FULL MOON IN LA MANCHA. FOXES ARE GATHERED IN THEIR SECRET LOCATION
All right. Okay. Come on in everyone; make some room. Candi Sue Ellen, can you see to those kits…yeah up by those rocks. Thank you sister. Joleen you mind scooting down a bit? Thank you kindly.
Okay, settle down now everyone. Here we go, let’s get started.
Now we should have all five Clans represented here this evening, and we are hoping for a Full Moon Charm of Foxes, first time that’s happened since…oh I guess Velma and I were young, back in Foxy Brown’s day.
FOXES LOOK BACK AND FORTH, WHISPERING AND EXCHANGING GLANCES
So let’s check in and see if we’re all here.
North La Mancha foxes, there’s Tully and Joleen. Glad ya’ll could make it. What do ya’ll hear from the horse and coyote clans to the north?
TULLY: Ezekiel and them still living out back of the old horse barn. Don’t expect they’ll ever leave. Coyotes are powerful fierce up there. They lose a couple of kits every year, but they send their best.
GRUNTS AND MUMBLES AND SERIOUS LOOKS AMONG THE FOXES.
Thank you, Tully.
Now where are the ladies from the Valley? I don’t see Velma, but here’s Cora Lee. Oh my goodness, foxy lady turn around and show me that tail you are famous for. Oh, Lord have mercy, you boys best take care going through the Valley this Spring or we’re going to have a lot of stripey-tailed kits running around come Fall.
BOISTEROUS LAUGHS FROM THE GATHERED FOXES. CORA LEE SPINS AROUND SHOWING OFF HER THICK, LUXURIOUS TAIL
Let’s move quickly now. Gorgeous George and Harry are here from the Western Wildlands. And it’s nice to see the foxes from South La Mancha – you fancy Goldenwood foxes – Paxton and Leesha. Course there’s no foxes in La Mancha proper anymore, but we do have Candi Sue Ellen from out in East La Mancha. Candi Sue, did I hear right that Cletus took a notion and lit out past the Llamas? To somewhere over near Radiant? And dragged Bubba Earl Ray along with him?
CANDI SUE ELLEN: You heard right and good riddance to the both of em. I wish they’d a left a year ago. Me and my kit live out there along the fence by the trailers. We’re near the dumpster of course, so we can’t complain.
How’s your kit coming along?
CANDI SUE ELLEN: He’s fine. Ain’t named him yet. He’s always squabblin with Joe’s cats, especially that Miyagi.
CHUCKLES AND LAUGHS ALL AROUND
Pax, run on down to the Lost Boys and let Velma know we’re about to start. Help her up Gallagher Lane if she needs it. Thank you cousin. Hold on now; wait a second; here she is. Come on in here Velma. There you go, sister.
And THAT makes a full Charm.
Therefore, let us begin our proceedings.
FOXES GROW QUIET AND SOME HEADS BOW
Now you’ve all heard there’s something happening behind the Old Man’s house. Some of you foxes from the edges of La Mancha don’t get to the Western Wildlands often, but the Old Man still lives out there behind Spence Manor.
KIT FROM THE BACK: Is that the Old Man with the whip, makes all that racket on the ridge at night? And if you bark at him he sometimes barks back?
CHATTERING, AFFIRMATIONS, HEADS NODDING
DIFFERENT KIT: They say he once ate a squirrel’s head behind the Visitor’s Center.
LAUGHS FROM THE OLDER FOXES
He did not eat the squirrel’s head, kitten. He SMELLED it, but everyone knows that story. Yes, THAT Old Man. THE Old Man. Foxy Brown’s Old Man. He still lives right where he lived when she was alive years ago.
The Old Man is ancient. He’s old as La Mancha herself, they say.
LINUS TAKES A PUFF FROM HIS PIPE
But that brings us to the reason we’re here tonight. Gorgeous George and Harry work the area around the Old Man’s house, so they know him pretty good. Come on up here boys. We all know Harry of course.
VARIOUS NODS AND BARKING NOISES. HARRY WINKS AND WAVES
Now allow me to formally introduce Gorgeous George. He got here recently from up in Austin somewhere. He’s been staying out West with Harry and…
IMMEDIATE REACTIONS AMONG THE FEMALES. GIGGLES, TWITTERS, AND WAVES. GEORGE WAVES BACK AND WINKS
Oh my. I see some of the ladies already know George. Well well well, okay then. Looks like Gorgeous George has already found his way to the Valley!
VELMA, AND CORA LEE EXCHANGE KNOWING SMILES AND LAUGHS. FOXES FROM ALL OVER THE MEETING SALUTE AND LIFT GLASSES OF BEER OR WINE
Okay boys, let’s hear it. Harry, why don’t you start?
HARRY: Thank you Linus. Evening all. Maybe some of ya’ll from the north and east don’t know Caleb’s Cutoff. It runs from the Yellow Shed behind Spence Manor and kindly bends around and hits Old Gallagher Road at the gym, right were you see those deer droppings all the time.
AFFIRMATIVE NODS AND WHISPERS FROM THE SOUTH LA MANCHA AND VALLEY FOXES
All right, now I take Caleb’s Cutoff to get over to the Orange Dumptruck, DEEP in the Western Wildlands. Lots of mice out there. Lots of em. Hell I shit like a coyote all down Gallagher Lane when I’ve been out there.
BOISTEROUS LAUGHS, MOSTLY FROM THE MALE FOXES
Now there’s an island of trees on Caleb’s Cutoff right near the back porch of Spence, where the Old Man stays. A few weeks ago I found a bowl out there. Next to it was one of those hard human sticks you can’t bite…
GORGEOUS GEORGE: Metal. It’s called metal.
HARRY: Yeah yeah. Metal. A metal stick poking up out of the ground by this bowl. And inside the bowl was one perfect bite of a hotdog. Just a single bite. Very deliberate. And fresh? Human fresh. Like it had been dropped at a picnic.
EXCITED EXCLAMATIONS AND BARKING FROM SOME FOXES. PUZZLED STARES FROM OTHERS. LINUS STANDS TO ADDRESS THE CHARM. FOXES IMMEDIATELY FALL SILENT
Now we don’t have hotdogs here in La Mancha currently. I’ve never seen one anyway. Human food has always been scarce this side of Crystal Hills. Hell, before Roberto’s opened up you had to go all the way to Goldenwood to find that kind of thing. So if you want a hotdog, go to the Goldenwood Pool this 4th of July. There’ll be drunk humans dropping hotdogs everywhere. Now when I was young, Zeke and I used to hide in those bushes, you know the ones by the pool. When humans would drop shit we’d dart out and grab it right in front of them. I’m talking about dragging half a damn brisket off like it was OUR brisket, like we owned the whole world, me and Zeke, with half the humans yelling and the other half pulling out their phones and taking pictures.
PEALS OF LAUGHTER AND MERRIMENT ALL AROUND
Fox, we ate good that summer. My tail was was so thick I could hardly lay down with it. That was the Summer one of the Goldenwood foxes bit off most of Zeke’s ear in a tussle over some little gal lived in a hollow back up in there somewhere. What was here name? Oh yes. Ruby!
LINUS FALLS SILENT, AND THE FOXES WAIT RESPECTFULLY
Well, that was long time ago and I’m an old Fox talking too much. Go ahead, please Harry. What happened after the hot dog?
HARRY PAUSES RESPECTFULLY BEFORE CONTINUING
Well I snapped up the hot dog of course, and I was looking round to see if there might be some more when I heard a whistle. It was the Old Man’s whistle; he does it when he walks around at night.
THE ASSEMBLED FOXES NOD SERIOUSLY
I looked up and it was the Old Man himself, looking right at me with those HUMAN eyes. You know how they look at you in that way they do. Then he was moving. Coming off his porch and heading my way. Shit! I got my scrawny ass back up in those Junipers. But then the Old Man, he put something in the bowl. Just dropped it in there and went back to his porch, sitting there and watching me. All quiet like.
JUVIE FOX: But the Old Man doesn’t hurt foxes. That’s what Foxy Brown said.
HARRY: I know Kitten, but humans are humans. That magic they do where rocks and sticks and things fly around? The Old Man is nice, but he’s a Human Being. And you never know what they might do or when they might use that magic for their own purposes.
Ask George. Shit, some human got ahold of him, stuck him in a cage, drove him all the way out here, and dropped him off on the highway. He said she talked real nice to him the whole way. Said she seemed like a real nice lady. So why did she do it, and for what purpose? There ain’t no why with humans, kittypup. I know he’s the Old Man, but he is still a human being. And we are foxes.
VIGOROUS NODS OF AGREEMENT FROM THE CHARM. HARRY STANDS SILENTLY FOR A MOMENT
But shit, he is the Old Man. He’s never hurt a fox as far as anyone knows. And he WAS back on his porch smoking that pipe of his. So hell yeah I went to that bowl. I was gonna see what he put in there.
Mmmm, brothers and sisters, I had never smelled or eaten what was in that bowl before. It was. It was…it was eggs but they were fluffy like clouds and as soft as squirrel brains. It was meaty and buttery and eggy. It was MeatButterEggs and there was no need of chewing. Any toothless old fox could eat it without help and live. It was the softest, most delicious…
GORGEOUS GEORGE STEPS FORWARD AND ADDRESSES THE CHARM
They were Scrambled Eggs, Harry. It’s a human dish, quite common. No one knows how humans turn eggs into scrambled eggs, but they do it every morning in a thousand thousand homes across this land. I joined Harry in the bounty of the bowl that day, having by good fortune arrived only a few moments after he. I tell you the Old Man dished scrambled eggs and sausage into that miraculous bowl for well over an hour. It was a private feast for Harry and me, and we ate until we could eat no more.
HARRY: I could have eaten more.
GORGEOUS GEORGE: Noted, Harry, and I retract the statement. We feasted until I could eat no more. And then we staggered down Old Gallagher Lane together, barking at the moon and reeking of proteins, fats, and processed human carbohydrates.
Good Fox, it was absolutely decadent.
FOXES STARE AT GORGEOUS GEORGE AND HARRY WITH MOUTHS OPEN AND TONGUES PANTING SLOWLY IN AND OUT
And the very next day Harry and I found great slabs of fresh red salmon glistening in that bowl. SALMON!
Do you simpleton foxes have any idea what salmon is? BEARS eat salmon in Alaska. It is the food of the Alphas. Humans lust after salmon and do battle with giant bears in the far North to obtain it at great cost. It is almost pure nutrition and flavor, dense with calories. They say you can eat a pound of salmon and not shit for three days.
GORGEOUS GEORGE LEAPS UP ONTO A LIMESTONE SLAB AND WHIRLS ABOUT SHOWING HIS LUSCIOUS COAT AND FULL TALE. FEMALE FOXES TWITTER AND SWOON
Look well upon my coat, brothers and sisters. I lived behind a diner up north in Austin. We moved freely among the humans like dogs, feasting upon scrambled eggs, salmon, brisket, tacos, and fried chicken. Our kits were numerous as mice and every fox had a tail as rich and thick as mine.
And then one day I went to grab a bite of something tasty and found myself in a cage, then in a car, and then dropped out on a highway no more than a hundred yards from where we stand tonight. No idea where I was. Panicked. I didn’t even have a water source. Harry found me down at the horse barn or I surely would have died.
HARRY: Me and Tully got George orientated to La Mancha and the Clans. For now he’s staying with me in West La Mancha near the Old Man’s place.
GEORGE: My coat and tail are what happens when foxes eat human food every day. It is fatty, rich, and oily with exotic flavors, just bristling with nutrition. Humans don’t eat lizards or force down Juniper berries on cold nights. They eat salmon and scrambled eggs.
Now for some reason, the Old man is serving up prime human food in little bowl near Caleb’s Cutoff in West La Mancha. If you want some sweet calories to thicken your coat for the winter, I’d check out the bowl. You never know when he’s going to put food in there, but if you hear him whistle, I’d come running.
MURMERING AND SERIOUS CONVERSATIONS ERUPT ACROSS THE CHARM. GEORGE AND HARRY SIT DOWN. LINUS RISES.
Well, thank you George and Harry. That is definitely some news and I’ll stop by Spence Manor tomorrow and see for myself. I haven’t seen the Old Man in month of moons.
Okay everyone. That’s all for tonight. We’ll see ya’ll next month.
LINUS PUFFS HIS PIPE AND MUTTERS AS THE MEETING BREAKS UP AND FOXES SLIP AWAY INTO THE SHADOWS.
Yes. Something is definitely going on with the Old Man.
