Unleavened (HH)
#46 of Hockey Hunk Season 6
It's always a good thing to unwind after a long day.
Unleavened (HH)
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Shalom,
and welcome to the new chapter of The Hockey Hunk - still in Furry Definition on your screens! It's another week and another dip into Kirk City, and boy do I hope you have a nice read...and do hope you leave me comments! *pouts*
Without further ado, I present to you this chapter!
*
I could hear the music the moment I parked the car, well, more like...do you know that scene in Jurassic Park when the kids are in the car and there's that cup of water on the dashboard and the water starts bouncing and it's the Tyrannosaurus Rex coming? I suppose the windows of my car were working a bit like that, when I parked on the yard in front of my house. I could hear it thrumming from the house when I picked my case from the car, closed the door and headed in.
I think I almost felt it on the doorknob, when I stepped in and my ears made an emergency landing against my skull to protect them from the din of the noise.
"PAUL!" I yelled.
I put my case down, unbuttoned my jacket and hung it from the coat while waiting for an answer.
"PAUL!" I called again.
The booming volume finally went down and a moment later, his footpaws appeared on the stairs, soon followed by legs and then the rest of him, wearing a T-shirt with the logo of some organization I didn't know, and with the music still running on the background.
"Hey, dad."
"I haven't heard music being played that loud since 1986 and back then I think they were listening to Bon Jovi and not this...whatever this is called," I mused.
"Lady Gaga," Paul replied softly, "It's called 'Born this Way'."
"I think I've heard of it," I said.
"It's not an it, it's a stripper from New York who became world's biggest pop star," Paul explained.
I rubbed my muzzle.
"I though that was Hannah Montana...something?"
His tail bounced almost to the low ceiling above the stairs.
"You are kidding, right?" he sounded worried.
I smiled and purred.
"What do you think?" I smiled. "I've seen enough of those pink Hannah Montana backpacks on the girls I've prescribed glasses to. I do follow my time."
"And still you claim you don't know Lady Gaga," he accused.
"Only vaguely, I'm not sure I'd recognize all of her work," I said, "we do have the radio on at the shop floor, but not in the examination room or the office."
"And at home you listen to your old C cassettes I've seen lying around?"
"With Pet Shop Boys on them, yes, recorded from the radio, like we used to do it, you know?" I grinned.
"Yeah, I don't think I want to take this further," he said. "This will end up sounding like some awfully scripted sitcom."
"I thought we wrote all the best sitcoms?" I said. "And make the best subjects as punchlines?"
"I'm waiting for 'Jewish Single Dad' to premiere this fall," Paul mused on his way down the stairs, "anything to eat in the fridge? I ate at the university after work and didn't really look."
He scratched his rump on his way to the kitchen and I shook my head a little. Seemed that he'd picked up all the good, lazy affect of someone his age should project around him. At least it didn't reflect to his academic behavior, for that I was happy to note. Sponsoring him through college was more like a privilege than a parental chore I had promised to adhere to.
"Well, I did shop yesterday," I replied, "maybe I could make a pot roast...though that'd take three hours...or a stuffed cabbage..."
"I'm gonna make a sandwich!" he hollered.
I followed him into the kitchen and found him already at the process of finding the tools and ingredients needed for his snack.
"How was your day?" I asked from the doorway while he continued on his easygoing way.
"Pretty good," Paul said. "Work was alright. School was alright. Got a shitload of organic chemistry homework to do. Amino acids and their synthesis. Do you remember your organic chemistry?"
"I think it's been a bit too long," I said, "but I can tell you all about the anatomy of the retina."
"Fine, I'll just ask the furs in my study group," he said.
"You have a study group already?"
"Sure, we're encouraged to get into them as soon as we start," he replied, "so I've got one. We meet up after lectures and sometimes between them to revise and to study together and help everyone along."
"That's great!" I purred. "Making friends and all that, and so quickly!"
He pulled out a knife and began to slice into the loaf of bread he already had on the cutting board.
"And who knows, maybe any moment there's gonna be the sound of a car horn, and there's gonna be a car full of rowdy frat kids who want to take me to a really naughty and illegal house party with lots of drugs, sex and alcohol involved."
"I thought we agreed this is not a sitcom."
He chuckled, a cheerful sound in this house that had been quiet for a very long time.
"Okay, dad."
"I'm very pleased to hear you're being so active," I smiled. "And I hope you don't plan to eat all that beef, I want some too!"
"You should start buying bigger packets now that you're not shopping just for yourself!" he smiled. "They do stock family size at the kosher market?"
"If I eat all that, I'll become fat," I mused.
"I've got fast metabolism and a ravenous appetite, I'll eat the surplus," he said.
"Alright, " I said ,"I won't complain about the food, as long as I don't have to throw any exceed away because it goes bad."
"Are we seriously talking about the dangers of food spoilage?" my son asked me curiously.
"I could also put a scarf around my head and start singing while I make that pot roast just like grandmother Crane used to," I mused when I accepted the knife from his paw and began to cut a slice for myself. Truth be told, the scent of the meat was already tickling on the back of my nose and making me quite hungry. Hal had been complaining about his packed health lunch at work and contemplated ditching it in exchange of grabbing something from the food court at the mall.
"Let's not push it," Paul said.
He sat onto the kitchen table and began to chew onto his simple meal.
"How about the job?" I asked. "Enjoying yourself there as well? Not too hard to fit it all into your schedule?"
"It's enough for me," he said, "They don't need me that much yet. Their boss is going to take maternity leave, so they're breaking in the assistant boss and I'm just there to cover when needed."
He finished with a big chomp on his bread and chewed on it thoroughly.
"I'm glad to hear that," I smiled. "I'll have to pop by some day. I've been to their store in the mall but not downtown, I think. Though maybe I did. There are other book stores there, too...hmm..."
He leaned back on his chair and snickered.
"Do you want me to talk all about how I think you'll make me embarrassed in front of my co-workers?"
"Maybe?"
"Are they nice to you?" I asked.
"Of course they are," he said, "there's two college students like me, and this guy Rory, and then there's Marge, the boss. They're alright. They don't mess around with me. They let me do my thing."
"That's very good to hear. I'm glad you're settling in."
"They're an okay bunch."
My sandwich was ready, two slices of bread with beef between them, and I settled to the table to eat with him.
"I'm glad you're having fun," I said. "And if there's anything else you ever need and the pay doesn't cover it, you can always ask me, you know."
My son looked at me with one raised brow.
"Besides the allowance you insist on paying to me?"
"I want to help you in every way I can," I replied, "I want you to - "
"Besides the car, the free lodging, the free food, the free internet, the iPad, the TV, the computer, the clothes shopping last week, the 20 dollar bills that just happen to appear on my desk?"
"I know what it's like at your age, always short of pocket money."
"And I know where you are coming from, dad, but I think you can be a good dad without overcompensating, too."
I put my sandwich down and regarded him.
"I just know that I haven't been there for a long time and..."
"Dad, I had all these things growing up," he said, "if you insist on buying stuff to me, it's just...you know...spoiling me."
"Can you blame me?"
"I wish you didn't insist on thinking that you have something to make up for, dad. I had a good childhood. I wasn't any more traumatized than any other divorce kid. And believe me, I've seen a lot of them come out much worse than I have."
"Well..."
"Give me the money if it makes you feel better," he said, "it won't change how I think about you."
My ears drooped. His words sounded harsh, coming from someone so young. So...inexperienced in life, at least I hoped he was. Nobody at that age should have to have seen enough of it to have become...bitter.
"I wasn't hoping to change anything..." I said. "I just want to be your dad, finally."
He chuckled.
"If you want a pissing competition, you should do it with Joel directly and not use me as a tool of revenge."
"Who ever said anything about that?" I asked him.
He smirked, and flicked an ear.
"Well I didn't get all this manly pride from mother, for sure..." my son spoke with a persistent small smile.
My son thought I had manly pride, enough to share with him...I guess that meant he thought I was manly.
Cool!
"Is that a positive quality you see in yourself...or in me?" I asked hopefully.
"Sure," he chuckled. "You need balls as big as melons to survive out there."
I ahem'd.
"That's an interesting way to put it."
"But true," he said.
"Yes, it is." I nodded, "in all areas of life."
Paul chuckled.
"So which one wears the pants over at your business?" he proposed. "You or Mister Hal?"
"Hahah. We do have an equal number of shares, you know."
"Like you keep telling me."
"He's a good man. We are good partners in the practice. And we're innovating and evolving even now. We've got the computer people in to overhaul the website, too!"
"I thought you always kept telling me that it's a stable business," he mused, "that everyone will always have bad eyesight, and you fix them."
"The medical side is stable, of course it is, with a small but steady yearly growth from the aging population needing more and more intervention for their ailing eyesight, cataracts, macular degeneration..."
I knew I was getting into a sales talk mode there, so I swallowed it.
"But what we really have to keep up is the vanity market."
He tilted his head and regarded me through his own smooth pair of specs, his fingers preening through the white strands of his neck ruff.
"Yeeessssh?"
"A lot of the glasses we sell don't even have prescriptions," I told him, "they're just worn as fashion accessories."
"So you're also a fashionista now?" he said. "Are we all jetting together to Milan or Paris to see the great international spectacle trends for the spring 2012 season? You, Hal and me?"
I shook my head.
"We have to compete with Wal-Mart and every drug store that sells accessory glasses for a nickel," I explained, "we have to try to stand out."
"With a Doctor Crocodile service?"
That was funny. I chuckled.
"You do remember Doctor Crocodile, don't you?" I said. "I already had one of those coats back then."
"And Doctor Crocodile was in the hamper the other day," he pointed out.
"Yes, he was," I nodded, "a sloth smeared chocolate all over it and I had to get it washed."
"You got assaulted by a sloth?"
"No, more like, this 8-year-old had a massive chocolate bar in his paw when his mother brought him in and when he was climbing onto the chair he grabbed my coat and I smelled like pecans and butter for the rest of the day."
"So it wasn't a new cologne I was smelling in the air..."
"I don't even use cologne!"
"I thought we already agreed on that we're both manly enough to not need some?"
I chuckled.
"You've got a good head on those shoulders," I smiled.
*
Best thanks for reading! I hope you had an interesting time, and I look forward to reading your feedback! All comments, faves and votes are appreciated, and remember that they also help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
See you on Monday!