M.C. Hammerhead

Imagine meeting the love of your life. He's perfect. He's charming. He has great eyes, strong hands and is as gentle and loving as he is kind and strong. That's my husband! Bruce . Did you know the name Bruce means “ Be like water.” Well, okay, he was named after Bruce Lee . And he's about as dreamy as Bruce Lee was. In the daytime that is. He works all day with his huge group of buddies, as a marine biologist . He is what you would call a social butterfly, with fins instead of wings. . Does not know a stranger. And works until evening. He comes home and we eat . Every day we have to keep a very structured schedule. We have to have an alibi. It is not always easy but I married him for better or for worse. He also works part time as an Emcee . Hosting parties, wedding, birthdays , MMA, and wrestling events. But they have to be events that don't require him to stay too late. See my husband is wonderful. But he has a flaw. He leaves teeth. Shark teeth. Because that is what he is. And the longer he is left in his hunter mindset, the more he progresses to his spirit animal, the Hammerhead Shark.

People think it is just a joke. They have only witnessed his head changing and don't know it is real. They think it is a head costume. And he actually has a huge shark head that he puts over his , just so no one touches him. So far it has only ever been an above the neck issue. I ve never let it get any further. I drive a Ford pick up with a tank hidden under the cover for the truck bed. Luckily we got a house by the ocean and he is able to go out at night, alone and hunt. I have to wait for early morning before I find him laying on the beach. Our few neighbors are convinced he is just an alcoholic. I told them it is PTSD . I didn't really lie . Part Time Shark Diet . Well, but he's been under some stress and when he has started to turn, he carries his goofy shark head to cover his real one. Most of the time the lights are down wherever he is or no one is really paying him attention enough to notice. A few times though, people came to him to ask him to play a certain song or to turn the disco light on for the kids, and he was already growing rows of teeth. He snapped but no one got bit and they just laughed. Oh, if they only knew. He especially hated request for the song “ Baby Shark" and sometimes would follow it up with Jaws theme song. He's lost a few gigs due to that.

So, it finally happened. He finally made the full turn and it was terrifying. Now we're in hiding. It happened during his wrestling event. He used to wrestle back in his day, as a human, and a shark. Many of his family, who were sharks, had their fins cut off and thrown back into the water where they were eaten by bigger predators or died soon afterwards. And his land family tried to save them when they could. He was one of the few who could be saved and lived in both worlds. A man who he had wrestled in the water, was a wrestler in the ring. “ Wade the Wrestler “ Bruce was cool at first. Announcing the stage names, where they were from and their weight, he forgot to mention that Wade was a returning champion. Wade marched straight to him , grabbed his mic and started telling him to announce him correctly or he'd throw him to the sharks . Oh. No. I got up and went to start the truck. By the time I made it back towards the building , people were running out, screaming. I ran in to find my husband with his first fatality. The first fatality in hundreds of years by a Hammerhead shark. And there he was, fully sharked out. How would I get him to the truck? The police will be here. They will take me. They will kill him. I ran to him. His eyes just looking up at me so sad. He knew. Even though he was at this moment, a killer shark. He knew. I picked up his teeth. And I rolled him off the mat. The only people left in the building were a few of the wrestlers. Our of nowhere, they picked him up and covered him, running him to my truck. They got him in the water and I took the back road to our home at the beach. We couldn't stay. I had to grab what I could and go. I had to stay with him. Until morning. And he would be back to himself.

I took all of ten minutes and left. I could hear sirens on my way out of town. Luckily I switched our plates and put the huge custom made truck decal over it so it looked to be a different color. I had my wig on and our dog, Titan. We will make it . I stopped at the store to get a few snacks and to get gas. I had been driving two hours now. It was nearly midnight. As I opened my purse, shark teeth came out. “ I'm sorry ma’am but we take cash or card “, the elderly man joked. Was he joking I wondered. I ran out and stepped on something. A shark tooth. I looked back and the old man was smiling. Into the night I drove. Out of state. And I changed our plate again. I had to get to his family's house by the sea . Finally the sun was coming up. I had fed my husband in the night. For the first time it was not enjoyable. We made it to his family's house and they ran out to greet me and move him in the huge, underground pool that they kept hidden with a ten foot gate and guard dogs. It was nearly time for sunrise. I sat there watching him. Waiting. Thinking about our time together. All of our years together. And I knew. The sun came up . He was not going to come back to me. He was not changing back into the man I loved. We had to decide to set him free in the ocean. So with his 4 cousins and his uncle, he was carried and placed in the Atlantic. I knelt down and kissed his head. I cried on him. He was gone.

The longest day of my life. And I didn't feel so well either. For once the smell of fish made me ill. It was just the being sick for the love of my life. And I was sick for days. I stayed there for 2 days, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. The smell making me sick. I knew I had to leave and I couldn't take our old truck. It would be destroyed. Instead I was given a little work car. It felt so strange driving something so lightweight. I said goodbye to his family and I left a letter for him, should he ever return in either form. It could even be read to him. I had such a headache and some very strange cravings started taking one while I was driving. I hate shrimp but I had to have it. I decided to stop and buy some at a supermarket. While I was there, I passed the feminine hygiene aisle and I spotted one pregnancy test. One. Staring back at me. I bought it and went down the road to a hotel . I checked in and got to my room fast as possible. I went inside and took a deep breath. I followed the directions and waited a moment before looking. “ No fishing way", I said out loud. I was pregnant. I was pregnant with my Hammerhead husband’s baby. I wanted to tell him so bad. I wanted to tell his family. I had no one I could tell. And I didn't even know what I was actually having. A baby. A baby that would rip me open with teeth. I had no idea. I sat up, nervous and excited. I loved it already, no matter what it was. It was a part of me so by my calculations, it would be a quarter Hammerhead. Is this not the craziest thing you've heard?

I knew I would need to be near water. I needed a home by the ocean. As I got bigger in the coming weeks and felt flip flops in my stomach, I became excited but tried to remain calm. I found a tiny home and I used the savings I’d had to purchase it. I lived in Maine now. Miles away from his family. I did write them. I drove to another state just to mail it. I let them know in our own secret language that I was a walking aquarium. Months later, my water broke. I was alone. I was in pain. I went over the rocks to the part of the water no one would see me. And there I have birth. To a normal looking baby. Except his beautiful crystal blue eyes, he looked human. I sat and fed him. And our tiny secret life began. We had scares. He cut some teeth that were very sharp. They fell out and he cut some again. He had great vision . He loved seafood and I couldn't hardly get him to eat anything else. After 5 years, he was about to start school. Bruce's family showed up. I was so grateful to see them and wondered how they found me. They fellin love with Jonah instantly. They were so excited. And so was I They were such a big help with giving advice and warning signals as to what to watch for with Jonah, even though he was only a quarter shark, he still had some traits . That evening Bruce's aunt Athens handed me something. A letter. I couldn't believe it. It was from my husband. He was alive. He was coming to see me. To meet his son. He would be here at the seashore tomorrow. He learnt how to control his own body and decide when to change. That is where he went. He always planned on coming back to me.

The next morning, Jonah sensed something. Titan was old but stood by Jonah, watching. I looked out and seen the waves. We went outside towards the ocean. Jonah had his tiny plastic fishing pole. “ Mommy, I got something!”, he yelled. And out of the water came the most beautiful man I’d ever seen and I was not talking about Jason Mamoa. Sorry ladies. It was my husband. And he locked eyes with our son and then came to me and kissed me. I don't know how long we stood there until his family came around us . But I didn't want to ever let go. And now I never had to. All we had to do was leave our country. Go live on an island where there are others like him, and other kids like Jonah. It was like the day I was marrying him all over again. He sensed that and when he got down on bended knee again and asked if I would be his wife for one more lifetime, all I could do was scream “Yes.”