Afro-Caribbean Wolf Man

When one door closes, another one opens, isn't that the popular saying? That's how I choose to look at my current situation. I came to the City of Ottawa, province of Ontario, a while ago and I honestly hated the place and didn't want to be there. And then I enrolled at Carleton University, made lots of friends across racial, religious and cultural backgrounds and I realized something. It's not the place, it's the people that make the whole thing worthwhile. Considering who and what I am, that's ironically a very human thing to say, isn't it? The name is Antony Guerrier, but everyone calls me Anton.

I was born in the City of Calgary, province of Alberta, to an Aboriginal mother and Haitian immigrant father. My father, Etienne Guerrier came to the Confederation of Canada from the island of Haiti in 1987. Just another young immigrant seeking a better life for himself. He met my mother, Alexandra Tzulahem, a Cowichan Tribeswoman, while wandering around downtown Calgary. He was looking for City Hall and Calgary being Calgary, no one felt like helping the big and tall black guy with the thick French accent. The place hasn't changed all that much in the twenty-plus years since if you ask me...

I guess that's why my mother stood out so much in dad's eyes. Alexandra Tuzahem was the only person in all of Calgary who would give directions to a tall, dark-skinned stranger, I guess. My parents have told me this tale many times. Mom walked dad for ten blocks until they came within view of City Hall. Ah, the kindness of strangers. He got her name and remembered her when they later crossed paths as students at the University of Alberta a few months later, and the rest as they say is history. They fell in love, got married and had little old me. To say that I am the son of two worlds would be the understatement of the century, I guess. I'm Afro-Caribbean and Aboriginal, definitely a combination you don't see every day. That's me, baby. Born and bred in the most redneck part of Canada.

What if I told you that I am even more unique than you might think? Remember how in an earlier paragraph of this text I hinted that there might be more to me than meets the eye? I actually meant it, ladies and gentlemen. Can you guess what I am? To Native Americans, Aboriginals and First Nations people, my kind are Skin Walkers. To the rest of the world, we're known by a moniker of ill-repute. Werewolves. I bet you that word caught your attention, eh? So much has been said and written about werewolves in recent times. Just about every chick who's ever read a Twilight novel considers herself an expert on all things supernatural. Thank God that's not true!

Let me separate myth from fact as much as I can, please. In order to create a wolf-person, you need a werewolf daddy and a werewolf mommy. Humans cannot become werewolves and werewolves cannot become human. We're two completely different species, even though we look a lot alike. By the way, it's not the light of the moon that transforms my people into wolf-like monstrosities. We are what we are pretty much 24/7. When we get really riled up, our eyes turn bright red, our teeth elongate and sharpen, becoming wicked-looking fangs and our fingernails turn into claws. Our bodies rapidly sprout hair, far more hair than any mere mortal has any business having, but that's about it. We don't become wolves or anything like that. The hairy, red-eyed, sharp-fanged and clawed persona dwells within each and every last one of us.

My people aren't monsters, just to make that clear. We're people just like you. Among us you'll find black and white, conservative and liberal, straight, bisexual, lesbian and gay, religious and atheist. Same as what you'll find within the general population. Worldwide there are perhaps eight hundred thousand of us, scattered across the planet. Do not be alarmed by these statistics because, like I said, we mean you no harm. My people have been around far longer than humanity. We've been hiding amongst you for untold millennia. We're discrete, and we cremate our dead as to not leave any traces of our existence. Oh, and we have a spoken and written language that all of our people instinctively understand but which even the best human ethno-linguistic experts would be hard-pressed to decipher.

I love my people, but sometimes they get on my nerves. Take my cousin Asher for example. On the surface, we have a lot in common. He's the biracial son of my uncle Alexander Tzulahem, my mother's twin brother. His mother Bethlehem is originally from the Republic of Ethiopia. What are the odds that you'd get two mixed-race Alpha male werewolves within the same clan in the same generation? Pretty slim, I'd say. Perhaps it's because of our similarities that Asher and I have hated each other for as long as I can remember. He's always tried to outdo me, man. When I tried out for the University of Alberta football team, he got mad that he didn't make the cut. So he joined the men's basketball team. In spite of his prowess, the team is lackluster and he blamed me for his woes. Things got even worse when we both vied for the attentions of the same lady...

The lady in question is none other than Elisabeth Pegamagabow. You should have seen her, man. Five feet eleven inches tall, curvy and absolutely hot with her long curly black hair, amber eyes and bronze skin. Her father Thomas Pegamagabow is an Aboriginal wolf-man from southwestern Alberta and her mother Kristin O'Bannon is a wolf-woman originally from the City of Galway, Ireland. This rare gem was studying criminology at the University of Alberta when she caught my eye.

Like any normal man who sees a truly beautiful woman, I went after her like a shark smelling blood. Unfortunately, so did Asher. In our culture, it's the women who pick the men and not the other way around. I'm sad to say that Elisabeth chose Asher over me, and by winning over an Alpha female like her, he raised himself in the eyes of our clan. That's why they chose him to be the next Alpha even though my mother is of royal blood and I should have been the one chosen. Yeah, Asher took everything away from me. In disgrace I left behind my native Alberta and everything meaningful to me.

I left Calgary on my motorcycle in the summer of 2012, and I wandered across Canada. Somehow, I made my way to Ottawa, Ontario. I had a lot of misadventures along the way. Someday I'll tell you about them. I came to Ottawa, leaving behind my family, my friends and my entire clan. It was my first time in the Capital region. I've been to the Prairies, the Yukon and even the Arctic but never the Capital. Honestly, I don't know whose idea it was to make Ottawa the Capital when Toronto would fill that function all too easily. Ottawa is the town that fun forgot, but don't quote me on that. People around here are so weird it's not even funny.

Anyhow, I enrolled at Carleton University to continue my studies in accounting since that's my major. I sensed very few of my kind among the student body. Imagine my surprise when the first werewolf I ran into turned out to be Yasmeen Ibrahim, a tall, dark-skinned Somali gal in a long skirt and hijab. She's a business student and one of us, apparently. I'd certainly never met werewolves from the Muslim world but I know they exist. My people are found in desert, jungle and frozen tundra as well as every major city you can think of. I got to be honest with you, I hated Ottawa the moment I set foot there but after a while, I got used to it. I even grew to like the place, and that's mainly due to the friends I made at Carleton University.

Yeah, Yasmeen was the first of many friends I'd make at school. Through her I met Sergei, a burly red-haired Russian guy who loves American football and doesn't touch beer because he's a born-again Christian. Oh, and he's also a wolf-man. For the most part werewolves don't subscribe to human religions. Now, don't misunderstand me. My people are very spiritual, we're just not very religious. We know that God is real and that there is a deep, undeniable power at work out there but we don't feel the need to create a religion for it.

We know our place in the universe, and we respect the laws of nature. It is mankind that doesn't know its place in the grand scheme of things. if you ask me, although the majority of humans on this planet believe in the One True God of the Abrahamic faiths ( Judaism, Christianity and Islam ), they don't seem to live by the principles said deity dictated to them. You can tell by how they treat each other, from Boston to Baghdad, from Port-Au-Prince to Vienna, from Tokyo to Melbourne, from Johannesburg to Bogota.

Anyhow, I was just starting to get used to my new digs in Ottawa when trouble walked into my life. Again. I was doing good in school, I got myself a job working security on weekends and I got an apartment in the east end. Yeah, life was good. My tranquility ended the day I met Kali Adewale, a tall, curvy young Black woman of Nigerian descent. She transferred to Carleton from Toronto's Seneca College, and her arrival took the campus by storm. A six-foot-tall black woman with a curvy body, gorgeous face and killer booty attracts attention everywhere, including lame-ass Ottawa.

Now, I've never really been into black chicks because, well, they've never been into me. I had certainly never met a wolf-woman of African descent, other than the women from my father's side of the family. There are a lot of werewolves in the Caribbean but the ones who live in Canada tend to stick to Ontario and Quebec. They're rare in Alberta, where I grew up. I've dated Asian women, Aboriginal women, white women and Hispanic women. Black chicks have never shown much interest in me and I guess the feeling was mutual. Until I saw Kali Adewale. Still, something about this gal rendered me speechless. I looked at her, strutting her stuff while walking through the university center and I couldn't help but smile. The smell of her told me that she was a female of my species, and my eyes told me she was gorgeous. Like any red-blooded male, I wanted some of that, as they say.

That's why I approached her in the atrium, doing my best to look cool and nonchalant. She sensed me coming, of course. Us wolf-people have sharp senses. Yeah, we can smell each other across great distances, we can also hear the proverbial pin drop. She looked coyly at me but I could hear her heart beating like thunder. Wolf-person's super hearing, you see. I smiled and introduced myself, and when she shook my outstretched hand, I could feel chemistry between us. Literally. This woman had Alpha bitch written all over her. I looked into her eyes and saw someone wild, daring and fearless just like me. Like attracts like, I guess. She was heading to the gym to work out and since I wasn't doing much, I accompanied her. I wanted to see that tight body of hers in action, and she didn't disappoint. That's how it all began, ladies and gentlemen.