Three Furs, One House
#6 of Three Furs, One House
Three Furs, One House- Chapter 6
"-so we landed there at Carswell, and there's a ton of armed Air Force guys pointing guns at the jet."
"How the hell did you get out of that?" asked Jake, who was sitting next to me on the expansive leather sofa in my living room.
"There wasn't much to it, actually. After a lot of people grilled all three of us for six and a half hours, they told us to leave and escorted us away from the area. Nineteen people talked to me, Sweets, and Alex in those six hours, and none of them were happy at all," I laughed. Now that I'd had time to smoke on it, the whole situation with the Air Force was actually fucking hilarious. Since nothing had gone seriously wrong, why not laugh at it? More than two months later, it was still funny.
"Wow," laughed the small coyote. "That's fucking funny!"
"Yeah..." I glanced at the clock and noted that the time was well past ten at night. "Shouldn't you be getting to bed?"
"Aw..." Jake whined, his big triangular ears folding back against his skull. "But... Come on, man, I like never go to bed this early!"
My face adopted a stern look and I folded my arms. Charlie had explicitly instructed for me to have Jake in bed by ten, and I had already fucked that up. His other rules were no pot, no drugs, no drinking, and no friends over. I'd agreed to these rules, but it seems that I was already starting to mess it up, and Jake's parents had only been gone a day.
Jake had gotten an out of school suspension for a fight the Friday before Charlie and Chaos Theory were scheduled to go on a month long tour of Europe. Since they couldn't do much in the way of traditional punishment while in a different country, they decided to do it the other way around and make him stay in Harbor City for the first week of the tour. So, Charlie had called me up and asked me if he could stay with me.
Obviously, I'd agreed and now here we were, sitting on my couch and munching on food. Chip bags and aluminum cans littered the glass and engine-block coffee table. The TV was on, but neither of us was watching it. We'd been just sitting here talking about whatever had come to mind for the past two and half hours.
""Well, you are today. And the day after. And the day after that."
"Ricky, come on, dude! That's so fucked up!"
"Jake, you heard me. Get to your room or I make a phone call to your dads."
"Come on, please?"
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my muzzle. I knew Jake better than just about anybody, aside from his parents of course, and I knew that getting him to go to bed was going to be a challenge.
"You know what, how about this?" I said. "You can come with me while I run to pick up some things, but when we get back, you go right to bed, okay?"
Jake nodded ecstatically. "Yeah! Deal!"
"Good."
While Jake went to go find his socks, shoes, and jacket, I went over to the massive key rack by the garage door and scanned the vast array of car keys hanging from it.
Hmm, I thought, what do I want to drive?
My paw paused over the keys to the Lamborghini Murcielago LP670, then travelled past the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Ferrari F430 Scuderia, and the McLaren MP4-12C, eventually selecting the fob and key to my BMW M3 GTS R-Spec Tornado. I pulled the ring off of its hook and pocketed it.
"Jake! Let's go!" I called loudly, beginning to put in the code on the alarm system.
"Hold on a second! Can't find my left shoe!"
I chuckled softly to myself. Jake was absolutely priceless.
About thirty seconds later, I heard a repetitive thumping sound as Jake thundered down the stairs. The little coyote skidded to a halt in front of me and smiled up at me, fluffy tail wagging behind him.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Yep!"
The little thirteen year old shot me an ear-to-ear grin.
I held the self-closing door that led to the garage open for him, and stepped quickly through after him.
Jake's jaw dropped when I hit the lights. The long fluorescent bulbs flickered, then came on with a steady glow, illuminating the smooth curves and exquisite styling of the twenty cars inside the huge football-field-sized room under the house. His gaze went straight to Swiff's pride and joy, the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T known as the General Lee. The spotless orange muscle car sat under its own spotlight in a corner. The Confederate flag adorning the roof looked crisp and clear under the lights.
I laughed. I had predicted to myself that he would home in on the General just like he would with a pound of pot. I had to admit, the Charger was a sexy piece of American muscle.
Sitting right next to it was Swiff's other favorite car, the '69 Shelby GT500-KR from Gone In Sixty Seconds. The silver car shone under the overhead spotlights, the light bouncing off the solid black stripes that ran down the top, front and rear end of the bodywork.
"Oh my god..." Jake whispered.
"Those are Swiff's," I laughed, extremely amused by his reaction. "They may be a bit prettier than your dad's Chevelle, but that thing could scorch any of the muscle cars in this garage."
"Damn... Which one were we thinking of taking?" he asked.
In response, I pointed out the BMW M3 GTS R-Spec under its own spot. The brilliant orange car was a massively upgraded version of the standard E92 M3 coupe. It had a larger V8 with more power, a big spoiler, a carbon fiber front lip and canards, a roll cage, and a new seven speed dual-clutch transmission from the F10 M5. I loved it to death, but the Maserati that I've already told you about was next to it and it had my heart when it came to cars.
"That thing? Nah, man, we gotta take the General!"
"Ha, I wish. Swiff will murder us both if we so much as touch that car."
"Fuck, man..."
"We can, however, take the GT500 next to it."
"We can?!"
I had to laugh at the eagerness with which he responded to that statement.
"Yup. Let me run in and grab the keys to it and we'll head out."
I left Jake by the car and ran in to swap keys out. The cold metal and leather of the fob burned into my paw as I clenched the key in it.
I trotted back out to the car and unlocked it, sliding onto the front bench seat around the parts of the five-point racing harnesses. I reached over and unlocked the passenger side so Jake could slide into the seat.
He hopped up onto the flawless leather bench and looked around the inside of the car with awe. The interior of the car was a specimen of polished perfection. The wire-wrapped steering wheel with the oddly-out-of-place Ferrari-style manettino switch. The six speed transmission's gear stick sticking up out of the floorboard. The unobtrusive roll cage encasing the entire passenger compartment.
I stuck the key into the ignition and rested my left footpaw on the clutch, waggling the gearshift into neutral before turning the key.
The six and a half liter all-American supercharged V8 came to life with an earth-shaking rumble. The exhaust barked out of the twin straight-pipe system that culminated with two tips ahead of the rear wheels. We could physically feel the Shelby vibrate from the immense power of its engine.
"Holy fucking shit!" Jake shouted over the roar of the engine.
I could only laugh and lower both windows, allowing even more of the exhaust note to permeate the cabin.
With a bit of complicated footpawwork, I shifted the GT500 into second and started her rolling. The engine's idle contained enough power to push the speedometer up to fifteen miles per hour in the confines of the underground garage. I stopped at the gate that led to the ramp and waited for my elaborate security system to scan the vehicle and its license plate.
While we waited, my paw left the gearstick alone and went to the manettino switch on the wheel. This was an exact replica of the dials found in all modern Ferraris, and it performed much the same function. With a few seconds of thought while the gate cycled open, I decided to twist it to CSToff. CSToff was the ultimate race setting. Traction and stability control were completely shut off, and the baffles in the exhaust opened, allowing the throaty motor to scream its song to the world.
The Shelby crawled up the ramp and out onto level ground, the xenon lights illuminating everything as bright as day. I turned down the driveway and rolled around the house and up to the road, where we sat for a moment while I flipped through the iPod I had brought with me and hooked into the aftermarket stereo head-unit.
Eventually, I settled on one of my favorite tracks.
_ _
Don't let it end,
Don't let it end,
Don't ever,
Don't ever let it end!
_ _
I've got two tickets to the game,
It'd be great if I could take you to it this Sunday,
And I'll walk you home when the whole thing's done,
If you're there I don't even care which team won.
_ _
The thudding bass of the song shook the car even more than the exhaust had, if such a thing was even possible.
Once I'd set down the MP3 player, I gripped the wheel and gearshift firmly and snapped my foot off the clutch, smashing the other onto the accelerator.
The supercharged V8 spun up instantly, the fat rear wheels smoking profusely. I had one of the widest grins on my face, and when I glanced at Jake, I could tell that the little coyote was smiling like a lunatic.
The car smoked its own tires for the next quarter mile until I let off and let them catch the traction they needed.
"I never get tired of that," I said aloud.
"But I bet Swiff does. How often does he have to replace the tires on this?" Jake asked, showing off his intelligence.
"About every two weeks."
"See?"
"I know he loves it though. I mean, come on, wasn't that awesome?"
"Yeah, it was," he conceded before falling silent.
We drove on for several moments in silence, before I voiced a question that had been bugging me.
"Jake?" I asked.
"Yeah?"
"Why did you do it?"
Jake didn't say anything for a moment.
"I snapped, okay? I mean, I kinda lost my head."
"I don't follow. I don't even know what you did."
"My dads didn't tell you?" Jake asked incredulously.
Actually they had, but I wanted to hear him say it. "No, they didn't."
Before he said anything, I saw him snake a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, along with a Zippo lighter. I didn't think that his dads would be alright with that, but it wasn't my place to judge.
I knew Swiff would kill him if he ever found out Jake had smoked in his car so I lowered the windows and turned on the aircon all the way to blow all the smoke out the windows.
Jake sparked up his Zippo and stuck the filter of one of his smokes in his muzzle. He held the flaming wick up to the cigarette and lit it, taking a huge drag off the paper-covered cancer stick. He held the smoke in his lungs for a seemingly impossible length of time before finally letting out a thin wisp of smoke that flew out the window.
"He pushed me too far, I guess... I don't know..."
I drove in silence, not wanting to interrupt and make him clam up.
"I was in my Algebra class... And I was talking with my friend Bobby. We were making a joke about one of the bullies in the class after that one, Alton. And his friend Richard is in our class. We always call him Dick, both for the funny reason and the shortening of his name.
"Anyway, he heard the joke and apparently told Alton, because right after that class, Alton came up to the both of us and punched Bobby in the stomach. In a messed up kinda way, I'm glad he went after Bobby first, because he can't fight for shit. And gut shots are bad... So anyway, Bobby goes down and my first thought is to go and kick his ass. So I do.
"We're right there in the hallway, and there's this crowd of kids around us. I ball up my fist and just start wailing on him. I don't know how many times I hit him. All I remember is while the school cop was dragging my ass down to his office, I just stared at my paws and looked at all the blood on them."
He paused there to take another puff of the cigarette.
I let the Shelby coast to a stop at a red light. The furs in the car next to us stared and waved at us. I jerked a paw back at them and refocused on Jake.
"My parents were pissed, to say the least. They both sat me down in the living room and talked to me for more than two and a half hours. That's what took us so long to come over yesterday."
I nodded my understanding.
"God, I hate my school."
"I know how you feel. High school was a nightmare for me."
"Well, at least I turn fourteen in a week," Jake said, tossing the smoldering remains of his smoke out the window.
"That'll be fun."
Jake shrugged.
The light was still red when I looked up at it.
"Want something that'll make you laugh?"
He shrugged again. "I guess."
I smiled and revved the Shelby's engine, supercharger whine adding a nice high-pitched note to the deep bass rumble.
Jake looked over at me with his eyebrow raised.
I shot a grin at him as the light changed over. The red switched to green and my foot planted the gas pedal to the floor.
The engine screamed, bouncing off the limiter. My paw shuffled around on the pedals and my paw threw the gearshift into third, keeping the heavy American muscle car accelerating fiercely. My eyes flicked down to the speedometer and saw that in third gear, we were already breaking a hundred and twenty miles per hour.
"Whoo!" I yelled as the Shelby broke a hundred and sixty in fourth gear. We were rocketing past other cars, the only warning before we passed them being the roar of the exhaust.
I slacked off the gas and let the car coast back down to the legal limit. I glanced over at Jake and saw him smiling broadly, the fight with the bully at his school forgotten for the moment.
We stopped at a Walmart, where I went in and purchased, among other things, a carton of the cigarettes that I smoked, a nice bottle of wine for Alex's return, and a bunch of food fixings for the dinner I'd be making him the next day.
After that stop, we made a slight detour to a jewelry store, where I picked out a pair of engagement rings with Jake's help. He was astonished to be asked for his opinion, but he wound up helping me choose a beautiful pair of polished sterling silver and titanium bands. I had already picked out how the engagement day was going to go down, with Charlie's help and a bunch of cash. I'll tell you about our favorite day together some other time.
We get back on the road and start heading back to our house, both so I could get the food in the refrigerator and so Jake could get to sleep.
The Shelby cruised along at a steady sixty miles per, the wheels humming. My gaze focused on the road and my paws kind of leisurely rested on the wheel and gearshift, which, as it turned out later, was a mistake.
The music on the radio played constantly, a never-changing variable in the twenty mile drive from Harbor City to my massive home. Skillet, Chaos Theory, Lo$t Sh3perd, all of the best rock bands, local or not, played through the upgraded speakers in the Shelby.
Only a mile from the house, I brought the Shelby to a gentle halt at the intersection of Lina Drive and Eldorado Boulevard. One mile to go til I could get back home and start working on one of my special 'projects' for Alex.
The light went green, and I eased off the clutch to start the car rolling. The car's engine growled as I started putting some pressure on the gas pedal.
I caught a glimpse of a shadowy object moving at a high rate of speed and turned my head to look, only to see the front grill and headlights of a large truck bearing down on the drivers door.
The sound of tortured tires and shredding sheetmetal filled the air as the truck slammed into my door. The impact threw both myself and Jake towards my door, only to be stopped by our racing belts. The force of the hit brought the entire car airborne, with the passenger side up higher. The Shelby crashed to earth drivers side first and started tumbling down the street.
Inside the car, all we could see was chips of glass flying everywhere from the shattered windshield, the ground and sky rotating in a nauseating circle, and sparks as the all-steel body scraped along the concrete.
The Shelby eventually came to rest upside down more than a hundred yards from the initial impact. I opened my eyes to see the ground through the windshield.
What the hell, I thought, what happened here?
I turned, vaguely remembering that someone else had been in the car with me. I saw Jake, the skinny little coyote hanging from his harness with his eyes shut and a trickle of blood dripping down his muzzle.
"Jake?" I called hoarsely. The crash had sent me jerking sideways hard enough to make my belt tighten around my throat.
The slim form of the little canine stirred slowly.
"Jake! Talk to me buddy!"
"R-Ricky?" He choked out the words.
"You okay, man? Can you move?"
I saw him shift all his limbs and move his head around. "Y-yeah. I think nothing's broken."
"I don't-" My sentence got cut off by the massive spike of pain shooting up from my entire left side. "Ah fuck!"
My breathing grew heavy as I tried to ward off the intense pain.
I couldn't stop myself from shaking violently, even though the movement sent shards of pain up and down my side. I thought a few ribs might have been cracked.
Suddenly, I lost all conscious thought, my eyes rolling back up into my head. I went limp, hanging there upside down inside the wrecked car.
Jake saw. "Ricky?"
He reached out a paw to tentatively nudge my shoulder. When I didn't move, he got frantic. His eyes scanned every inch of the interior of the car, searching for a phone.
By a happy stroke of luck, if a car crash could be considered such, he found my iPhone laying on the roof. Miraculously, the screen hadn't been cracked by the wild ride down the street.
He snatched it up and dialed 9-1-1.
"Harbor City nine one one, what's the address of your emergency?" asked a slightly-bored-sounding female voice.
"The intersection of Lina and Eldorado! We've had a crash!" Jake shouted in his squeaky voice.
"Okay, sir, we're dispatching paramedics and the fire department."
"Please hurry! My friend, he's unconscious!"
"What's your name?" asked the dispatcher.
"My name is Jake Clayton. My friend's name is Ricky Rifenbark."
"Okay, sweetie, we're on our way. How does your friend look?"
"He's just hanging there!."
"Jake, don't touch it. He might have back problems."
"Okay..."
"I'll stay on the line while I talk with officers. If you need me, I'll be able to hear you."
"Thank you."
Jake set the phone on the underside of the roof and bent to examine his racing harness. The belts came apart very easily, but since the car was upside down, he would crash to the ground the instant he hit that button.
He did it anyway, the belts springing apart. He fell, landing on his back and drawing in a sharp breath of pain.
Jake snatched up the phone and crawled out of the crushed car, standing up slowly. He brought the phone to his ear.
"I'm out of the car. Ricky's still in it."
"Are you injured, sweetie?"
Jake scanned himself, relieved to see nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. That is, until he reached his muzzle to find a thin spear of glass sticking out of the bridge of his muzzle.
"I'm okay, but there's a bit of glass in my muzzle. Scrapes and bruises otherwise."
"Don't touch the glass. Get a paramedic to remove it."
In the distance, Jake could hear the sirens of the rapidly approaching emergency vehicles.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the truck that had hit them. It was a dark gray Toyota Sequoia. The entire front end of the SUV was crushed in, a small wisp of vapor coming from the destroyed radiator.
Through the spider-webbed windshield, Jake could see a tall white-furred shepherd that looked remarkably like Ricky.
Jake went up to the car and rapped on the window. He hadn't seen the driver move at all, so he thought he'd check.
The driver stirred, opening the door with a long creak.
"Are you alright?" Jake asked.
The fur nodded, holding a paw to his head.
"Can you help my friend? He's trapped in the car."
"Where's your car?" the strange fur asked in a voice that was startlingly similar to Ricky's, just a little deeper.
Jake pointed down the road to it.
"Holy fuck..." the guy whispered.
"Come on! You have to help him!" Jake tugged on his arm until the fur relented, trotting over to the demolished Shelby and crouching down at the drivers door.
"Oh my god," he said, spotting me hanging there unconscious.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Jake whined.
The fur didn't respond. He reached through the shattered window and caressed my shoulder gently.
"My son... What have I done..."
Jake stood there in abject shock. Of all the things he had expected, this was definitely not one of them.
Behind him, an ambulance and a pair of police cars came to a screeching halt, their doors opening and spewing people.
Two paramedics came running up to the Shelby, crouching down to get a better look at me.
"We have one patient, male, German Shepherd. The patient is unconscious. We should get him out of there," said one, a tall back panther.
With that, the two medics got to work extracting me from the wreck. Jake and my father stood a few steps removed, keeping an eye on the proceedings.
I came around after a few minutes.
"W-where am I?" I asked.
"You've had a bad crash, sir. Just remain calm and we'll get you sorted out."
"Where's Jake?"
"Who's Jake?"
"Ricky, I'm here," Jake said, stepping up next to the gurney that I was laying on.
"You okay, kiddo?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
I noticed the shard of glass sticking out of him.
"Jake, go get yourself checked out. There's glass in your muzzle."
Jake nodded and ran off, leaving me to lay there and try to ignore the pain coursing through my veins.
After a few minutes, the paramedics loaded me into the ambulance and we took off, sirens blaring.
* * *
I regained consciousness a second time in a hospital. The soft sounds of beeping and the steady plop of a morphine drip entered my ears. I didn't have to open my eyes to smell the distinct odor of antiseptic and cleaning chemicals.
I heard a sniffle off to my side. It was a deeper one than I thought Jake possible of, so I opened my eyes to look.
It was my father.
My eyes widened at the sight of him.
He'd put on a couple pounds since the last time I'd seen him, well over a year ago. His head fur was slightly grayer than before, and there were an extra wrinkle or two around his eyes.
He hadn't noticed I was awake yet.
"Jason."
The one word brought his head snapping up, and I could see a tear in the corner of his eye.
"Ricky..."
"What are you doing here?"
"It was my fault," he said, sniffling again.
"What?"
"I did it. It was all me."
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your crash. I'm the one who hit you and Jake."
"It was YOU?!"
I was suddenly furious. My father, who had disowned me more than two years ago, and refused to talk to me, was now in my hospital room telling me he had crashed into me.
"Yes, it was... I'm sorry, son."
"Get out."
"What?"
"I said get out."
"Why?"
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!" I screamed, unable to contain myself any more. "I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
"Why are you-"
I cut him off by throwing the heaviest object within reach at him, in this case the full bottle of root beer that Jake had undoubtedly gotten me. The bottle soared past his ear and hit the wall, exploding all over the wall and leaving a huge puddle on the floor.
My father fled the room, clearly afraid of my anger. That was a first. It was usually the other way around.
My energy spent, I found myself sinking back into the welcome embrace of sleep. My last thought as I fell asleep was, Swiff is going to kill me.