A Fresh Start
#1 of Memoirs of a Panda
A Fresh Start
By Panda Dave
"13...14...15...Ah! Here it is, 16," I said as I unlocked the door to my new dorm. This was home for the next nine months, and then I could get an apartment. I had worked for two years before going to college so I could afford to live on my own, only to find out that you were required to stay in the dorms your freshman year. At least they were nice dorms, with two separate small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room combined with a kitchen.
I had decided to move away from Solan to a bigger city to go to college, so here I was, in New York City. The change was going take getting used to, going from a town of about 7,000 inhabitants, to a large city of well over 8 million people.
I wanted to go to a school with a good fine arts program, the plan being to major in acting, with a music minor. And for fine arts, even though its an expensive school, NYU is the place to be.
I couldn't wait to get my own apartment though, because Carl, my best friend who also happened to have relatives in the city, said he would move up and be my roommate. Carl and I had decided not to be anything more than friends, despite our many rather risqué adventures together.
I could hear upbeat music coming from inside my dorm, so my roommate must already have arrived. I opened the door, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of food cooking. I got inside and saw tall, somewhat slim human standing in front of the stove, with his back to the door.
The nervousness I had felt back in Solan returned immediately. How would this human feel about having a genomorph roommate? My question was answered when he turned away from his work at the stove, and greeted me with the biggest smile I had seen since I had arrived in the city.
"
"Hey man! You must be my roommate. I'm Ryan, good to know ya," the human said, and surprised me even more when he touched palms with me, rather than trying to shake hands. It's customary among endomorphs to touch palms, because shaking hands can be made difficult by the presence of claws.
"I'm Dave, likewise, " I said with a grin of my own, and set my stuff on the floor next to his.
"You hungry?," he asked me, gesturing to the pan on the stove, that was nearly overflowing with some kind of stir-fry, "I made enough about five people I think, at least we'll have leftovers," we shared a laugh at that.
"Yes please, I haven't eaten since I left home," I said as he dished up a bowl for me.
"Yea? And where's that?," he asked, handing me the bowl.
"Solan, about nine hours drive from here," I told him, taking a bite. The stir-fry was delicious! I lucked out I guess. My roommate didn't hate genomorphs, AND he could cook.
We ate our meal and talked about our respective homes. I told him about Solan, and about work in the factory, and about my friend Carl.
Ryan grew up in a large family, with two younger brothers and an even younger sister. His house was actually only about 15 minutes away from campus, and he planned on getting a culinary degree.
After eating we picked rooms and moved in all our stuff. I called Carl and told him about the trip up, and about how cool my roommate was. After that I got ready to go to sleep. I had a long week ahead of me. I had to register for classes, which started in four days, and I had to find a job within walking distance of campus. Things were going pretty good so far, I just hoped that the other people in New York City were as nice Ryan.
The next day Ryan and I left to go register for classes. There were hundreds of people waiting in line, but there were several lines, so the wait wasn't that long. After that I went for a walk, looking for places I might be able to get a job.
So I walked around, stopping in all the local grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and other places like that, collecting applications. I figured I'd take them back to my dorm and fill them out later. After I had about ten applications, I decided I'd stop somewhere for lunch, and then make my home. I headed for the little diner down the street.
As I walked past the window of the diner I noticed the waitress inside. She was a little shorter than me, fair skinned, with long brown hair done up in a pony tail, and the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen. It occurred to me that the last thing about her that I noticed was that she was human, not that preferred any type of female over another, but it was still odd.
I guess I was so distracted by the girl that I failed to notice the sign outside the door as I went in. It said, 'NO GM's'. I wouldn't have known what it meant at the time anyway, but later I found out that it meant that genomorphs weren't welcome.
Evelyn blew a stray strand of hair out of her face as she reached to pick up all the dishes on the table, but she set them down when she saw who walked through the door. He was a genomorph, a panda morph to be exact. He had on jeans and black hoodie with the letters 'NYU' stitched into the front. He was also wearing glasses and a black military style hat. He looked nice, so she thought she had better talk to him before Manny, the man who owned the diner and hated genomorphs, saw him.
"Hello sir," she said with a smile that was returned to her, "I'm really sorry, but this may not be the best place for you to eat," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "you see, the owner doesn't allow genomorphs in his diner." Surprisingly, the young panda morph didn't seem phased a bit, and his smile never faded, but as if on cue, Manny yelled from the kitchen.
"Evelyn! Kick that damn animal out of here and bring me those dishes!" Evelyn was overcome with embarrassment, and it showed on her fair skin. She knew Manny disliked genomorphs of any kind, but he had never been that blatantly rude before.
"Oops, I guess I'll have to go somewhere else, sorry if I got you in trouble," the panda said, still not seeming to be bothered at all. He turned for the door, but then stopped and turned back around.
He whispered to her, "Excuse me, but this is only my second day here, would you know of any good places to eat nearby?" That would explain why he missed the sign.
"Um, yea actually. There's a really good pizza place on Adams and 125th." she whispered back.
"I'm sorry, but I really have no idea where that is," he said with hint of laughter. How could she be that thoughtless. If he had only lived in the city for two days, of course he wouldn't know where that was.
"Well, its-" Manny interrupted her directions with another yell.
"Evelyn!" he poked his head out of the swinging door that led to the kitchen, "that thing isn't gone yet!? Get him out and get back to work! I'm not paying you to talk to animals."
She couldn't take this nonsense anymore. She turned back to the panda morph.
"You know what? I have a better idea, I'll just show you where it is," she took off her apron and tossed it onto the pile of dishes on the table, "Hey Manny!," she yelled, drawing the rather rotund, balding man back out of the kitchen again, "I quit!" Manny got this panicked look on his face that was actually kind of funny.
"Evelyn, you can't quit, you're the only fulltime waitress I have!" he pleaded with her.
"Well Manny," she said as matter-of-factly as possible, "maybe you shouldn't be such an asshole." She turned back to the panda.
"Come on, let's go," she said, leading him out the door. When they got outside in the daylight she was able to get a better look at him.
He was slightly stocky, but looked to be fairly muscular. This genomorph was in pretty good shape, and cute too, she thought to herself.
"I'm really sorry about that, he can be such a jerk sometimes. The pizza place I was trying to tell you about is actually just up the street," she said, "would it be ok if I joined you?"
"On one condition," the panda said to her, and confused her a little bit, "you let me buy you lunch." He silenced her protests with a wave of his hand.
"It's the least I can do for causing so much trouble. Oh! My name is Dave, by the way," he said, offering his palm. She giggled at him, again feeling stupid for not asking his name, but it was too late to worry about that now. She touched her palm to his and returned his grin.
"Nice to meet you Dave, I'm Evelyn," she said to him. She had never really been attracted to a genomorph before, but he seemed different some how. She didn't let herself get caught up though. After all, she had just met him.
I don't really understand how I got that lucky. I mean, most wouldn't consider accidentally walking into an anti-genomorph diner to be a lucky thing, but the result was fantastic! I was about to have lunch with one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
Most morphs prefer to pair with only other morphs. I, on the other hand, have no preference whatsoever, which widens the playing field drastically and gives me quite an advantage.
I can easily say that that first day spent with Evelyn was one of the best days of my life. We walked to the pizza place down the street from the diner and had lunch, and after we had eaten we sat at our table for nearly two hours just talking to each other. It was amazing how much we had in common.
I learned that Evelyn, like me, had come from a small town and moved to New York to go to college. In fact, her hometown was only about 2 hours drive from Solan. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear that she'd already dated a morph. Although she only dated him for couple weeks, it still meant that I had a chance. We also had similar majors. Mine in acting and music, hers in musical theater.
We talked and laughed and talked some more, and just when I thought we couldn't possibly have anything more in common, something else would come up and prove me wrong. I felt myself becoming more and more attracted to this young woman I had only known for a few hours.
"Wow, it's almost four o'clock," Evelyn said as she looked at her watch, "I had better be getting home soon, I promised to tape a show for my friend Jenny."
"Do you walk to work every day?" I asked.
"Yea, but my apartment is only a few blocks from here, so it's not that bad. And since I quit, I won't have to at all anymore," she replied.
"Yea, sorry about that," I said.
"That's all right, I was going to put in my two weeks in a couple days anyway. Say, my apartment is actually between here and the campus, would you want to walk me home?" she asked me with a smile.
Her smile was so warm, I couldn't help but smile back.
"I'd love to," I answered, and with that we were on our way.
We talked more on the way to her apartment, and it turned out her parents were paying her way through college, so there was no pressure for her to have a job anyway.
We had walked a few blocks and I figured we were close when she stopped suddenly, this distressed look on her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"My ex-boyfriend Rick is waiting outside my apartment, I can see his truck parked outside," she said, pointing to a red pickup that looked almost too far off the ground to get into. "I have a restraining order against him, but he doesn't seem to care."
We continued walking and sure enough, the person sitting in the truck got out when we neared the door to the apartment complex, and it looked like there were a couple other people still inside the pickup.
The man who I assumed to be Rick was rather large for a human. Probably about six three or four, about six inches taller than me, and looked like he was on steroids. He had short, brown hair with a matching goatee, and was wearing blue jeans and a dirty red t-shirt. I disliked him almost immediately, and he soon gave me reason.
"What are you doing here Rick?" Evelyn asked as he walked up to us, "you know you're not supposed to come near me."
"I just wanted to talk to you," he said, "I think we should try and work things out, get back together, you know?"
"Rick, we've been through this a million times, there's no way in hell I'm going to get back together with you, you might as well stop trying," Evelyn said, sounding irritated.
"Well, could I at least talk to you alone for a second, so this skunk can't hear everything we're saying?" Rick pleaded, I assume meaning me when he said skunk.
Evelyn turned to me, "I'm really sorry, could you give us a sec? It wont be long."
"No problem," I said, taking a couple steps back as they went near the truck to talk. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I could tell they were arguing. Rick looked to be getting more and more angry by her continuing refusal to take him back. I started to get a little nervous, and for good reason.
Evelyn had finally had enough, and turned to walk away from him. This made him even more angry and he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. She tried to pull away but he wouldn't let go, and I could tell by the look on her face that he was hurting her.
They had had enough privacy.
"
"Hey!" I quickly made my way over to them, "let her go!" I said, trying to step between him and Evelyn.
"Mind your own business skunk!" he hollered, letting go of her, but only to swing at me.
I tried to duck under it, but still caught a knuckle on the top of my head, which hurt a lot more than I expected, and knocked off my hat. If I got hit by this guy, I probably wouldn't get back up anytime soon.
I knew I had to end it as quickly as possible.
I pivoted on my left foot, spinning to the right, my elbow connecting with the back of his head.
He was caught by the blow completely off guard, and it sent him to the ground, landing on his hands and knees.
His two friends still in the pickup saw what happened and jumped out to help him. They were both smaller than him but still bigger than me.
The one that jumped out the driver's side door was the first one to reach me. I kicked my right leg up as high as I could, and then brought it down hard, heel first, into the face of the first attacker. By then the second had reached me, and met a fate not much better than his friend.
I dropped low and turned, skimming my right leg just over the ground. I took his feet out from under him and put him on his back. In an instant I was over him. I connected with two quick elbows and got back up.
It definitely would have been a spectacle to anyone watching. Rick was still on the ground, clutching the back of his head. The one I had kicked was also kneeling on the ground, nursing a bleeding and probably broken nose. And the third one was barely conscious.
People had started to gather around, and those who hadn't seen what happened were being told by those who had.
Luckily, a nearby police officer came over to gain control of the situation and find out what happened. Evelyn explained everything, including the bit about the restraining order.
The officer took statements from Evelyn, me, and couple other witnesses, then loaded the three injured men into his squad car to take them to the hospital.
Evelyn took my hand and pulled me through the crowd of onlookers and over to the entrance to her apartment complex. We went down the hallway and then left around a corner, hers was the last apartment on the right. She unlocked the door and we went inside.
The apartment was quite small, with only one main room the doubled as a kitchen, and two doors, one leading to a bathroom and the other I assumed led to her bedroom. There were minimal furnishings, but that was outweighed by the amount of brightly colored posters on the wall, most of them from popular musicals, others from popular movies.
Evelyn set her purse down on the small coffee table sat down on the sofa. She motioned me to sit next to her, which I did gladly.
"Wow," she said, "that has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Do you know karate or something?" I laughed, I guess the jig was up.
"Jujitsu actually, and a little tae kwon do, been taking lessons since I was eight. Congratulations, you're one of only two people to know that, besides my parents. And maybe those guys outside," I said, drawing a laugh from both of us.
"You know," she said, "despite how awesome that was, and how much those guys deserved to get their asses kicked, and how hot it is that you know jujitsu, you probably shouldn't have beat them up. Because they'll be back again, but a lot more pissed than last time. Although I bet they'll think twice before trying punch you." We shared another laugh, and continued talking for a while before I got up to leave.
Evelyn walked me to the outer door.
"I really don't know how to thank you for what you did today," she said as we stood in hallway.
"You could let me take you to dinner sometime," I offered quickly.
"I would like that," she said, and we both smiled. I gave her my cell number, which she wrote on the back of her hand.
We exchanged a quick hug, and to my surprise she kissed me on the cheek.
"Talk to you tomorrow?" she asked me.
"Definitely," I answered, and walked out the door. The five blocks or so it was to campus was probably the most cheerful five blocks I have ever walked.
To be continued...
P.S. I'm pretty new to the whole writing thing, so any tips would be greatly appreciated.