Gold Standard

by Kyell Gold

  “Yeah. Well.okay. Who you going to have dinner with?”

  Kory hesitated. “Samaki.”

  “Oh, yeah. He seemed pretty cool. For a fox.” Nick shrugged. “Okay, deal.” He extended a paw, and Kory shook it. “You guys gonna play online or something?”

  “Yeah.” Kory let go and slid back into the water. Or something.

  Kory coasted through the week, talking to Samaki in the evenings and Sal during the week. His poem had finally come down from the hallway display, the ripples it caused fading from the kids’ memories. Life was returning to normal, except that it was anything but.

  Twenty dollars was more to Nick than it was to Kory, but it was still difficult to hand over the crisp bill he’d gotten out of the ATM. His plan had seemed perfect when it was all conceptual, but the execution filled him with doubts. He was no longer confident that everything would go as he predicted, nor that he would be able to do anything with the extra time he hoped to buy himself. The thoughts were as hard to get rid of as the twenty, but he managed both before Friday night swept him up.

  Samaki greeted him at the door, thick black tail wagging. “C’mon in,” he said. “You already know the family, right?” Kory stepped in ahead of his mother and saw three russet muzzles upturned and looking at him in a row.

  “Of course.” He turned to his mother. “You remember Mariatu, and that’s.Ajani and Kasim.” All three little red tails wagged. Mariatu moved from the shelter of Ajani to stand behind her bigger black-furred brother, closer to the two otters.

  “Hello,” Kory’s mother waved, smiling. Kory noticed with some annoyance that her nose was wrinkled. The strong scent of fox didn’t bother him at all. He turned away to smile at the cubs as his mother addressed Samaki. “Is your mother in the kitchen?”

  He nodded, and she said, “I’ll just have a couple words with her. Um.”

  “It’s actually downstairs, Mrs. Hedley” he said. “Through the dining room there and down the stairs.”

  “Downstairs?” Her brow furrowed faintly, but she walked into the dining room. Kory heard her clump down the stairs a moment later.

  “I’ll have to give you the tour,” Samaki said to Kory, smiling, just before a flood of noise broke over them.

  “I wanna give him the tour!”

  “Come see our room!”

  Even Mariatu joined in, squeaking “Hi, Kory! Hi, Kory!” over and over.

  “Hey,” Samaki said, grinning, “settle down, everyone. I’m giving the tour, but you can all come along.” He swept them into the living room and then beckoned Kory in. The cubs clambered all over the three well-worn sofas, Mariatu and Ajani bouncing on one while Kasim ran from one to the other.

  “Look what I can do!” he said, and jumped from the arm of one almost all the way across the other one.

  “Wow,” Kory said. “That’s great!” He couldn’t keep down his smile at the boundless energy of all three cubs.

  “Pff,” Ajani said, tail twitching. “I can do that too, but I don’t wanna right now.” Kory suspected that he did want to, but was trying to mind his manners.

  Samaki laughed. “Kasim’s going to be a long jumper, he says.”

  “What do you want to be, Ajani?” Kory asked.

  “An astronaut!” the cub said. “I’m gonna go into space and discover a new planet. Didja hear about the one they found around Gliese 876?”

  “That was cool!” Kory said. “I used to be into astronomy too.”

  “He’s got stars on the ceiling of his room,” Samaki said, and Kory turned to look at the fox.

  “I didn’t know you’d noticed,” he murmured.

  “Let’s go upstairs!” Kasim bounded from the couch to the floor, ran over to Kory, then to Samaki, and then out to the stairs. Ajani rolled his eyes and Samaki chuckled.

  “Well, there’s not much more to see.” He waved towards the side table. “There’s the computer.”

  It was an older desktop, not as nice as Kory’s. The chair wasn’t even comfortable; at least it didn’t look it. He pictured Samaki sitting there, then looked around at the room. He met the fox’s questioning glance. “Oh,” he said, “just nice to know where you are when I’m typing online to you.”

  Ajani stood up and took Mariatu’s paw, helping her down off the couch. “We going upstairs?”

  “Yeah,” Samaki said. As the cubs scampered out, he said to Kory, “I know what you mean. I can picture you in your room, now, too.”

  The otter swung his tail back and forth. “What’s upstairs?”

  “Just our rooms. C’mon.”

  Up the creaky staircase, where Kory followed Samaki’s light step with a wincingly heavy (to him) tread, they came to a small hallway with three doors off it and a trap door in the ceiling. The worn hardwood floor felt smooth and cool under Kory’s bare feet. On the walls, framed finger paintings showed off the talents of all five kits, apparently. He saw the one with the green signature “Samaki” on it and studied it.

  “Oh, don’t look at that,” the fox said, trying to pull Kory away.

  “No, it’s cute. Is that the Six Million Dollar Fox?”

  “Yeah.” The fox rubbed his ears.

  Kory looked at the violet eyes and grinned. “The Bionic Fox?”

  “I wanted to be bionic too.”

  “I never even saw any of those.”

  “They were on channel 48 when I was growing up. I used to run home from school and watch them.” His ears folded back over his shy smile. Kory felt a strange urge to hug him right there.

  “Kory!” Kasim ran out into the hall clutching a pawful of cards. “Look! I got Renamon in all five phases.”

  “Digimon,” Samaki murmured to the otter. His ears had flipped back upright.

  Kory nodded. “Nick was into that for a little while. Cool.” He took the brightly colored cards from Kasim and examined each one before handing them back. “Are those hard to get?”

  “Yeah.” The cub nodded. “I do chores so Dad will buy me the cards. Wait, you gotta see the Giga Claws, I just got them!” He raced back into the room excitedly. Kory and Samaki, smiling, followed.

  After the strong scent of fox, the first thing Kory noticed about the room was how full it was. Little bigger than Kory’s room, every inch was packed with beds and desks, hardly an inch of wall space left for decoration. To the right, Ajani was sitting on the top bunk of a pair of bunk beds, straightening up a stack of comics on the small board attached to the side of his bed that served as a night table. Kasim was rummaging through the bottom drawer of the tall, thin dresser wedged between the beds and the wall. Clothing lay scattered on the floor; Kory thought most or all belonged to the two younger cubs, from the size. Opposite the bunk beds was an unstable looking structure that Kory could only describe as bunk desks: one desk stacked on top of another, the top desk attached to the wall, and the chair hung from the ceiling. An old pillow had been strapped to the front of the chair, its purpose immediately evident: Ajani jumped casually from the bed to the chair, his momentum sending the chair into the desk where the pillow muffled the impact. He put two comics away in a drawer and held one down to Kory. “You ever read Red Lightning? He’s in the League of Canids.”

  Kory shook his head, leafing through the comic. “I collected the X-Men for a while, but haven’t been into comics lately.”

  “Oh, the League of Canids is cool. They used to be the League of Crimefighting Canids until a couple years ago, then they changed their name. There’s this one episode where.”

  “Here’s the Giga-Claws!” Kasim was thrusting a card up at him.

  “Hey, hey,” Samaki said. “He’s my guest, okay? Settle down.”

  “I want to see the comics,” Kory said, adding, “and the Giga-Claws,” because Kasim’s ears had fallen at Samaki’s remark. He threaded his way through the clothes on the floor to the back of the room, where a wardrobe filled the space under a homemade but sturdy loft, leaving just enough room for the window. Another window opened high in the wall
above, letting more light into the room than Kory would have expected. He looked from the sunset’s crimson-orange brilliance to Samaki. “Pretty.”

  Red light gleamed in the black fur as the fox nodded. “I get the nice view,” he said. “Come on up, it’s big enough for two.”

  Kory froze for a moment, but Samaki was already on his way up the ladder. What did that mean? Kory thought frantically, then looked back at the cubs. Samaki wouldn’t do anything with his brothers in the room. Kasim was rummaging through his dresser drawer again, and Ajani was reading a comic at his desk, kicking back and forth on the dangling chair. Kory chided himself for being twitchy as he followed the swinging black tail up the ladder.

  The loft held more than just the bed. Around the futon mattress, the wood was padded with carpet remnants. Kory sat there, careful of the ceiling, while Samaki sat on his bed. A small alcove with a slanted roof, looking like it fit the eaves of the house, extended beyond the other side of the futon, piled with papers and a small alarm clock.

  “Where does Mariatu sleep?” Kory had caught sight of the little vixen cub standing in the doorway, clutching a small stuffed rabbit and chewing on its head. He waved to her and she wagged her tail and waved back.

  “In our parents’ room. She used to sleep with them and Kasim slept on the cot there, until Kande left. Then Kasim moved in here.”

  “Kory!” He heard his mother downstairs.

  “Oh, Mom’s leaving.” He clambered quickly down the ladder, with Samaki following. Kasim and Mariatu ran down the stairs with them, while Ajani kept reading his book.

  His mother was looking at the pictures in the entry hallway. Happily, her nose wasn’t wrinkling any more. She’d obviously enjoyed her talk with Mrs. Roden, or she wouldn’t have stayed so long. Kory felt buoyed by that. “I’m going home. I’ll be back at eleven sharp to pick you up, okay?”

  He nodded. “Thanks, Mom. See you then.”

  She pecked him on the cheek and left, moments before a bell clanged somewhere in the house. “Oh, dinner,” Samaki said. “You can sit down. I’m gonna run down and help Mom.”

  He showed Kory the dining room, with its large wooden table in the center. The table was beautiful oak, finely crafted and bare. Four of the chairs around it sported flowery carvings in the same grain as the table, but the other two were distinctive: a captain’s chair with arms, made of a dark red wood whose grain was nearly invisible, and a small, light chair, higher than the others. Against the right wall, an oak sideboard with drawers held a vase of small white flowers and two silver candlesticks shaped like graceful foxes, a male and female nude with arms stretched overhead. The smells of cooking fish, some vegetables, and a spicy sauce wafted through the dining room from the far end, making Kory’s stomach rumble.

  Samaki pulled out the dark captain’s chair. “This is Dad’s, but he won’t be home for dinner. You can sit there.”

  “I’ll help too,” Kory said.

  “You don’t have to,” Samaki said.

  “I want to.” Kory felt a little flutter at the bright smile he got from the fox. That white-on-black crescent, the small upward curve of his lips, and the matching sparkle in his eyes that told Kory he was happy made Kory happy too.

  Never got that with Sal, did you?

  Oh, shut up, he told his inner voice. Just leave me alone for this evening, okay?

  He followed Samaki down a curved set of stairs, toward the source of the mouth-watering smells. “Does your Dad make it home for many dinners?”

  “Thursday nights, Saturday and Sunday,” Samaki said. “Saturday is Family Night. I don’t get to see him much. I work Saturdays, and Sunday mornings. He works two jobs Monday through Friday.” He paused. “I wanted to work evenings too, but they wouldn’t let me. Said I need to be able to get my homework done.”

  Kory pushed aside his recurring guilt over not having to work as he followed the black fox into the kitchen.

  Heat and the aromas of food washed over him. On the island in the middle of the kitchen, two dishes full of vegetables and potatoes steamed, the spicy sauce aroma emanating from one of them. Mrs. Roden was just taking a large whitefish out of the oven, in between two large old refrigerators. A huge pantry as homemade as the loft in Samaki’s room spanned the opposite wall. At the far end, another door stood slightly ajar, nothing but darkness visible beyond it. Mrs. Roden set the fish on the small kitchen island and looked up brightly at them.

  “Samaki, get Ajani to help set the table. Kory, dear, just have a seat.”

  “No, I’ll help Samaki,” he said, and when Mrs. Roden turned around, he saw a little of where Samaki had gotten his smile from.

  “You’re a dear. Go on then,” she said. “Then Samaki, come help me bring the food up.”

  Samaki and Kory set the table with silverware from the sideboard, and then Samaki asked Kory to get the cubs from upstairs while he helped bring the food up. The job was an easy one; alerted by the bell, Kasim and Mariatu were on their way down the stairs when Kory started up. He found Ajani still swinging from the ceiling chair in the bedroom.

  “Dinner’s ready, Ajani,” he said.

  “Kay.” The cub tossed the comic book on his desk and slid off the chair, landing on the floor perfectly in a crouch. He grinned at Kory as he stood.

  “Very nice!” Kory applauded, and let the cub scamper downstairs ahead of him, a satisfied smile on his muzzle and a proud arch to his tail.

  Samaki and Mrs. Roden were putting the food out as they all drew up chairs around the table. “I don’t know if you like halibut, Kory, but Samaki said you mostly eat fish.”

  “Anything’s fine,” he said. “Halibut’s great. Everything smells terrific.”

  The mixed vegetables were cooked broccoli and green beans, with a light red pepper sauce. Kory wasn’t used to spiced food, but he ate as much as he could, until his tongue felt like it was on fire even when he wasn’t eating the veggies. “Is it too hot for you, Kory?” Mrs. Roden asked anxiously.

  “No, no,” he said, “it’s fine.” He found that if he interspersed bites of the vegetables with bites of the other food, that cut the heat down. The potatoes were wonderful, creamy and cheesy, and the fish was firm, well-seasoned, and just as delicious. The red pepper added a nice tang to the whole meal, and while it was a little strong, he was glad to have tried it.

  That was nearly all he managed to say. The kids and their mother all talked at once, all over each other, and Kory didn’t even try to get a word in edgewise, just listened to the raucous chaos with a smile. It wasn’t until the meal was mostly over that he realized that they hadn’t even said Grace, he was so busy listening and looking at the animated vulpines around the table. It was amusing to see Samaki’s black fur in the middle of all the red foxes. Fox coats were odd things, he mused, but pretty. All the red foxes had black ears and paws with white underbellies; Samaki had only the black and white, as though the other foxes had had their ears and paws just dipped in ink, and he’d been dunked.

  Mouth still tingling from the veggies, he thanked Mrs. Roden for the meal. She wouldn’t let him help clean up, instead sending him and Samaki down to the rec room and recruiting Kasim and Ajani to help clear the table.

  Samaki took Kory through the door on the opposite side of the kitchen, into a cool, musty, vulpine-scented darkness. He flicked on the light to reveal a worn couch and old gaming table, with an old console television set in one corner. “Feel like playing a game?” Samaki said. “We got checkers, Foxopoly, Careers, and Scrabble. I think it has all the tiles. Kande and I used to play Scrabble and Foxopoly all the time.” He looked down at the boxes. “Foxopoly is missing some houses, but we could still play it. Or we could play checkers. Maybe you’d let me play red? The others never do.”

  Kory looked around. “Any video games?”

  Samaki grinned, pulling out an old PS1 from beside the TV and spreading out a pad on the floor. “You wanna try Pounce Pounce Revolution?”

  The game looked familiar, but
the larger pad had more squares on it, with several strange symbols. “I’ll watch you play first,” he said. “It looks like fun.”

  “It is. You should see Kasim play it. He’s better than I am.” The fox fired up the PS1 and Kory watched an animated fox dressed in shiny purple clothes with gold trim appear on the screen and say, “Pounce Pounce Revolution!” While the instructions came up, Samaki took his shirt off and rubbed his paws together.

  “Let’s POUNCE!” the animated fox said. On screen, a mockup of the pad appeared as music started playing, a dance number with a driving beat. A small animated mouse danced out onto the pad on screen; Samaki leapt, coming down with both paws on the pad on the floor, and the mouse squeaked and vanished. Another one came out, then another and another, and soon the black fox was jumping all over the pad, spinning to change direction and pouncing on mouse after mouse. As he did so, the animated fox shouted out encouragement, like “Got `im!” and “Nice pouncin’!”

  The song ended, and the animated fox came back out, dancing a little himself, and said, “Amaaaaaaazin’!” Kory clapped.

  Samaki turned, panting a bit, and bowed, tail arching behind him. “That was an easy level,” he said. “I’ll put on a harder one.”

  The otter grinned and settled back into the couch, watching the fox tap some buttons. “I like this song,” he said over his shoulder, and when it came on, Kory couldn’t resist tapping his feet to the infectious beat. The mice were dancing and spinning this time, even leaping in imitation of Samaki himself, and were harder to pin down. The shouts of encouragement now came interspersed with disappointed interjections, like, “Don’t let `em get away!” and “That mouse is playin’ you!”

  Samaki jumped and worked much harder at this level. Even when his thick fur was dry, Kory could see his muscles bunching and releasing. Reflexively, he shied away from thinking about them, then remembered his resolve and deliberately watched, enjoying Samaki’s elegant grace and athleticism.

  When the level ended, the animated fox didn’t dance, just told Samaki to keep tryin’. Kory clapped again, but Samaki waved him off. “Nah, I’m no good. There’s another level where you just hear them under the pad. That’s insane. I can’t react fast enough. Kasim can’t even do the hard ones on that mode.”