Haitian Loup Garou Tales

"Stephen, you need to leave, you've been cast out," said Helene Jean, my mother and the Matriarch of my now former clan, the Roamers. I looked at my mother, and her eyes were as pitiless as the sun. I stood in my study, holding a copy of Wonders of the African World by Henry Louis Gates Jr. A big and tall, dark-skinned and bespectacled black man in his twenties, that's me.

The Roamers rule much of northern Haiti from our hometown of Quartier Morin. Among our kind, we're feared and respected for our longevity and sheer numbers. These are dark times, though. I looked at my mother and smiled, wished her well and then headed out of the house where I've lived for the past two decades. I kind of saw the whole banishment thing coming, but I'll get to that soon enough...

"Alright, mother," I replied, and just like that, I found myself all alone in the world. It was a beautiful day in the town of Quartier Morin, northern Haiti, but I couldn't see that beauty. I walked through the small town where I'd spent my entire life, and made my way to the nearby bus stop. I needed to get to the City of Cap-Haitien toot sweet, because as soon as night fell, my life would be forfeit...

It's a thing among both humans and those like myself who are more than human. When a new leader or Alpha takes over, he or she gets rid of every last vestige or remnant of the old regime. Roman Emperors, gang leaders, Zulu tribal chiefs and Aztec kings have done the same. In that same vein, I found myself unwelcome in the only home I'd ever known, all because of, well, supernatural politics...

I'm Stephen Jean, and I am a Loup Garou, what normal people call Werewolves. Got some bad news, people. My kind are real, and we live among you. We've been around since, well, forever, really. We're at the grocery store, we're on your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We are at the gas station, and in your college library. We're people that you see and talk to every damn day. Hiding in plain sight is totally our thing. It's the secret of our success.

I absolutely hate how, in the movies, Loup Garou are portrayed so negatively. If we were monsters who prowl about looking for human prey under the light of the moon, we would have been hunted to extinction by humanity ages ago. I'm not evil. I'm not totally good. Neither are you. I'm a person, with the usual ups and downs. I go to university. I hold a job. I'm a fan of Association Sportive Capoise, the local soccer club. I have a girlfriend, my dear Danica. I have a life, alright?

It's out of concern for the preservation of said life that I hurry out of Quartier Morin. I got into a camionette and rode it to the Cap Haitien International Airport, and from there, I flew to Port-Au-Prince. I bought a one-way ticket to Miami, Florida. If I ever returned to the island of Haiti, I'd be a dead man. Nothing to do with political strife and poverty and all that jazz. and everything to do with the fact that my Pack has a new Alpha...

My sister Hannah has a boyfriend named Mitchell Besigye, who's originally from Uganda. Like my mother, sister and myself, Mitchell is a Loup Garou. He and Hannah met while she was studying at a college in the City of Ottawa, Canada, and really hit it off. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that Mitchell is a sociopath. He'd been banned from his own Pack back in Uganda and was looking for a new one to take over...

Now, when I first met Mitchell, I thought he was an arrogant asshole, but I didn't really see him as an enemy. I saw him as yet another douche bag that my sister Hannah brings home to meet the family. She has a thing for guys who are terrible people. Typically, she gets rid of them after a few months. Mitchell wasn't like the others, though. For starters, he wasn't human, and that complicates things...

If you know anything about Loup Garou society, then you know that we function the same way a wolf pack does. There's an Alpha couple that rules the rest of the Pack, and they provide leadership and guidance to the members of said pack. Mitchell was brought into the Roamers pack by my sister Hannah. She wanted him to take over. As you can imagine, Mitchell and I kind of clashed as a result...

"If I ever see you again, I'll tear you to pieces," Mitchell said to me, during our last confrontation. As I said before, Mitchell is a sociopath and to be fair, so is my sister Hannah. I've always known this and largely kept out of their way. I focused on my studies at Roi Henri Christophe University and my relationship with my then-lady Danica Seide. I am a Loup Garou but prefer the company of humans, something which most of my species consider to be odd.

The Loup Garou community is, like every other community, full of all kinds of people. You've got your nice people, jerks, total bitches, and everyone in between. We're not the most open-minded community either. It's a known fact that Loup Garou can only reproduce with other Loup Garou. It's not like in the movies when all you need to do to become one of us is get bit or scratched. Real life is much more complicated than that...

I'd been seeing this young woman named Danica Seide for some time, and everyone knew we were a couple. Danica was about five-foot-eight, cute, with dark brown skin and short, kinky dark hair. She was a real tomboy, but I liked that about her. I could see myself spending the rest of my days with Danica. When a man meets an amazing woman, he simply knows. My fellow Loup Garou mocked my fondness for Danica, since she'd never be able to bear my pups...

Danica Seide thought I was an ordinary human being and had no idea what I truly am. You may think my secrecy about my true nature was an act of cowardice. It's not that simple. I wanted to tell Danica but couldn't, not without endangering both of us. The Loup Garou community doesn't take kindly to rule breakers, and the secrecy around our kind's existence is our most fundamental rule...

Another rule is that our kind is intolerant of weakness. My father Francois Jean was a strong Alpha, but I was not seen in the same light by my clan. My mother Helene and my sister Hannah sided with Mitchell in his bid to take over because that's what female Loup Garou do. They align themselves with a strong male because they think of it as a matter of genetic survival. I was out of allies, and out of time...

"Come at me, little man," I told Mitchell, who stood a few inches shorter than me. Like a lot of little guys, Mitchell likes to act big and aggressive. Me? I typically try to avoid conflict but usually find a way to get rid of whoever gets in my way, whether they're human or other. I've always been an intellectual, more of a seeker of knowledge than someone into political gamesmanship. Serves me right...

"If I weren't marrying your sister Hannah, I would kill you," Mitchell said, his eyes flashing bright yellow, and his teeth elongated and sharpened into wicked fangs. I looked at him, staying perfectly calm, even though everything inside of me wanted to morph and rip this bozo to pieces. It's never a good idea to let your enemy lure you into playing his or her game, though...

"Whatever," I replied, and Mitchell walked away, after doing more macho posturing. I should have seen Mitchell and Hannah's scheme coming. I was too busy grieving for my father Francois Jean, who died recently. I should have ascended to the throne of the Roamers as the next leader, but my sister Hannah and her lover Mitchell had other plans. They got rid of me, and now, I'm alone in the world...

I fled the island of Haiti and began exploring my new digs in Miami, Florida. For the most part, members of my family live either in Haiti or Ontario, Canada. I chose Florida because I didn't want to run into any of them. Blood ties mean nothing to Loup Garou packs. The new leader of the Pack could order the death of any member of said pack, and the pack members will ruthlessly obey. That's just the way of things...

Now, I've visited Florida before, once during a trip with my father, Francois Jean. He was doing business with a man named Mister Serge, Haitian-born owner of a chain of dry cleaning businesses with locations in Miami, Tallahassee, Boca Raton and Coral Gables. I had fond memories of Florida. I just didn't know that it would become the site of my exile...

"Mon fils, as much as I love Haiti, I really like Florida," said my father Francois Jean, as we drove through the streets of Miami, after he concluded his business with Mister Serge. I smiled at my father, a tall, wiry, dark-skinned and silver-haired, proud exemplar of Haitian masculinity. I nodded and glanced at the streets of Miami. The place was truly beautiful...

"I wouldn't mind living here someday, Papa Francois," I replied, and my father nodded in agreement. We concluded the business in Florida and returned to Cap-Haitien, northern Haiti. Yeah, Florida looked different to me as a grown man than it did back when I visited it with my father, so many years ago. Florida wasn't a vacation spot, not to me. It was to be the place that would either make or break me...

I arrived in Miami, Florida, with nineteen hundred dollars in my backpack, and only the clothes on my back. I went to Promo Bank and withdrew every penny I had right before I made a beeline for the airport. Can't get anywhere without money, know what I mean? Upon arriving in Miami, I went to the Miami-Dade Public Library to look for a place to stay, and of course prep my resume so I could find work.

I ended up renting a room above a restaurant called Chef Creole and working as a security guard at Rail 71 Plaza, a local mall with a bad reputation. Considering the way I ended up in Miami in the first place, I lucked out. Three weeks after landing in Miami after fleeing Haiti, basically running for my life, I had a new job and a place to stay. The only issue is that I wanted to live, not just survive...

"Stephen, how could you drop everything and leave without telling me?" Danica asked, her voice shrill, as we spoke. I'd been putting off the call I knew I had to make. I dropped everything that mattered to me back in Haiti and moved to Florida. I missed my friends at Roi Henri Christophe University. I missed hanging out in Cap-Haitien. Oh yeah, I also missed my beautiful girlfriend Danica...

"Cheri, I left because my life was in danger, I should have told you," I fessed up, and Danica went quiet. Nowadays, the island of Haiti is full of strife. A lot of people hate President Jovenel Moise, and only a couple of years ago they were in love with the guy, comparing him to a prince. The people are hungry, and jobless, and they're turning against their leaders and institutions...

"When are you coming back?" Danica asked, and I closed my eyes, hard. I could see her pacing back and forth in her house, my beloved Danica. She's the woman I lost my virginity to. I remember us dancing together at Tropicana Night Club and Bagay La Club. I remember taking her to the movies at Versailles. Walking around that old joint Cafe Du Port. Good times...

"I am not sure," I replied, and that's when the line went silent. Danica hung up on me. I looked at the phone in my hand and shook my head. I just lost the woman I love. What's a brother to do? I felt so bad. I'd hurt Danica and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't send for her. I was barely able to survive with what I was making at Empire Security Services. I hated my so-called life and myself.

Empire Security Services sent me to look after a tech building in a wooded area outside Miami. I was given some basic instructions and a security badge by Dimitri, the old security guard I relieved. Bored out of my mind, I walked around the building, which housed a computer company of sorts. Since the post orders included an exterior patrol, I went outside, which is where I really wanted to be...

The one thing that lousy Hollywood movies get right about us Loup Garou is our need to shed our human guise and revert to our true form. It's not triggered by the light of the moon. Last time I checked, the moon had zero effect on myself or any of my kind. No, we tend to transform because it's a psychological as well as a physical issue. If you're forced to wear a mask every day for the sake of survival in a hostile world, wouldn't you want to take it off once in a while?

"Neg finalman lib, mwen bezwen kouri, I'm finally free, I need to run," I said to myself, as I went into the woods. Now, I've never been much of an outdoorsman. I didn't like to go camping and turned down an offer to join the scouts back in school. Still, I felt at peace in the woods, away from the hordes of humanity. I wanted to be alone, so I can finally be myself...

In the movies, a Loup Garou's return to his or her true form is typically a grotesque transformation. My kind aren't huge wolf-like monsters that are somehow bipedal, nor are we hairy things that are obviously actors in animal suits. To be honest, we're, well, prettier than that. I closed my eyes and willed the transformation to occur. Set me free, I thought, sighing happily.

One minute I was a big and tall, dark-skinned young man in an uncomfortable drab security uniform, and the next I was...me. A large lupine creature that could easily be mistaken for a wolf, if you don't know what you're looking at. We Loup Garou are not human beings who turn into wolves, nor are we wolves who turn into human beings. We are an entirely different order of being...

A large wolf with an ebony coat and luminescent yellow eyes, that's what I became. Actually, I didn't become anything. I am what I am. I was born as a Loup Garou, and only learned to assume human form in order to fit in among their society. In my true form, I felt at peace. Out of sheer joy, I looked heavenward, stretched my jaws and did what came natural. I simply howled.

I ran through the woods, feeling wild and free. The woods of Florida didn't smell anything like the woods near rural Quartier Morin, Haiti, where I was born and raised. I didn't smell the goats, Guineafowls, cows and horses commonly found in the Haitian countryside. Instead, I smelled squirrels, rabbits, owls, and other small animals commonly found in Florida.

Even as I ran, I became aware of...something watching me. Sniffing the air, I paused. At a distance of perhaps four hundred meters, downwind from where I was, I saw it. A lupine form, no more an animal than I was. The scent emanating from the stranger was young and distinctly female. Cautiously observing the stranger, I sent out a greeting. A sharp bark, which was met with a savage warning. I watched as the stranger took off, and since this wasn't my territory, I did not dare pursue.

When morning came, it found me at the security desk. I greeted the client, turned in my report, and then left. I had to take a two-hour bus ride before reaching Miami, and even then, the ride to the Little Haiti area took me some time. I was dead tired by the time I reached my bed. I thought about the events of the night before. Somewhere out there, there's another one like me. Where there's one female Loup Garou, there might be more.

I woke up in the late afternoon, feeling refreshed. Since I didn't have to work that day, I went for a walk around Miami. I am starting to love this place. So many people from all over the world live here. Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and ethnic groups I didn't even know about. The City of Miami is truly diverse. I still miss my now ex-girlfriend Danica, but I've seen so many curvy, big-bottomed women of all hues that I'm slowly getting over her...

I went to the library, and with not much on my agenda for the day, I checked out the scene. The Miami-Dade Public Library is really a community center of sorts. There were lots of folks there, from young professionals to the elderly. I approached one of the librarians, a tall, pretty redhead named Gail and asked for her help with online applications and school selections.

"I went to Miami-Dade College and then the University of Florida, so many fine schools out there," said a rather enthusiastic Gail, and I nodded and smiled. The lady was kind enough to help me create an account with the Florida College & University Application Center, and from there, I happily selected Miami-Dade College as my school of choice.

"I started my studies at a university in Haiti and hope to continue here," I told Gail, and she said some words of encouragement, then left. The library was busy and I wouldn't want to monopolize her time. I liked what I saw on the Miami-Dade College website. It's very diverse and seems like a cool place. I intend on enrolling there in a few months. Of course, this is going to mean working a lot more hours as a security guard because tuition for foreigners isn't cheap...

Yup, all those thoughts were swirling about my head as I hung around the library. I had eighty eight dollars and seventy five cents in my new Bank of America debit card after paying rent and doing groceries. I didn't want to go to the mall because I had to wait another eight days before my next pay. Why chase temptation, you know? Being broke feels the same whether you're a human or a Loup Garou. It really sucks...

I left the computer area and walked around the library's African American section. As much as I love Haitian literary giants like Edwige Danticat, author of Brother I'm Dying, and Dany Laferriere, author of How To Make Love To A Negro, I really like Black American authors. I have read the works of E. Lynn Harris, Sister Souljah, Eric Jerome Dickey and many others.

I picked up a copy of the novel Boss by Tracy Brown and started flipping through it. That's when I felt..it. The unmistakable presence of another one of my kind. I looked up from the book and glanced around. All around me, I saw ordinary men and women. Black, white, brown, yellow and in-between. Men, women, gender variant individuals, and all that Jazz. Straight, gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender. All the flavors of Humanity, and yet...

"Hey stranger," came a female voice, and I did a complete three-sixty turn, and found myself facing...her. A tall young woman with dark bronze skin and short, spiky dark hair. Like so many young women I'd seen that day, she wore a tank top and revealing booty shorts, and sandals. Florida's got the market cornered on exotic beauties, although, I kind of hate the word exotic, by the way...

"Hola," I replied, and I looked into the stranger's lovely brown eyes, which seemed to glow with a kind of inner light, even during the day. She smiled at me, and her smile had all the warmth of a serpent's when it looks at a cornered rabbit. I licked my lips, and showed the lady my teeth. Among my kind, smiles are not a good thing. When a wolf or a dog or some kind of canine beast shows their teeth, it's a threat...

"I'm Larisa, you must be new in town," the young lady replied, holding out her hand. Nodding, I shook Larisa's hand and felt a tensile strength in her grip. Larisa looked into my eyes and I looked into hers. The lady's tall, curvy, and very attractive, and smelled no more human than I did. I inhaled and gently bowed my head, a gesture of respect among our species...

"Nice to meet you, Larisa, I'm Stephen," I said evenly, and thus Larisa and I officially met. As you may have guessed, she was the Loup Garou out prowling about in the woods last night. The looks were different, of course, but the smell was the same. That's the thing about our kind. We smell the same whether in human or Loup Garou form. Of course, normal people can never tell...

"Stephen, you should take more care, I spotted you in the woods last night and followed you, and you didn't suspect a thing," Larisa said, and she laughed, seemingly amused. I paused because, well, it's never a good thing when someone admits to stalking you. On the other hand, I'm new in town, haven't gotten laid in ages, and to be honest, Larisa is smoking hot.