Deep Fur (1)
Jeff T Kane

 



Judge Keith Haberman, a lion, got the call on Friday afternoon as he feasted on a thermos full of hot Sunny-D & beans in his chambers at the Puerto Rico county courthouse on Chancy street.  The judge had jurisdiction over the small county that lay right between the borders of Nassau and Suffolk county Long Island.  He preferred Keith and didn’t have a secretary, he did his own busy work.  
	Keith’s cell phone was set to vibrate in long and short bursts like morse code and he saw that the green lit screen read “Dickless”.  It was District Attorney Nicky DuPont, Keith often suspected that Nicky fancied himself a real life counterpart to the hot shot lawyer Dylan McDermott portrayed on “The Practice” and he despised him for it.  
	“Keith?  It’s Nicky.”
	“Yeah?”
	“I have some bad news.”
	Haberman was confused by Nicky’s shaky voice, the DA may have been a jerk but he was always cool.  Nicky was like the guy in a deodorant commercial who always wore the right brand.  The only deodorant that worked for Keith was these big rock crystals he ordered from the back of “Men’s Health”.  
	“I’m sorry.”
	What?  Was his Miata in a wreck?  Keith relished the thought of Nicky’s precious Mazda wrapped around a tree off some random exit of the L.I.E. near some shitty darky town like Roosevelt or Wyandanch.
	“Get on with it Nicholas.”
	“The Einhornes are dead.”
	Haberman choked up and the Sunny-D & beans repeated on him.  He spit into a tissue that he pulled from the crystal tissue dispenser on his desk and picked up the phone again.
	
	“What’s wrong?”
	“You must be either a retard or a frickin’ droolin’ mongo.  I mean what the frick do you think is wrong?”
	Charles and Molly Einhorne had made Keith Haberman.  They had saved him from poachers in an African jungle back in 1986.  Keith remembered limping off behind a tree after one of the negro poachers had shot his back paw nearly off.  He lay on the ground as they taunted him.  The one who’d shot him was Hershey’s special dark and he wore a white “Newport” t-shirt and red Cleveland Indians cap.
	“Come out come out, good lion,” said the coon as he walked around the tree and pointed his rifle at Keith’s face.  The negro cramped up with pain as if bee stung and Keith jumped as the colored head rolled slowly off it’s shoulders and into the dust.  Charles Einhorne stood holding the chocolate body up with one hand while his left hand held his trusty quicknife dripping with darky blood.  
	The rest seemed to happen just like dominoes falling.  The Einhornes fixed his paw, took him home to Long Island, taught him to read & write, and put him through Harvard .
	“Keith?”
	“Yeah?”
	“I said you shouldn’t call me those things because I didn’t have to do this.  I really could not care less about you and your Nazi friends.”
	“Well that sounds like the colander calling the kettle nigger to me.”  Keith cracked himself up once again but the his phone had lit up and the screen read “ Dickless Call Ended 6:34”.

	Keith stopped at Shenanigan’s on the way home from the funeral.  The dark bar was filled with bright, white, bitter faced Irish men and their thick, ruddy girl friends who were probably all named Eileen or Maureen.  The men drank Guinness or Jameson’s and their pigs sipped bloody mary’s or low carb Michelobs in between shots of Jagermeister.
	Keith went straight for the jukebox in the back behind the quarter pool tables, with ripped purple cloths and mick faces leering over every corner pocket.  If any of these Irish faggots looked at him, not just funny or crooked Connelly, but at all  he’d claw their pale faces off like looseleaf sheets.  Keith looked around the bar and it hit him that most of these punks were old enough to remember what happened to Mickey Featherstone on St. Patrick’s Day of 1995.  
	Featherstone had spit a brown lugee in Keith’s Joan Didion, which was a Tom Collins with cherry Pop Rocks.  Keith went to work with his claws and before he knew it a chunk of Featherstone’s ass cheek had smacked a girl in the face as it flew across the bar.  That was years ago though and it definitely wasn’t Keith’s proudest moment especially with a Vicodin addiction to show for it.
	Keith pulled a five dollar bill out of the side pocket of his Northface “triple goose down” and fed the jukebox for the twenty five song special.  This was part of Keith’s daily wind down after work, a rock marathon with nine or ten Pabst.  Today was different and all he could think of when he punched the buttons was “E6” repeatedly, Skid Row’s “I Remember You” times twenty five. 
	The song was on it’s third run and Keith was already gone with ten Pabst.  He was trying to place the last time he’d gotten drunk and listened to “Skid Row”.  It was back in the spring of 1991 when he’d passed his bar exams with Charlie’s help.  The three of them had gone out to Hooligan’s, which used to be right on the spot where Shenanigans now stood, and they drank about forty carafes full of Sangria and played air hockey all night.
	During last call Keith and Molly danced to Skid Row’s “18 And Life...” while Charlie was going on about how Pam was the funniest character on “Martin”.
	“I can’t believe you watch that nigger shit.”
	
	Molly stopped dancing and glared at Charlie.
	“Now Keithy you know better.”
	Keith sat down as Molly motioned him over to their booth.  Charlie poured a glass of Sangria and pushed it over to Keith’s paw.  
	“What’d we tell you about that stuff?”
	“Judgmental homos!” Keith spilled his Sangria all over the table in a big red puddle which soaked Molly’s gray dress like period blood.
	“Hey KH.”
	Keith found himself snapped out of the memory by the only asshole in Puerto Rico county who referred to him as “KH”.  Nicky DuPont took a seat next to Keith and ordered a Shirley Temple and a Coors N.A., a combination which made Keith suspect that Nicky was a dry alcoholic  since it was only ex drunks that drank the virgin stuff.  
	Keith hated ex drunks for the way they always sat around and cried about how everybody else shouldn’t drink either, and the way they all became Christians, as if quitting booze made you a Saint, like gin popped the veins in your palms along with the ball of your nose.  
	Keith ignored Nicky and tried to drift back into the memory of his dead friends, The Einhornes, who he’d treated like crap.  He’d taken Charles & Molly for granted, they gave him a career, made him godfather of their son Howie, and when he saw Howie at the funeral crying by himself the best he could do was mutter, “Chin up kid,” and slip him eight hundred dollars from his money clip.
	“Killer snails, jeez.”
	“You must have read the papers DuPont,” Keith swiped Nicky’s shirley temple all over his gray Givenchy suit and knocked him off his stool with a swing of his tail.
	
	“Next time you mention snails, I’ll have a nigger throw a hot latte in your face while you’re rolling through the Donut Drive Thru on Chancy street.”
	Nicky insisted on washing up in the gamy bathroom before leaving Shenanigans.  He was a proud DuPont walking around with Shirley Temple on his jacket.  Keith tossed his money clip knocking over a cup of olives behind the bar.
	“Joan Didion’s all ‘round,” Keith pulled the bartender by the jowls, close to his jaws, and dueled the mick tongue to tongue.

	Keith went through the motions during trials.  He gave out, weak, arbitrary, sentences making him feel more like a clerk at the DMV than a county judge.  It was obvious to everyone in court since Keith had traded his black robes in favor of UV tinted yellow driving glasses, and a teal Puma tracksuit with zippered pockets, that he was grieving.  Keith hated being the cause of Nicky DuPont’s constant smile, the DA had been traipsing around the courtroom like a fairy for case after case and Keith ahd let him get away with all his lawyerly hijinks.
	Keith sat at his desk, barely pawing a cup of Sunny-D & beans.  He’d called recess in court to try and sort his head out.  They were trying back to back cases today and DuPont was prosecuting both.  
	The whiny jewish public defender , Tama Janowitz, really had her hands full.  One of the defendants was a child molester named James Bruneau and the other was a poisoner named Pat Farris, they had escaped from Sing Sing together.
	“Hey KH, can’t we finish this today?”
	Keith would have been angry that DuPont was knocking on his door during recess but Nicky was right, there was no reason to waste time when they were so backed up.  He drank down the Sunny-D & beans and walked back to the courtroom.

	Keith stood behind his bench and looked at James Bruneau.  The child molester was white, about fifty three, bald, wrinkled.  He’d lived with his mother up until prison and lost his virginity to the four year old boy he’d raped.  The rape had been particularly vicious as Keith had seen photographs of the boy’s inner ass cheek which had a large section torn out by James’s teeth.
	The other defendant, Pat Farris, was a tall cup of chocolate milk who looked like he was one of those educated black types.  This one had got his hands on a safety packaging machine for generic aspirin bottles and bought bottles wholesale online.  He coated each pill in a homemade cyanide gel he’d distilled from algae killer and repackaged them.  He put them all in the Puerto Rico county Pathmark and twenty people died all together including a pregnant woman and a two year old child who shouldn’t have been taking aspirin in the first place.
	Keith didn’t think prison would fix these men.  It was his personal belief that the criminal mind was defective from the start, it could not be rehabilitated or brought back to normal through prison routine, it was abnormal from the start.  Minds like these needed a real shock to the system, something that would force them to see the world in a more loving way.  Keith didn’t want to sentence these men, he needed to help them.

	Keith had wanted to give it a few more days but DuPont kept insisting.  He rang the Einhornes bell and flinched at first when black Pat answered the door in a black plastic Vidal Sassoon slip and Keith noticed his afro was half buzzed.
	“Welcome Mr. Haberman.”
	Keith felt like a dick intruding, it was only three days ago that he sentenced the two cons to be Howie’s new parents.  Nicky DuPont nearly had a nervous breakdown and made sure to escort him to the Einhorne place with James and Pat when they first got sentenced.
	“I’m not sure this is legal.”
	Nicky’s Miata was ugly and cramped, it smelled like sardines for some reason, and Keith was squeezed in the back seat next to pervy James while the nigger sat shotgun.
	“I am the law in this county, everything I do is legal.”
	“Whatever.”
	Pat turned the radio up real high for some rap jungle music which was probably sung by some anorexic monkey who called himself Niggy B or something.  Nicky slapped Pat’s hand off the dial and snapped the radio off.
	“Don’t touch.”
	Keith hopped out before the Miata had come to a full stop in the Einhorne’s gravel driveway.  Howie stood in pajamas by the front door.  An old woman with red hair, the next door neighbor, was standing next to Howie with her arm around him.  
	James and Pat got out of the Miata and walked over by Keith.  Nicky just stayed by the Miata and leaned on the hood while he unraveled the top of a sardine can.  Howie was crying now and he looked at Keith.
	“How can you be so stupid Uncle Haberman?”
	“You gotta start rolling with the punches Howie,” Keith made a rolling motion with his front paws.  
	James and Pat introduced themselves to Howie while Keith took the old lady aside.
	“You can go home now.”
	Keith noticed Nicky staring at the old lady as she walked away and she did have a sexy look to her, kind of like the grandmother on “Who’s The Boss?”  He walked over to the Miata and waved back at the two cons as they attended to the hysterical baby Howie as he cleaned the shotgun seat with a towel he found stuffed under Nicky’s back seat.  
	“I’ll be back to check on you guys,” Keith said as Nicky hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, “and remember , it’s time to start thinking more like a family and less like a pack of criminals.”
	“You can’t turn these sickos into soccer moms,” said Nicky as Keith slipped into the Mazda, carelessly letting a claw scrape the paint job.  Keith pulled a blue raspberry Blow Pop from his tracksuit pocket and tugged the wrapper off.
	“You’re wrong Nicholas.”
	Nicky backed out of the driveway, leaving the new family behind as Keith lowered his head a bit causing his sunglasses to slip down the bridge of his snout and looked at Nicky with naked eyes, “I’m turning these sickos into soccer cons.”
	So that was that and Keith felt he’d given this dirty pot a few days in the Palmolive dip and here he was walking into the home of the family he’d created, “the Einhornes 2”.  
	Howie sat at the dining room table snacking on white cheddar crackers.  The table was covered with brochures, red marked math tests, and failed english essays.  Keith thought Howie was a good student but the death of one’s parents, especially in adolescence, was traumatic.  Keith often felt lucky he’d been an orphan, his parents killed by poachers while he was too young to know them, he’d never had the chance to suffer Howie’s particular grief.  
	Keith knew he loved the Einhornes and they were really just like surrogate parents but it just wasn’t the same without a biological connection.
	“Hey Judge Uncle,” Keith felt Howie’s frail arms embrace his body.
	“Judge Uncle,” Keith said, “that’s a new one.”
	Keith smelled Pine-Sol and noticed that Molly’s collection of Alvin & The Chipmunks memorabilia had been freshly dusted.  He could hear some old music blaring from the ceiling.  Some guy sung about “Bad Leroy Brown” and Keith flipped through his mental Rolodex to ‘B’ but no, he’d never come across any Leroy Browns, it must have been before his time.
	“You guys keep a good house.”
	Howie and Pat rolled their eyes up to the ceiling.
	“Yeah, us guys,” said Pat with a bitter sigh.
	“What’s wrong?” said Keith.
	“It’s nothing,” said Howie, “except that things would go smoother around here if James, his case of beer, and his Jim Croce records would pitch in sometimes.”
	Pat punched the fuchsia pillow he was fluffing and placed it back on the couch.
	“He doesn’t even eat our dinners.”
	“Yeah,” said Howie, “all he eats is Doritos with Velveeta every night.”
	Keith picked up one of the ‘F’ math tests and waved it around in Howie’s face.
	“What’s the story mister?”
	Pat snatched the test away and crumpled it.
	“That’s the last one judge, I been tutoring the kid.”
	“Pat’s gonna help me make the Regis Academy.”
	Keith pretended to read the brochure carefully but he’d heard of the Regis Academy.  It was a good high school and Keith looked at Pat and Howie and couldn’t help smiling with all his teeth.

	Every Sunday for breakfast Keith and Pat would team up to make some nice morning burritos from scratch.  The burritos consisted of a homemade tortilla stuffed with:  scrambled eggs, diced ham, friend onions, cheddar cheese, ground beef, red & green peppers, bacon bits, ketchup, beans, plain yogurt, and granola.  The whole thing was deep fried in pancake syrup and served steaming with a mug of spiced Sunny-D, watered down just enough to give it that spic taste that went well with greaser food.
	Sometimes Keith would whip up a pot of  his trademark Sunny-D & beans in between setting the table in the Einhorne’s cozy breakfast nook and waiting for Pat to drag James and Howie out of bed.  Keith would sit in a blue wicker chair as Howie ran down the stairs and threw his bony arms around his fur.  Keith swiped his paw over Howie’s eyes.
	“There’s some sleep in your eyes.”
	The breakfasts were fun, Pat was a good housewife and everything was as orderly as Keith’s own small apartment behind the courthouse.  James would hobble down late and microwave his cold burrito for so long that it popped, making a tragic mess for Pat or Howie to deal with.  James wouldn’t even eat his breakfast burrito and complain that it clashed with his toothpaste.  
	A fresh cup of latte would usually warm James up and he’d become a nicer molester.  It was in one of these more pleasant moments that James had made the loveliest suggestion Keith Haberman ever heard.
	“We should throw a buffet party for whole neighborhood.”

	The dinner party hit it’s peak around seven in the evening, what Keith called “7th Inning Stretch”.  Keith had drank about nine glasses of wine and he felt tipsy.  Keith felt so tipsy that when Pat threw a Norman Greenbaum record on and the speakers blared “Spirit In The Sky” he kicked of his Reeboks and danced  in place on his tippy claws, right on top of the Norman Greenbaum record sleeve.  
	He led with a watusi and tried to picture exactly how John Travolta moved in “Michael” when he’d danced to the very same song.  Keith had a vague image of Travolta wearing angel wings and Andie McDowell hanging off his arm but the memory was blurry and he couldn’t place the dance moves so he muttered along to the words to help keep on track with something at least.
	Keith looked around and noticed that a lot of guests were staring at him but he didn’t stop dancing until he saw Nicky DuPont on the floor, laughing so hard he was curled up like a pill worm in a gray Givenchy suit.  DuPont must have got the Shirley Temple stains out but Keith still detected a faint outline.
	This doughy bespectacled man with curly black hair and no eyebrows was motioning to Keith from the living room futon and patting the empty space next to his butt.  Keith sat down and upon closer inspection he realized it was his former sociology professor at Harvard, Lance Jubenfeld.
	“Harvard misses you.”
	“Still with the roller crew at Harvard?” Keith kept his old pair of gray roller skates in their original box at the top of his closet.  Lance pulled his glasses off and took a tightly rolled joint from his shirt pocket.
	“I quit right after you graduated from Harvard.”
	Keith snatched the joint from Lance’s fingers and snapped it in two with his claws.
	“I’m a judge now Lancie.”
	Lance did not take his eyes off the broken joint which now sat in a Felix the cat ashtray on the glass topped coffee table.  He picked the two pieces up with his shoulders all tensed and put them back in the pocket of his black leather MC jacket.
	“I skimmed ‘Weekend At Jawsy’s’ again for the six hundredth time.  I had insomnia last night.”
	“Are you kidding me?”
	“Remember when you got it printed in Harvard’s lit mag.”
	Keith remembered writing that story for his creative writing elective at Harvard and the professor had liked it so much she submitted it to Harvard’s lit mag without asking him.  The story was basically another sequel to the “Weekend At Bernie’s” series of movies.  It took place the very day after part two ends, the last day of their three day party weekend.  
	Andrew McCarthy and his buddy, Jonathan Silverman, are still exploiting the dead body of their sleazy boss, Bernie Lomax, by pretending he’s alive so they can hang out with all his cool friends in his resort island palace.  The two guys are out on a motorboat with Bernie water skiing behind them when the shark from Jaws comes out of the water and bites him in half.  Jaws then proceeds to bite the motorboat in half and tells Andrew & Jonathan that he’ll spare their lives and help them tape Bernie back together if they let him in on their scam.  
	Andrew & Johnny let Jaws have his way and they put Bernie back together with a hot glue gun and some duct tape and spend the whole night partying like no one had ever partied before.  Jaws even helps the virginal Andrew get laid by hot beach bunny.
	“I can’t believe you remember it.”
	“You were a real talent Keith, you could have done anything after Harvard, you could have been the next John Grisham.”
	“So what am I a failure?  I chose to be the law after Harvard instead of write about it.”
	“A judge isn’t the law.”
	“I’m the Firm.”
	Something black flew past Keith and hit Lance’s face and spilt hot Sunny-D & beans all over his green corduroy overalls.  Keith saw blood spurt from Lance’s mouth and heard a man crying.
	“Nobody tried my ambrosia.”
	Keith didn’t want to look at James just then, because he knew if he turned and saw him whining by his bowl of “Prison Ambrosia”, (which Keith had seen him make in a very compulsive manner, carefully stripping each grape Now’N’ Later one by one and grating the caramel as if he were wiping a babies bottom), he would lose control and maul the perv.


 

 

Go to part:2 

 

 

Copyright © 2004 Jeff T Kane
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"