by David Sharp
"Get back to work and keep your white trash domestic problems at home in the trailer."
"Fuck off, Rory," Chad said lightheartedly.
"Yeah, fuck off," Daniel joined in the defense, and then grabbed Chad's hand, helping him up.
The situation seemed hilarious after all of the strange sights and ultra-violence of the day before, so both of them laughed out loud, to Rory's chagrin.
*
After clean-up, a fast food break between, and set-up, Friday night at Trade began in earnest. Daniel was working Gus' station, number four. A lull in the crowd had found him on the same side of the bar as his once favorite bartender, Max.
"This is kind of weird, huh?"
Max automatically wiped the bar and fiddled with his well liquors. "Everything about you is weird, Daniel."
"No, you jerk. I mean being back here working with you."
"God must have a sick sense of humor."
"Why is Gus working my station?"
Max's lips tightened. "He's been feeling sick and Chad said that he would look after him."
Daniel sensed the subject as delicate and changed course. "Do you want to do a shot?"
"Another one?" Max questioned with word and face.
"Yeah, it has been one of those weeks."
Max pulled and flipped some glasses and went about mixing some lemon drops to perfection, even sugaring the rims. "Do you ever want to do anything besides work here?"
"I haven't really thought about it." Daniel thought about it.
"Look at Eddie over there. It took him forever to get Ned's spot, but he won't last. And look at Ned, he's barbacking again."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"People burn out, they always do."
"You haven't burned out."
"I am a dinosaur." Max laughed. "Now drink."
They clicked the small glasses and drank the candy tasting shots in a gulp.
"Why is Ned barbacking, anyway?"
"He got popped doing stuff he shouldn't have been doing."
"Like what?"
"I'm not going to spread rumors. It's not my style."
"Fair enough. I'm going to make a round on the floor." Daniel grabbed a bus tub from underneath the sink."
"Hey, what's with the tail?"
"It's a secret." Daniel flicked his wolf tail and went straight to the rail to pick up drinks.
Daniel darted to the back stairs instead of dropping off the tub at the opposite station. After everything that had recently happened, he felt the urge to check on Chad. The second floor was not quite as packed as below, and he slid in and out of the socializers with ease. Daniel's heart sank when he saw Jeff bartending alone at station nine.
The glasses shifted in the tub and he righted them in a neat way. With everything adjusted the way he liked it, Daniel looked up and saw a flash of a red tail around the corner by the DJ booth. The music was loud in a deep house track by MK with Alana called Love Changes. The strobes illuminated Chad and the tall dirty-blond James in an intense private conversation.
Daniel moved closer and saw the quick exchange of money for substance and his heart sank even more. He maneuvered around a passing clique of lesbians and lost sight of Chad and James. Blindsided, he hoped he was not seen by them as he passed the booth. Back down the stairs, he tried to put it out of his mind, but the transaction between them bothered him. The blond James was trouble, no doubt about it, and Chad was mixed up with him.
*
Once the night was over, the dog-tired barbacks hauled the trash out. Ned bumped into Daniel. The violent action knocked him out of his conspiracy thoughts of James and Chad. Daniel refocused, saw the hate in Ned's face, and was unable to fathom why it was directed at him. The rubber trash cans scraped the concrete as they were pulled by the others. Freddy's left a trail of fluid in its wake.
Gustavo let go of the can in his hands and tried to climb on top of the dumpster, but could not from the dewy moisture that coated it, causing him to slip off. He breathed heavier and held back the stitch in his side. "Somebody get on top. Ka-tee can't do it."
Freddy and Chad laughed at the ridiculousness as they walked back to fetch more cans. Daniel moved his garbage closer to the dumpster. In doing so, he grazed Ned with an elbow.
"Watch it!" Ned hollered, then mumbled, "You stupid little bitch."
"What did you call me?"
Gustavo diffused the sudden heat between them. "One of you boys get up there so we can do the trash."
"Go ahead, get your hands dirty for a change," Ned taunted.
"No, you go." Daniel felt perturbed.
"No," Ned bowed up.
Daniel nervously laughed and bit the inside of his mouth. "I ain't going up there."
The sound of plastic sliding over concrete broke the tension as Freddy and Chad returned with more cans.
Gustavo pounded the side of the dumpster like a gong. "Freddy, jump up there, you lush. I don't want to be out here all night."
Chad clocked Daniel's mood and quietly asked, "What's up?"
"It's not important," Daniel glared at Ned.
Freddy climbed up, opened the metal dumpster lid, and squatted over. He was ready to finish the trash, and he was in no mood to joke with the tension building. Gustavo lifted a can with Daniel's help. Freddy pulled it the rest of the way up and used the momentum to balance it on the edge. Teetering on the metal lip, he flipped the can in a smooth motion, dumping its contents of bottles, paper, and beer swill with a crash. Freddy passed the can back empty.
Chad and Ned teamed up on the next one. Chad was giving Ned the once over, trying to figure out what was between him and Daniel. Together, they hoisted up the heavy overfilled can. On the uplift, a broken beer bottle that was jutting out from the side of the thick rubber sliced Chad's hand across the palm.
"Fuck!" Chad gritted his teeth and covered the wound with his other hand.
Ned almost lost the can, but Freddy had the top of it for a moment. The trash slipped and Ned barely got out of the way as it toppled over, making a mess on the stained concrete.
"Let me see." Daniel ignored the trash and was at Chad's side, holding his arm to inspect the damage.
"Is it bad?" Chad looked away when he saw the wound, clean at first, followed by flowing blood that covered it all.
"Let's go get a bandage." Daniel absently rubbed some of Chad's blood between his fingers.
"Hey, we need to do this shit." Ned kicked the horizontal can, displacing some more of the trash from it.
Daniel's eyes flared with the rage of a wild beast.
"You guys finish up. It's cool. I'll take care of it." Chad applied pressure and edged off of the scene toward the patio.
"Let's do it." Daniel stormed forward and hoisted the toppled can by himself and handed it to Freddy.
The empty one was sent tumbling down and Daniel swatted it aside. Gustavo groaned as he used his heft and slid more cans over to be dumped. Ned stepped up and showed off by lifting another one with a single hand. Jerking it to the side purposefully, he spilled some of the used liquor and beer on Daniel.
"What the fuck!" Daniel wiped his face of the alcohol.
"You were in the way," Ned snickered and spat out the words, "Come on, you little pretty boy."
Something snapped in Daniel and he pushed Ned hard against the metal dumpster. "What is your problem with me?"
Ned sprung back viscously and spat out the words, "I'm sick of young fucks like you walking in off of the street and getting special treatment around here."
"It ain't my fault if you can't do your job," Daniel sneered.
Ned threw a sucker punch. Daniel, momentarily stunned, swung widely back and somehow connected a punch of his own. The force and slipperiness sent them both down. Flailing with nothing to grab onto except each other, Daniel and Ned hit solidly, rolled on the dirty concrete, and slid in the filth covering it. The fight did not last long, but was significantly brutal until they were pulled apart by Freddy and Rory.
"Enough!" Rory yelled.
Daniel snarled at Ned who growled back as each of them were held back from each other. The fight was over as quickly as it had started with the separation. On a note of finality, Gustavo slammed the dumpster lid closed, ending the scene.
Red swirled behind Daniel's eyes. Rage filled his heart. He wanted to destroy Ned, to rip him to shreds. Chad put a bandaged hand on his shoulder and he spun around, almost swinging.
"Calm down, Wolfie. He isn't worth the time."
"He hit me," Daniel fumed.
"And you hit him back. Pretty damn good punch, too." Chad lightened the tone.
"Was it?" Daniel felt the red turn black behind his eyes.
"It was. You are a little fighter."
"Cool, I guess I am," Daniel said with pride.
"Let's get our money and go out."
Daniel smiled, "Furry Friday."
"You got it." Chad grabbed Daniel's tail and led him off of the patio.
Chapter Seventeen:
Daniel's first Furry Friday at the afterhours club, Steam, was bittersweet. The stir-up with Ned had upset him. Even worse, Chad had cut his right hand fairly deeply and they almost did not go out because of it. After being there awhile, those thoughts were put on ice, the speedy kind of ice. The interior was low lit with dark pockets and corners where the animals roamed. In an elevated state of mind, Daniel danced in his blue wolf fur suit. Under the colored flashing lights, he became the wolf.
The club was a rogue's gallery of furries: monkey, bear, tiger, leopard, and dog. All of the wild beasts danced to the beat of Kraftwerk's Radioactivity. The rest of the club patrons wore masks or tails, or both. Some were into it, while others donned the apparel just to watch the surreal affair.
Eyes closed, Daniel focused on the music and felt the soft fur of the suit pressed on his naked sweaty skin underneath. A stray paw caressed his back.
"Hey," Adam's voice came out of the roan colored horse suit.
"Adam, is that you?"
"Sure is, Wolfie."
"I thought you quit dressing up."
"No, I have to get it out of the closet every once in a while. It was expensive." Adam, the horse, hoofed in closer and put his hooves on Daniel. "It's been awhile. How've you been?"
"Better now," Daniel, the wolf, pawed back.
The blue wolf and roan horse danced close, fur rubbing fur. Daniel noticed through the screened eyes of the wolf that Chad, the fox, was staring at them. The horse slid his arm around the wolf, pulling him even closer into an interspecies mingling. Using his horse hoof, Adam lifted the edge of the blue fur and kissed the wolf's neck from the opening in his equine mouth. Daniel's animated wolf eyes searched for the red fox. The wolf gave in to the advances of the roan horse until pressure on his back, from a furry moving in, stirred him out of the random passion.
"Tell the horsey the stable is full and let's get a drink." Chad the fox cut into the animal's dance.
Adam seemed dejected, so Daniel pressed his wolf mouth to the horse's mouth and found Adam's tongue inside to reassure of his intent. The wolf then let himself be pulled away toward the bar. The limited vision from Daniel's furry suit eyes made the roan horse look pixelated. The dots in his vision became larger the farther he was pulled off of the floor.
Chad untethered the fox head and let it hang limply to the side on his shoulder. "Can I get two orange juices with...Alec?"
The once punk, spiky haired blond bartender understood the code and with a slight of hand, mixed some screwdrivers. The vodka was poured from a special cloaked container kept below. "Eight dollars," demanded Alec.
Chad slid a ten and took a sip of his strong, harsh tasting beverage. "Hey, wolf boy, take off the head so I can talk to you."
Daniel peeled off the Velcro and freed his glistening face from the blue wolf maw's confines. "Damn, it's hot."
"There is someone here I would like you to meet."
"Someone like Adam," Daniel said dreamily.
"No. He's a different kind of animal. We can all go hang out tonight if you want."
"What about Patrick?"
"We aren't getting along so great."
"That sucks. But you know Patrick, he's...well, he's Patrick." Daniel sipped the screwdriver and almost gagged. He pawed it up to the dim light and noticed that it was almost clear.
"He's one of a kind. At least he has you."
"Whatever, so who do you want me to meet?"
"The tall guy with the horns, the Minotaur, over there by the couch, he's the one. Do you see him watching those two cat girls in heat?"
"Yeah, I do." Daniel was taken aback by the mythological beast standing in the flesh across the room. "What is a Minotaur? He looks like a bull."
"You got it. Come on." Chad led Daniel by an invisible leash of pure magnetism. Together they crossed through the nightlife version of Animal Farm.
The Minotaur's design was elaborate, not like a normal furry outfit at all. It was one of much more detail and expense. The pants were brown and wooly, ending in hoof shaped boots. Both seemed to be natural extensions of the body. The muscular male human torso and arms were hairy, covered in a natural golden fur. The fur on the man's chest led down from a patch to a thin trail, making a path to his groin. Bovine ears poked out of his dirty blond hair and a latex appliance realistically held two large protruding horns from the sides of his forehead.
"I've seen him." Daniel was shocked at the familiarity of the man, the bull, and his countenance.
"You have. That's James."
"The guy you ran off with is...oh, my God, that is James." Daniel saw clearly the familiar features of the man under the horns, the same man he last saw doing a deal with Chad at Trade.
The Minotaur noticed that he was being noticed and hoofed toward them. His dark eyes never left Daniel's curious face. James, the Minotaur, was full of confidence. "I've heard a lot about you, Daniel."
"Really?" Daniel questioned the beast's sincerity. Being a little high, he even questioned the reality of the moment.
"Yes, I really have." The horned man bull looked around the club, weary of his surroundings.
"So, what does Chad do for you?" Daniel bluntly stated.
Chad spit out part of his screwdriver and punched Daniel in a blue furry arm. "No," he warned.
The Minotaur grinned, transforming James' face into one of a demon's, like something from below or something at the center of the maze waiting to pounce. "He does nothing for me...except maybe...he might do a favor for Paul every now and then."
"Paul came looking for you when you went away."
"Dude, you don't want to mess..." Chad let the words die and took a big gulp of his drink.
The Minotaur came close to Daniel, bringing his horns to his face along with his hot breath. The beast smiled dangerously. "You have spirit. You are a wolf, aren't you, little man?"
"I'm not afraid of you." Daniel was afraid underneath his chemically induced assertiveness.
The Minotaur turned his dark visage to Chad. "You should come by later, and bring your friend."
"Sure," Chad swallowed some more vodka.
James, the Minotaur, backed off and disappeared into the darkness of club Steam as the lights went down in between songs. The next track from the DJ was Paul Van Dyk's remix of Love Stimulation by Humate.
Chad was rattled by the conversation and his face was as red as his fox suit. "What the fuck are you doing, Daniel? You don't mess with people like that."
"What's he going to do?" Daniel sipped his drink with his real mouth and knocked the blue wolf's jaws away with a shrug, "...kill me?"
"He might." Chad raised his eyebrows. "Do you really want to know what I do?"
"Yes," Daniel dared.
"I do what I have to do to survive."
"Show me."
Chad finished his drink and took in the gravity of the turning point in his relationship with Daniel. "Let's go."
*
James' apartment was run do
wn and in a bad part of town. Daniel felt like he had become the blue wolf again as he crouched on a futon in the drab living room. Through the eye holes, he could see firsthand the evidence of uncleanliness and the overall state of disrepair of the hovel. Chad returned from the back room, no longer human. He too was the red fox in Daniel's mind. The disorientating thing to Daniel was that his and Chad's voices were quite human, creating a sense of a cartoon that bled over into the real world.
Quietly, the blue wolf addressed the situation. "What's going on? This place is a dive."
"I was just convincing James that you are cool."
"Great, can we go now?"
"No, you wanted to come."
"What about Patrick? He's going to be pissed."
"Fuck him, he beat me." The fox tilted its furry face. "He will be okay for the night."
"Fine." The wolf put his paws to his canine face.
James' voice called out from the back. "Hey you animals, get back here."
The fox did a freaky happy dance and grabbed the wolf's paw. "Come on, this is going to be hardcore."
"Alright, I guess I'm game." The wolf stood up on its hind legs too quickly and lost his balance. He would have stumbled on all fours if not for the dancing fox's tight grip.
The wolf and fox crept down the hall, curiously sniffing the air. The lair was dingy with a bare mattress on the floor surrounded by burning candles with wax melted onto the wooden floor. The wolf sat cautiously on the mattress with his haunches apart and felt the warmth as the fox sat directly behind him.
In the half-light of the room, the Minotaur looked frighteningly like a mythological beast that had come to life from the depths of its labyrinth. The beast spoke deeply and commandingly with his muscled back toward them. "Your friend is cool?"
"Yeah, he's cool." The fox reached around and unzipped the front of the wolf's blue fur.
"Yeah, I guess I am." The wolf went with it as combination of fear and desire took him to a strange new land in his head.
The shadow of horns played on the wall as the Minotaur turned around and fumbled with something between its wooly legs. "Show me how cool you are." The horned one stepped forward, an ominous third horn lined with a sparkling dust rising from its thighs.
"He'll show you. You can trust him." The fox wriggled around, crawled to the side, and twisted around the wolf's torso.