getting any younger, after all, so I visited a pawn shop in Brooklyn and took a guess at the size of Mary’s ring finger.
The Spring of 1958 in New York City was very nice, and we went out to dinner that night at a restaurant near the Empire State Building. After our meal I asked, “Do you want to go up to the gallery? It’s a nice view.”
She eyed me. I guessed she sensed something. “Sure.”
The view from the observation gallery, New York at night, was spectacular. It was a clear night with the stars out, and down in the distance the lights from Times Square glittered like jewels on black velvet.
Mary snuggled up close to me. “It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.
I slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re beautiful.” She tipped her head up, and we kissed.
Now or never, Pete.
“Mary O’Donovan,” I asked softly, trusting to her better hearing, “will you marry me?”
She drew back slightly and turned away from the city spread out beneath us to look up at me.
“Yes.”
I have no idea how much time went past, but I finally fumbled the box out of my pocket. I took the ring out and slipped it onto her finger. It was a little loose, but we could get it resized.
Mary stared at the ring for a moment before she hugged me, and we kissed again. She Shifted, and we kissed again.
Then she tipped her head back, and a happy, exultant howl drifted over Manhattan.
It was a June wedding, at Old Saint Patrick’s, and among the presents were assorted gifts and checks from quite a few of the werewolf packs in the city and beyond. We spent our honeymoon down the coast, in Atlantic City.
I guess we did something right, because young Paul was born in early 1959.
<PREVIOUS>
<NEXT>
<FIRST>
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species Human
Size 96 x 120px
File Size 73.6 kB
Comments