Gold Standard

by Kyell Gold

He pushed the shake back across, and then said, “Want to try mine?”

  “Sure.” Kory took a taste in the same fashion. He let the frozen yogurt roll down his tongue, as sweet as the ice cream, but with an acrid flavor behind it. “You’re right,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “It’s almost as good.” Kory grinned.

  He felt relaxed and loose, sitting across from the black fox in the ice cream parlor. They talked about school and friends, and he told Samaki about Sal and his string of girlfriends, and that led Samaki to ask if he was dating anyone.

  “No,” Kory said. “I got dumped last weekend.” The words spilled out naturally. To his surprise, he felt only a small twinge as he spoke.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It was probably for the best.”

  “What do you mean?” The fox’s ears swiveled forward.

  “Well, things just weren’t going anywhere. I mean, I don’t know if you’re seeing anyone or if you know what I mean, but sometimes it’s just like you stay together because you don’t know what else to do, not because you want to.”

  “That sounds like the wrong reason to stay together.”

  “Yeah, it probably is.” Kory sighed. “But it was easier than breaking up. Until someone else asked her to the prom.”

  “You didn’t ask your girlfriend to the prom?”

  “I didn’t think of it until it was too late!”

  Samaki chuckled. “Then `scuse me, but I think you did the right thing.”

  Kory nodded. “I know. But it’s not easy.” He looked up at the fox. “You seeing someone?”

  Samaki shook his head. “Nah.”

  “Really? I’da thought the vixens would be beating down your door.”

  “Why?” The fox tilted his head. Kory began to feel a little warm. He took a drink to stall.

  “Well, you’re an athlete. You used to be, anyway, and you still...I mean, all the jocks in our school have women hanging around them like.like a cloud of comets or something. You never know which one is going to be coming close at any particular moment, but they’re always there.”

  Samaki leaned back and laughed. “That’s great. I’ll have to remember that one. No, the track team rates pretty far down on the list. Plus, uh.” He hesitated, taking another drink of his shake.

  The nagging suspicions about Samaki returned. Kory didn’t want Samaki to tell him he was gay, not now. It would ruin this nice moment. He changed the subject before Samaki put his shake down. “How long have you been coming here?”

  “Oh, years. My mom and dad used to take us out here for a treat, and when I starting working, I always put aside enough for one shake a week.”

  “What’s your job?”

  “I help stock at the grocery store on weekends.”

  “I had a summer job at my mom’s office, just doing filing and stuff. She won’t let me work during the school year, though.”

  “Too bad.” By now, Kory recognized Samaki’s gentle sarcasm.

  “Yeah, I.oh, no.” He’d glanced up to his right. The clock on the wall read 10:13.

  Samaki pushed his shake aside. “Come on,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We can make it if we run.”

  “Maybe you can,” Kory said, but he got up anyway, and waved to the goat as they ran for the door. “Nice to meet you!”

  “Come back soon!” Chuck the goat said as the door swung closed behind them.

  They ran together down the dark street, paws slapping the sidewalk in time. Kory, a few paces behind the fox, admired the fluid grace with which he strode, and the billowing of his tail behind him. I bet he’d be a track star if he put his mind to it, he said to himself. He felt clumsy and awkward by comparison, his tail a heavy weight behind him. It was very useful in swimming, but a burden to run with.

  They dashed around the corner. The bus sat idling at the stop. I’ll never make it, Kory thought despairingly, but the bus stayed there as they drew closer, and closer. Then it started up with a rough cough, lurched forward, and pulled away just as Samaki reached the back corner and slapped it with a paw, yelling, “Wait! Wait!”

  To no avail. The bus chugged down the street. They saw it stop two blocks down, as if taunting them to follow, but Kory was already winded. He panted hard, paws on his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” Samaki said, his long tail curled under his legs. “Maybe my mom can drive you home.”

  “It’s okay,” Kory puffed. “There’s.another bus.fifteen minutes. I’ll be a little late.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. We’re about a fifteen minute walk from here, and then it’d be about half an hour.”

  Kory considered. His mom would freak out, absolutely have a conniption, if she found out he’d taken a ride with a strange woman. Strange, to his mother, was anyone she hadn’t shared a meal with. But his mom didn’t have to find out. And he would get to hang out with Samaki a bit longer. “Okay,” he said.

  The fox’s muzzle lit up with a bright smile. He put a paw on the otter’s shoulder, rubbing briefly. “Great! Come on, this way.”

  They walked down the street together at a more leisurely pace, through a few blocks of the main shopping district, passing only a few people. Samaki turned down a dark street and strode confidently ahead, his light shirt and white tailtip bobbing ghostlike in the darkness. Kory took a couple steps in and hesitated, letting his eyes adjust. He heard the fox’s steps stop, and saw eyeshine as Samaki turned.

  “Oh, you don’t have good night vision, do you? I’m sorry. Here.” He reached out a paw. “It’s just this one stretch. It’s a shortcut.”

  Kory placed his paw in the fox’s and felt the warm pads close around his fingers. The warmth was nice in the night air.

  “It’s not dangerous,” Samaki said as he padded slowly down the street. Kory felt more confident with the fox’s paw around his, and matched his pace. “The people who live on this street are all nocturnals-foxes, raccoons, mice, possums, one skunk family down that way--so they petitioned the city to get the street lights turned off on the street. It’s not dangerous, either. They do a neighborhood watch. A couple years ago there were some drug dealers that tried to set up shop here, but they ran `em off.”

  Drug dealers, like gay people, were something Kory read about online or heard about in health class, not something that merited only a casual offhand mention. “Are there a lot of drugs around here?”

  “`Bout average, I guess,” Samaki said, and Kory felt him shrug. “I don’t bother with `em.”

  After a long pause, the fox said, “You ever try `em?”

  “Jeez, no!” Kory shook his head. “I heard about one kid in my class, this mouse who tried some stuff, but I didn’t know him real well. None of my friends ever had any.”

  “I know some guys on the football team who tried some steroids.”

  “Does that stuff really work?”

  Samaki shook his head. His form was visible now as a dark patch in the grey twilight at the end of the dark street, resolving as they stepped further into light. “I guess it does, sort of. If that’s what you want.”

  Streetlights, lit here, shone softly on a quiet, residential street that reminded Kory of his own, scaled down: well-trimmed lawns and low white fences bordered a small cottage. Plants and bird feeders adorned woodfenced balconies on a four-unit apartment building. Kory hadn’t seen many apartment buildings in his neighborhood. “Like budding houses, waiting to fully blossom,” he said, inspired by the sight.

  “That’s great,” Samaki said. “I really like that.”

  “Oh, it’s just a thought,” Kory said.

  “It’s a nice image,” the fox said, and Kory shrugged.

  “I used to know a kid in one of those apartments, but he moved away,” Samaki said after a moment.

  Walking past the building, the otter saw a masked face in one of the windows looking out at him, and realized that he was still holding onto Samaki’s paw. He let go, as casually as he could, and Samaki
didn’t comment. Kory stuck his paw in his pocket.

  “Just around here,” Samaki said as they reached the end of the next block. They crossed the narrow street at the stop sign and walked half a block down to a small house with an old VW Fox in the driveway. Samaki led Kory up a small flight of wooden steps onto a white painted porch. Lights burned in the first story and the television flickered with a low murmur, but the second floor was all dark. As the fox opened the front door, Kory smelled the musk of several foxes, strong but not unpleasant.

  “Hi, guys,” Samaki called softly as he walked into a narrow hallway, leaning against an open door. Kory’s paws sank into plush carpet, clean but worn. Over Samaki’s shoulder, in another room, he could see the arm of a sofa and a television set showing an old movie he didn’t recognize. He looked around the hall at the framed art prints, not as large or as elaborate as the ones his mother owned, but interesting: a photo of a hillside pocked with dark holes and red foxes, a still life with brilliant purple flowers, a family portrait where Samaki stood out black in a sea of red. A stairway directly in front of him led up into darkness, and the room to his left that smelled strongly of food was also dark. Before he could look around any longer, Samaki grabbed his paw and pulled him into the living room.

  “Who’s your guest, hon?” a female voice said from the couch before Kory even made it into the room. He walked in and saw a short, slender red fox on the couch, leaning against a pillow, the television reflected in her eyes. She turned to look at Kory and gave him a broad smile, then paused the movie and got up, smoothing down her jeans. She wore a blue shirt with a faded flower pattern on it and had several beads of various colors woven into the fur between her ears.

  “Hi, dear. I’m Samaki’s mother, Mrs. Roden.” She said it “road-in.”

  “This is Kory, Mom,” Samaki said. His tail was swinging from side to side.

  “Hi,” Kory said, and stuck out a paw. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

  She smiled and took his paw. She was barely as tall as he was. “The one from the pool, right? Pleased to meet you too, Kory. I didn’t expect company this late.”

  “Kory missed his bus, Mom,” Samaki said, his ears twitching at the mention of the pool. “Can you give him a ride home?”

  “I think so, sure. Let me find my keys and leave a note for your father in case he comes home while we’re gone. Samaki, you’ll stay here to watch the kits.” She walked over to a side table and rummaged through her purse.

  “Do I have to, Mom? They’re asleep, they’ll be okay.”

  She considered that only for a moment. “No. I don’t know when your father will be home.”

  “Oh, all right.” He sighed. “Thanks for coming down, Kory.”

  “Thanks for the movie,” Kory said, and smiled. “I’ll talk to ya soon.”

  “Bet on it.” The fox’s tail was wagging, and he gave Kory a good shake of the paw that made Kory think of the dark street they’d walked down, paw in paw.

  “Kory, where do you live?” Mrs. Roden said, closing the door behind them.

  “Over in Westmont,” he said. “On Strawberry Lane back of Lincoln Highway.”

  “I know about where that is, but you’ll have to guide me when we get close.” The vixen smiled. “You want to call your mom and tell her you’ll be a little late, Kory?”

  “Uh, no, that’s okay.” Kory would then have to explain where he was calling from and why it was going to take him half an hour to get across town. “I think we can make it in time.”

  Mrs. Roden laughed. “I appreciate your trust,” she said. “All right, here we go.”

  Kory slid into the passenger seat and drew the seatbelt across, looking around the car as he did. There were several bare patches on the seat itself, and both the seat and the back of the driver’s seat that he could see bore numerous claw marks and gouges. Kory pulled the seatbelt across himself, aware of the strong foxy smell in the car that was older and deeper than just Samaki and his mother. He inhaled again, searching for Samaki’s scent, but it was hard to pick out of the mixture.

  “So how was the movie?” Mrs. Roden asked, backing down the drive. “Terrible,” Kory said. “We had a great time.”

  “So you like bad movies too?”

  “I liked this one,” Kory said. “We had a lot of fun.”

  “You don’t go to Hilltown P.S., do you?”

  “No. Carter High.”

  “How do you like it?” She turned onto the main street.

  “It’s okay.”

  She glanced at him. “How’s your head feeling?”

  He shrugged. “Really, it was nothing. I wasn’t used to the smaller pool.”

  “Samaki was really worried. I don’t see any sign of swelling, though.” She asked him about symptoms for a few minutes, and Kory remembered that she was a nurse. He asked about her job and the hospital where she worked, until his exit came up, when he had to focus on directions.

  Kory guided her through the small suburban maze and to his driveway. The larger, nicer houses on his street loomed ostentatiously to him after walking through the smaller, pushed-together houses on Samaki’s. Mrs. Roden only said, “Such a pretty lawn,” her admiration free of jealousy as far as Kory could tell.

  “Thanks so much for the ride, Mrs. Roden,” he said when they stopped.

  “You’re very welcome, Kory. Come back and visit with us sometime. Samaki’s been telling us about you and we’d be happy to have you over.”

  Kory grinned widely. “I’d like that. Thanks again.,” he said, getting out and waving.

  Mrs. Roden waited while he walked up the driveway and then left as he tried the door and found it open. He waited until they’d rounded the corner and glanced at his phone before opening the door. Good: 10:54. He sighed with relief and walked into his house.

  As he closed the door, he heard his mother call from the living room. “Kory?”

  She was sitting on the couch, paws folded in her lap. Only the lamp on the end table was lit; the circle of light threw shadows across her muzzle. Something was wrong; he knew it immediately, even before she said, slowly, “Sal came by looking for you.”

  It took him a moment to remember that he’d told her he was going out with Sal. “Mom...”

  She turned large brown eyes on him. “Kory...” The words were difficult for her to get out. “Are you...are you on drugs?”

  “Mom! No!”

  “I know you’ve been going through a difficult time, losing Jenny. It’s natural for a young man to feel alienated and turn to sinful things in an attempt to feel better. We can get help for you. There’s a group I read about, they have a wonderful center and it’s just ten miles away. They put you together with other boys going through similar problems.” Now the words were spilling out unchecked.

  “I’m not on drugs, Mom.” He took a step forward. “Really.”

  “Then why...” She sniffed the air. “You smell like skunks.”

  “It’s not skunk, it’s foxes,” he said, annoyed.

  “Well,” she said. “You’re grounded for a week for lying to me. Now tell me the truth.”

  He said, “Mommmm...” to buy time while he figured out the minimum he needed to tell her.

  “The truth, Kory, or it’ll be another week at least.”

  Across the water, Nick’s door cracked open. The light was off, but he knew his brother was listening. “I went out to a movie, Mom, just not with Sal.”

  “Whom did you go with, then?”

  He could feel the current of the conversation, tugging him inexorably towards what he knew would be the result. He battled it anyway. “This other friend of mine.”

  “What’s his name?”

  He stalled for time. “You don’t know him.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you. What’s his name?”

  “Samaki.”

  “Samaki what?”

  “Roden.”

  She mulled the name over in her head. “I don’t know him.”


  “I told you,” he said.

  “Don’t talk back to me, cub,” she said. “Is he a school friend?”

  “Not really.” He squirmed under her stare. “No.”

  “I see. Where did you meet him? It wasn’t church.”

  “No. At the pool.”

  “Hm.” He could see her thoughts; the pool was at least a place you had to pay to get in, and it was a Good Place. “When was this?”

  “Last weekend. We talked on the phone a bit and he invited me to a movie tonight.”

  “Which movie?” She said it casually, but Kory wasn’t fooled.

  “I told you,” he said, uncomfortably aware of the ticket stub in his pocket. “‘Girlie Men.’“

  She relaxed a little more, and then said, “Last weekend...so it was at the municipal pool.”

  “Uh...yes.” He saw her stiffen again. The municipal pool was not as Good a Place as Caspian. “He’s really nice, Mom. We talk about schoolwork. We have a lot of the same subjects.”

  “What school does he go to?”

  “The public school.”

  She didn’t like that either. “There’s a lot of drugs down there.” He didn’t respond to that. “So you’ve been helping him out? I’m sure your classes are more advanced than his.”

  They weren’t, but Kory realized that she thought Carter was supposed to be better than the Public School System, even though it was part of it. “Uh...yeah.”

  “The Lord does smile on charity,” she mused. Kory sighed. At this point, the worse of the two outcomes had been avoided. She would let him remain friends with Samaki. But she would want to meet him. And that meant dinner.

  “Invite him to dinner next Friday night,” she said. “I don’t like not knowing your friends.”

  “All right,” he said immediately.

  “I just worry about you boys, growing up without a father. I can’t be here all the time for you.”

  “I know, Mom,” he said.

  “I worry because I love you, Kory. You know that, right?”

  “You and God, Mom.”

  Now her muzzle broke into a smile. “That’s right.” She stood up and hugged him. “Oof. Go clean that stink off you before you go to bed. And give me your cell phone.”