Frank the Phrenologist and the Fabulous Wolf Woman

 

Frank avoids people. For him, it’s enough to speak into the loneliness pretending the echoes belong to someone. The quiet in his cluttered apartment sounds like something; I’m just not sure what – the silence between songs on a vinyl record? The hush between previews at a movie theater?  

 

Frank’s appearance can be described in a word – shabby. He wears darkening sunglasses and worn through shoes. Frank is this big: a bear. And he’s never seen without a tatty translation of Franz Joseph Gall’s The Anatomy and physiology of the Nervous System in General and of the Brain in Particular. 

 

Frank wears hats.

 

The remarkable thing about Frank is this: he has the ability to comprehend a person’s character by the prominences and protuberances on their head.  For Frank, to look at you is to know you. 

 

According to Franz Joseph Gall, a bump on the forehead is indicative of wit. Ridges around the temples bear the unmistakable mark of someone with the tendency for affection. And the mole-like knob on your cheek is sign of perversion. At a glance, Frank knows you’re an ironically kind pervert.

 

Unintentionally, Frank maps the hills and dales on the skulls of strangers. The prudish lady at the bank has dimples above her eyebrows, signs of a carnivorous instinct, the propensity for murder. The children’s crossing guard has the telltale bulges below his eye sockets of an elevated spiritual temperament; Frank hates religious people. The knobby nose of the gas station attendant discloses a prodigious linguistic ability, a man who talks too much.   

 

I’m sure you can appreciate why people feel uncomfortable around Frank. And why Frank avoids face to face meetings.

 

If not for love and alcohol, Frank’s phrenology would be the most intriguing aspect of this tale. But it’s not. In a rare visit to The Winking Lizard, a local bar, Frank meets Dottie. She’s wearing an ankle-length, hip hugging, gray dress and black gloves which run the length of her sturdy arms. A black scarf envelops her entire head and face, save for the slit through which her blue eyes flirt. 

 

Dottie’s mystery teases and Frank climbs into her eyes. She drinks a vodka gimlet. He drinks bourbon. She’s mustering courage. He’s trying to relax. Eventually, they stumble to his apartment. 

 

Frank undresses, anticipating the sudden knowledge of Dottie once the scarf is removed. Yet, Dottie does not undress.

 

“There’s something you should know,” she whispers through the black head wrap.

 

They stare at each other, one nude, one not. 

 

“I’m ‘THE FABULOUS WOLF WOMAN’ at Ringling Brothers circus.” 

 

Frank isn’t sure how to respond. 

 

“Wolf woman?”

 

Dottie shoulders out of her cotton dress, fingers off the gloves, and un-wraps the black wrap around her head. She stands naked in the bluish light blinking through the window – every inch of her body covered with hair.

 

Sheepishly, Dottie says, “Hypertrichosis.” 

 

Another room in Frank’s brain opens. For the first time in his life, he’s unable to immediately read someone – she’s covered in hair.

 

Unsure if it’s the alcohol or curiosity, Frank moves toward Dottie “THE FABULOUS WOLF WOMAN,” aroused.          

 

Her legs, they go on forever exploding in the sweetest flower Frank ever plucked. She blooms. He buzzes. There are stings and honey all evening. After, they sleep.

 

Frank wakes to the nickel-shimmer of a full moon on the wet street outside. It looks like aluminum foil crumpled and then smoothed with a thumbnail. Frank rolls over and stares at the hirsute face of his mistress thinking, “Perhaps there’s a chance for a normal relationship after all.”

 

Outside, a yard dog barks at the moon.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

I might offer a third option for the sentence the prior reviewer found problematic:

...Frank moves toward Dottie--The Fabulous Wolf Woman!-- aroused.

Personally, I like keeping her circus handle in there; it keeps with the off-kilter nature of the piece.

The whole piece is off-kilter,indeed, but in a winning, winsome manner. It's just outside the range of normal--it's built around phrenology and a Wolf Woman, after all--but it doesn't venture into the wildly implausible, which, combined with the matter-of-factness of tone throughout the piece, is much of the piece's strength. It's nicely built, wonderfully wry, and could easily be built into something larger--not that it needs to make any apologies as it stands.

[Twilight]

What a curious write? I did enjoy reading it, and can understand why you chose to submit this piece of work in my Contest. Well, the basic idea is good, but certainly needs a longer story and more background details to add a little believability. Extra details about the time and location would have helped here, perhaps?

Maybe this one deserves credit, for sheer originality and bizarre ideas?

Overall, I would have liked a more gradual build-up to the creepy ending. Plus, some more conventional paragraphs? In contrast, some of this is just single sentences seperated from one another. Well, thanks for entering it in my Contest!

[Emily B]

My mind wanders a half dozen different directions as I read this. . . perhaps I'll try to round the stray thoughts up, contain them a little and pin them down here for you to read. Perhaps, later.

This is an amazing story. I love the way it ends with these lines: "Perhaps there's a chance for a normal relationship after all." Outside, a yard dog barks at the moon.

[cloister]

Nice. Very different and unusual. The writing is generally very solid; there are little bumps here and there (no pun intended) that could be smoothed out, but by and large it's a well crafted piece.

I'm not sure about the choice to have an explicit narrator. That is, the story reads like listening to someone _tell_ us about Frank. I can tell it's a conscious style choice you have made, but I'm on the fence as to whether it really works as a narrative device, or whether in the balance it detracts from the ability to get to know Frank.

One thing is for certain, though: having an explicit narrator does make the story feel like a summary of a lengthier tale, rather than a tale in its own right. The narrator tells us about Frank in terms of general, timeless qualities, rather than by means of scenes and events that show us those qualities. It is natural, in the sense that the narrator directly addresses the reader now and then, and this is the way actual people describe other people. But there's no getting around the fact that it does present a rather distanced portrait of the characters.

On specific editorial notes, this sentence didn't quite work for me:

> Unsure if it's the alcohol or curiosity, Frank moves toward Dottie "THE FABULOUS WOLF WOMAN," aroused.

The reason is because you've already established her show title. You don't need to repeat it again in the same way. Just say "Dottie", or just use the title, but not in its title form:

> Unsure if it's the alcohol or curiosity, Frank moves toward Dottie, aroused.

or:

> Unsure if it's the alcohol or curiosity, Frank moves toward the fabulous wolf woman, aroused.

One or the other, but not both. Anyway, nice job overall. I wish it were longer, though. Re-writing to remove the explicit narrator (and thus, force yourself to show more than you tell), will not only add length but also depth.