My name is Tyrone Jarrod Fraser. Friends call me T.J. I'm a big black man living in Iowa. At twenty three years of age, I stand six feet two inches tall and I weigh two hundred and eighty pounds. I've always been a big guy. These days, I work as a truck driver for Samson & Dale, a Trucking Company. The pay is alright and I get to travel a lot, which is what I like. Just give me a truck, the open road and a radio blaring Rap music and I'm happy. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. If you ask me, life is much better this way.
I've had lots of jobs over the years. A lot of people assume that just because you're a truck driver, you must be undereducated or something. Yeah, they think we truck men are dumb. That's not the case. I know plenty of intelligent and interesting men in the trucking business. The stories they have to share are nothing short of amazing. They have really led interesting lives. The men in my crew are my brothers. We're all there for each other. Don't disrespect my brothers. I could go all college man on your ass and drag you to court. I've got a bachelors degree in business administration from the Iowa Institute of Technology. I attended Iowa Tech from 2003 to 2007. Iowa Tech is a small private school with nine thousand students. The school has a focus on engineering, computing and overall technical education. It also has excellent programs in business. I majored in business and lived on the Des Moines campus.
I liked my life at Iowa Tech. I enrolled there, having left my native Boston behind, never to come back. What did I leave behind in Boston? You don't want to know. Oh, well. Since I opened this can of worms, I might as well tell you. I'm not exactly the most normal person you'll ever meet. Nah, in fact, in many ways, I'm not a person at all. I'm a Wolfman. The world is full of Wolfmen and Wolfwomen. How many of us are there? I'd say hundreds of thousands. We're an ancient breed of creatures who existed long before humans evolved. Many people call us Werewolves or Lycanthropes. We've always hidden in plain sight. We don't turn into wolf-like creatures when the full moon comes. Nah, we're just what we are. Our glorious selves, all the time. We're stronger and faster than humans. Also, our senses are sharper. We don't get sick. Our ability to regenerate quickly makes us almost impossible to kill. We can grow back any lost or damaged body part except the head. And we can live well over a thousand years if we're lucky enough not to get killed. Both my parents are werewolves. Like many of our kind, we lived in plain sight of everyday humanity and led ordinary lives.
I left the city of Boston because my parents and I didn't get along. They cling to the old ways of our kind. I wanted to lead a normal life. A lot of our people believe in the Old Ways. They like to return to the wilderness at least once a month, and hunt animals using nothing but their natural weapons. When you're ten times stronger and five times faster than the average human being, you don't need a weapon to bring down a caribou or even a mountain lion. Hunting is both a sport and a spiritual experience for most of my people. Entire families go on frequent hunting trips all over the world. Yeah, we're everywhere. We're cops, firefighters, lawyers, corrections officers, doctors, politicians, and even gangsters. You name it, you are it.
Our society is quite strict about its traditions. Wolfman Society is divided into Packs. A Pack has an Alpha Male and an Alpha Female. The other members of the Packs owe allegiance and obedience to the Alpha Couple. Those who disobey are reprimanded quite harshly. A Pack can include hundreds of members. Groups of families, basically. There are hundreds of Packs in North America. All the Packs answer to the Supreme Council, made up of the wisest members of our community. It's not a democracy. The men and women who seat on the Supreme Council wield god-like power over the rest of us. They can do anything they want. They have all the power. I don't like this arrangement. Neither do most of my people.
My father, Geraldo Fraser is a tall, large black man who's a pillar of the community in Boston, where I grew up. He's a Supreme Court Judge. My mother, Helena Campbell Fraser, is a community college professor and a retired policewoman. I have an older brother named Jonas. He's a student at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. My older sister Kyriana is a firefighter in Boston. My parents are the Alpha Couple of Harokh Pack, which includes hundreds of Wolfmen and Wolfwomen from the city of Boston and surrounding communities. We're the First Family, so to speak. Harokh Pack is one of the oldest and most numerous Packs in the community. Our name is respected. My grandmother, Janice Fraser, once sat on the Supreme Council. A long time ago. Isn't that something? The Harokh Pack is currently at war with the Ghrull Pack. The Ghrull Pack is a treacherous and vicious bunch. They're based mostly in Rhode Island. Their Alpha Male is Luther Hartsfield, a captain with the Rhode Island State Police. His wife, Rhode Island Junior Senator Michelle Quincy Hartsfield is the Alpha Female of Ghrull Pack and a very vicious bitch. Word is she had her own daughter killed for disobedience. That's messed up.
The Ghrull Pack has grown more numerous in the past decade, and they want to expand their territory. They're all over the place. I knew what was going on, but I've never much cared for Pack politics. My father had brought back the Patrol, a group of Wolfmen and Wolfwomen whose duty it was to defend our territory from the incursions of the Ghrull Pack. He wanted me to enroll in it. I've never cared much for war. My siblings Jonas and Kyriana are the scrappers in the family. As you can imagine, my father wasn't pleased. He wanted me to join the Patrol. When I graduated from Kelling Miliary Academy, an all-male college preparatory school, I surprised the entire family with two revelations. One was that my longtime friend and former classmate Patrick Hamilton was really my boyfriend, and two, I was leaving the state...and the Pack. As you can imagine, that didn't sit too well with my parents.
I moved out of the Milton mansion where we lived, and into a two-bedroom apartment in Dorchester. It was all that Patrick and I could afford. Well, until school began. I didn't want to think about it much. In September, Patrick would begin taking classes at Bridgewater State College. I had gotten accepted to Iowa Tech on a Basketball scholarship. But I couldn't move there until late August of Summer 2003. What was I to do until then? Patrick and I moved in together. I thought it was all so adventurous. Also, I loved Patrick. It was hard not to. He was so beautiful. A six-foot-tall, slim and sexy, red-haired and green-eyed Irishman. He was so fine, witty and funny. A great boyfriend. We had a passionate relationship. My parents frowned on my being such close friends with a human. If they only knew. Patrick was human, yeah, but he was also the man I loved. Our time spent together that summer was wonderful. Oh, we had to work hard to pay the seven-hundred-dollar-a-month rent. I worked for a delivery service. Patrick worked at an Irish restaurant in the South End. We were living hard but it was nice. Walking through Boston Common while holding hands with him was wonderful. We kissed, and paraded around the city, without caring who stared at us. Yes, I loved him. He showed me what love was. Patrick was the first guy I'd ever been with. I fondly remember our best moments together.
We met during my senior year. Back then, I was the Basketball team captain at Kelling Military Academy. Patrick wasn't a jock. He was an artist and a musician. He was also the sexiest guy I'd ever seen. He was openly gay at a school which wasn't known for its tolerance of gays and bisexuals. I didn't know what to make of my feelings for him. I mean, I was scared. I didn't want to think of myself as possibly gay or bisexual. My parents simply wouldn't understand. Being a Wolfman was tough enough. Spending every moment of every day being careful because blowing your cover might be the end for you. In the community, there are time-honored and unchangeable rules. Any Wolfman or Wolfwoman who reveals themselves to a human and lets that human live gets killed. End of story. It doesn't matter who you are or what your social status is. No exceptions. Being a gay or bisexual Wolfman in a relationship with a gay human male was inconceivable for most of my people. They wouldn't have known how to deal with me. I might as well be a Martian.
When we began seeing each other, it was all done in secret. Patrick came to all my Basketball games. At school, people knew we were friends but that's about it. On Saturday mornings, we'd meet at the Milton Public Library or head into Boston to catch a movie or chill at Copley Mall. Patrick was charming and intelligent. There were times when I really wished I could share myself with him. Let him know who and what I was. Unfortunately, that would have been akin to signing his death warrant. I wasn't that cruel or unrealistic. Besides, what if he freaked out when I told him? I couldn't take the chance. He introduced me to his parents, Joel and Marguerite Hamilton. His mother was an engineer and his father was a social worker. They lived in a nice house in West Milton. He had two older brothers, Stan and Samuel, who were both in college. His folks loved him. They were okay with him being gay. Hell, they were even comfortable with me and him chilling in his bedroom with the door closed. We would make out endlessly. And nobody bugged us about him. Patrick led a fun life. He didn't compromise for anyone. He had to be himself, twenty four seven. I envied him sometimes. Our very tender first time took place in his bedroom, when his parents were away for the weekend. I told my parents I was staying with my teammate Josh, and they actually bought it. I had Josh cover for me by telling him I was spending the weekend with some female whom I liked. Josh was cool. If he only knew what I was really up to. No matter. Patrick and I had the house, and the weekend, to ourselves.