The Boy & The Fox, Chapter 1

*copyrighted material*

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      February 27th, 1935. Raw and bone-chilling, past midnight. The thick white ice gnawed on his face, and the rich taste of blood ran out of his mouth and nostrils, warm against the biting ground. The steam coming out of his mouth melted away the particles onto the cobblestone floor. Calvin stared at the purity of the snowbank he was lying on. Glimmering with polychromatic colors, the tarnished light coming out of the street lamps reflected on billions and zillions of snowflakes. 

    He spat out red. The teenager clawed his gloved hands on the brick wall. He pulled himself up and was back on the balls of his feet. Tumbling, he regained control of his body despite the deadness of his legs. He reached out for his shovel lying on the bloody hot mess soaked by the muddy snow and slowly made his way down the alleyway.

    A small portion of Calvin’s childhood had been spent fleeing with his family from one province to another. Running away from conquering warfare. Roanoke was perishing, choked by its military forces in vengeance against the Rootstocks. The renegade forces.

    Who would understand such things at the age of five? His then sixteen-year-old brother and he had been forced to hold onto whatever they had at hand boarding a bus, a four-day trip to

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unknown territory, including also a ferry and a small portion on foot. Mom and dad had sent them off to a decaying town called Nooktown, on the Northeastern side of the country. Hidden far off at the foothill of an icy mountain called Mt. Mowaki, near the Southern border of Norway. Roanoke, known for its dogmatic regime, was located between Norway and Denmark. A piffling and hermetic nation that had faced dark times for over three decades.

    Wyatt, the eldest son, visibly corrupted by loath for their parents, raised little Calvin with patience and love. That baby boy still saw tears on his mother’s face, the tight grasp of his father pressing on his shoulders. His weather-beaten red raw hands as he knelt to kiss his brow and promised to come back for them one day. In a desperate attempt to save their children, Andrew and Harriett Elsner bought one-way bus tickets for both of their children to never see them again.

    A decade was not nearly enough to forget and Calvin was no longer the same kid who arrived at Nooktown’s empty bus terminal at 10:21 P.M. Not the same kid who clung to his big brother upon realizing their new home, a rickety old room at an abandoned hotel, was infested with rats. But there he was today, an offbeat fifteen-year-old teenager that’d skip breakfast and sleep anytime to work extra shifts for damaged books and expired cigarettes. 

    There were few places in town where the siblings found themselves welcomed each night, one of them was an establishment with toothsome homespun food and heated drinks called Booze Bucket Bar. The alehouse was below ground level with a chimney working 24/7 and a sign hanging from the highest part of the cabin. Calvin took the tight and squeaky corridor downstairs. He cleaned up the snow covering the doorstep and found the handle. Inside the place was vacant, uninteresting, booming old good jazz on the radio. The way he preferred it.

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    “Nelson! I’m back. Where’s the ale?” He hooted, kicking off his boots and dropping his shovel at a corner. 

    A stubby man came through the cook room, broom at hand. Dark-eyed, puffed-up maroon curls and a pallid look to his skin. A prominent nose, long and round with a perfectly brushed mustache underneath. “Boy, what’s that on your face?” Nelson placed a heavy palm on his forehead. 

    “I fell flat on my face on my way here,” The fifteen-year-old huffed pushing away his hand. “Those damn snow maggots aren’t doing their job right.” He motioned at his shovel with a thumb.

    “In that case, you need a new job!” Nelson cackled. “But I’d doubt that the floor could punch your eye black like that!” Calvin wiped the blood off his face with a towel he found on the counter. Nelson scowled. 

    A slender pumpkin-shaded fox entered the establishment from within the backdoor. Brushes of gray and white whiskers, the size of an average hound. Calvin saw her stretching away from sleep as she approached him. That took a smile off his swollen face.

    “How’s my babe doing tonight?” He bent a knee, got a closer look at her pitch-black eyes, and rubbed her face against his leathery palms.

    “The lazy bum has been snoozing all evening. Carol is one hell of a caretaker you have . . .” Nelson cocked his head, swiping the broom below a dirty table scattered with cold home fries.

    Wyatt had picked the fox’s name from a jazz singer called Jimmie Carol. He used to find gusto in his music every ‘Jimmie C. Saturday Night Special’ on the radio. She was a gift from a man called Woodbone. Woodbone—named after his wooden leg—had handed him a cub from a

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wooden box full of hay and a dozen orange cubs. Sadly, Wyatt had left town some years ago. Leaving both his younger brother and pet fox behind. She had become Calvin's unswerving companion, now a fully-grown fox and his beloved custodian.

    The fox licked the rest of the blood off his face. The boy watched her in awe. “I promise not to go out without you next time.” He mumbled, brushing his fingers against the back of her ear. Carol turned her head, capturing an interesting scent on his glove. Three ass tall roughnecks had blocked his way in that alley to whack him to a pulp. 

    “Black ale, you goof!” Nelson pushed the fuming jar on the counter straight toward his hands. He inhaled the hot toxins before taking a big gulp that satisfyingly scorched his insides.

    The night tumbled away, lento. Carol had taken her usual spot near the fire. Her owner, instead, took a brief moment to splash some water on his face. Then he looked at his bruised features through the fogged mirror. 

    There was not too much dwelling on his looks but people rather used to say he was one to play devil’s advocate. Whatever that looked like he was rather thin and shorter than most kids his age. He could make out the untamed ash blonde hair strands of his bowl cut and grey eyes surrounded by a swelling mess. He looked unrecognizably red. Uneven, abstract, nothing close to himself.

     Awful time to be running off the mouth. He had spoken too loud about the civil war, the Rootstocks, and the Roanoke Military in some public space near the town hall. A bit too tipsy for the audience’s taste. Getting your ass kicked on your way home from work was no odd phenomenon in town, a consequence tailored to the Mayor’s needs. Exposing cleverness riveted the military’s eyes toward the townsfolk in its totality, who did not mind being overlooked.

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     Nooktown was not just infested with fugitive rodents but with outpouring military allies like Jesse Mcallister, the youngest Mcallister offspring. The last of his lineage and descendant of the well-known moneyed kindred. A family that along with many high-classed clans had supported the Roanoke Military for generations since the first pioneers came across such wintry and unwelcoming lands. Jesse carried the responsibility to weigh down the townsfolk with everyday tasks and constant monitoring to keep the government’s military alliance ahead of those against them. The Mayor, supreme authority in town and government official, owned a country house in a field of violet wildflowers an hour away, the rest of his men had gotten decent cabins all around the township. The non-political folks dealt with the dusty, rotten, and old. Most of these old cabins, abandoned hotel rooms, and steel plate rooms full of hay held objects of previous users. Leaving trash, spoiled food, and trinkets behind.

    Nooktown was no ordinary town, nobody here was terminally stupid as some would say. It was indeed a frail place that likely would fall to pieces one day due to corrosion and the bad use of deteriorated wood. But the hangars and runways of the province sparkled and shone anew. The cause?

    The country had split into two ends, Rootstocks confronted the military. The farmers and those on their side face to face with the bureaucratic framework. The Roanoke Military labored alongside the government and restored as many towns and cities as possible to use locations and manpower to their advantage during the thick of the conflict. The Rootstocks, opposing their counterpart, had concentrated their forces into building colonies all around the country to boycott the military’s supply shipments in hopes of freeing all provinces. Nooktown had become the golden pawn of the Roanoke Military due to its coordinates and monumental airfield. Greeting tons of airships with vital cargo supplies, hungry and wounded pilots, and soldiers that spent the night in all different lodges in town. They’d camp outside the alehouses, lighting fires

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to the sound of the radio. Ghost stories and songs. Alcohol, gambling, drugs, and prostitutes. Crowded all seasons, deploying troops to the battlefield at dawn.

    Repulsion. The wealthy feed their children, sucking at the bones of a perishing land. Calvin and the rest of the shovelers—young and grown-up men working all day and night keeping the streets clean and airport runways running—watched the sly dog soldiers and the rich with unkind eyes. They mocked and called names with disconcerting frequency. ‘Shovel boys’ or ‘snow maggots’.

    Calvin combed his hair, and snatched back his jacket, and soiled boots. The morrow was finally here, there was barely any rest for him between shifts. Nooktown was overburdened with snow all year round. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, made no difference, everyone faced enslavement. He stopped by the radio on the counter, playing none other than Jimmie Carol’s newest single called ‘Bullet Through The Heart’.

My sweet sweet baby, my lovely lady

My sweet sweet baby, what have you done?

I sent you daisies, and kept the pink silk jersey

My sweet sweet lady, you’ve put a bullet through the heart

When I’m talking to you,

I see all dreams come true, when I’m talking to you I’ve got no fears

But my heart is in pain,

When I see there’s no gain and no, I won’t take a no.

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I won’t take a no.

My sweet sweet baby, my lovely lady

My sweet sweet baby, oh please, don’t you go!

I sent you letters, well, was that better?

My sweet sweet lady, I’ll put a bullet through the heart

My sweet sweet lady, oh I’ll pull a bullet through the heart

    Wyatt had left town three years ago. Powered by sudden indignation, filled with umbrage, and resignation perhaps. It was meant to be a trip for two. Calvin had renounced his ticket for the sake of their parents. They had vanished through the mist as the bus they rode a decade ago vamoosed onto the road ahead leaving him with more questions than answers. Even so, his sibling took that flight to the capital in pursuit of a better life. He left no address or phone number to contact him. No letters, postcards, or packages from him ever since. Wyatt had moved on from the thought way quicker than him. He had envisioned it. He had acted.

     “Why can’t you just get it over with? Why can’t you accept that they are gone forever?” 

    Calvin recalled his every move and word, the canned anger. The way he couldn’t handle being called ‘snow maggot’, the lowest of the low. The way he would deliver punch after punch, punished for it with payless extra shifts. He turned off the receiver, took his shovel, and headed

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for the door. “Are you ready to go, girl?” He whispered. Carol left her spot to follow her master, both disappearing through the frame.

    The sun was rising, the dark hues daubed in the sky turning mauve and then gold. Calvin’s surroundings were mute and sterile. The kid lit up an expired cancer stick for the occasion. He brought it to his lips and sucked. Bitter. All wrong. He looked up the rooftops, and the first ringing bells of the church came gushing to his ears. Carol tailed him as he began to stroll away, his boots knocking hollowly on the cool stone sidewalk. As he reached downtown, he could make out the accustomed noise of murmurs. The living had woken to calls of the sun star.

END OF CHAPTER #1