Deep Fur (2)
Jeff T Kane

	The dirty molester was willing to ruin everything over some stupid ambrosia, which was just a bunch of Cool Whip and candy anyway.  A bunch of stupid cherries and a few broken pralines was enough for James to destroy Keith’s new family, Howie’s new family.  It was the sort of spiteful and cracked behavior that Keith could only call sickmaking.
	Keith glared at James as Pat led him up the stairs, the guests were funneling out and Howie was crying.  Lance had got up to call an ambulance for himself while sucking a broken joint through his crooked bloody jaws and split fat lips.  Then Keith did something that shocked himself.  Something had come along from within like the hero in Mariah Carey’s song.  Keith lowered his head and closed his eyes.  It sounded just like a prayer when under his lion breath he said, “It’s judginin’ time!”

	Keith met James the next morning for breakfast.  He sat at a small table outside Juan’s cafe and enjoyed one of Juan’s hard boiled egg tacos with fish sauce while watching the traffic go by on Chancy Street.  James had ordered the steak and egg tamales, which was the most expensive thing on the menu and came with a side of “Puerto Rico Sauce” which was fish oil with margarine and a drop of Sunkist.
	“I noticed a Beverly D’Angelo poster in your office.”
	“So?”
	“What’s your favorite film of hers?”
	“’Maid To Order’”
	James burst out laughing.  Keith slapped James's hand with his paw and said, “What the hell are you laughing at?”
	“Nothing man lay off,” James pulled his hand away and rubbed it in a way that reminded Keith of a gay person he saw on the “Ten Most Hunted” list on Creflo Dollar once on Sunday morning.  
	“Enough about movies James, I wanna know what happened yesterday.”
	“Nobody ate my ambrosia.”
	“Are you fricking kidding me?”  
	Keith swiped his claw across James’s left cheek leaving four scratches, “this isn’t a joke, that guy you hurt was an old friend of mine from Harvard.”
	James sliced a tamale into four and ate three pieces.  The chunk he’d abandoned had a  yokey piece of egg and what looked like chicken gristle streaming off it’s end.
	“That ambrosia was my part judge.”
	“You mind?”
	James stared back at him, confused, as Keith swiped his claw over the plate of tamales and popped the gristly piece into his mouth.  Keith’s teeth were doing some judging of their own now, working away on that tough rope of copper tasting, rangy egg yolk.
	“Pat tutors Howie.  Pat cooks dinner. Pat cleans up.”
	Keith motioned to James to go on.
	“I made that ambrosia to show even though I may not be Mr. Pat Farris aka Donna Reed doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
	Keith saw James’s lower lip tremble and he took one of James’s little white hands between his paws and looked him in the eye.
	“You really wanna beat that nigger at the parenting game?”
	James smiled and put his other hand on Keith’s paw.  Keith felt that warm tingle rise like bubbles through his spine.  The feeling he attributed to an idea that sometimes people’s spirits leaked out and mixed when they were both being almost too kind.
	“I might love the kid.”
	“Then I’ll give you the key, I’ll tell you about Kip Whitman.”

	
	
	

	Keith went back to the courthouse after dropping James off.  There was a smear of what appeared to be “Miracle Whip” on the doorknob of his office and when Keith turned the knob it was unlocked.  His file cabinets were turned over and dented.  There were papers strewn all over the floor and one pile, specifically the Kip Whitman file, was shoved in the back corner of the window seat soaked in a thin yellow puddle of urine.  
	Keith cursed himself because this was all his fault.  The orange Miracle Whip was enough evidence since Nicky DuPont was the only asshole Keith was aware of that ate white bread sandwiches with Miracle Whip and carrots, but there was also a hammer on the floor lying next to what used to be his Ghostbusters pencil sharpener.  The hammer had the initials N.M.D. engraved in it’s silver handle, Nicholas Mildew DuPont.
	Keith remembered leaving the party last night with murder on his mind, James had pissed him off so bad but he’d fixated on the fact that Nicky DuPont laughed at him while he was dancing.  Just by luck he went down Brancy Avenue for a change of pace and saw DuPont’s Miata parked in the strip mall between Quizno's and the U.A. Triplex which was only showing “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” on three screens.
	Keith pulled over and got out of his Plymouth Breeze with the engine still running.  He keyed Nicky’s Miata with his claw till the yellow paint job was nothing but a remnant of it’s former shiny self.  It was the primer mobile now.
	Keith dropped some paper towels on top of the Whitman files and blushed when he thought of how obvious it must have been to Nicky when he saw his car, that Keith had done it.  Now Keith was really going to have Nicky disbarred, pissing on his files was cruel, it was uncalled for, and it was all together too much.  

	Keith popped the glove compartment as soon as he slipped into the Breeze and waited for his Pat Benatar tape to cue up to “Invincible” on auxiliary power before he turned the engine on.  Pat Benatar’s voice was the type of shit he needed coursing through hs veins on jungle runs, he was racing the Breeze down Chancy street towards Brancy avenue and the Men’s Warehouse.  If Nicky DuPont was there Keith would fricking jungle slap him.
	Keith pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall where Men’s Warehouse stood between Junior’s Pizzeria and Michael’s craft store.  Keith hardly cruised the strip malls these days but the two stores crowding Men’s Wearhouse washed over him in a tidal wave of memories.  The faggy blonde manager at Michael’s accusing him of stealing doilies with a satisfied sneer on his dick sucked lips, the time he got so drunk he lost his car keys in the bathroom at Hooligan’s and while he was walking past Junior’s on the way home he went inside and knocked all the chairs off the tables which had been stacked up all over the place so they could mop the floors.  
	Keith remembered laughing to himself when he realized he was a lion and there was nothing those filthy Junior’s dagos could do to him.  He wondered how much of today’s incident he’d recall as he pushed his paws through the doors of Men Wearhouse and near blacked out when he saw Nicky DuPont sign a credit slip for what was apparently a gray Givenchy suit, a replacement suit.
	Keith walked up to Nicky and threw his new suit on the floor, turned around, lifted his hind leg, and sprayed lion juice all over it.  Nicky dropped the chained pen on the counter and spit all over Keith’s face.  Keith felt a lugee hanging off his snout suspended for a second before it ran over his upper lip and dripped onto his chin whiskers.
	The security guards surrounded Keith as he lunged towards DuPont and they pulled out vials of pepper spray and burned his eyes.  Keith could barely make out Nicky DuPont’s smiling face as he forced his claws wildly through the pile of guards on top of him and felt his nails drag through what felt like sausage.
	“My God Mr. DuPont.”
	Keith heard someone screaming then DuPont himself.
	“My nose!”
	Keith rubbed his eyes and made out the exit doors and as he opened them he could hear DuPont mumbling.
	“...lion piece of shit...”
	Keith turned around, holding the door open with his leg.
	“What’d you say DuPont?”
	Keith could see a little more now but DuPont’s face wasn’t there, it was just something red like liquid tuna fish and cherry Kool-Aid.  The mush of tuna fish spoke to him through a pulpy circle of flesh.
	“I said I cursed you.  I curse you, you ugly lion piece of shit.”

	Keith hopped into his Breeze and pulled out of the Men’s Wearhouse parking lot.  He felt something tingling in his left thigh.  Had Nicholas slashed his leg?  It was going numb. 
	Keith felt inside his pants pocket and remembered.  He’d set his phone to vibrate on messages.  There were two, and they were both from Pat.

	Keith thought of all the jew surgeons trying to put Nicky Dickless back together again, right at this moment, as he pressed the glowing blue button for the Einhorne’s doorbell with his claw.  The tones of Pat’s voice mails rang through his head, good then terrible, all over the place.
	“Hey Judge good news...my god, Mister Haberman James, my god...Howie got into Regis...there’s a boy in the bathtub, James touched...you hear that? I helped Howie get into the Academy...”
	Pat came to the door with a sobbing Howie under his left arm.  
	“Where’s James?”
	The voice mails still echoed and answered.
	“...the boy is pale and cold, he’s bleeding...Howie got a ninety nine...”
	Keith remembered the bathroom was on the second floor and pushed past Pat and Howie and ran up the carpeted stairs.
	“Judge!”
	Keith turned back to look at Pat who was pointing at his muddy Reeboks.  Keith quickly kicked the sneakers off and lunged towards the bathroom door.  
	The first things that came to Keith’s mind when he looked at the tub was the fat jew in “It” when he slit his wrists.  Keith recognized Kip Whitman from all the soccer games he’d been to, Kipley Rogers Whitman, star goalie, the reason Howie was sterile.  Kip Whitman was the reason Howie could’ve been half dickless too if the surgeons hadn’t done such a brilliant job.
	Keith had told James about Kip Whitman so he could use it as leverage.  Keith figured James could counsel Howie about it since he himself was sort of fricked up sexually in his own way.  James had obviously decided to pull the psycho's take on after school specials and stabbed the poor kid’s side a few times while jerking his green dick with the other grimy hand hanging off his wrist.
	Keith pulled the aluminum handle on the side of the bathtub up but the blood wouldn’t twirl.  He stuck his hand behind Kip’s ass and felt something jamming up the drain.  Kip’s hand had been crushed and shoved inside, his blonde scalp torn and floating in the blood kept catching in the drain so Keith pulled it out and threw it in the toilet.  
	The tub slurped up Kip’s blood and Keith stuck his head out the bathroom door.
	“Pat go get James cleaned up, no blood, no semen.”
	And Keith almost forgot as he turned back to face Kip’s mutilated body.
	“Howie get some towels,” Keith lifted Kip’s body by it’s legs and sniffed the crotch, “and some salad dressing, that Nancy’s fairy kind that DuPont likes.” 
	“Annie’s Goddess Dressing,” said Howie and Keith rolled his eyes.
	“Yeah, that stuff is good.”
	Keith heard a commotion coming from downstairs.  He hoped Pat would be able to subdue James and get all the evidence rubbed off him, while he was busy disposing of Kip.
	“Judge Uncle?”
	Howie walked into the bathroom with a few old beach towels under his arms and a big bottle of dressing in his hand.  Kip smelled rotten and Keith glared at the lady on the dressing bottle with garlands in her hair and hoped she really was a goddess as he heard Howie slip out of the bathroom and the door closed shut with a click.

	“Sorry Judge,” Keith stopped Pat as he reached for the radio dial.  The morning sun burnt Keith’s eyes and his running gas smelled just like beer and cheese.  The rapper on the radio was singing about how everything was gonna be all right and Keith didn’t mind the darky music this time because it was true.  
	Keith had eaten Kip’s bones and clothing so there would be no scarlet skeins for the police to unravel unless they unraveled the Kip Whitman vanilla soft serve that he dispensed from his furry yellow booty.
	“Who’s this rapping?”  Keith looked at Howie and James snuggled in the back of the car like of couple of sleeping kittens and Pat sat next to  him in front sipping a white grape Jolt soda, “White Lightening”.  Keith had taken the Einhorne’s Plymouth Neon since it was roomier than his Breeze.
	“Naughty By Nature.”
	Keith looked at the Men’s Wearhouse as they drove down Brancy avenue and jammed his paw down on the Neon’s accelerator.  Pat seemed to be purring along with the Neon’s four cylinder and Keith pegged him right there as a car man.
	“You’re a patient lion Judge.  I would’ve turned that lunatic in.”
	Keith brushed his paw against Pat’s face.
	“You did turn him in Pat.  I’m the law in this county.  You turned him in to me and I sentenced him.”
	“What sentence?”
	“It’s what this drive was for.  I sentenced James to a decaf soy milk latte at the Coffee Drive Thru on Chancy Street.”
	“I just need so O.J. man.”
	Pat cracked up laughing and Keith switched the radio off so he could enjoy the sounds of the birds as he slowed down on Chancy street and pulled into the green Donut Drive Thru.  
	Keith stuck his head out the window and noticed two yellow Jeep Wranglers with no one in them blocking up the drive thru.
	“Hello?  What the frick?”  
	Keith slammed his paw on the order box and an African sounding voice answered back.
	“Hello Mister Lion.”
	Keith felt all the breath in his body leave him.  He looked towards the cash register window at the drive thru and saw a black man in a red t-shirt and a red baseball cap.  Keith had seen Einhorne kill a poacher just like that almost twenty years ago.  
	“Hey KH.”
	Keith looked in the side view mirror which was filled up with a man wearing a gray Givenchy suit who’s face was completely wrapped in white & red bandages, except for his bloody lipless mouth, which was somehow smiling.  Nicky held a steaming latte out in his left hand like an offering.
	Keith stuck his head out and turned to face DuPont but was distracted by a yellow Wrangler that had pulled up behind the Neon, driven by another negro in a red baseball cap.  Keith saw Nicky DuPont flip his wrist out and the latte splashed his face.  Keith could only see white and he heard the car doors all fly open at once.  He could smell Negro's all around him and Pat, James, Howie, his family was screaming.
	“Remember when you threatened to have a the n-word come throw a hot latte in your face?”  Nicky cackled and Keith lashed out at the sound with his claws and felt six sharp pricks in his back.  He rubbed his face against the headrest to clear the latte from his eyes.
	Keith could see now and the Neon was empty.  He looked in the mirror but the Wranglers were all gone too.  Nicky DuPont stood in front of the Neon laughing.  Keith reached for the keys but his paws were numb and he couldn’t turn them in the  ignition.  
	Nicky seemed shorter, maybe, in his bandages and Keith slumped his head out the window and noticed that the Neon’s tires were no longer touching the ground.
	Keith felt an itch in his back and when he tried to swipe his numb claw across it he saw all these weird orange needles or lollipops fall on the floor of the Neon.  
	As the Neon floated higher Nicky shrunk even smaller but his laugh grew louder and Keith swiped his claw across the radio’s volume button to drown it out.  His claws were too numb to operate the tuner and there was only static and when Keith looked out the window again he saw Chancy street, the Donut Drive Thru, and the rest of Puerto Rico county.  He saw how ugly it was and he didn’t really mind leaving.
	The radio blared out with a burst of static and Keith slapped the volume button down to off because didn’t need any music.  He was too far above Nicky DuPont to hear him laughing.

	
	 
	 

 
	 

	

	  
	

	
	
	

	 

	
	


	

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