WAITING FOR OCTOBER S1 – E8.5 – “Karo”
by D.J. Sylvis
ANNOUNCER: There is a world – one of many that touches ours – known as October. One of the archetypes; one of the realities that is a source for our stories. It is not difficult to reach, if you know the way – you can experience their wildness for yourself, adventure there, and live, and love. But be wary – perhaps more than any other existence, here there be monsters …
Note – there may be advertisements inserted at this point in the episode.
SCENE ONE
SOUND: Suburb street, evening – pretty quiet (ongoing)
SOUND: A door opens; a bit of faint music from inside
KARO
(a little bit distant, as if we’re listening from the street)
I’m just gonna walk around the neighbourhood. When you’ve got your stuff together, we’ll cross back over and catch up with Hodag.
(listening to Yvonne)
I’m not using “the” unless I hear him say it.
(after a moment)
Back in a bit, love.
SOUND: The door closes and the music disappears
SOUND: Footsteps across the porch and down the front steps
KARO
Last time I’ll see this view for a good while. It still feels weird when the moon’s down.
SOUND: After a moment, we hear soft cat footsteps and a small meow
KARO
Hey there, little pal. Hi. Okay, you can have scritches.
SOUND: A quiet purr
KARO
You look a lot like another cat I met. He could talk, though. You can’t talk, can you?
SOUND: A confused mrrrrow
KARO
That’s okay. Listening is good, too. No, don’t eat that cigarette butt. Let it be, and I’ll … tell you a story. That’s apparently what I do now, and since you’re a professional at listening … here, we’ll sit on the curb together.
(brief pause, they groan a little and settle in)
So there’s no way for you to know about this, but there’s a whole other world out there. A bunch of them, apparently, but one in particular. A world full of monsters. You might not know what monsters are either, but just think of people but a lot more shapes and sizes and skin types and … limbs that you haven’t seen before. A whole world made for monsters.
(brief pause)
I grew up in that world. I didn’t see as much of it back then; I went to a pretty strict school and my parents were … it’s weird, I don’t remember them individually. I only remember them together, at the table or in the doorway of my room, telling me what I could and couldn’t do, what I could and couldn’t talk about, where I couldn’t go. A lot of where I couldn’t go. Which made it even funnier when they were the ones to disappear.
SOUND: A little bit of a meow
KARO
Not “funny,” funny. But I guess that was, “Do as I say, not as I do.” I went to the Council – I went to my teachers, who worked for the Council – and nobody seemed to care. Just another thing I couldn’t talk about.
(brief pause)
I think they wanted me to run away. Not my parents – I don’t know about my parents – but after, for the Council, I think I was just a loose end. It was only a few days later, and they changed the locks, left my stuff out in a gym bag beside the trash. The teachers wouldn’t meet my eyes anymore in the halls at school, wouldn’t call on me in class. It must have been such a relief for everyone when I disappeared too.
(after a moment)
That kinda happened in stages. I finished the school year – less questions that way, even if I had to sleep behind the store, or under a bridge. I got in a lot of fights. Sometimes I was on the move from dusk to dawn, just to keep my ass intact.
(they laugh)
One time, I punched a golem so hard I dislocated my shoulder! Kinda hard to explain at the clinic. If you ever meet Yvonne, don’t tell her about that.
SOUND: A little squeak and a purr
KARO
Exactly. That was when I scraped together enough ticket money and left to find the Lindworm. I don’t know why I got the idea in my head – they taught us about the Fundamentals mostly as a caution. I was feeling – wild, I guess, and I needed to get out of town. It seemed like the best place to be. I wasn’t expecting a forest glade complete with poetry and warrigals lying down with the lambs … Now it might be the best thing for me, but at the time I didn’t really fit in. I didn’t really understand – it wasn’t easy to understand the Lindworm, though I found out what a villanelle is. But it wasn’t what I was expecting and I was restless and I decided, fuck this world, let’s see what’s in the other one.
SOUND: They get up and pace back and forth a little bit
KARO
I’m not going anywhere. This is just something I do. You stay comfy.
(brief pause)
The crossing I used isn’t there anymore – even the cryptids have left Florida by this point. Betty Mae – they called her Skunk Ape, completely unfair, she guarded it back then. She was so nice, she had a care package and this photocopied sheet of advice for this side and she pointed me to this halfway house that used to be just outside of Jacksonville. While I stayed there, Pinky – the house manager – hooked me up with the sideshow. This was during the whole revival, Jim Rose and that type – a bunch of monsters had that as their first gig. We had special skills and they weren’t picky about paperwork. My speciality was firebreathing – it’s easy enough to learn – and feats of strength.
(brief pause)
It’s not a bad deal most days; you roll out of bed at the crack of noon, step out of the trailer and you’re at work. And the kids just ate it up, it was cool and retro and rockabilly when that came back around.
(after a moment)
Well, it seemed like a good deal. The more I got to know this world, the cracks started to show. The shit they were putting on stage in between rock concerts, the shit the kids were eating up, it was all pretty toxic. White guys with tribal tattoos and dreadlocks taking advantage of anyone a step down the ladder – trans people, little people, the cultural appropriation was off the charts … I was ready to walk away but the pay was also shit, and I was starting from nothing. And then they fired me anyway, at a truck stop in West Virginia. “You’ve been putting on the pounds, Karo. They aren’t gonna watch if they don’t want to fuck you.”
SOUND: The cat makes a dissatisfied mrrowr
KARO
Right? Assholes. Good thing I knew how to find Enoch, they left me with basically a toothbrush and pocket money.
(they sigh)
It was a long walk before I found him. He thought I just wanted to go back; the guards see plenty of monsters who tried life on this side and are just done. But when I told him my whole situation … his family wouldn’t let me leave.
(after a pause)
That was my second fall; I spent most of the winter sitting beside their fire and thinking. And the next spring and summer, though I moved out to the front porch, and I did my share of the chores. And then another year after that, just because I felt a part of something. They were good to me. But I got restless again. If you knew me, Mr. Cat, you’d know I can’t let myself be satisfied.
SOUND: They pace a bit more before continuing
KARO
Two things I did have before I set out again – a bank account and a better understanding of people. I worked my way from place to place – loading trucks in Morgantown, picking up trash in the Allegheny National Forest, warehouse work, farm work. If the folks were good and didn’t ask questions, I stuck around. I rented apartments, I started having stuff.
SOUND: Karo leans down and pets the cat; a satisfied purr
KARO
You probably don’t have much stuff, do you? I lost myself for a long time in books, comics, movies, action figures … god, the Internet … so many ways of telling stories, so oblivious to the worlds they’ve created. I’m still bowled over by the way it works here.
(after a pause)
A decade passed and I didn’t even notice. I’d settled in. I’d visit Enoch and the family for holidays, even took a couple of trips back to October, though I avoided any of my old places. Mostly, I kept an eye on the crossing when he had to run errands.
(a longer pause, their voice softens)
It was the visits that started to get to me. Both kinds – seeing him and his family, and seeing October. I was getting restless again, but it was a deeper kind of restless – restless for someone, someone to share that kind of life. Someone I could take back and show, this is who I am, this is where I start from.
(they cough)
It’s getting chilly out here. Not all of us can grow gorgeous fur coats! That I know of. I ought to get back inside; Vonnie’s got to be packed by now. Anyway, the rest of the story is kinda obvious – I found that someone, it took a while to be sure she was right and I was right with her, but I found her and I showed her and it all went …
(awkward pause)
It all went sideways from there, to tell the truth. It’s awkward and complicated as hell right now. I don’t know how it’s gonna work out. Not exactly a fairy tale ending, but that’s not the world I’m from.
SOUND: The cat gives a little mrrrowr
KARO
I wish I could show you where I’m from, little guy. You’d probably like a monster world. And Vonnie, and the Lindworm, and Enoch … it’d blow your little mind. It’s not perfect – the wifi is slow, and there aren’t as many good pizza places, there’s the Council and a lot of bad history … every world’s got some darkness. But this is who I am. That is where I start from.
(brief pause)
Okay, I’m really going now. Lots to do on the other side. I’m not sure about this Moon thing with Hodag – I’m mostly doing that for Yvonne, one more adventure before the hard stuff kicks in. But after that there’s Grey, and Bergen, and I’m gonna track down the Endling again with some better questions this time, and we’ll see where the story goes. I know that sounds a little cliché …
(they laugh)
But I am out here talking to a cat. Have a good night, sir. Thanks for listening.
SOUND: The cat meows one more time; Karo laughs again
SOUND: We hear them walk away; after a bit we hear the door open in the distance and a bit of music before it closes again
SOUND: The cat licks himself and starts to purr, which fades with the background
(The scene ends.)
(The episode ends.)
PRODUCERS: Thank you for listening to Waiting For October .
Our show was written by D.J. Sylvis, with sound design by Caroline Mincks, and music by Trace Callahan. This episode featured Robin Regalado as Karo.
Our co-producers are D.J. Sylvis, Tina Case, and Sarah Müller. Our associate producers are Fool & Scholar Productions, Kathleen Lucas, Marcus Briggs, Martin Chodorek, Rebekah B.
A special thanks to our Patreon supporters who have helped make all of our stories happen! If you’d like to support our work or celebrate the folks who make it happen visit our Patreon at patreon.com(backslash)monkeymanproductions
Today our Crowdfundr shoutout is to Snickerdoodle. Thank you for your support!
And here we are, at the very end of Season One! It’s been quite an adventure, and I want to thank you so much for listening. Everything about this show has been a really personal, very emotional journey for so many of us involved, and we can’t wait to see where it takes us next. After all, remember – we write the story, it doesn’t write us!
Our next steps will be working on the first between-seasons miniseries – which as you’ve heard, might involve the Moon – and then starting to plot out Season Two. But while we’re taking a bit of a well-earned break and then diving in on that, we could use your help too! Your support of the show and participation in our community is just as important. When you share the show with friends, recommend or rate us on social media or your podcast app or places like Podchaser … when you join our Patreon or buy our merch … all of that is incredibly, vitally important and it means the world – all the worlds, really – to us when you do it. So another thank you for that to everyone who participates!
And one last note before we say farewell for a while. It’s a really rough time in the world for so many reasons, and it’s so hard to keep it together and to find ways to keep pushing back. Please, remember that self-care and connecting with others is a big part of resistance. Be good to yourself, be good to the people around you, and know that we are with you. So much love.
Note – there may be advertisements inserted at this point in the episode.
