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Maxwell had once held a fear of the sight of blood. Despite the fact that he made an excellent bounty hunter over the years, for a long while he just couldn't stomach seeing the crimson life-substance oozing out of a freshly-planted bullet hole or a wide-open slashed fleshy gouging abdomen wound. Before Mr. Bronx said to Maxwell what he said that New Year's Eve night at the Rotundra Hut which set off such a terrible slew of hatred-based violence in response however, he never truly allowed himself to become satiated to the idea of being smothered with the stuff. The two canine-hybrid leading musicians of Enim-Noinu never truly realized the sheer bond they shared between each other before that fateful night to end all nights. It only took one smart-assed New Yorker punk's tongue to completely solidify their partnership as one set in stone. How absurd the circumstances those were!

~

On a random Friday during the eve of a new year, Bradley gave Max an early-morning ring-a-ling-ding on his home phone, since his cell had been disconnected roughly a month prior due to putting off purchasing an activation plan card. Brad called with interest and excitement - he wished to invite the raccoon-shepherd himself out for a festive New Years evening chock full of drinking and cavorting, partying and streamers, cute hybrid gals and an endless supply of ribbed condoms, devoid of cleverly punctured holes in the flabby nipple-tip. Plus New Years Eve was to last all night as well, so they certainly had to get their Auld Lang Syne on. Max had been out drinking heavily the night before (no surprise there), so his hangover could be classified as dull but still somewhat active. He was startled awake from a deep solemn overnight detoxification. His liver was on fire, doused in kerosene and smothered in a heaping bonfire of modest pain. He mumbled profanities beneath his breath, half-asleep, head throbbing, dreadlocks tangled to high holy heaven, fur ruffled atrociously, tail and crotch matted with some cruddy and absurdly sticky substance. It smelled of sugary-sweet syrup. Most likely a spilled rum & coke or two, maybe dried come stains from either a female or male partner - perhaps both? Too late for formalities now, apparently. He gracefully juggled the phone's handset in his hand-paws, ascertaining clumsiness before gaining a firm grip on the damn thing. Early-morning butterfingers had been his specialty, especially in his groggy state of mind.

"Uh...y'ello?" Max said, clearing his throat and stifling back a twinge of swift nausea in response.

"Maxie-poo! Hey, its your fellow grunger Bradley!" Max belched aloud, tasting a hint of Coca-Cola at the back of his throat. "Say dude, you want to go out for a shot or a few later on tonight? Celebrate the new year in fashion? I've just recently heard of this cool new place along the outskirts of Eugene we could rustle up - they cater to our kind, from what I've read. Apparently its been there for a while. They also make killer-good cocktails from what I've also been told. Its location isn't quite as close as the Crimson Corner or that one Irish pub we dig, buuut I figured that'll probably make do anyways. A fresh change of pace and atmosphere! Whatcha say, man? Interested?"

"What fucking time is it, ass wipe?" Max asked. Brad scoffed lightly, holding his muzzle away from the handset on his end. Max's voice came out sounding absurdly muffled and groggy, as if he were talking through a crumpled bed sheet into the handset. His stubby mouth felt drier than the Savannah in high summer and his stomach churned painfully with the poison he willingly chugged no more than oh, say about nine hours ago.

"Dude, its like ten in the morning. Did you go out binging again last night?"

"Yo mama." Max said matter-of-factly. He underwent a brief coughing spasm - smoker's cough. After a few quick bursts of lung-ripping sounds, he hawked and spat, then cleared his throat. "I would've invited you, but didn't you have...I dunno...like, fucking bible study or something?"

"You know that shit isn't very good for your liver or your lungs, Max. And no, it was a Taoist congregation I attended. You know I don't practice Christianity or Catholicism. Maybe you should take it easy with the booze and smoke from now on, bud? At least until later tonight, of course. Then I could care less if you smoke half of Colorado's ganja supply down to its core foundation."

"Yeah, if only the dumb-ass state didn't run out prematurely... and just exactly who the holy-hell-fire died and made you my fucking daddy anyways, kid-O?"

"Blow off, dude! I'm only trying to help." Brad said. A hint of sarcasm boiled from within his tone of voice, though his irritability. Evidently he too must not have had a decent smoky-toking in quite awhile.

"You first, fucker. Now tell me what the Christ-muffins you really want. You_did_ disturb me from my beauty sleep after all, goddamn you." Max chuckled slightly beneath his breath. His groin itched a bit and he'd grown a stealth erection without even realizing it, but he doubted Bradley had any interest in such fascinating endeavors. Or maybe he does? Maybe he's always wondered how big my dick gets when it gets that blood flowing? Or how my ejaculate tastes when I shoot a fresh load? Perhaps how the baculum works in correspondence with the knot? Hells bells, I wonder!

"Well, if you aren't too invested in barfing your guts up all over your fancy linens, come along with me to the new place! Won't you please? Its called..." A faint rustling of paper crinkled in the background, "Here we are. The 'Rotundra Hut'. Sounds a bit fancy, huh? Tropical in nature and all that jazz."

"Sounds like a sissy-assed tra-la-la shyster-job to me more than anything." Max said. Brad envisioned his face to be as stern and serious as a Native chieftain granting battle orders to his beloved surviving tribe on the eve of a massive assault.

"Shee-it Maximillian, you're one to talk, dude."

Max rubbed his cheek, feeling a slightly welted bruise, tender to the touch. He had also had a slight lingering aftertaste of semen wallowing down in the pit of his throat. Well, at least the other guy got his kicks in by way of punching his fellatio granter. Some world we live in where a good suck is rewarded with a bad fist!

"Okay, okay. Listen though. If you promise not to allow me to become far too super-goofy and psychotically flirtatious as a result of heavy boozing this time around, I'll tag along to check out your Ro-lame-ra jackass dumb-ass hut. Capische?"

"Whatever, you butt monk. You'll be in safe keeping, I promise." Brad couldn't possibly keep such a promise, but who was he to admit such a thing out loud? "Okey-dokey, so I'll pick you up around six then?"

"Make it more like seven-thirty. I need to get cleaned up first. I think I may have spilled a rum-coke mix on my pants or on my tail... maybe both? Fuck knows, honestly. I can barely remember a goddamned thing from last night dude and that's no lie!" Max's voice suddenly took on the excited tone of a boy telling his mother he'd earned an A+ in Calculus.

"Nothing new there, I suppose. Then its settled? I'll be by a little after twenty-to at the latest. That's twenty to seven! Don't forget! You should probably be ready by then, no? If not, I'll come up and drag your ass down to the car - by your striped tail. Just promise me you won't have to make me do that shit again , please?" Brad asked. There was desperation in his voice now.

"I won't. I promise. And if so, you can send in a SWAT team to recover my half-crocked corpse."

"Ha-ha, whatevs you weirdo. I've got a spare key for your place, I'll just let myself in."

"Sure thing. Don't slip on the numerous puddles of female ejaculate when you let yourself in, okay?"

"Oh, a charmer as well! Been seeing anyone lately, fella? I'll bring non-slip boots if that's the case."

"Nope... today, those 'boots' of yours are officially called 'Shit-kickers', me laddy!"

Brad laughed. "Aye clever one, no?"

"Of course! Later then. OH! Before I forget, Happy New Year to you, man." Max said.

"Likewise, coon-dog! See'ya!" Brad exclaimed. Max could easily envision his partner-in-performing. Brad's golden-gamboge eyes riling with sheer excitement at the promise of a fun night out. Brad's green-tinted tail wagging faster and faster. Bradley, now dressing sharp for the occasion that has been honorably and faithfully celebrated world-wide since the dawn of time itself.

Brad hung up first. Max let the phone rest idly against his shoulder, listening to the nullifying sound of silence. Why would Brad want to try some lame-brained shit-hole like this Rotund-whatever? There was a fine Irish pub in Portland they could easily attend for their New Years fix. Brad always sought out the finest in fanciful etiquette though. His bar-hopping antics were of a required and ultimately eclectic taste; Bradley had long-established himself as an over-eccentric exotic cocktail drinker. Max never really needed any of that. As far as he was concerned, life is good even with a trashy ghetto slum-joint teeming to the brim with hookers, pimps, druggies, maniacs and every pervert known to everything-kind. Good times! His mind escalated into a passing afterthought of just what he may have done (or whom perhaps?) last night when Max's phone began to chime with an obnoxiously loud BUZZ! beepbeepbeepbeep tone that could gradually replace the obnoxiously horrifying death metal used in Guantanamo's interrogation chambers. He placed the handset back onto its base pedestal (rotary telephones were becoming a cherished rarity in this day and age), shut his eyes, laid back into bed and reflected upon all that happened to him throughout the course of the past year - or years, rather. After having reoccurring visions of feral creatures and kings and timberwolves and wolgons and zombies and so very many anonymous foxes and his parents, Maxwell hopped out of bed to prepare himself, both physically and mentally, for one hell of a groovy night out.

~

after plenty of Alka-Seltzer and coffee, upon arrival to the new drinking establishment (a slummy jive if there'd ever been one), Max laughed aloud hysterically while shaking his head with sheer embarrassment. Brad had not only brought him to the most pastel-assed, ugly-as-llama-vomit juke-joint in all the state of Oregon, but he'd brought Max to some totally random off-the-wall Hawaiian hot spot smothered with tiki torches, tribal decorations, free WiFi connectivity, straw-roofed huts, intercom speakers playing Hula Joe & the Hutjumpers on endless repeat from a retroactive jukebox and the prettiest human female bartenders he'd ever seen, obviously native Samoans; short curvaceous tanned perfection. The roof reached up roughly twenty feet into the building's highest rafters, resembling what could have once been a refurbished chapel or a concert hall from long ago. The funniest thing was how the building itself hardly seemed this wide-open and quite so roomy from the outside. The illusion was a very effective one. Of course, one mustn't forget to mention some of the freakiest human patrons around, decidedly calling the Rotundra Hut their official home.

This place certainly drew in quite a crowd for one being so bereft of New Years-themed decor on this night of all nights: elderly old perverted fools chasing invisible tail which they'll never get around to catching in all their wildest dreams, bikers adorned with studded and spiked leather jackets and beer bellies all around, a younger couple engaging in a heated domestic dispute over residual finances and child support and perhaps the most absurd of all...a mini-assembly of bald-headed Klansmen gathered in a darkly-lit corner of the room, consisting of precisely four milky-white skinheads. One of them caught a passing glimpse of Max and Brad as they entered and immediately tapped his buddies' shoulders to draw their attention to the two freaks who had just entered their place of residual R&R. There wasn't a sign at the front door saying HUMAN ENTRANCE ONLY - FURRYS IN BACK; however, there should've been one. The two anthro-canine hybrids had just entered unfamiliar and unwelcoming territory and they were about to be reminded of just how indifferently the great big bad hostile human race perceives their kind to a fault.

"Here, man. Pull up a stool." Brad said. He walked over to the bar counter-top and sat, egging Max to take the empty seat next to his. Max coincided, and soon a pair of fluffy tails were swinging aimlessly back and forth from a pair of shiny chrome-polished bar stools. The counter-top had been engraved in smooth granite. The foam-cushioned seat pads were decorated with lovely bright pastel hibiscus flower shapes. They also had imprinted butt cheek marks from the hundreds of other various asses that have previously sat upon this very stool in the years past for a quick round plus four for the road. Max knew this place had seen some years behind it. He also wondered if there's ever been any casualties. No bloodstains on the floor at least, but still...

"Thank ye kindly!" Maxwell said. Brad exchanged a grin and a wink. Eventually the gorgeously attractive female bartender came over to them. They placed their order and she went straight to work, swift and assured, moving smoother than a ninja in an intensive rigorous training exercise. She slid two pint-sized chilled glass mugs filled to the brim with fresh brewsky down the surface of the squeaky-clean granite to the dog-boys who intercepted the handles gleefully, counteracting against the wave-splash of wheat-scented liquid. Both Max and Brad thanked her and she winked back at him, saying de nada. They clanked the mugs together and chugged away, barely aware of the beady little prying hateful anthro-fearing eyes focused on them from a darkened corner.

~

Maxwell looked around for a bit, then finally lost his patience and came clean with the burning eternal question of all questions unto Bradley.

"Remind me again why the mother-loving fuck we're sitting in this petty little dump, amigo?"

A lone drinker gawked upward toward Max, presenting a slightly offended burrowing frown. His expression said: Hey buddy, up yours! This place ain't so bad for the most part - at least she ain't flooded over with your kind far too overwhelmingly!

The biker men also gave a curious glance toward Max, then went on about their own business. Hell's Angels business. The closer you'd get to the semicircle group of these leather-clad men, the stronger the scent of brandy, gin and rye became. The arguing couple were booted out after the man decided that his fists could easily compensate for his words, frustrated after discovering his incapability of getting his point across to his wife easily. After they'd left, another young woman - a new recruit in training - collected their glasses. She found two chunks of broken yellowish-white gleaming enamel in the abused lady's highball glass and shrieked aloud, practically dropping the glass to the floor. A scraggly old human elder sat next to Brad, glanced across and over at Max and gestured a pantomiming of oral sex to him with a gleeful smirk. The veteran bartender simply blushed beet-red upon witnessing the elder's perverse notion and migrated her way to the other end of the bar to help calm down her new hire and tidy things up, including proper disposal of the tooth bits. The elderly bum's eyes were hazy and glossy, those of a struggling cancer patient inevitably losing the fight of all fights. Max saw the horny old fool make the illicit offer to him and immediately felt his stomach churn as he averted his gaze away from the wrinkly-skinned nearly-toothless pervert. Not tonight, buddy. You can go suck yourself off as far as I'm concerned, this night is ours and ours alone, and that's all she fucking wrote. You want a dog's cock to suck? Find a stray in an alleyway in Portland to serve your satisfactory needs.

As the night carried on, the two hybrid canines drank their fair share of top-shelf boilermakers and Jager-bombs until they couldn't exactly see straight. They laughed and reminisced over concerts played in the past; about panties and bras being flung upon their stage and over their instrument's necks, like that one time how a pair of shit-stained panties was fired in slingshot fashion right upon the head of their drummer Maile and how she grew so furious in response that flames shot out of her skull, charring the skid-rowed undergarments to a crisp, causing her to shatter a drumstick and the audience to practically riot in heated response; about arguments had with top concert promoters and past agents; about navigating treacherously narrow backwoods GPS-less roads and finding seemingly impossible-to-find venues in locations that shouldn't even exist, let alone be found easily on a map. They rambled on about their past lives and never even noticed the barbershop's quintet group of white-power radicals descending upon them from behind. At one point, Brad happened to catch a peculiar sight suspended directly above the bar's counter-top, directly above the heads of the other fellow bar patrons. Two peculiar things, in fact. Why the owners would settle in making such a random choice of interior design, Brad couldn't possibly fathom. Fucking crazy humans, man. All he knew was that you simply didn't hang such absurdities over the top of your establishment unless you had a legitimately good reason to do so. Fortunately for Max and Brad on this night, the owners had possessed the decency to think ahead for them.

"Hey there, coon-bitch. This green-furred queer and you together?" One of the skinheads asked suddenly.

The clock read 11:48 pm.

~

Mr. Baldy-human's tone of voice held onto its querulously offensive manner. He possessed a Bronx accent. It sounded as seething to the ear as crystallized glass shards churning in some poor rapist's stomach, amplified to triple-decibel volume. This sudden onslaught of wickedness did wonders to both Max and Brad's sobriety.

"Could be. Who wants to know, man?" Brad asked. Though he kept his composure well enough, his threat-detection meter ultimately skyrocketed from within and his outright panic began to make a swift ascent into his nerves, causing him to tremble slightly. This man obviously wasn't here to share a kiss at the precise moment when the ball dropped in Times Square.

"Wasn't talkin' to you, asshole-fucker!" The same skinhead blurted out aloud, raising his voice. One of the bikers cast a concerned gaze over to the small debacle freshly forming. Nobody else seemed to take any notice of the escalating tension in the situation, they were all wrapped up in drink and drivel. "No, not to you. I was asking your goddamned faggot-dog over yonder if you and him were a fucking queer-bait thing, prick wad."

"What if we are? What then? What'll you do, film a gay porn and sell it for profit? Jeezus-please-us, how dumb are you numb skulls? Just go back to your little corner and discuss prospects for stealing your mommy's bed sheets to go riding hard into the forests at midnight, why don'tcha? Don't forget to double-check those sheets for piss-stains either. Maybe a cum-stain or two from me?" Max said. He wore a smarmy wide-toothed gaping smile as he spoke. His silver fang glinted in the bereft dim light. In a half-second, that smile took a total 180-degree nose dive for the worst.

"Careful you fucking spic-dog. We'll lynch your goddamned faggot ass faster than you can fucking imagine. You bet we will, you smart mouthed little cock-sucking motherfucker." A second skinhead said, suddenly bursting onto the scene with vicious intent. His voice was nasally and high-pitched. The moron probably hadn't even hit puberty yet, and here he was - being inducted first-hand into this new-found family of bigoted hillbilly pig-whores. Perhaps the hybrid-mutts served as the boy's primary KKK initiation? Max's heart ached for the young man's future. The Hitler-youth initiate, massive tarantula-black swastika tattooed upon the side of his head, wiped a trickle of snot from his nostril with the back of his wrist, sniffing in excess dripping discharge. He then squelched and hocked a loogie consistent of bloodied green phlegm onto Brad's leg.

"We don't take kindly to yer types around these 'ere parts, boys." Another skinhead spoke up. This third one possessed a thick Southern drawl. He must've been the oldest of the bunch, ranging around in his forties, roughly. "Ain't ya'll got yer own goddamned place of drinkin' ya'll can hit up? Stinkin' up our air_(pronouned_ aiah) here instead... a damn shame, if ya'll ask me. Sheddin' all over the counter too! Ain't no way for a classy lil' establishment like this 'ere one to be run, eh, Mr. Beaner McSpiccyspics? Go back to your own fucking country and leave this one the hell alone or so help me God, I'll-"

"Seriously, get the fuck out of here." Max slammed his shot-glass hard enough upon the surface of the counter-top to shatter . "Right." Maxwell stood up, giving Brad a start. "Fucking." He touched his shep-coon snout to the racist creep's pudgy nose. "Now." They exchanged a glance that could melt steel. Max's good cheer and witty charm had fizzed out and burnt to a crisp. He was more annoyed now than lead on. Fun time was officially over. The clock now read ten to twelve. Max positioned himself beside his bar stool and directed his single good eye to all four of them now. Bradley glanced back up at the absurd _(Props? Memorabilia? Security? Absurd collector's items?) _suspended above their heads. His mind had settled on a split-second decision, though he wasn't prepared to undergo any hasty moves just yet. He only waited to see if the men would leave them be to their own vices. Nothing is ever truly that simple though, in the case of Maxwell and Bradley.

"MAKE US YOU FUCKING WETBACK-DOG!!" The fourth skinhead (and arguably the biggest and scariest of the group) screamed. He brought both of his meaty clenched fists down upon the back of Max's head from behind unannounced - a dirty fighter's move if there'd ever been one. The initial blow caused him to slump over from his seat and crash down upon the linoleum-tiled floor shoulder-first, cloying with the thick scent of Lysol and bleach. The seat itself toppled over onto his leg then rolled back off. Millions of scattering orbs and stars coursed throughout his vision, dizzying and nauseatingly misplacing his peripheral angles, as he gathered his strength together with great haste and grabbed his skinhead attacker's ankle. Max yanked the Fat-Body with all of his might. The man lost his own balance and swung backward, tottering in place, arms swinging in rotating motions to support his balance. He didn't quite make it though. The side of his face smashed against the sharp-rutted edge of the counter, shattering what few molars he had left in his mouth. His head buckled to the side with whiplash-speed and he crashed down to the floor beside Max rock-hard, the way a rotten sack of potatoes would, bouncing back up slightly from the first initial landing, a giant overgrown deflated dodge ball. Now lying on his back, The skinhead swallowed one of his busted teeth down the wrong pipe and began to choke on it. Blood streamed out of his mouth and from his nose. He began to thrash his limbs violently. His eyes rolled mercilessly in his sockets in-between casting an unbelieving glancing stare towards Max, now right beside him. Max stared in silent awe. Eventually, the Fat-Body found the will and strength to cough up the tooth, a golden-capped crown, and retreated back away from the bar, away from the both the anthros, away from the hostility. The others weren't as susceptible to backing down though. The broken golden crown gleamed in the dimly-lit juke-joint, twinkling from a small pool of snot and saliva. The Rotundra Hut became a graveyard of silence.

"Oh holy mother_FUCK!!!_" The Bronx-accented skinhead hollered aloud, shattering the silence to smithereens and startling the establishment into a massive wide-eyed staring frenzy. The place had a single bouncer in charge of maintaining order (he'd been the one who evicted the fighting couple) but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably outside getting his dick sucked by a cancer-raddled old pervert, as far as anyone else was concerned.

"Its on now, boys!" The Southern-drawled skinhead howled. He laughed hysterically at the prospects of bloodshed, of lynching, of castrating, of beheading, of sodomizing, of raping, of cooking and eating, of swift revenge. Mr. Puberty was frightened out of his gourd as he tried to watch everything and everybody all at once. Mr. Fat-Body lay semi-consciously on the ground. The rest of his teeth ultimately came to rest under Brad's bar stool.

The clock read 11:52 pm.

~

As the fine-as-hell human college girls tending the bar crouched down beneath it for safety, the bikers gathered in a massive ensemble collective and - to both Max and Brad's dumbfounded surprise - cheered on the bar fight. The ruffians, though greatly intimidating, were supremely radical tonight and their excitement helped fuel the madness all around, igniting the place like a tainted gas main explosion. And boy, were they cooking with diesel and kerosene on this New Years Eve!

Bradley acted swiftly and without any hesitation, narrowly missing a brass-knuckled fist thrown by Mr. Southern, which collided into the cushioned soft surface of his stool. He leaped up onto the top of the counter and reached upward. They were tied into place with thin strips of metallic twine hammered into the wall. Brad hoisted himself up, grabbed hold of both items and swung mercilessly with all his weight drawing downward. The nails gave easily under his dead-weight and the twine snapped with a series of brisk reports. Brad landed upon the counter-top effortlessly, his feet-paws drenched in spilled whiskey. He surprised himself in maintaining enough balance not to slip head-over-heels down onto the ground beside Max. That initial shock lasted for half a second as he handed a spiked chain-mace down to Max and without a further second of hesitation, leaped off the edge of the counter, front-flipping through the air overhead Mr. Puberty. While in mid-air, Brad swung a nail-studded baseball bat squarely into the boy's face. One nail punctured his right eyeball, another burrowed itself deep into his sinus cavity, two more impaled themselves into his cheek and one got stuck in a slight rivet of cartilage in his nose. Before Brad landed upon his feet swiftly, he pulled the bat free from the young man's face just as quickly as contact was made. Mr. Puberty's hazel-iris right eye got evicted in a rather gruesome manner, bursting in its socket like a pimple drawn to a head and leaking out a gelatinous filmy wad of nerve-strewn ocular flesh and yellowish foamy tendrils of pus. A rather sizable hole gushed a torrent of maroon-darkened blood from his nose. His scream emulated sheer insanity. Mr. Puberty fell to the floor, clawing away at his ruined face, fingers poking through the new holes in his cheek, rubbing briskly at his gum line. The boy died from intense shock no less than a good twenty seconds later. That would mark the very last lugie he ever spat on Brad's leg.

When Max caught the chain-mace, the spiky ball clunked down upon the ground beside him. The weight of the weapon punctured a gnarly gaping rut into the glossy yet ugly linoleum-tiled surface. He acted with swift haste, swung the chain over his head and flung the spiked mace ball with all the strength he could muster in his position directly at Mr. Southern. The weapon missed the man's chest, but its path of trajectory changed. Instead, the shiny reflective ball hit Mr. Southern's brass-knuckled bicep...and tore his entire arm clean off. A wickedly thick stream of blood shot out from the hole that once held his prized heavyweight clobber-cannon. The gaping wound doubled as a water cannon at a fun-thyme carnival and drenched mostly anything within close proximity with crimson liquid. The bartenders both screamed aloud from beneath, now being showered with red droplets. The decapitated arm plopped to the ground with a faint smack! and Max saw (or perhaps attempted to comprehend what he was seeing) the hand flexing, opening, closing, balling into a fist, opening again... it was like witnessing a gecko's separated tail writhing and squirming on the ground after startling it from under a large cord of oak wood. Those goddamned brass knuckles never fell off. The Southern-drawled hick bellowed out loud with stifling pain and plopped down onto his hind-end, reaching for his now-misplaced limb. He grabbed at his shoulder and felt a small knob of bone protruding from where his arm had once been. The phantom itch had already began to settle in and it was enough to drive even the sanest human into a fit of intrepid delirium. Slippery strips of bloodied-pink tendon and yellowish-red muscular ligaments dangled and swung freely from the wound. The racist prick babbled incoherently with disbelief and seized up, dying from a heart attack due to a major loss of blood and straight shock. He slumped over like a rag doll filled to over-capacity with gooey thick extra-strength hair gel. His gaze never left Max, nor the menacing medieval weapon of choice that ultimately killed him. In his dying moments, his sight adjusted through the infinite blurriness and focused just long enough on his own arm. Oh, there it went, he thought with a smile, as he slumped over and became still, frozen in a permanent rictus of death.

Now it was just Mr. Bronx and the Fat-Body. The fourth skinhead was without a doubt the ringleader, the one who smashed his ham-boned fists upon the back of Max's head, as well as planting the seeds of destructive hatred into the minds of his cohorts. He was as large as a riding lawnmower and five times as lethal. What neck he may have once had years before had long since been buried amongst a rippling sea of fatty folds. He wore a wife-beater and torn Levis, both stained with long twin strips of murky reddish-brown from his earlier tooth-destroying tumble. After this evening, the jackass patrons of the Rotundra Hut would make the local dentists in town extremely wealthy, Max predicted. In one hand the Tweedle-Dum clone spun open a fully-extended shank-blade and in the other, a thick rope with a hangman's noose tied to one end. His eyes screamed aloud with homicidal delight.

"You shouldn't have done gone n' killed them boys, you two. You just shouldn't have." The alpha skinhead was whiter than a ghost. Other than two tiny dime-sized specks of flushed rosy-red in his cheeks, he could damn well have practically been transparent, seeing as how very pale his skin tone had now become. "They was only playin' ya'll! Lord Jesus! Oh my word! We're gonna fucking kill the SHIT out of you two now! Ya'll done messed with the wrong fucking group! We'll lynch your faggot asses and drag your goddamned naked-ass beaner-loving carcasses all around town while we light ya'll up with kerosene and matches! _You fucking spic-dogs will PAY for what you did!!! PAY IN FULL!!! _"

"Shut the fuck up." Maxwell said. He stood up from the ground slowly, holding onto the counter for balance support, ignoring the dull pain now nestled deep within his nape and the back of his head. "They deserved far more worse and you know it, so shut your fat fucking trap before you say anything you'll regr-"

"Fuck you, spic-lover!" Mr. Bronx snapped out. His eyes were twin kaleidoscopes devoutly painted of pure insistent murder.

"You want a face-full of this too, man?" Bradley hollered. His threatening gesture and solidified gaze burned a trickling sense of fear into the hearts of the two surviving skinheads. His gamboge-hued eyes glistened, burning like intricate charred embers in an eternal inferno. Or perhaps from the tip of the cigarette Max just lit and inhaled from, puffing in smoke like oxygen to an exiled astronaut. Then a metallic cha-klik! echoed into the chaotic onslaught of post-madness. Silence followed immediately after. The Fat-Body raised his hands with swift haste. Mr. Bronx took a few steps back, holding his ground, hands raised, palms exposed, eyes wide as saucer plates. Only the sobbing of the bartenders could be heard. One of the biker men (the biggest one out of the group, from the looks of it) had drawn a 12-gauge, cocked and armed it, taking aim toward Brad and Max. His face was expressionless and reassured. He knew exactly what he was doing. The question was, would he be able to do it?

"Ya'll boys better skedaddle. Wouldn't want to witness ya'll commit any more crimes than what you've already done caused so far, I reckon. We'll tend to them other boy's carcasses... but only if you both promise to just leave this place." He brandished his weapon towards the front door. "Right now. Nobody else has to get hurt tonight, ya dig?" The Biker said with a clear sense of resolute wisdom. He was scruffy and spoke with a strangely unique accent, reminiscent of the seediest New Orleans jazz nightclubs; a queer dialect resembling French Cajun.

Max glanced at the clock. The time read 11:57 pm.

~

Brad held his position for what felt like an eternity, then he slowly brought the bat, dripping with fresh blood, down to his groin, holding it in a defensive posture, ready to strike hard and fast upon the next fool who dare attempted to overpower him. Max spun the chain-mace resoundingly in a clockwise motion around his arm, swinging it up and down, up and down and all around. Trickles and droplets of blood left a slim trail with each passing-by, leaving stippling paths of life-fluid with each cycled rotation. He took a deep inhaled toke from his cancer-stick and nodded his head. What's done is done. Max opted to hand the chain-mace over to the biker when the Fat-Body suddenly sprung up with blazing speed towards the beard-frazzled spectacle-wearing old man. He left the noose on the ground but held onto the shank-blade. A benevolent sneer stretched his chapped lips over his plaque-coated gums as the skinhead swung his arm in a horizontal arc and rammed the silvery business end of the paltry pawned-over blade into the biker's ear canal.

The other Hell's Angels all gasped and shrieked in response. The tip of the blade broke off into his cerebellum. He bit down on his tongue, drew blood, vomited up a quarter-gallon of whiskey and died in an epileptic fit. His finger spasmodically pulled the trigger of his shotgun, firing a round into the tiling below him. The rest of the biker gang drew forth spiked knuckles, cleavers, machetes, rolls of quarters and an aluminum bat (nail-free) in response. No firearms. They didn't believe in the use of them, for some obscure and fundamentally secretive reason.

The surviving bikers stormed the two remaining skinheads as lions charge gazette with the hope of murdering the two spineless fucks who'd killed their alpha male, their ring-leader, their solemn fatherly figure, who'd caused quite a stir with society in the years past. A steel-toed boot swung upward from the huddled mass and connected directly with Mr. Bronx's gonads. All of his oxygen rushed out of his lungs and he doubled over, hunched into a near-fetal position, barely able to comprehend anything with all the violent attacks streaming from every corner of his location. After the initial flagellation of blades and knuckles, he hoisted himself onto his knees to escape. The aluminum bat came crashing down upon Mr. Bronx's head, splitting open his skull and spewing forth grey-colored cranial matter (brains, no doubt) to the floor in front of him in cottage-cheese-like clumps. One eye bulged out from his socket and the pupil dilated to the size of a dime. His body slumped over and fell in an absurd pose reminiscent of a lazy old drunkard. The fool who'd initially started off all this madness was at last as dead as fresh road kill.

This left Mr. Fat-Body as the sole survivor. Blood-drenched, teeming to the brim with sweat and adrenaline, fear and dissatisfaction, madness and delirium, the skinhead laughed aloud. Cackled rather hysterically, in fact. Max and Brad glanced at each other furtively, understanding flowing like rainwater out of a drain gutter from their eyes. Max and Brad. Blood brothers for life. A visceral idea clicked simultaneously. Max grinned. Brad returned with a smirk and a wink. They knew that they just weren't quite finished with Mr. Fat-Body yet. The large Hell's Angels group identified that infinitesimal gaze with swift assurance. The skinhead before the motorcycle-traveling collective simply wasn't their responsibility. As such, they decided to sic the dogs on his fat little minority-hating ass instead.

The bikers retreated and backed away from the fresh collection of racist Hispanic-loathing corpses now gathered and assembled upon the ground, puddles of blood staining the linoleum-tiled floor from white to red. Mr. Fat-Body was trembling all over, a long red streak running down the front of his wife-beater. He still laughed aloud as Max swung the spiked mace ball directly into his forehead and Brad rammed the bat's fashionably blood-stained spikes into the man's groin. A testicle was severed, along with the head of his penis. The pain was unbearable and it might possibly have been the worse pain than he'd ever felt if not for the spiked mace ball that crushed down upon his forehead, crinkling his skull inward like a paperweight dropped onto a round hollow dome of thin aluminum, spewing pinkish-grey brains out through his nostrils. Brad imagined what a girl must have felt while being raped by a rusty tire iron. In that split second of life, before Brad and Max eviscerated his innards and ripped his body limb from limb in a splendidly gory and fashionable display reminiscent of life-sized ball joint doll disassembly, one last thought went through Mr. Fat-Body's twisted, hate-diseased despicable mind: But the raccoon-tailed one is a little c...cutie...so...very...cu...te...

~

As the two canine-hybrids stood over the tattered remains of the Fat-Body who called Max a despicably cruel slew of terribly bigoted titles (no, not cutie) then assaulted him directly, drenched in blood from head to paw padded toe, the biker gang remained in a seminal circle staring ruefully at their fallen leader. They'd all but forgotten about the others. Brad had a sudden childhood vision. He recalled watching The Wizard Of Oz as a child. He remembered the flying monkeys stomping down upon the scarecrow, dancing over his hay-strewn shambles. Mr. Fat-Body had inadvertently become that scarecrow, the only difference being that he wasn't filled with hay and straw but rather fat and gristle, organs and muscular sinew. Max took one last toke from his cigarette, spat the butt out into a nearby pool of pre-coagulated blood (which burnt it out with a barely audible sizzle among the silence) and swung the chain around his neck, wearing the weapon like a fancy scarf. He took a seat back down upon his now-dented bar stool, downed a spare shot-glass of unclaimed whiskey and threw a quick glance back over to where the old pervert had been. Only now, that old-timer was long gone. One bartender had fainted on the floor behind the counter, the other was huddled in a corner beneath the register rocking back and forth, balled up and scared beyond all her youthful years. If a couple broken abuse victim's teeth could make her react as frightened as she'd done so already, then this scenario she'd been cast in must've been a living breathing non-stop hell - a joyride from beyond the fire-infested grave, the ultimate test of mental endurance. She failed, unfortunately; she'd require years of quality therapy to get over the initial shock of her first day on the job. As an acrid stench of decay, iron, sweat, whiskey, rotting filth and vomit congregated into one insanely potent and unbearable scent, Brad also decided to pull free the spiked bat from the pile of exposed flesh that had once been Mr. Fat-Body and take a seat beside Max. Flashing boldly upon the screen of the bar's only LED television above the back wall, surrounded by top-shelf liquor of all brands, Times Square was alight in a cacophony of bright dazzling lights, raining confetti and millions of drunken party-goers in attendance to usher in the new year with style and grace, if not an inebriated sense of fashion and class. Max grabbed for the bottle of Wild Turkey perched in a wire-frame rack fastened directly behind the opposite end of the counter-top surface then poured himself another round. Max raised his shot-glass with the finest top-shelf whiskey his coon-dog money could afford to buy. Brad followed suit. There were lots of abandoned spirits strewn across the counter-top, left behind by frightened patrons who wished to live to see the dawn of a new year intact and in one piece. Apparently, all the drinks had been poured right before the chaos ensued. How both glasses managed to stay upright the entire time can only be defined as an alcoholic's secret. They clinked their shot-glasses together and downed the stuff. Their throats burned with a succulent brisk lick of spiced flame, belching slightly, remaining passive in the silence that followed soon thereafter, basking in the surviving glow of such a violent and hateful yet savagely satisfactory aftermath. On the TV, the countdown had officially commenced. Twenty!...Nineteen...Eighteen...Seventeen...

"Happy New Years to you, Maxwell." Brad said.

Sixteen...Fifteen...Fourteen...Thirteen...Twelve...

"Same to you, Bradley." Max replied, smiling humbly.

Eleven...Ten...Nine! Eight!

A twinkle of assurance passed between them.

Seven! Six! Five! Four!

"Next time, you think we should be less excessive?" Brad asked, shrugging his shoulders slightly in response to his own question, casting a brief glance back over his shoulder and nodding his head toward the aftermath of the carnage.

Three! Two!! One!!!

As Max watched the ball drop all the way on the other side of the nation and fireworks explode in splendorous patterns, he then cast his gaze back over to his new-found life partner, his blood-brother, his guitarist buddy, the fennec-afghan-collie hybrid, fur matted with the blood of four dead Klansmen, eyes gazing like twin golden orbs in the calm of night, and he said quite simply, "As if, dude."

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Auld Lang Syne never sounded more beautiful to the both of them than it did that evening. They sang their fucking hearts out. It was good to be alive.

~

When Maxwell and Bradley had finally finished their rounds, Brad politely laid a Benjamin down upon the counter, apologized considerately to the semi-conscious bartender, nodded assertively to the bikers and then they both placed their weapons down gently on the floor near where Max first fell down, which seemed like an age ago but had only lasted for roughly twelve stinking minutes. As soon as the carnage was over, it stayed over. For good. Eventually the building went into foreclosure, threatened by the scourge of bigoted hatred and escalating Klansmen violence in light of the horrific incident during the most recent New Years celebration. None of the bigots had any immediate family, nor were they given a proper burial. Nobody seemed to mind, notice or pay any attention or care. They were damaged goods, strictly collateral. Fuck them. Who'd possibly be driven to miss such destructive fools? Nobody, that's who. A middle-of-nowhere shit-hole like this one could easily be deemed the victim of an intense guttural boo-boo. So the bikers decided to extract their own form of property management - with red gasoline cans and books of matches. They never even bothered to clean the place up beforehand. The Rotundra Hut had instantaneously become a Klansman's oven-roasted tomb overnight. The building went up in flames throughout the course of the evening and well into the morning thereafter, gutted dry into blackened shambles of molten ash, charred bamboo and soot. The patrons and bartenders (including the surviving biker gang) had moved on in light of this horrific travesty, but not without sparing their Alpha Leader first. They had him cremated and his ashes scattered into the vast Pacific coastline, a beautiful sight for sore eyes that had also been a part of his favorite riding route. Investigations ruled out any chance of direct arson and instead declared the burning of the building as purely accidental, caused by... an oven fire. Max and Brad certainly didn't mind, and since then they have been attending that one local Irish tavern in Portland every year since faithfully. The memory of the twitching brass-knuckled limb never left Max's mind. Neither did the sight of the young initiate struggling to make sense of what Brad had done to him (or more appropriately, to his face) with the spiked baseball bat. That became a story of resonance and repetition, a story worth drinking to every New Years evening for years since.