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CHAPTER 7

OUT STROLLING ON A WINTER MORNING

Sitting alone on a pew in an empty church, Frank stared up to the crossbeams, noticing a flickering light dangling lazily near the middle, threatening to go out completely. He had no idea what he was doing here. Jeb had mentioned that coming here might be good for him and, despite the fact that he had never had an interest in religion before, Frank had decided to come on his next day off. He figured that there was nothing else worth doing, nor was there any chance of coming making things worse. A confession might even make him feel better. However, before mass had even started, he had known that he would be getting nothing out of this. The out-of-tune organ had grated on his ears every time a song played, and the priest, lacking a microphone, might as well had not have been there for someone as close to the back as Frank was. He might have moved forward a few seats, but he felt uncomfortable doing so, since this was his first time at this congregation. He had gone through the motions of singing along with the hymns and doing communion, to avoid standing out, but now that mass was over and he had time for a confession, he simply didn't feel like it.

Lowering his head to stare at where the confessions were being given, he considered going anyway, just to kill time, when a familiar face popped into his vision. "Hey, man," Frank called out as he stood. Ozzy came to a stop next to Frank's pew, surprised to see his neighbor outside the apartment. "Oh, hey," said the hyena. "What are you doing here?"

Frank shrugged as he moved out to the aisle, the space between pews so small that even a guy his size had to do a sideways shuffle to get out. "The same thing I imagine everyone else comes here to do. Although, with that done, I have nothing for the rest of the day. So, I guess I was just heading back." Ozzy nodded as he listened, walking over to grab a coat from a brass hanger beside the entrance. "Want to come take a walk with me? I need to get some business out of the way, and it'll be nice to have someone to talk to." The offer was unexpected, coming from Ozzy. The two of them had hardly spoken ten sentences to each other after the first time they had met at the bar. Frank was over the money by this point, as it wasn't much to begin with, but it had been a bad first impression, and he hadn't had any interest in getting to know Ozzy. Even so, Frank couldn't say he really disliked the man either, as he knew next to nothing about him and, furthermore, if Frank refused the invitation, he would be left with without anything do for the rest of the day. Frank settled on tagging along for a while and the two men stepped out into the near-winter chill of a late morning.

Ozzy looked Frank up and down as they moved to the sidewalk. "Don't you got a coat?" Frank made a show of fluffing some wool on the side of his face. "All natural, baby. Most sheep I know don't even bother to dress in layers unless it goes below freezing," he said, which drew a smile from the hyena, though that was hardly an achievement. Ozzy always seemed like he had one on his face, regardless of whether he was in an appropriate mood. The smile failed to reach his eyes more often than not, which was one of the other reasons that Frank hadn't made much effort in becoming acquainted with the man. The permanent, joyless smile and subtly muscular frame made an intimidating combination. Frank wondered if he had been involved with some unsavory types in the past, or perhaps if he still was. Shaking his head to dispel the thought, Frank followed up with a question. "So, what's this business you have to take care of?"

"Got some people I need to pay back. I'm in up to my neck as it is, so I can't afford to be missing a day. Ah, that's why I came to church today. Always need to talk to The Man Upstairs when I need to go make a payment." Frank cocked an eyebrow at the claim. "Always? Why, do you think something bad might happen?" Ozzy stared down at the shorter man, a considering look on his face. "You're not very spiritual, I take it?" the hyena asked. Frank shook his head, saying, "I've never been into religion." Ozzy stared at some far-off place and clicked his tongue. "Then it'd be hard for me to explain," Ozzy said, without taking his eyes off whatever held him. Frank had only asked to make conversation, so he didn't pry further when Ozzy fell silent. They walked on for a block, coming to stop for a moment at a crosswalk as a car with a plastic sheet replacing one of its windows blew past. A common fashion for cars in this city, Frank had noticed, although it wasn't too uncommon up north either.

As soon as they started walking again, Ozzy surprised Frank by asking, "Why'd you go to church today, anyway?" Frank blinked at the question, not entirely sure what was meant by it, then threw the answer Ozzy had given back at him. "The same thing I imagine everyone else goes there to do." Frank folded his arms as he looked up at the hyena, feeling as if he had said something mildly clever, but the taller man merely shook his head. "Naw, see," Ozzy began, running a hand over a bit of fur that was sticking up at the back of his neck, "You just said you wasn't religious. Weren't religious. I come, Jeb comes, the rest of the folk come because they are. It's obvious what I get out of it. What doesn't make sense is why you'd go, as you ain't 'into religion'."

Ozzy kept his gaze straight ahead while he spoke, but that didn't stop Frank from feeling like the hyena was staring at him as if he was under a microscope. You needed to keep a poker face on when dealing with this man, Frank realized, even when you weren't playing cards. Trying to keep his discomfort at being so easily read from showing on his face (with limited success), Frank gave as brief an answer as he could to avoid giving his traveling companion anything else he could use. "You mentioned Jeb? He said I should come." Frank watched Ozzy's reaction warily, not entirely sure what he might have been expecting, though all he got was a quiet hum of acknowledgement.

Another block passed without the conversation continuing when Ozzy stared it up again once he formulated a follow-up question. "You said you'd 'never been into religion', yeah?" Frank was starting to regret agreeing to come along with Ozzy. He had been asked weird questions by other tenants of The Homestead previously, but these were starting to feel stranger than normal, like he was being interrogated. Could the man with the permanent smile and the dangerous aura also be one of those zealot types, who felt the need to save any non-believer they came across, whether said non-believer wanted saving or not? That would fit with the kind of luck Frank had been having so far since moving. Frank prayed that wasn't the case, but he wasn't sure who the prayer went to.

Ozzy stopped abruptly and turned his whole body to face Frank, nearly causing Frank to ram into his stomach. "Let me rephrase the question: When you say you ain't into religion, do you mean religion in general or just Christ?" Frank's eyes widened in surprise. Now_that_ was an odd question to ask, especially to someone you've only spoken to twice. For the first time that Frank had noticed, the smile had disappeared from Ozzy's face, to be replaced with an intent stare. He was being completely earnest.

"Um, I'm...That's, er--" Both thrown off by Ozzy's surprisingly deep question and shocked that he couldn't seem to come to an answer, Frank stumbled over thoughts that refused to let themselves be translated into coherent sentences. He thought of his days in Sunday school, where he came to think of his relation to God in the same way he thought of remedial math classes. He thought of watching the news growing up, and how it had always talked about religions other than Christianity as if they were un-American, to the point where had hadn't known that there were Muslims living in the same country as him until he turned thirteen. He thought of the way popular intellectuals, both at his school and online, had talked about religious people as if they were simply out of style, the same way they might talk about someone who wore socks with sandals. He thought of some centipede-like creature, carving a holy figure into the leg of a table with a pen.

That last one decided it for him. "Religion in general," he said. "Have you tried anything else?" asked Ozzy, still oddly persistent about this line of questioning. "No," said Frank, honestly. "What would the point be? Sure, there hasn't been any point in my life where I was officially a member of the Jewish church, but, like, I can just look up shit like that online. The Old Testament and Quran and all that, that's public domain." Ozzy cocked his head to the side. "And have you looked them up?" he asked. There was no trace of condescension or mocking anywhere in Ozzy's voice, but Frank kept an impression that he was being made fun of somehow. People talked about religion all the time; talk of morals of any kind always seemed to loop back to it. Therefore, it was only natural that anyone who paid attention to the world around him would know a good deal about other faiths. Frank might not know the specifics of what it meant to be, for example, Hindu, but one didn't need to know all the details to generally get the gist of something.

After explaining as much, though with much more stammering and long pauses than had been in his head, Ozzy said, "So, you haven't looked any of them up." There was a kind of understanding in his voice, which made Frank so furious that he almost jumped up and punched the taller man. "That's fine. I was pretty lost, myself, until about five years ago." With that, he turned on his heel and resumed the journey into town, acting as if he knew that Frank would simply follow behind like a lost child. A knot of anger formed solidly in Frank's stomach at Ozzy's high-and-mighty attitude, which didn't actually manage to stop him from lamely jogging to catch up a moment later.

"Why do you give a shit, anyway?" Frank asked once he managed to catch up. Ozzy shrugged, the vinyl of his jacket making a sort of hissing sound as he did so. "Is it so strange to care about people?" he asked, though the way he said it made Frank unsure if the question was meant for him. "Yes," Frank answered anyway. "You don't know me, so don't presume you can solve my problems. Don't presume I have a problem I need you to solve, either, because I don't." Frank turned to face the sidewalk, his gaze pointedly avoiding Ozzy.

Frank heard more hissing, along with the sound of a zipper being undone, coming from his side. There was some more shuffling, followed by the clicking of a lighter being struck. "You smoke?" asked Ozzy, proffering a half empty box of cigarettes. Frank's eyes followed the arm to look into Ozzy's face, where, after exhaling a gray cloud, the easy smile had reformed. With a word of thanks, Frank took his own cigarette, followed by Ozzy's surprisingly nice lighter, engraved with a fantastical scene of a lion standing with his arms spread, standing in front of a floating pyramid.

Noticing Frank staring at the object in his hands, Ozzy answered the unasked question by saying that the image depicted was from the cover art of an old, local prog rock band. "You like prog rock?" Frank asked with a note of disbelief. He had to strike the lighter five times before a flame came on, then lowered his head to stick his smoke into the dancing orange light. Inhaling, Frank felt a shudder run through his body. It had been a good while since the last time he had one of these.

Giving a short laugh, Ozzy shook his head. "No, I don't even know the name of the band this thing came from," he said as he took the lighter back, holding it up to examine it. "Just like how it looks. The only reason I know where it's from is 'cause John told me when I bought it." Ozzy threw the lighter in the air, caught it with a flourish, then stuffed it back into a breast pocket. "Who's John?" Frank asked, smoke coming out along with the words.

"Stellers," said Ozzy. "He owns a pawn shop a little while's away. He's usually got some good stuff for cheap. Ask Sara about it, she works right down the street from where it is."

"Oh, I think I've been there, actually." Frank took a deep drag on the cigarette, staring up at the sky and following the slow movement of a thin, wispy cloud against a sapphire background. He breathed out all the smoke in one long, slow exhalation, watching the gray stream twist and fade in the wind. "Do they have furniture there?" Passing a trash can, Ozzy tapped a bit of ash off the end of his smoke. "Like a couch?"

"A table. I think I need to get one."

"Probably," said Ozzy. "Sometimes I think John's got one of everything hidden in some back room. Why? You planning to have company?" Frank considered telling Ozzy about the dreams that had been bothering him but felt that the man would probably be turned off by so outré a subject. Instead, he gave some line about making his apartment feel more like home and wanting to be able to sit down when he ate. "Makes sense," Ozzy said after Frank had finished, though the tone was odd, as if he could tell that Frank was hiding something from him. This hyena really was too sharp to ever let your guard down when he was around.

After that, the conversation remained mild, even enjoyable at some parts. Ozzy's smile still failed to reach the rest of his face, and that was strange, but his voice and the way he spoke both seemed genuine enough that Frank found his opinion of the man slowly being to turn around. When Ozzy dug his lighter out again to light a second cigarette, Frank used the opportunity to talk of the prog rock bands he liked, mentioning how he had managed to come across a vinyl of Animals in great condition and how he wanted to learn how to play _21st Century Schizoid Man_when he finally saved up enough money for a guitar.

"I'm a long way from that, though," he finished with a touch of melancholy. Ozzy, who had been nodding along as Frank spoke, stopped and put his head to one side. "I get the feeling. Honestly, I've been wanting to learn Pictures of A City. I already own a guitar, but it's acoustic, and a hand-me-down, so even if I play right the notes come out sounding wrong. Plus, I'm mostly self-taught, so I can't even--Frank?" Ozzy turned to where Frank stood, a couple paces back, eyes wide and shimmering. "You like King Crimson?" Frank asked, smile so wide it split his face in half. "You have a guitar? Hey, man, if you know how to play something, then you've gotta show me! Do you know any other songs like that? How 'bout Roundabout? Do you like classics or do you prefer the new stuff? How about Black Midi?"

For the first time Frank had seen, Ozzy seemed to be truly put off balance. "Songs like what? Midi? Slow down, dude, I can barely understand you." Frank was so excited he was practically vibrating with enthusiasm. "Songs like prog rock songs! Or math rock or djent or whatever they call it here. You're the first guy I've met since coming down here that knows about all this." Ozzy laughed nervously, not knowing what to make of all the weird terms Frank had started throwing around. He didn't even know the sheep with the seemingly permanent frown could get this happy, and he didn't want to burst Frank's bubble, but the little man was still going on about things he didn't have the first clue about, talking so fast it was making his head spin.

Frank was in the middle of a dissertation on how chasing trends in the eighties had led to the downfall of several giants of the genre, leading to the progressive rock, as a whole, nearly disappearing for three decades, when Ozzy managed to get a word in. "Excuse me, but I have no idea what you're talking about," he managed at last. Frank stopped, hands that had been gesticulating to help his point get across freezing in place and turned his eyes to Ozzy. "Wha--But you said you were into prog rock," Frank said, smile starting to wane. Ozzy shook his head. "I said John told me my lighter was from a prog rock band. I don't listen to that kind of stuff. I don't even know what it is." Frank's energy slowly flowed out of him as Ozzy spoke, leaving him visibly deflated. Frank dropped his arms to his side once Ozzy had finished, letting out a disappointed "oh" as he did. Ozzy didn't know what to say, feeling like he had betrayed the sheep's expectations. He hadn't done anything wrong, but he still apologized for getting Frank's hopes up.

Frank took a deep breath and held it, head craned back and eyes closed. He lowered his head and, when he let the breath out, surprised his companion by smiling. "That's fine," he said, half to himself. "If you're into King Crimson, you're already more than halfway to being into that kind of thing. Tell me the next time you're free, I'll take you to the pawn shop and get you an album. They always have decent vinyls at pawn shops, or so I hear."

Ozzy smiled back, this time with his entire face. "Sure, I might probably be into that. Hell, let's make a day of it. Sara tells me there's a new diner near the Target. You like Greek?" The two men started walking again, talking about what they'd do the next time they both got a day off together. Unsurprisingly, Ozzy didn't own a record player, so Frank took up the job of finding one that had decent sound but wouldn't cost too much or take up too much space. After a bit of prodding, Ozzy began to share his own taste in music, which was an eclectic assortment of whatever he had been able to find online and what was on sale at the local bookstore. They went on like this for a few blocks before stopping at a plain-looking office building.

"Alright, this is where my business is," Ozzy said, indicating the building with a thumb. Frank stared at the building in confusion for a second before remembering the original purpose of this outing. "Oh! Yeah, sure. Should I wait out here?" Instead of answering immediately, Ozzy shaded his eyes with a paw and looked across the street. He pointed to a building with a picture of a submarine deep in the ocean, surrounded by what appeared to be hybrids of fish crossed with various vegetables, painted on the front window and spilling over onto the door of the store. "That's The Sub Shop," Ozzy said. "They've got heat and good food. Go in there and order a coffee. I'll be out in fifteen minutes."

That sounded like a good idea to Frank. It had been a longer walk than he had expected and, even with his wool, he found himself shivering more and more often. With a quick salute, Frank dashed to the other side of the street and ran into the shop. He ordered a coffee and an Italian sub, then sat down to wait for his friend to show up. Friend? Frank thought about that as he sipped at his drink. Yes, Ozzy was a friend now. It was strange to think about, since Frank had known him for about a month without speaking much to the man, considering him to be a stranger that happened to live in the same building. Now, over the course of less than a day, Frank was willing to call him a friend. Was that presumptuous? There were already planning to meet up again on their next day off, so he hoped not.

Frank sat in a booth seat near the front of the store, with faded orange seats made of a faux-leather material. It was still about an hour before the lunch rush started, so the shop was devoid of other customers, save for a rabbit couple chatting at a seat near the soda fountain. It was pleasantly warm in this corner, and in no time at all Frank stopped shivering and was able to enjoy his sandwich, which wasn't half as good as the ones served in the delis up north but wasn't terrible either, although the fact that he had been on a diet consisting solely of yoghurt and the deformed fruit in the bargain section might have made any criticisms more lenient. He had even spent a little extra to get a variety with some meat on it. He knew a lot of sheep that found eating meat objectionable, which he understood, but the meat was already there for other people, and it would just be thrown out if no one ate it, so he figured there was no harm.

Frank had gotten halfway through his meal when he heard someone entering the shop. Noticing a hyena, Frank smiled and got up, waving him over. Ozzy came over and took the seat across from Frank, who was about to ask how Ozzy's business went when he caught a shadow on the hyena's face that made the words catch in his throat. Frank retook his own seat and the two of them sat without speaking for a minute, the only sounds at the booth being Ozzy slowly tapping the table with a clawed digit and small snippets of conversation that drifted over from the rabbit couple.

Ozzy sat, staring at his lap, the continuous clicking noise of his claw on the table matching the rhythm of his breathing. A long, awkward stretch of time passed with the two of them sitting, almost unmoving, in the cramped booth, the light coming in over them tinted slightly blue by the paint on the window. Finally, Ozzy heaved a deep sigh and raised his head. "Gonna have to cancel that trip to the pawn shop." Frank understood the tone in his voice and the nature of the shadow across his face, so he didn't have to ask why. Instead, he simply nodded his head. "We can do it some other time," he said, trying to make his voice light. Ozzy nodded back at him, then resumed his tapping.

Frank stared back and forth from the man sitting across from him to his food, not wanting to go back to his meal while his friend sat there, ruminating on whatever had happened in that office. "College?" Frank asked, hoping that he could at least listen to Ozzy's troubles. "That's what mine is. Or is it medical, maybe?" He really hoped these weren't intrusive. Ozzy made a gesture with one hand that Frank couldn't interpret, then let out another sigh. "No," Ozzy said as he ran a hand through the fur on his head. "I just...made a bad bet a few years back. Lost more than I thought I could. I was still a kid at the time, so getting a loan from a bank wasn't possible. Then I got an offer from these guys and they--" He cut off, siting back, the blue light over him giving Frank the impression of a man trapped under the surface of a frozen lake. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Frank felt suddenly exhausted, a distressingly common occurrence in recent times, and made to rest his elbows on the table, almost putting one right in the middle of his remaining sandwich. He still couldn't go back to eating with Ozzy being the way he was. "You want me to buy you lunch?" Frank asked, rising a bit. The tapping stopped. Ozzy's face darkened considerably, a dangerous glint coming into his eye. With a low growl, Ozzy fixed those dangerous eyes right on Frank's, daring him to say more. "Oh, for Christ's sake," said Frank. "I just feel like an asshole eating by myself."

When this proved ineffective at changing Ozzy's mood, Frank buried his face in his hands, exasperated. "You come here often enough, right? Bring me something back the next chance you get. I'm not doing charity; I can't afford that. I'm buying a friend lunch. Don't make it weird." The hyena's face slowly shifted from anger to caution, then settled on acceptance. "Thanks, Frank. Get me one of what you're having." Tension drained out of Frank as Ozzy managed a smile. He patted the hyena on the shoulder as he got up. "No problem, man," Frank said, forcing himself to smile in return. He hoped the smile seemed genuine. He hoped he managed to make it reach his eyes.