Nature and Manufacture (Chapter 1 - Meeting)
I have a journal entry about why this was necessary but here's a reworking of the Vinci and Arty thing that I'd abandoned. Sincere apologies for reposting something similar to what I had posted before. Anyways, I think its a little bit better now and I've combined the relevant scenes into chapters now.
Chapter 1 (Meeting)
In the darkness there was silence... broken by an anguished snarl, then the quiet rustle of bedding. The room was large. The walls amplifying all noise, sound traveling back more voluminous than the original cause.
A portrait hung over the single large bed, depicting a rolling veldt which reached into the distance until it kissed a wall of mountains overcast by gathering masses of white cloud. In it the day was clear, the weather warm and friendly. The room was not.
An arm reached towards the empty half of the bed; moved under the covers, probing, finding nothing. A tiger awoke on his back in a sweat. The roof stared back at him, its frosty visage murmuring horrors he had stopped defending against long past. He turned away to find the moon's golden eye spying through the window as if it were a burglar meaning to steal away what was left of him.
Burying his face in his pillow he turned his back on his accusers. He sighed morosely, feeling the vulnerability of attack coming from behind. The empty side of the bed was as cold as his heart had become, no bodies had warmed that space.
The hostile atmosphere pressed in; the bed became hard and a fog of cold drifted over from the empty sheets. The house spoke, chiming in with the angry murmurings from the dark; suggesting guilt and pain and loneliness. All at once his mind was buried under years of repressed resentment; his heart wrenched a physical attack. His groan answered into the darkness but did not satisfy the questions.
A compulsion to escape reared itself pressing him urgently to get out, to get away from himself. His paw struck out for his spectacles; instead it connected with an empty gin glass. The glass expressed its dissatisfaction by hurriedly rolling off the nightstand. He finally found his glasses and put them on, noting that the electronic clock advertised 3:24AM.
The thick claws of a large paw clacked noisily on the wooden floor next to the bed. It was soon followed by the other as he sat upright running a paw over his tired eyes. Everything around him was painted in grainy shades of grey as if the moon had decided he did not deserve the full benefit of the light spectrum.
He neglected the lights, hurrying towards the dresser where he tugged an old pair of jeans up to his waist. The jacket he selected was almost three decades old, which is why he felt comfortable with it. They shared the common history of old friends.
He felt better once the front door slammed shut behind him, the claustrophobia lifted outside the house's listless embrace. Outside everything was covered under a blanket of frosty white snow. Cold night air filled his lungs refreshing him, and he felt the horrid weight on his chest shift slightly, though not retreating.
What now? He asked of his watch, inspecting the positions of the arms on its face.
I can't go back in there. There will little sleep for me now.
Out here it was dissimilar from the inside, out here there was white; the blackness seemingly forced into subservience against the brightness. The moon wasn't grey, it was white. Everything it looked down on seemed to embrace the light now, taking it and sharing it with the world in an exuberance of crystalline reflection.
He felt for the car keys in his pocket and stood with them in his hands weighing options he had never faced before. He took a step towards the car and felt his chest loosen just a bit; another step allowed more room for breath. Eventually he was in the car on the road heading out of the neighborhood. It felt as if some force had taken hold of his heart and was guiding him, constantly tugging. But like a parent holding a toddler's hand it led him. Some streets felt wrong and others right.
Rightness was something that had long since been lost to him so he followed that force without complaint.
Two faded grey lines ran the length of sight fading into the darkness where the headlights' reach ended. The engine moaned dimly like an animal of burden complaining at the ice covered tar it wearily traversed.
The tiger had left the savory part of town behind him; a realization that came to him when furs had materialized along the sidewalks. Every avenue he turned into seemed to produce an entirely new species of nightlife. He knew that these were entrepreneurs that preferred to stay on the blind side of the law.
The faces kept changing until they simply became a blur of shady services. The sidewalks were populated by those providing empty romance, numbed dreams and temporary escapes to those who led disillusioned lives.
Even the service providers were whores, most of whom had seen one form or the other of intense emotional trauma visited upon them by an "Uncle Bob" or a daddy with an over active sex drive, resenting a blue collar life, tied down by a wife and cub.
The pimps were strong armed examples of their pasts and shared their own horror stories so common of a hard upbringing that it was a stereotype.
Another participant in this microcosm of the free market system were the drug dealers; the smarter corporate arm of these delinquents. The dealers were organizers who had paid attention in school, specifically the classes which taught them about stock management, consumer demographics, effective economic practices and book keeping. Some of them had also chosen to pay attention in chemistry, probably having failed physics but, physics had nothing to do with the likely economic activity of a shifty-eyed smart kid with no means to further legitimate education.
Everyone here made a living under the harsh conditions of the industrial district
The tiger's car snaked lazily up and down these avenues in the early morning snow. At one point the he noticed that he was fiddling with his ring and stopped.
What am I doing out here? This is crazy.
Prospects of sleeping in his bed seemed impossible now; he felt he had been dragged out here to do something. He looked for a quiet spot along the road, having decided that his heart and its new found sense of geographical adventure would have to endure inaction.
The car windows fogged up, as they would with 300 pounds of Amur tiger in it. He cracked a window open then removed the glasses from his wide snout. He had barely done this when a high pitched voice sounded next to his head: "Hey papi!" it exclaimed "Yoo lookin for someone to warm yer bed?"
Startled he said "What?" The voice belonged to a short multi-coloured tabby. Indeed, he noted, she would warm almost any bed with that thick mass of fur even if it weren't scraggly and matted with dried fluids that she had not had time or maybe a care to wash out.
"No! Go away." He said.
"Shame, such a handsome, kitten, maybe you lookin ta score something tha' would make you feel good? I gots stuff that you wouldn' believe." she continued sticking her snout into the narrow opening.
"Look, I said no, leave me alone. I aint lookin fer anything." Shit, now she's got me talking like that.
She started talking again but his attention was drawn to a figure in a hooded cloak moving briskly behind her. It seemed as if this figure was trying to avoid the line of commerce and was walking with slumped shoulders, as if the cold had sucked the energy out of it. The figure passed them moving down the sidewalk. His heart jumped again, tugging at his instincts. He started the car.
"Hey papi! I's talking to you!" the tabby started.
"I said no, fuckoff now." He said, absentmindedly, starting the car. The rejection sent the tabby into a shrilly inarticulate fist flailing rage. He understood a few choice words that she spat after the retreating car; he couldn't care less, his attention was on the retreating cloak that was quickly weaving away from him.
The tiger stalked at a distance often finding it necessary to creep around other parked vehicles and the occasional truck on the side of the road. Each time his view of the cloaked figure was obscured he cursed the drivers for bedding down there for the night. Once, he lost sight of his mark and emulated the tabby's mannerisms as his heart slammed down on itself. His prey had not disappeared but had stopped; leaning against a rotted building to rub some warmth back into half frozen foot pads, and then it continued once more with the tiger following its progress through his spectacles.
The hunt continued until the figure finally stepped into a building under an old garish neon sign which read "The Bleeding Woolfe". Thanks to broken neon lettering, it actually read "Te Bled Wool". The tiger read this, finding himself shivering at the ominous coincidences of the sign.
He parked half a block up from the bar feeling strangely excited despite the forty-five years of life weighing on his sleep deprived body. The car door opened and he folded his long body out of it. He puffed his thick chest in an attempt to look menacing as he weaved through the bodies on the sidewalk; snow and ice crackled under his weight.
Inside there wasn't much to be said of the décor. Everything smelt of filth to his feline senses as if layers of alcohol had congealed on every surface over the years, sucking up dirt and detritus. Wet cloths probably moved the dirt from one residence to another without ever removing any of the waste.
There was no fluorescent lighting, only bulbs with rounded green coverings which cast a everything in a soft green hue and visually obscuring the lacking state of hygiene.
Shadows existed in multiples of their originals as if the dim light was a being on its own, reading the souls of the patrons and depicting all the roles that they fulfilled in life. The whore and woman and mother and daughter all exposed by this being of light who's boredom could only be alleviated by the dark ironies of the patrons to the bar.
There was a corner booth on the edge of one such light which flickered occasionally where many a prostitute had led a client for a quiet spot in which to conduct the quicker services; the light would flicker then, as if giggling maniacally at the evils which took place under its pale gaze.
The tiger surveyed the scene; bar to the left and a series of booths with leather covered seats lining the opposite wall. The patrons consisted in their entirety of a lone wolf on a bar stool, and a little past the wolf, the tiger could see the cloaked figure he had followed in. The barkeep was an ursine with a belly which was exposed due to the fact that he wore only a sleeveless, biker's jacket. He was black and heavy-set, sporting a snarl more out of habit, the tiger thought, than any real reason.
He stood on the far side of the bar, wiping down glasses. The tiger heard the faint sounds of a radio talk show emanating from the direction of the bear. He seemed intent on the words and ignored the tiger's entrance.
The wolf glanced at him uninterested before his furtive interest migrated back to the cloak who sat two stools down. The tiger picked a seat directly behind the wolf and cloak. The choice of booth had to do with the fact that the stabs of light would hide his eyes in shadow, allowing him to observe unseen. The cloak had laid its face on its arms seeming to be asleep while still shivering from the cold.
The wolf became visibly interested when a part of the cloak slid down to reveal a bare leg. The tiger noticed this with interest and examined what he could see of the leg as well; she must be attractive, he thought.
The wolf, built as large as a wolf could be, tempered by the lankiness typical of their species, closed the one seat divide between himself and the cloak; sitting now knee to knee with the fur in the cloak. The cloaked fur jerked upright by the unexpected arrval of a wolf paw on her lower back.
"Hey baby, it looks like you've got some open time on your schedule." He said lustfully.
The cloak replied with a strange feminine inflection which betrayed bewilderment "No uhh... sir, I don't do that."
"Ah come now babes, I've got good money. I'll make you feel like a hundred dollar bill if you do the same for me." He said with a finger indicating his crotch.
The cloak whipped her head away in disgust, eyes cast to the floor. "Sir, I don't do that kind of thing." she said lamely.
For the tiger this was the first glimpse of the obscured face hidden under the cloak, what he saw was a delicate white snout set beneath two black eyes that slanted like horizontal diamonds; wide in the middle and tapered to fine points at the outset. A straight lock of long white hair had swept around the hood and shone brightly in its isolation. The tiger thought his heart would break for this girl.
The wolf had a hold of her arm now, trying to pull her closer. "Look bitch," the wolf started "it'll be easy and fast and I've got good money..." he was cut off when a 300 pound tiger forced itself between them, spinning the grey wolf away on the rotating bar stool.
The tiger lifted his paw to get the bear's attention "Barkeep! I want a glass of whiskey. And not the cheap shit either, something... what's the best you've got?" he called.
An extremely disgruntled wolf at his elbow growled. The bear grumbled a name that the tiger didn't hear well over the voices from the radio and the adrenaline induced ringing in his ears. He nodded anyway "That'll do,' he sniffed inconspicuously, detecting the faint odor of menthol cigarettes and canine from his right 'and a pack of menthol cigarettes with some matches!"
An angry paw gripped the tiger's left bicep; his striped tail flicked, hitting the floor like a whip. He turned to the wolf with a tooth displaying grimace of anger. "What! Do you want?" he growled deeply in his best predator imitation. The wolf let go of his arm, but a territorial challenge now stood.
The bear's pace was sedentary; he moved with a deep resentment of his customers. Eye to eye, the wolf and tiger stood, both their geneses disallowed them to back down despite the uncertain prize they stood to gain. Afraid and heavy breathing from the cloak set a beat to their stalemate.
Finally the whiskey and cigarettes were delivered with a lethargic grunt. It gave the tiger an excuse to break the standoff without losing face.
Over his shoulder he said to the cloak "There's an open seat at my table if you've had enough of the company." The black diamonds glanced up at him, a slight nod of acknowledgement.
The tiger departed to his table, he cast an angry glance at the wolf who leaned forward again. The wolf hunched his shoulders whispering to the white cloaked canine who greeted the attention with a shake of the head. His arm shot out grabbing for a tit... which it didn't find. There was a yelp from the white canine that jumped up, both paws pressed to its chest in a protective gesture.
This was followed by a loud exclamation from the wolf "What the fuck? You're a dude!"
The bear prevented further vocal objections "Keep yourself quiet."
The cloak double checked itself and sped a retreat towards the tiger's booth practically launching itself into a seat opposite the tiger. The wolf looked to the bear then to the tiger whose tail signaled imminent violence. The wolf whispered loudly to the tiger "You heard that buddy? You saved yoursel a dude, nothing except a lady boy."
The tiger slammed a fist into the table, making his glass jump. He made as if to get up, prompting the wolf's flight instinct to kick in. And the wolf fled towards the door whispering abuse all the way; the bear shot him a disapproving glance. The tiger picked up a few of the phrases reminiscent of earlier the evening.
"Barkeep!" The tiger called.
"Yeah?" came the reply.
"You let this kind of thing go on in your bar?"
The bear looked at him long and hard then rumbled in reply "Nothing to do wit me, I ain't no one's pimp. I step in when weapons get pulled."
His snarl softened in thought "Bad for business when the police come snoopin, uhh huh. Can't buy away murder, no sir."
This last No Sir apparently signaled the end to the conversation as the bear bent down behind the bar busying himself with whichever task bought the most distance between himself and further questions.
The tiger turned towards the canine whose hood obscured most of his features but the soft, diamond eyes were watching him nervously. The tiger steeled himself against his own premonitions, he was afraid of what the hidden face would mean to him but he leaned towards the flinching dog, and pushed the hood back slowly.
What he saw caused his heart to give him one final kick before settling down; the compulsion which had driven him to this point subsided completely and what was left at the table was a surprised tiger and a scared dog facing each other in silence.