Cocky the Fox (12)
By:
October 21, 2010
HILOBROW is proud to present the twelfth installment of James Parker’s The Ballad of Cocky the Fox, a serial tale in twenty fits, with illustrations by Kristin Parker.
The story so far: Cocky the fox, a handsome specimen of Vulpes vulpes living on the edge of an English town, is in trouble. His mentor Holiday Bob, top fox in the Borough, is dead. His family life has collapsed, and he’s moved in with his friend Champion, a distressed albino rabbit. His enemies are everywhere. And he’s been drinking a lot of aftershave.
Fit the Eleventh found fox and rabbit in a state of captivity, travelling by night, being thumped and harried through the countryside by three Black Pond badgers: the warrior Shakes and the gruesome power-couple Brutus and Brunelle. The badgers claimed to have a special reverence for Champion — Cocky sensed a purpose less happy. A sassy little stoat passed on the salutations of an old friend: Marcus Viles, ‘King Of The Stoats’, a joke back in the Borough but now apparently a person of some weight in the country. Cocky was briefly cheered by this connection.
We’re halfway across a moonlit field, with trees massed up ahead and their foliage in lacy silhouette, and Shakes and Champion are chatting. Well, I say ‘chatting’ — the gaps are like Time’s finger on the ‘pause’ button.
‘Wot’s it like over in the Borough then,’ says Shakes, his backside going broadly and rhythmically before us.
‘Uh…’
‘You know. Home.’
A heavy caesura.
‘Home,’ says Champion from between my ears. ‘Home is in the hutch with Cocky. Fun fighting rats, talking to Otto.’
‘Who’s Otto then. Friend of yours’
‘Big dog next door who wants to eat me.’
‘Mm-hm.’
A harrowing hiatus. My nerves are shot anyway. How long have we been travelling like this? Four days? Five? Safehouse to safehouse, snatching fitful zizz by day in the dark sett, oppressed with badger-farts and the somniloquies of Champion — which are increasingly Tolkienesque, by the way (‘Tindriel,’ he said yesterday. ‘Frolf? Faralarn!’); to be shoved awake unrested, gasping; and then out again into cooling air, to trudge in liturgical silence to the next wood, the next den of bad-mood badgers, the moon above us with her dry lakes and CAT scan shadows…
‘Well yeah I do see meself leavun the Black Pond sometime,’ volunteers Shakes, out of nowhere. ‘Yeah. Not stayun there forever no thanks. Wide world innit.’
‘Wide world,’ says Champion.
‘Badgers keep to badgers but I’ve got curiosity. Born with it.’
‘Cocky’s a great fighter.’
‘Is he yeah. Just rats like or other foxes.’
‘Weasel Paul put him on his back.’
‘Weasels eh. Hard to beat.’
Is this how me and the Champ became friends? Him saying nothing, or nothing of consequence, but moving those ears, and me just blabbing — like Shakes, after his fashion, is blabbing? Now I’m remembering the hutch, our pre-dawn times, the groping brightness along the garden fence. Night’s pressure off, night’s laws repealed. With smoking eye-sockets watching the day come up. And I would talk and talk, of griefs that didn’t know they were griefs. The stuff I used to say! Should have been saying it to Nora, of course, my vixen, back at the den — but the den in those days smelled of dryness and quelled rage. Me and her, the grand conspiracy of us, foiled. But by who? By what? Fuck! And I wonder: What’s Nora doing right now?
‘French Edward is a cat,’ says Champion.
‘Not many cats out here.’
‘A dead ca – ’
We halt. Or rather: Shakes halts, and I rear-end him so violently as to almost unseat the Champ, who flumps forward over my eyes and his claws pinch my snout.
‘Damn it!’ I say.
‘Sorry, Cocky,’ says Champion, scrambling back.
‘Sssh,’ says Shakes. His head has sunk into his shoulders. Brutus and Brunelle are crouched here too, watching. From a small dent or hollow in front of us a pair of long ears, flame-shaped and tipped with sprouts of black, is sticking up.
Brunelle nods at Brutus, who nods at Shakes.
The ears wobble, nonsensically tall — who has such ears? — and a tittering sound is heard. Tee hee hee.
‘We can fuckun see you you daft hare,’ says Brunelle.
‘And this is…?’ I say, sotto voce.
‘The name of this one,’ murmurs Shakes, ‘is Barely There. Gone fuckun moon-mental from the looks of it. No suddun moves eh. Scratches like a bastard.’
‘Wot is it Barely,’ says Brutus.
The hare rises out of the grass, and I hop back a bit. I can’t help it — that kangaroo face, those Big Bang eyeballs… Only the third or fourth hare I’ve seen in my life. And clear, horribly clear, right to the roots of his whiskers. This frigging moonlight. Like someone left the fridge door of the universe open.
‘Boo!’ he say mildly. The badgers shuffle and grumble.
‘Going home, badgers, yes?’ says Barely There. ‘Heavy earthbound beasts, with your cargo? Better hurry. Hump those fat arses!’ His voice is nibbling, sinuous. ‘By the time you get to the Black Pond there’ll be no one left.’
Something shivers the badgers here, some bass-string thickly plucked way down in their badgerness, and they vibrate.
‘Yes, lummoxes, yes.’ The teeth gnaw vacantly. ‘Oh yes, you gassy badgers. For he has struck again! Woooooooh! The pain, the pain!’
Undergrunt of displeasure from Shakes. ‘Don’t you talk like that Barely,’ he says. ‘Don’t you talk about Jackpot like that.’
‘Or what, obesity? What are you going to do, burp on me? Hee hee.’ The hare begins to croon, rocking. ‘He feels for the pain inside a beast. He opens a beast, spreads a beast, lets the pain out. Lets it float free. Like… MOONLIGHT.’
‘Cocky, who is this?’ says Champion. ‘He’s rude to Shakes. Why are his ears so long?’
‘That’s a good question,’ I say. ‘Listen, Moonraker, we’ve had a long night, so if you wouldn’t mind just fucking off out the way — ’
Pwong! He springs vertically and I catch for a second the lunar disproportion of his back legs, the mad heels made for kicking up moon-dust, pedalling in air before he hits the ground and tears off on a wild circuit, around us and around us and around us again. How fast? I dunno.We’re in a hare-warp or something, immobilized — can’t blink or fidget — his energy-trails looping us as lazily as smoke-rings. When he comes to a stop, in the same spot, he’s not even panting.
‘WHAT DOES JACKPOT LOVE TO EAT?’
And look at this — the badgers are literally spellbound. Grudging, as if under a compulsion, they’re all muttering something in response.
‘Louder, please!’ says Barely There. ‘WHAT DOES JACKPOT LOVE TO EAT?’
‘Rabbit’s feet, rabbit’s feet,’ chant the badgers gloomily. An awful sound.
‘Indeed! And what is the colour of his delight?’
‘Creamy white, creamy white.’
The hare closes his eyes and elevates his nostrils. ‘And who brings the rabbit?’
‘The fox-face friend.’
‘The one he’ll follow…?’
‘Until the end.’
‘Very good,’ says Barely There, pleased. ‘Quite right. Now don’t let me keep you.’ And, with a paradiddle of hare-heels, he’s gone — accelerating into the next field, the next county, the next world.
Something hoots up in the wood. The badgers, released now from hare-time, are stirring, yawning, scratching. A high delirious scent, like jet fuel, hangs about us.
‘Fox-face friend?’ I say.
‘Rabbit’s feet?’ says Champ.
Brutus looks at Brunelle, then they both look at Shakes.
*******
Can Champion overhear what I’m thinking? Can he tune in sometimes to the fox-mind? He does have sort of an opera-box vantage over my cerebrations, riding up there with his chin on the flat of my skull… Just now for example he said, in his musing way, ‘Happy meal.’ Which would be fairly standard Champ-speak — meals, happiness, these are his themes — were it not that the phrase ‘sacrificial happy meal’ has been blinking and buzzing in my head for the last half hour, on/off, on/off…
‘Shakes,’ I whisper. ‘Shakes you fucker, you’d better talk to me. A certain someone’s getting offered up, is that it? Is that what’s going on here?’
Actually I already know what’s going on here. That’s the thing about nursery rhymes, isn’t it? They’re not hard to follow. So Cocky’s got a grip on the situation. But I’ll continue to hassle Shakes — it’s psychological.
‘Offered up, Cocky?’ says Champion.
‘Never mind, pal. Just badger business. Dirty badger business.’
‘Who’s Jackpot?’
‘You’d better ask Shakes.’
‘Who’s Jackpot?’
‘Hear that, Shakes? Your new friend Champion is asking you a question.’
Answer comes there none, of course. The badgers, humping along heads down, are in a profound unanimous sulk, but Shakes is bumming out with special ferocity. He seems nearly ashamed. All’s changed since we had our hare’s warning. The moon’s dropped, and they’ve tightened formation around us — Brutus only a pace or two ahead, with Shakes and Brunelle grimly and girthily flanking. This convoy is heading for another sett, another stopover, but that’s not the big picture. The big picture is this: We’re being taken to the Black Pond, where the rabbit with the creamy white feet will be fed ceremonially to a ripper, a slasher, to some kind of mon-sterrrr… I see it all. It’s a death march. First chance we get, high-risk or whatever, we’re breaking out.
‘Ooooooh.’ A small private moan from Champion, like he’s nauseated from the ride.
‘What is it?’
‘Someone just… Someone just died, Cocky. A badger.’
‘Where?’
‘I heard him.’
‘Where?’
‘In the wood.’
‘Pull up pull up,’ says Brutus, stopping. ‘Smell it.’
Sound of three badgers, a fox and a rabbit all huffing the night air. And there it is, carrying downwind from the wood: a faint taint of carnage.
‘That’ll be Fieldy wunnit,’ says Brunelle. ‘Fieldy’s mob.’
‘Yeah that’s them,’ says Brutus.
‘More badgers?’ I say. ‘Goody!’
‘Sett’s blown then,’ says Shakes.
‘Go round,’ says Brunelle.
‘Too late they’ll smell us in a minute,’ says Shakes.
‘Shakes to the right,’ says Brutus. ‘Into the hedge there. Brunelle you go left round the the wood but stayun this side of the wind. I’ll wait a bit then I’m takun these two across the field. We’ll drawum out like.’
‘Love you killer,’ growls Brunelle.
‘My queen uv damage,’ returns her chevalier Brutus. Romance, squeezed from their badger-glands by the imminence of battle!
Off they huffle, anyway, Shakes and Brunelle, in preparation for ye olde pincer move. Quite impressive, these badgers, the way they deploy. A ten-second huddle to sort their tactics and now it’s just me and the Champ waiting here with Brutus, who as usual sounds like he’s snoring.
‘Walking into an ambush, are we, Brutus?’
‘Not if we ambush first.’ A minute of silence. ‘Right then. Lets go then. Slowly now.’
We move up the field. Death-stink steals across from the banked darkness of the wood. Three or four fresh carcasses in there, two of them at least giving off what I now recognize as the Black Pond odour: sumpy, sedimentary, grudge-bearing.
‘Do some of your fancy talkun,’ says Brutus.
‘Drop dead.’ Champion’s teeth are chattering, which is rattling my whole cranium.
Then brambles tear, low branches break, and a mind-bendingly heavy badger ambles out towards us. Seriously — a big, big fuck-off badger.
‘Brutus,’ he says without menace.
‘Fieldy,’ says Brutus.
‘You should uv brought more support mate.’
‘Whys that then,’ says Brutus. ‘All friends here aren’t we.’
‘Not quite Brutus no not quite,’ says Fieldy. ‘Weve killed your lot in there and Ive lost one of mine and now were gonna be killun you Im afraid AND the fox AND takun the rabbit.’
‘Wot for Fieldy.’
‘Well its obvious innit.’ Two more badgers are behind him now, bulking out of the shadows. ‘So Jackpot dont get his rabbits feet not just yet anyway. Keep him hungry like. Hes been rippun up you Black Ponders nicely.’
Here dialogue ends. Me, if I’d been scripting it, this scene would have bantered on a bit longer, another half a page, more threats and boastings, battle-warmed adumbrations of motive and design. I’m a big fan of pre-fight repartee: builds tension, plus you can get some good exposition in there… But badgers don’t care about that, do they? With a brief ululation Brutus charges Fieldy, who charges right back, and then they’re at it, in it, flatfooting around each other with weird delicacy, outraged mutual deterrence, with clashings and worryings and windy claw-swipes and snappings of teeth until — wallop! — they connect full-on in the high-intensity grumbles and choked-off roarings of badger-battle.
Meanwhile Fieldy’s two goons are closing matter-of-factly on me and Champion, nothing but foxicide on their minds. Fuck this. ‘Off, Champ!’ I cry, and saltating skyward do a bronco spasm that dumps the terrified rabbit in the grass. Then I give it serious toes towards the hedge. Over my shoulder I see Goon Number One following at a gallop, Goon Number Two staying with Champion — if I heard Fieldy right, he won’t touch him.
A fox can always outpace a badger in a flat race — always! — but I’m slowing down, throwing fake soppy looks back at the Champ, as if in guilt at leaving him behind, and so I let Number One gain on me, gain on me, come on you fat bastard, your breath is hot in my ear… Right on cue, and with a war-cry like a set of bagpipes eating itself, Shakes surges from the hedge. ‘Urf,’ says Number One, nonplussed. I skid, roll, and reverse. Shakes has already used his headbutt and now he’s biting, digging in, looking for that pain-hold: I come over the top of him Pimpernel-style with slashings and swearwords. As a double-act — unrehearsed! — I have to say: we are frigging lethal. My foxy refinements, his blastings of badger-bass… Number One is beaten: I’ve got him by the ear and Shakes is gobbling passionately at the side of his head. He screams, writhes clear, paddles off in a panic. And there’s Brunelle actually airborne, pale belly-flash in the dimness, leaping at the mammoth Fieldy who seems to have flattened her Brutus — can’t see him anywhere. Punching well above his weight in that contest, wasn’t he?
Goon Number Two, not sure of his orders, has started uncertainly in our direction — I wait ’til he’s halfway between me and Champion and then streak around him with a hiss, ducking the clawed scoop of his outflung paw. Behind me Shakes barrels in. And now: a gamble. ‘Up, Champ!’ The rabbit’s face looms white and withered by fear, but as I flatten out in my stride he hooks his teeth into my scruff and swings up onto my back — with nimbleness, almost! We’re off. We’re away. Champion-sur-Cocky is not the speediest of arrangements, but the badgers are busy pounding on each other and each step takes us deeper into the fields of liberty. And I’ve begun to think about the quiet ditch, the medieval orchard full of drunk wasps, the nice non-combative place that will be our next stop when I hear Shakes calling out behind us.
‘Cocky!’
I put the brakes on.
‘Cocky!’ He sounds smothered and desperate and ever so slightly totally fucked.
‘Bollocks,’ I say. ‘Shite. Bollocks. Shite. Have a look back there, will you?’
‘Shakes is… fighting. He’s losing!’ says Champion, peering rearwards. ‘What are you going to do, Cocky? He’s really losing.’
‘Co-cky…’
I could just stand here, cooling off, and in a minute or two it’d all be over.
I could, couldn’t I?
‘Cocky!’
‘Hm?’
‘What are you going to do, Cocky?’
Will Cocky abandon Shakes?
Who, or what, is Jackpot?
And don’t badgers and foxes fight beautifully side by side?
Find out in the next episode, on Thursday, November 4.
SAME FOX-TIME!
SAME FOX-CHANNEL!
Read the twelfth issue of The Sniffer, a COCKY THE FOX newsletter written and edited by HILOBROW’s Patrick Cates.
Our thanks to this project’s backers.
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