Beneath the Surface
No I'm not, I'm just tired, thought the raggedy-looking vulpine who was curled up into a little ball on an expensive rug in the living room of an upscale house out in the suburbs, out way too far for him to get back under his own power. But when he tried to open his eyes and look at who was speaking to him, the world spun and blurred and acid tried to fight its way into his throat.
So he was drunk. And not just any drunk, either; it was the kind of drunk where he couldn't feel his own goddamned face and his limbs seemed to be connected by fishing line instead of ligaments and muscles.
"No sense in wasting the rest of this cup, now," said that smooth, subtly avian voice, and feathery fingers were at each end of his jaw, pressing, squeezing against his teeth until his muzzle dropped open. The fox felt liquid against his tongue, cold and stinging and foul. It tasted like Bactine, the stuff his mother used to rub over his scraped knees as a kit. But he swallowed anyway, for fear of choking on the stuff. It occurred to his clouded mind that he hadn't seen his drinks prepared since he'd come home with the toucan, and a small jab of panic took hold of his heart before being washed away in fresh alcohol.
"Good boy, drank it all down. You feelin' good?" The fox rolled to his side and managed to sit on his calves, wobbly and more than a little sick. One hand steadied him against a leather sofa, and the words it's chocolate leather it's chocolate leather it's chocolate leather repeated themselves in his head as he tried to convince himself he was still capable of some rational thought. Soon they lost their meaning entirely.
"I...I don' wannymore," spat the white vulpine, whose fur was anything but. It was gritty and stained in places, mostly on his knees where he'd kneeled to vomit several times this week. His body was getting used to the powder again, much faster than he thought was possible, but the joke about leaving one leg dangling off the bandwagon was truer than he wanted it to be. Is it Friday? I can't remember if it's Friday, he thought as he fought to focus on the toucan's smiling face, that smug smile that says, "I've got you by the balls and there's nothing you can do."
It was absolutely true, though. All of it was.
"I was just going to say the same thing; how ironic." The toucan (what's his name what's his name something Mexican no Brazilian no he's American Umberto that's it) was a quick speaker, the words almost blending together in a soft-spoken cacophony that echoed off the walls with barely any sound left to enter the fox's normally sensitive ears. It all seemed muddy, far away. He was in trouble, he knew he was in trouble, but he could no more crawl away to save his life than he could get in a car and turn the key. Umberto said something else he couldn't understand, and his stomach lurched.
The fox moaned and swallowed. "Muuuuuhhh..." He was walking; he must have been walking, because the room was moving, wobbling left and right and progressing past his vision in fits and starts. Umberto held his right elbow tightly, but it didn't keep the staggering vulpine from tripping over his own bare feet. Shouting, he swung his tail to keep from falling, and fell anyway. It was indescribably wonderful to stop moving again, and he hugged the carpet with claws extended.
"Oh, now look what you did, fox." Umberto turned his head with both hands, the minute feathers on them tickling the bases of his ears. Prying his eyes open, he saw chunks of broken white porcelain, some with gold leaf appliqués, littering the floor.
I didn't do that, he wanted to say, but it came out more like, "Ahhdndut..." His tongue was a wad of dry cotton, an unruly traitor.
Umberto's voice was smiling again. "Oh, but you did, my friend. That was a very expensive vase. Bought it in Firenze, can't replace it. You're going to have to find a way to repay me for that. Here, come into the kitchen so we can discuss."
As soon as the shattered vase was out of his vision, it was forgotten entirely. The fox was too busy trying to see where he was going (being led was more like it) to care. It was a big house, more house than Umberto needed by himself, but he obviously sold enough to afford the good things outside the gravity of Downtown. Earlier in the week, when the fox had stopped by in the middle of the day for a quick fix, the toucan had admonished that since a rival had moved a few states over, he'd had such good business that he could take his operation to the suburbs where he could cloak everything amid playing schoolchildren and three-car garages.
The kitchen sat just off the living room, and the only way the intoxicated vulpine knew he had entered it was the feel of cold tile on his pads. It was textured rather than smooth--exposed travertine--but all the fox felt was the transition from soft to hard surfaces. Twice he collapsed between the counter and the sink, where Umberto's steady arms held him. Forcing his eyes to roll downwards out of his head, the fox could not focus his vision no matter how hard he tried, which wasn't very hard to begin with. His whole body felt like a mass of heavy rubber, boneless and debilitating.
"You know, that vase (the toucan pronounced it vahz in that second-generation Brazilian lilt of his) came from the personal collection of a good friend of mine. It wasn't one of a kind, but it was by no means common. He would be disappointed to find that it came to such an underwhelming end." This elicited almost no response from the vulpine hunched over the stainless steel side-by-side sink and garbage disposal, and he thought for a moment that it might be the perfect time to empty the contents of his stomach.
"Aaah, gnuhfrup..." Strings of drool dangled from the end of the fox's muzzle, the fur at the end of which held the color of buttermilk instead of its usual snow-whiteness. His head was turned to the right, and Umberto's multicolored beak filled his vision, the smile plastered on it incongruous with the avian's character.
"I don't doubt it," murmured the drug dealer, close enough to the vulpine's ear to make it twitch with the breath. It smelled of fruit and tobacco. Umberto never used; he just dealed. "Why do you think I brought you in here? But we haven't discussed payment for what you did. In fact," he scratched the orange surface of his chin, "if memory serves correctly you still owe me for yesterday's lines and your previous injection tonight."
The only problem was that the fox was absolutely stone-cold broke. Every tip this week had been a fraction of a hit of heroin, a gram here and there, just enough to keep him steady until the next fix. He had come, begging and palsied and dehydrated, to Umberto, who took him under his arm and offered him a cigarette and a Cosmopolitan, promising that it would work out, they would find a way.
That was before he'd gotten drunk. That was before Umberto had gotten him high. That was before all signs of sobriety and practicality went the way of the Dodo.
He wanted Markus. He wanted the wolf so badly, he wished he hadn't lied about being on vacation out of town. Markus could have talked him out of coming here. The wolf could have hugged him and made him dinner and put him to bed, telling him if he could get through one night of withdrawal he'd be okay again. Markus was Downtown, asleep, alone. He was out of the loop, involuntary straight man to the biggest fool this town had ever seen.
Umberto was talking again, though now he was holding the fox's muzzy head over the drain by his ears. His stomach wanted to, but it just wouldn't come yet. "I suppose it's not too big a deal, is it? Fretting over an object, something someone in a foreign country spent all of two days sculpting and firing one of God knows how many copies, when there are friends and clients to take care of."
The fox moaned and collapsed into the counter.
"Wearing off already, is it? Come on, big boy, up on your feet now." Meaty hands squeezed the slight vulpine's tiny waist, forcing him to support his own weight. The fox could barely feel his own hands, the pads seeming clumsy and swollen, but he held his own even if he couldn't see. Umberto's grip migrated south and forward to the front of his thighs, kneading the flesh just a little too close to his groin.
"Doon, don tuh, touch muh, muh..." The fox may have thought he was flailing, but he had only succeeded in tucking his tail between his legs against the counter.
"I believe that first dose is wearing off," said the toucan with a touch of faux disdain. "I should have told you before about the Oro del Dios I have."
Oro del Dios...the sweetest trio of words the fox had ever heard. God's Gold, the treasure of Rio, the purest of the pure. Processed to a point of ridiculous purity so rare, anyone with enough balls to bypass their dealer and track down the source was more likely to get shot in the neck than return with their hide. Umberto was saying he had the stuff. But having and selling were two very different things.
"Maybe I should forget the stupid vase," continued the toucan, his beak making minute clicks with his lightly-accented fricatives and glottals. Once again his fingers closed around the fox's waist, snaking into the band of his jeans, pulling down slightly. A slug of vague dread swimming in his gut, he felt the tail snap pop loose and everything shifted lower, exposing the top of his rump. Umberto leaned in behind, pressing the fox's stomach against the counter's edge so he couldn't reach behind without stressing his back...provided he could coordinate his limbs, period.
Those fingers wandered surreptitiously over the smooth fuzzy buttocks, spreading here and there and causing the vulpine to moan again, devoid of pleasure. Umberto may have had a Rolex and a Chinese silk shirt on, but he was still a drug dealer, and a slimebag at that. Another stab of panic froze the fox's heart, but the toucan was the only person keeping him from drowning in his own sick. It was a dangerous place to be, and he was immobile. Umberto was the only one who knew he was here, so he had to trust. What a subjective term in this situation.
Umberto turned away. "Be good and stay here, in case you need to evacuate. I won't be long." Footsteps left the kitchen floor and disappeared entirely in the carpet beyond. An acute sliver of pain had started worming its way through the base of the vulpine's skull, and even with his eyes closed he could still see his pulse on the insides of his eyelids. If he opened them he knew he would lose it.
The only thing he could think about was a lifesaving pile of white powder, powder that would kill the pain and the nausea and stop the shaking of his hands so he could hold onto the counter. It would stop the world from spinning. It wouldn't fix him forever, but forever could wait until he was home.
How do you fix it, huh? How do you deal with Markus?
"Shut up, fucking shut up, he doesn't matter!" the fox snarled, the words clear and clipped and sober. They sounded true. It was too much; his knees bent and he fell backwards onto his tail, tripped by the jeans that had somehow become a puddle at his feet. He cried out, a blubbery sound, and curled up on his side.
Click, click, click. "I kind of thought I couldn't leave you alone. Look at you, writhing around like that on my floor. It looks like it hurts." The fox moaned in reply. His face was bathed in shadow as Umberto leaned over him, studying him with narrowed eyes. The toucan brought a shiny object in front of his face, and when he flicked it with a finger the fox's eyes filled with tears. He was crying, he couldn't help it, but he knew what it was.
"Hold still, little guy." Umberto wasn't that much older than him, but he whimpered like a kit as he allowed his left arm to be stretched. The familiar routine--the elastic band, the tapping, the vein massage--was like a visit from an old friend. When the needle sank beneath the surface, the fox was too strung out to notice; only when a chemical heat infused his bloodstream did he know it had been done. The pain was gone...most everything else was as well...but instead of tensing, his entire body relaxed. Umberto's hand petted the back of his neck, and it was his entire world.
"Amazing what a little Oro will do, no? Little morphine, too. Come on, up with you." The fox's waif-like build felt like a thousand pounds, which made Umberto the strongest man on the face of the planet when he felt himself hefted to his feet. Again the cool marble slab under his chest, the brushed stainless steel at the end of his snout. It was odd, though, that his head was swimming even more after the second injection; if anything, he should have sobered up a little. His stomach started to roil, taking his attention away while feathered fingers tugged at his thong and pulled it to his knees.
"Buh, buuuuuuhhh..." The fox's tongue, impossibly thick, lolled around the beginning of a sentence to which he didn't know the ending. A clear saliva-bubble popped between his fangs.
Umberto had sidled up behind him again, a clump of headfur in one hand holding his head steady. "You just relax, now," he murmured, his breath a mixture of mango and marijuana and fluid in the fox's ear. He could barely feel it, but there was a sudden sharp pressure at his rump. The deep-seeded panic now surfaced, full-fledged and burning. His mind was awash in sobriety, but his body could no more cooperate than he could speak.
There was no pain, just pressure, so much immense pressure and no feeling whatsoever. It was the epitomy of invasion, and he had never before experienced it. It always meant something, but not this time. It was just flesh on flesh, for no other reason than friction. The toucan's knees spread his legs wider, pressed him hard against the counter. He thought his feet had left the floor.
"You don't always have to pay money," Umberto almost purred, way too close to the fox's laid-flat ear. In a business like this, there's always other ways to negotiate. Remember way back, when you used to deal for me? I miss those days." The toucan pulled away, easing the pressure momentarily before coming back down. This time the fox offered much less resistance. It wasn't like he wasn't trying. "Too bad. I suppose this will have to do."
Umberto's grip on the vulpine's head tightened, and there was pain for the first time. Everything came into sharp focus just long enough to feel the whole of the toucan under his tail, hot and slick and indifferent, filling him up, splitting him open, too late to turn back and too weak to move. His stomach contracted once, twice, and Umberto let him go, uninterrupted in his rhythm as his stomach betrayed him by emptying itself into the pristine stainless-steel basin. And then no more pain, no more fire...just the taste of bile mixed with his own tears.
The darkness was like home.
FIN
2/16-2/20/08