by Kyell Gold
"Maybe not. We've had fights before. But we had a spark back then, or at least..." A son to keep them together. "Something."
"The sale is a good chance to take stock of your life, re-evaluate." A small smile curved the squirrel's lips. "Start a new adventure, perhaps."
"It's not as easy as in a book. The heroes in your adventures, they don't have property to dispose of, houses to sell, businesses to manage." Aziz's tail had unwound from the chair leg now, though, and he relaxed against the back of the chair. "But thank you for talking to me about it. It's much harder when it's all in here." He tapped his head, feeling slightly guilty because there was still the one issue that was trapped in his head where he didn't dare talk to anyone about it.
"I know how that is." Doug nodded. "You know, when Palia died, I went to a support group. They probably have one for troubled marriages. I can get you the number if you want."
Aziz shook his head and then thought better of it. "That would be helpful, I think. Thank you."
10
Apologies
He got the number from Doug and then excused himself to attend his evening prayers. But all the way to the mosque he wondered whether there had been a message to him in Doug's decision to move to Coronado, to leave his life here behind and try something new. Or maybe the message had been in the dingo and fox in his line of sight as Doug had been talking. This was different from the uneasiness he'd felt in the presence of gay couples in the past; in the past he hadn't thought as fixedly about any of them as he was now thinking about Gerald, dreading and hoping that the cougar would appear around the next corner.
The presence of the others in the mosque soothed him. He greeted them, clasped paws, and breathed in the scented water they all used to wash. Here, if nowhere else, was a community where even if he had little in common with the other members, he could always come and pray with them, be surrounded by their communal faith, and remember that the world turned under the same eye. Again, following his prayers, he spoke in his head a du'a, not for forgiveness this time, but for understanding. Why was the cougar so foremost in his mind, and was that why he was already envisioning the end of his marriage? Or was Halifa's behavior and their increased estrangement finally sinking in?
He concluded his prayer, one of the last to do so, and rose. Around him, everyone else had formed small groups, talking animatedly as they often did. And as was his recent custom, Aziz moved through the groups without talking to any of them. He wondered whether there was a mosque in Coronado. There had to be at least a small community that prayed together. He could look that up online, he supposed, or on his phone if he cared, but he didn't need to know right this minute.
On the way out, he paused to look at the community bulletin board. There was a meeting the following night to plan activities to promote the mosque in the area. The fennec who'd arranged those activities when Aziz and Halifa had first come here had stepped aside long before, and had passed away some seven years ago. His successor, a nice enough oryx, had recently passed the torch along to a younger, more energetic oryx, whose horns could often be seen waving above the crowds during meetings. Ashtari, Aziz thought his name was, had approached both him and Halifa a few years ago at the worst possible time and had seemed personally offended at their polite refusal to help. Aziz had also said, probably a result both of his quick tongue and his foul mood at the time, that he had been watching community events here for two decades and that nothing substantial had come of them.
At least it had proven effective in stopping Ashtari from bothering them after that. He gave the flyer one last look, somewhat envious of the energy and vision of these younger Muslims, and then stepped outside.
A light drizzle had come up, fogging the sky and blurring the lines of the people around him. Aziz flattened his ears and hurried along the street, following the crowd. His mind stayed back at the mosque though, with the prayer he'd made. This was another test, another trial, coming along with the imminent sale, and he had to endure it. Gerald wouldn't be around forever, and after a few days these strange feelings should be as gone as the cougar was. If he couldn't sort out the tangle in his head, he'd run off to Coronado, would work it out with Halifa somehow. She could talk to Marquize all she wanted with him out of the picture.
He wiped rain from his eyes and checked the street sign. He was at Larchmont and Swartern, and normally he would keep going another two blocks and be almost home. But Larchmont was familiar for some reason; he'd seen the name recently. He stood, moisture collecting on his ears and the top of his head, and finally decided that perhaps this was the sign he'd been waiting for. So he turned left down Larchmont, keeping his eyes up now, looking for something, anything that might be significant to him.
This area he knew a little better than the Cottage Hill neighborhood; it was still Upper Devos, albeit getting close to the Cottage Hill boundary. He didn't want to chance heading back towards Founders, but this was a different area, so even if he did cross over, he didn't risk running into anyone who'd seen him at that bar.
How far would he go, though? He paused in the awning of a closed locksmith's shop and stared across the street at the river of people flowing by, some with umbrellas out, some simply hurrying through the rain. Though stores dotted the side of the street he was on, the opposite side consisted of several large apartment buildings. Aziz let his gaze wander over the myriad of windows, reflecting that probably the inhabitants of the neighborhood before those buildings had gone up had hated them as much as the current inhabitants hated the Homeporium.
And then as his eyes passed over the windows with their posters, their stickers, the blue lights of television glowing from over half of them, he saw the silhouette of a fox's head on the second floor, and memory rushed back to him. Larchmont: that was the street on Benjamin's driver's license. There were a number of foxes in Upper Devos, of course, and no guarantee that this was Benjamin himself, but Aziz felt as though it had to be. He leaned back against the glass of the window and brought his phone out, pretending to be looking at it as his eyes stayed fixed on the fox in the window.
Benjamin, if it was indeed him, watched TV for about five minutes and then got up and came to the window. Aziz shrank back as the fox looked out into the street, and his posture and movements made Aziz as certain as he could be that this was indeed Benjamin. The fox scanned the street below and waited there for another minute or two before turning, ears down, and slumping back into his chair.
Aziz wanted to ring the doorbell and tell the fox to stop hoping for Gerald to come back, to move on and find someone else. But when he thought about it, what right did he have to dispense that advice, he who moved through this world withdrawn, from house to shop to café to mosque and back to house again, running a circle without stopping? When people dropped away from him he left them behind; Doug and Tanska had been the remaining constants in his life, they and Halifa, who had become like the rain, an ever-present background that he walked through and barely interacted with.
And now Tanska wanted nothing more to do with him, and Doug was moving to Coronado. Aziz could follow him out there, of course. There was a certain appeal to the idea, especially standing in the rain and thinking about the icy cold and slushy streets of the not-too-far-past winter. Warm sand, bright sun, no pressure...no decisions to make, just tea to drink and Doug to talk to.
Did they have all the things he'd grown to love here? Possibly not. But he could grow to love new things.
Across the street, another familiar form rounded the corner. Aziz's breath caught as he recognized Gerald. The cougar's round earswere flat against the rain like his had been, his olive t-shirt wet and sticking to his fur, paws shoved into the pockets of his camo pants. He stopped at the door of the apartment building, stared at it, and then slowly walked on.
Impulsively, Aziz ran across the street to intercept him. Here was his sign, here was his chance. By the time he'd dodged the cars and come up behind Gerald, he had at least the beginnings of what he was
going to say in his head, and trusted himself to come up with the rest as he always did.
The cougar, alerted by his footsteps, turned before Aziz could touch him. His ears came up and then flattened again, his muzzle wrinkling as he recognized the cheetah. Aziz put a paw up. "Before you say anything," he said, "I want to apologize. It wasn't right of me to mislead you."
"Have you been following me again?" Gerald didn't look any less angry.
"No. I had your address from when your husband got the camera. I came by and waited so I would have the chance to apologize. That's all." He tried not to look at how tightly the shirt clung to Gerald's chest. "And I did not watch all the tape, only enough to make sure it was the right camera."
Finally, the cougar's expression relaxed. "Well, I appreciate the apology," he said. "Good night."
But his eyes held Aziz's for a moment, those round greenish-brown eyes gleaming with the reflection of the night around them, and Aziz swallowed once before he said, "Good night." He turned and walked quickly through the rain back to his house.
11
Bridges
At home, Halifa had prepared their response to the Vorvarts offer. She and Aziz had a cordial conversation about it, and he agreed that he would take it to the store, sign it, and courier it over the next day. She didn't ask how he felt about the sale, and he thanked her for taking care of the paperwork; nothing more. He retired to his room and thought again about a cougar and a fox holding each other closely as the waves broke and splashed behind them.
The next morning, Aziz took out the letter and spread it carefully on the counter. Halifa had left a space for him to sign next to her. "Co-Owner," it said below both their names. He picked up a pen to sign it three times and put it down each time. And then the store got busy with the mid-morning rush, the people who were out of work coming in to sell off a few of their possessions along with the retirees looking to see what was new, what other people were getting rid of. This morning, Aziz had one of those rare moments when someone browsing happened to want what someone was selling; in this case it was an old goat, Vicunza, who had his eye on an old game console that a young llama had brought. "My son collects those," he told her, and then turned to Aziz. "What were you giving for it?"
"Twenty-five," Aziz said.
Vicunza had been a customer for a long time. "And marked up to fifty, no doubt? Here." He put twenty on the counter, and then offered twenty-five to the llama.
She looked at Aziz. "Is that..."
"It's fine, it's fine." Vicunza kept the money out. "I give Aziz lots of business, I save him a little paperwork. We understand each other."
"It's fine," Aziz assured the llama.
"Oh. All right, then." She set the console down on the counter.
"Here." Vicunza added another five to his stack. "You look like you need it."
She reached out and took the money, holding it for a moment and looking at Aziz as though asking his permission again. He nodded with a smile, and she put the cash into her handbag. "Thank you, both of you," she said again.
"I hope your circumstances improve," Aziz said.
When she'd walked out of the store, Vicunza waved a hand at Aziz. "You got a rag? This thing is all dusty."
Aziz reached below the counter and came out with a cloth. The goat set about wiping down the console, taking care to get into all the cracks. "Phew. At least I don't think she took it away from a kid. What do you think? Husband?"
"Maybe." Aziz's attention was caught by a muscular cougar coming into the shop.
"Looks like he didn't play it much anymore. Or maybe he's out of work and she's getting him to stop. Heh heh. Well..." Vicunza hefted the console. "If he's not going to use it, I know someone who will. Hey, Aziz. You going to sell to those Homeporium people?"
The cougar had stopped just inside the doorway, pretending to look at the rack of DVDs while clearly glancing toward the counter. "I think so," Aziz said to Vicunza. "They made a generous offer. Everyone else is selling--almost."
"Enh." The goat tucked the console under his arm. "Won't be the same without you. But get your money while you can. If they couldn't build here, they'd move to another block and this block would start losing people. Once those people move in, all their people move in with them and the only ones who like the old neighborhood are us old people." He breathed a wheezy laugh. "What are you going to do with the money?"
Aziz shook his head. Gerald--it was him, in a black t-shirt with the "POW*MIA" design on it and those same camo pants--had moved to look at sewing machines. "We don't know yet. A friend offered me a place out in Coronado. Halifa has her charities here. And we have three other stores to think of."
"True, true. Maybe I'll have to take the train out to Cape Red to get my junk fix." Vicunza shifted the console to the other arm. "All right, I'm going to get this home. Thanks, Aziz. Have a good day. Let me know when you're closing, I'll come in and sniff through the discounts."
"Of course." Aziz bowed and smiled.
As the goat pushed the door open, Gerald lifted his head and made his way to the back of the store, slowly, as though he didn't really have anything urgent in mind. His tail was lashing, though, and when he got to the counter, he put his paws on it and looked Aziz right in the eye. "Hey," he said.
"Good morning." Aziz fought to keep his tone polite. He wasn't sure whether he was afraid or excited at what Gerald was going to do. "How may I help you?"
His formality made the cougar pause in whatever speech he had prepared. "It's Gerald? From Founders, and last night?"
"Yes, I recognized you."
"Oh." The cougar's lips twitched in what was almost a smile. "Usually when you recognize someone, you say their name."
"I was not sure you'd appreciate the familiarity."
"Ah. Yeah." Gerald looked down. "I deserve that, I guess. But you still shouldn't have--" He looked around the store. "I mean, you shouldn't have come after me."
"I apologized already." Aziz kept his voice low. "But I will be happy to apologize again. My conduct was not what I would expect of myself."
"No, no." Gerald put a paw up. "I thought about it. I mean, technically you didn't do anything wrong. I sold the camera with the tape in it. Anyone who bought it has the right to look at the tape, even if you had looked at the whole thing." He glanced at Aziz, and the cheetah had the feeling that Gerald thought he really had watched the whole tape. He found himself half-wishing that he had. "I probably should've erased it."
"You knew it was in the camera?" Aziz's eyebrows rose.
Gerald looked away, shuffled his feet, and sighed. "Not...maybe not consciously. But Ben had been looking at the video the previous week, and I...he never took the tapes out when he was done with them. So I told myself that if he'd put it away, he'd still have it, and if he hadn't, it would serve him right." He rubbed behind one ear. "Pretty shitty of me, I know. I don't know why he still wants to be with me."
"A marriage is about more than just one incident, though," Aziz said.
"Yeah, but doesn't that incident...sometimes that signals the way the marriage is going already, doesn't it?"
Aziz considered that, and then Gerald noticed a field mouse holding a stack of CDs waiting her turn. He stepped aside so Aziz could ring up the sale, and then stepped back when the mouse left. "Anyway, I was thinking...if you were watching that tape and thinking about your feelings...well, I know Islam isn't really keen on the whole gay thing. So it must be really difficult, and you probably don't have a lot of people to talk to."
"I don't really need to talk..." Aziz focused on curling his tail in and out, aware that his heart was beating faster. Gerald being close, being concerned about him. "I mean, I'm not...I'm married."
'Yeah. So am I." Gerald held up his paws. "I'm not coming on to you or anything. Just offering an ear to talk."
"That's what..." Aziz closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to them. His ears felt flushed and he felt that he had to choose his words very carefully. "I felt badly about
your marriage. I thought I might talk to you about it."
"To me?" Gerald smiled. "Sure, okay, but..." Another customer, a red fox in a blue t-shirt, had stepped up behind Gerald with a brown paper grocery bag full of items to sell. "Look, if you want to meet and talk later, I don't have anything going on tonight."
"Sure," Aziz said without thinking, and then thought, what am I doing? "Where?"
"There's a neat little food court in the Homeporium with a patio. How about there?"
"I thought you hated the Homeporium."
"Yeah, well." Gerald glanced back as though the building across the street could hear them talking about it and he didn't want to offend it. "The food court isn't bad, and after hours most of the annoying people are gone."
"All right." His mind spun, but he'd already agreed. "I close the store at eight, have my prayers...I could be there by nine."
"I think they close at nine-thirty or ten. That should be fine. See you then." Gerald raised a paw with a smile, and walked out.
It took a moment for Aziz's heart to slow. What was happening to him? He watched Gerald leave, and only when the door had shut behind the cougar's tail did he turn his attention to the red fox, who was still holding his brown bag. "You want to sell?" Aziz said. "You can put them on the counter."
"Salaam," the fox said, and did so slowly, and then Aziz recognized him: one of the foxes from the Devos Musjid Al-Islam, one of the young ones who'd just joined recently. His heart jumped a gear again.
"Ah, let us see what you have." He let his paws pick through the books, DVDs, and collectibles mechanically as his brain tried to engage. Had the fox heard his conversation? Had he been paying attention? How could Aziz ask that without letting on that there had been something to overhear? And was there anything to overhear? He had only made an appointment to meet a friend for a drink. Gerald had said that he wasn't coming on to Aziz...