OZ:
Even in the middle of the day.
Oz is thirteen, just entering puberty, when he begins to discover the changes to his body.
The way his voice drops several octaves unexpectedly, becomes a growl that makes guests’ hair stand on their arms. The way the moon pulls and stretches at his limbs, curves his spine, makes hair grow everywhere.
Learning to shave is embarrassing, the blades break and finally he has to go with a barber’s razor, and when he cuts himself the bleeding stops in seconds, the wounds heal—too quickly. At school the kids make fun of hairy boy until he growls and shows them nails like claws and then they stop and after that they mostly keep away from him.
Puberty is confusing, he gets a hard-on every other second, it seems, he has hormones raging through him and on full moon nights he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is, and he is naked, and covered in feathers and blood.
Oz lives in a small town where nothing much is going on, somewhere in those featureless plains of a sometimes-Americaland. Mostly, Oz goes to the movies. Alone. He sits close to the screen, in the first or second row where no one else likes to sit, and he watches movies in the dark. There’s the smell of popcorn and years of spilled Coca Cola on unwashed carpets. There’s the smell of wet hair, and a hint of blood. Kids make out in the back row and the attendant goes around with a torchlight and the smell of grass on his clothes.
Everyone leaves Oz well alone. Which suits him fine.
He watches horror movies and romantic comedies and family dramas, fantasies and sci fi and adventure serials. He watches sequels and prequels and the things that come in the middle. He watches
Because that’s what he is, he is beginning to realize. He can no longer deny the changes. When he takes on the wolf shape he feels alive, free, strong. He loves to run, for miles and miles, snapping at the wind, scenting for prey. He loves the taste of fear in a chicken’s heart when it’s taken. He toys with it, listening to its heart beat, smelling its fear before jaws close shut with a snap over the creature’s thin neck.
He does okay at school and he does better on the football field but it’s not enough, and besides people are beginning to talk. There’s mention of pitchforks, not as an agricultural tool but as an instrument of maiming. Nolikes a teenage werewolf. Especially not the fathers or uncles of teenage daughters.
EXT. EMERALD CITY—DAY
OZ stands outside a bar. The sign, in flashing neon light, says, SHIFTER’S CORNER. He growls softly to himself and goes inside.
INT. SHIFTER’S CORNER BAR—DAY
The bar is dark, the lighting red. The counter is long and made of hard wood, scarred by cigarettes and fights. The few drinkers turn to look at OZ, then turn back, quickly. Behind the bar is a solitary figure. OZ walks forward, sits on a stool.
OZ:
Gimme a Jack on the rocks, Billy.
The bartender lifts his head and we get a good look at him. His face is very long and very pale. So are his fingers. His entire seems stretched, devoid of blood. There are bandages trailing from his arms, his neck. He stares at OZ, not moving.
OZ:
What’s the matter, Billy? Missing your mummy?
The bartender’s impassive face nevertheless registers a look of fleeting pain. Silently, he points at a sign on the wall. It says: NO MUMMY JOKES. OZ shrugs.
OZ:
Just gimme the drink, Billy. I’m good for it.
OZ slaps some money on the counter. The bartender nods and reaches under the counter for a glass. He makes OZ a drink and pushes it towards him.
OZ:
I’m looking for a girl, Billy. A missing girl. Goes by the name of Dorothy.
The bartender shrugs. OZ takes a sip from his drink and lights up another cigarette. He stares at the bartender meditatively.
OZ:
In this city, we’re all lost.
OZ:
Right, Billy?
The bartender shrugs again.
He loves detective movies and noir and
There’s this girl at school …
She lives with her uncle and aunt. They have a farm. It’s not a very successful one. They grow tobacco, but the season’s been hard. Her name’s Dorothy. She’s hard, she has the eyes of someone who knows what poverty is like, and hardship. Her parents are dead. They say her uncle beats her up. For all that, Oz thinks she’s radiant. When she smiles—if he can somehow make her smile—it transforms her completely, the way he is transformed. He wants to be her full moon. He wants to watch her when she changes.
They meet secretly. Oz’s parents don’t approve of farmer trash and her uncle doesn’t approve of Oz, or any other boys for that matter. They make plans.
Scram. Leave this town. Disappear. Across the vast featureless plains, towards the coast, east or west it almost doesn’t matter, only it does. There is only one place for dreamers, one place that is a magnet, drawing you inexorably towards it.
The city.
Where everything is possible, and dreams come true.
EXT. THE EMERALD CITY PROJECTS—DAY
There are people sitting outside on stairs, not doing anything. Smoking, talking. Listening to the game on the radio. Boys stand at street corners, dealing. Cars go past slowly. Were-girls in short skirts and hairy legs wait, hopefully.
OZ comes striding into the frame.
WERE-GIRL:
Hey, Corn-fed! Wanna have a good time?
OZ doesn’t break stride.
OZ:
No, thanks, fur-ball.
WERE-GIRL:
Fucking were-rat.
OZ goes to a group of boys. They are all half-transformed, and growl when they see him.
WERE-BOY:
What do you want here, Daddy-O?
OZ:
I’m looking for a girl. Name of Dorothy.
