Lampago Part II

On the far side of that squalid living room, Rudy fussed over a fourth-hand electric stove while Duncan sat half-awake at a card table, their father's card table, waiting with a paper plate. Rudy looked passably human now that he shaved off his beard and muttonchops, put on his green Wigman's Grocery shirt and apron, hid his paw-hands inside cheap gloves, hid his tail inside his black slacks, and squeezed his hindpaws into shoes. Duncan, meanwhile, looked pert in his school uniform of a blue vest over a black polo shit and khaki slacks.

“What's for breakfast?” Duncan yawned.

“Scrambled eggs, Sparky,” the mountain cheerfully replied. He beamed as he doled out his brother's share of the eggs, silently boastful over how human he made himself look. Rudy then sat down at his father's card table and began eating his share of the eggs out of his frying pan, his mother's frying pan, face first. Duncan examined his brother's blatantly tigerine ear. He fished out a big, red handkerchief, no a blue bandanna, and tied it around the mountain's head to hide the mountain's tiger ears and shaggy hair. The mountain's human disguise now complete, he paused to give his Sparky a quick hug and a snort of thanks.

Once breakfast was over, their mother's frying pan was stashed in the bathroom sink where it would be washed in the evening, and Duncan's plate was placed in a trash bag mostly filled with red hair. The brothers were then out of their door, carrying between them the trash bag, a duffle bag, and a backpack.

The pair started their largely uneventful trek to the subway station by ramming the trash bag full of red hair into the trash can in the lobby of their apartment building. Next, Rudy held Duncan's good hand as they raced together for three blocked before laughing all the way down the escalator at the subway station. The subway platform was crowded that morning, as it was every morning. Rudy wrapped both of his big arms around Duncan, not so much to protect his brother, but more of keeping his good luck charm closer.

Ever since Rudy fled Yunnan, he loathed crowds with a wordless passion. So much meat crowding together, grinding together, wallowing in a delightful miasma of seductively rancid sweat. The subway cars were, as they always were since Yunnan, an unbreathable swamp of human pheromones ignored by everyone but Rudy. All those aromas of fear, anxiety, and irritation made his eyes water.

“Hey, Sparky,” Rudy said as he tried to swallow the suffocating lump forming in his throat.

“Yeah?” his good luck charm replied. The boy shifted in his big brother's embrace, instinctively aware of the mountain's smoldering unease.

“We got rid of the trash, right?” He held his little brother tight.

“We tossed it right when we left, remember?” Duncan pulled his arm free to better hug Rudy's bulging, throbbing triceps.

“Yeah, thanks.” Of course Rudy remembered, such was how the first half of his distraction ritual went. He began the second part of his ritual by stroking his brother's sandy hair.

“Hey, look! It's Harry the Hugger and his Toy Boy!”

The mountain noticed the crowd parting around him and his brother. He felt his considerable hackles rise up and shift underneath his Wigman's Grocery shirt. A smelly, filthily dressed man, maybe in his late thirties, was circling Rudy and his little brother like a lone jackal closing in on a cow mired in mud. The smelly man's matted beard reeked of rancid beer and stale tobacco, that odious bouquet made Rudy snort as he scoured his weepy eyes of tears with the back of his shaggy wrist.

“What's the matter, Senator Chester the Molester?” the smelly jackal yapped. “Mad I discovered you with your male escort?”

Rudy blinked the last tears out of his eyes, then glowered at his barking gadfly.

“Please shut up and leave us alone,” the mountain declared. The smelly jackal's laughter turned shrill. Other passengers began to ape the mountain's glowering expression. A tired old woman sitting behind the brothers shuffled the three shopping bags on her lap.

“What are you going to do if I don't, Senator Molllllester? Kill me? Molllllllllllest me?” The smelly jackal continued tittering.

“Just do as he says, and go home, you stinking lush,” the old woman growled.

The smelly jackal leaned perilously close to the brothers in order to better leer at the old woman. Whereupon the mountain reached out with his gloved paw, and snagged that smelly, laughing lush by the filthy neck, hauling him in close. The lush met Rudy's snarling gaze, his tittering laugh evolving into squealing puffs upon realizing that behind that hairy face was an ancient predator, hungry, angry, and not at all human. Rudy let his prey go as the shrieking lush flooded the subway car with salty fear and shrill wailing. Duncan grimaced in disgust and relief.

Rudy wiped his gloved paw clean on his slacks, then hugged his Sparky a little tighter as he drank up the lush's delicious terror, the frantic pounding on the sealed subway door a most soothing victory cadenza.

One of Rudy's coworkers at Wigman's, a nosy, gossippy manager, always pestered him about why, if he detested the subway so much, didn't he just drive a car for his commute. Of course, besides the obvious hints dropped about the problems of trying to afford a car, car insurance, and fuel on a box boy's salary in the 21st century, the main reason why Rudy loathed driving a car even more than riding the subway was a rather sentimental reason.

Nylund Street Station. Their stop. The brothers hurried out of the subway car and into the Nylund Street Station. They were behind schedule so he hoisted his Sparky onto his shoulders. He ran up the escalator and ran down the street for two blocks, only slowing down when he finally approached Duncan's school. He set Duncan down, and rubbed his Sparky's hair one last time.

“You be good, today, Sparky.”

“Yeah, Big Bro. You promise not to eat anyone?”

“I won't when I'm on my shift. But we're gonna have a fun day tomorrow; wine, women, and drugs! And we'll order a waitress for lunch!”

The two shared one last laugh before Duncan headed through the school gates. Rudy stood there at the entrace, waving to his brother for a minute even after the boy disappeared into the school entrance.

“I'm taking good care of him, Ma,” he muttered. “I'm taking good care of him like I promised.”

The mountain stared at his gloved paw, watching a patch of red fur fight its way out of a seam. He remembered the first time he ate a man. It was an exhilarating experience, addictive, yet exhausting. Rudy ignored the apology of an eighth grader who bumped into him.

Rudy remembered being told he was “chosen to received a great gift,” and he remembered being told he needed “to earn the right to keep it.” At the time, he was too delirious from pain, and magic herbs, and being alive again to refuse either offer or order.

“Are you going to fart, or what?” a third grader asked. He readjusted his duffle bag and went on his way to Wigman's, the laughter of that third grader and her accompanying grandmother echoing in his hidden, fur-filled ears.