This Is a Book (7 page)

Ventriloquist Funeral.

Shish-ke-Bobs.

Narcoleptic Pole Vaulter.

Thanks for buying this book, by the way.

I have trouble communicating with my father. I always have. I just can’t relate to him. Of course there is the generation gap between us (he was almost forty when I was born). That certainly has not helped things. But it’s more than that. Fundamentally, we are just too different. In fact, sometimes I feel like we couldn’t be more different from each other if we tried. But my father is different from just about everyone I’ve ever met, which is no surprise when you consider his upbringing. He was raised by wolves.

You may have heard stories about the boy who was raised by wolves. Most people have. I know I have, just about every day of my life. My father has always had a knack for bringing up that subject. No matter what the conversation is about, he will find a way to relate it back to wolves:

It doesn’t matter how remote the topic is, my dad will find a way to make it about his wolf upbringing:

I won’t bore you with any more examples. Suffice to say, Dad’s wolf thing is a constant presence in our lives.

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Whenever someone new meets my father I have to prepare them for it. People often get confused by my dad’s accent, because he talks with a pronounced growl. On top of the growling, Dad can become quite aggressive, especially if you look him directly in the eye. And I always have to tell people not to throw a Frisbee anywhere near my father, because he will chase it and catch it with his mouth, or at least try to, as it bounces off his face.

I’ve always had to be careful about where I bring my dad. He was a chaperone to my prom. That turned out badly. I guess the strobe lights set him off or something, because he went ape shit and tried to maul a couple of people on the dance floor. Luckily he’s not actually a wolf, so one of the other chaperones (my chemistry teacher Mr. Ronner) was able to wrestle Dad to the ground and subdue him. Even though no one got hurt, it made the rest of senior year suck for me, especially chemistry class.

I read somewhere that some parents have trouble letting their children shine, especially those who have become accustomed to being in the limelight. That’s my dad. From the minute he became part of society he was lavished with attention. And, man did he lap it up (pun intended, by the way).

In our town everyone always talked about my father and his “remarkable story.” Whenever anything remotely involving wolves happens, people contact my dad for a sound bite or for one of his trademark “wolf freak-outs,” which he is always more than happy to do for the morning radio DJs and local newspeople. It is so embarrassing. And going to the zoo with my dad has always been
a nightmare. You’ve never seen a know-it-all until you’ve seen my father at a zoo.

Look, I realize that his story is remarkable-ish. And I understand that being raised by wolves is not an easy experience. Nobody is denying that. But he’s not the only one who had a tough upbringing. Mine was hard too. Not many people ever think about that. No one ever thinks about the guy
who was raised by
the guy who was raised by wolves. Well that happens to be my life, and I’m here to tell you that it’s just as hard, maybe even harder than being the guy who was raised by wolves.

First of all, you have a non-wolf imparting wolf teachings. This is confusing under the best conditions. When I was a little kid it was more than confusing, it was downright upsetting. The chasing, barking, and general canine behavior my father displayed around the house often terrified me and ruined a lot of my childhood experiences (not to mention my bedroom furniture).

My father’s wolf background really colored my view of the world as a child. Dad hated fairy tales. If you even mentioned one to him, he’d launch into one of his long, self-righteous speeches about wolf stereotyping and the damage done to the wolf community by the “prey-biased fairy-tale media.” His parenting skills were minimal to nonexistent. And when he did try to raise me, it felt a lot more like being
trained
than being raised. Although, I have to admit, it was often quite effective. When your father bites you in the back of the neck, you learn things pretty fast.

Of course, Dad never stopped to ask me about
my
interests. He just assumed that I was interested in wolves.

Every year, when Halloween came around, guess what we had to be?… Yep, a pack of wolves. And my mother went right along wit it, just like everything else Dad wanted. She always enabled him. And if I tried to talk to her about it, she would say things like “What do you expect, he was raised by wild animals”—as if I didn’t know that already. Thanks, Mom.

One time I asked my mother if she thought she would have
been with my father if he had not been raised by wolves. She got really quiet and looked hurt. Then, without saying anything, she turned, walked off, and went into the backyard to feed my father. I never brought it up again.

Mom’s not the only one who enables my dad. My little brother, who is an actual wolf my parents adopted, is crazy. It doesn’t take a genius to guess who Dad’s favorite is… Yep, it’s my brother, Gary, the
real
wolf. Gary and I never got along as kids/cubs. And now as adults we don’t even talk (mostly because he can’t). But even if he could talk, he’s so unreasonable and ferocious, I wouldn’t want to talk to him anyway.

When Dad had our last name legally changed to “Wolf” it didn’t sit well with a lot of people, least of all with me. Having the first name “Wolf” was already hard enough for me. Then finding out suddenly that I would be called “Wolf Wolf” for the rest of my life just flat out pissed me off.

Try going to a dinner party and getting introduced as “Wolf Wolf”:

When I say my name, people often think I’m joking, or worse, barking. I remember complaining to my father about this and then having to listen to one of his usual lectures about how I’m not proud of my wild roots, etc. Man, he is so out of touch.

Sometimes Dad has the wolves over. This never goes well. My grandparents, if you can even call them that, are even harder to relate to than my father. They’re actually crazy. When I’m with them I get the feeling that they would kill me if we weren’t related. Dad disagrees with me about this, but he just doesn’t understand. He can’t see anything outside of his little wolf bubble.