The disclaimer: I don't own WC.
The work: This is satire. For the uninitiated, that means I've written a seven-chapter joke to discuss something that's no joke at all.
The reason this happened:
On the show, Agent Ruiz used the phrase "pet convict." Peter Burke exasperatedly exclaimed to Neal Caffrey in the pilot episode, "You look like a cartoon." On FFN, Enfleurage left a highly articulate and very kind review to "Da Grass Is Rizz," commenting on the propensities of the White Collar characters – at least in fanfic – to coddle Neal "to the point where you wonder if he's a grown man or a spoiled house cat." And my Top Five list of Awesome Things on YouTube includes the sublime and hilarious antics of the "Simon's Cat" animated shorts. (If you haven't seen these little gems, you have to watch them. The most recent one with the snow and the nasty wasty bird? EPIC.)
So, with all of that swimming around in my head, I produced this. Have fun.
OWNER'S MANUAL
Peter and Elizabeth Burke were enjoying a leisurely breakfast of Sugar-O's one fine Saturday morning when the click-click of nails on the floor alerted them to Satchmo's presence. The fluffy golden lab was heading their way at a slower pace these days, but he was determined to get there. Peter looked up from his paper and smiled as the dog sidled up to him and sat down on his haunches. He patted him on the head.
"Good boy."
Elizabeth had been watching Satchmo, too. "You know, honey, I've been thinking. Maybe Satchmo might want a little friend. I mean, you work a lot, I work a lot ... I think he gets lonely sometimes."
Now Elizabeth had Peter's interest. He waited for her to continue.
"Maybe this friend could help us ... transition, too. For when Satchmo goes, eventually. He'll always be my baby, of course, but he's getting on in years, and well, when it happens, I just don't want us to be without."
It was a sensible idea. Peter agreed. "Okay. Well, what are you thinking? Another dog? Maybe a cat? Bird?"
"Well ... no. I was thinking about something more exotic."
"What, like an iguana?"
Elizabeth laughed. "No, honey. Not an iguana. I was thinking…" She licked her lips and went for it. "Maybe we could get a convict." Off Peter's exasperated snort, she argued, "Look, they have pretty good life spans, and they're supposed to be easy to train."
"Jesus," Peter muttered. "Honey, a convict is just ..." He shook his head. "It's not a good plan. Sure, you can train 'em, but it's a lot of responsibility! And worse, they're – they're all … unique. It's not like there's an owner's manual."
"Aside from the basic things, of course," Elizabeth said.
"Well yeah, of course. Ya gotta walk 'em, they need space, place to sleep, all that. And if we get a boy one, I mean, if we get a male, well, with the violent ones you have to do some kind of drug therapy or libido management so he doesn't …" he motioned at Elizabeth. "You know, get frisky. It's a whole … thing. And they're big, too." He sighed and scratched his head. "I think the only way we could do this is if we go non-violent."
"Oh, of course! We're not going to adopt an accused axe murderer," she agreed, happy that her husband was starting to get on-board with this. She'd just wanted a convict for so long, but considering Peter's profession, she'd been afraid to broach the subject. "Yes, absolutely, I meant non-violent."
"Hmm. And not a big one," Peter negotiated.
"Honey, please, there's no room here for a big one! We can't have some four-hundred-pound thug named Tiny upending the kitchen every time he's hungry. No, I was thinking, you know," she measured about the size of a loaf of bread between her hands, "A small one. Taller than me, shorter than you. Maybe on the skinny side. What do you think?"
"Well … I suppose if we train him right, it could work. And you're thinking we should get a male. You're sure."
"Oh, definitely. Satchmo would handle it better."
Peter took a minute to consider this.
"All right," he agreed. "I'll go to Rikers next week when they have their adoption clinic. Do you wanna come with?"
"What day is it?"
"Saturday, 9 AM to 2 PM," Peter said.
Elizabeth slowly began to smile. So her husband had been considering this, too. Otherwise, how would he know such a specific fact? Maybe this had a better chance of working out than she thought. "Well, I want to go, but I'm working a wedding. Can you handle it alone?"
"Yeah, I think so. We've got our list of requirements. I'll just stick to it. Should be fine."
She counted herself the luckiest woman alive as she leaned across the small table and kissed him. "I love you. And now," she stood up, "I have to get ready to work a cocktail luncheon. Would you mind putting the dishes in the sink?"
"No problem."
She headed for the upstairs but spun around halfway across the wood floor. "I'm positive you'll come home with something nice. Just make sure he has his shots before you leave, okay?"
"Of course." He was delighted to see her so happy.
Elizabeth couldn't contain herself anymore. She flashed a pearly smile, waved her fists and jiggled as she did a little dance. "Yay!" She clapped her hands and trotted off. "I'll hit up Petco and see if I can find some cute toys. Oh, and we'll need to convict-proof the cabinets and stuff."
"I'll take care of it," he assured her. "Go on and get ready."
"Okay. … Again, I love you. This is going to be great!" And she headed up the stairs.
Peter leaned back in his chair and smiled as he gently scratched Satchmo behind the ears.
"What do you think, Satch? You ready for a partner in crime?"
Satchmo woofed quietly and lay his head on Peter's knee.
Seven days later, at eleven in the morning, Peter parked at Rikers Island Correctional Facility for the adoption clinic. He'd gotten something of a late start, and sighed as he filled out the initial paperwork, hoping they still had a reasonable selection. Once all the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed, he was led back to the holding areas to have a look around, pulling his coat more tightly to keep out the wind. They had the usual collection of large toughs and beady-eyed guys in the General Population pen. Feeling kind of silly, but determined to stick to the agreement, he bypassed those and wandered over to the Lesser Offences pen, full of pencil-necked embezzling accountants and other non-violent offenders. Everything in this cage was considerably less bulky (and thus a less manly choice) than what was available in the Gen Pop pen. Peter sighed and squashed an ugly suspicion that he'd be walking out of here with the subhuman equivalent of a shaved poodle.
A guard stood on duty nearby. He was a tall, hefty black guy with a well maintained scalp that outshone most bowling balls. "Um, 'scuse me," Peter said to him. "My wife and I are looking for a convict. Something small and friendly. Any suggestions?"
"Hmm," said the guard. He and Peter both looked in the cage. Most of the orange-suited convicts were grasping the bars, sniffing the air, shaking with excitement and wagging their imaginary tails, panting for freedom. "Well, these ones along the edge are definitely friendly, and none of the ones in this cage are very big." He slipped into the rest of the speech almost without thinking. "And all of these prisoners have been approved by the parole board and are due for release. Also, they have passed minimum health requirements and they can understand human speech, so there shouldn't be any communication problems." The guard shrugged. "My advice? Just have a look around and see what you connect with."
So Peter circled the cage. It was a reasonably large enclosure, about twenty feet by twenty feet, totally exposed to the nippy air, and made of iron bars. The roof of the cage was chicken wire and the lower half was reinforced with it. The floor was concrete. The panting, bar-grabbing cons circled with him as he moved around to check out the occupants of the cage, but he managed to see around the fawning crowd, and finally one con got him curious. It was making no effort to interact with anything else in the cage, huddled all by its lonesome in a corner with its knees drawn up to its chest, diamond patterns coming through where the arm and shoulders were pressed up against the chicken wire. Peter had always been a sucker for outsiders, so he threw the panting, whining crowd a few pieces of beef jerky to fight over. It worked. They cleared away from the corner he wanted, and he knelt down by the cage and investigated.
"Hey." He gently poked the convict in the back.
It startled out of its fetal position and blinked at him. The widest, prettiest, bluest eyes Peter had ever seen - aside from Elizabeth's, of course - met his. The con's beard was thick and snarled and dark, and its long brown hair was a wavy, messy, greasy mop. Its orange jumpsuit was dusty and it was obvious that aside from being underweight, it was tired and scared. It wasn't in good condition; by all rights Peter should have moved on. But something held him there long enough for the con to get slowly to its feet. It regarded Peter warily, and after a moment of sizing-up it must have found him acceptable, because it gripped the bars and bowed its shaggy head. Peter, without even thinking, reached through the bars and ruffled its hair, and a bond was formed. He motioned to the guard.
"I'll take this one," he said. "Is there a name? ... It's a guy, right? They're all male in here?"
"Yeah, they are. But I dunno what this one's called. I'll have to run his barcode once we extract him," the guard said. "It takes a while. I can get you a name before you leave, though." Peter nodded, and the guard pulled a catch-pole from his utility belt. He telescoped the pole-end to a safe, six-foot length and made the loop end about the size of a basketball.
"Oh, do you really need that?" Peter protested. "He looks pretty gentle. Looks kinda beat up, too. Come on, I'll just get him out."
"No, you can't do that. Regulations, sir," said the guard. "I'm sorry." He opened the barred door a crack. Tongue sticking out with the effort, he inserted the loop through the door very slowly and moved it towards the con. The con eyed the loop suspiciously as it headed for his wrist, and he stepped away. So the guard sighed, and made the loop even larger. The convict was puzzled at the loop, amazed that it had grown so big so fast, and batted at it curiously, jerking his head to watch it, even as it settled gently around his shoulders. Then with a zzzzzzip! the guard tightened the loop fast around his neck. Not so tight that it really choked him, but it was uncomfortable, and he wasn't going to escape.
The guard watched as his prisoner quivered in fear, and sighed. "Sir, you'd best step back. This part ain't pretty." And he tugged.
The convict flipped out.
Peter winced as he yowled and fought and twisted. His big blue eyes were almost demonically wide and he hissed and bared every single one of his perfectly white, straight teeth. He dug in his worn heels and made some impressive faces as he was dragged from the cage by his neck, until he fell and ended up being dragged along on his rear end. His death-grip on the pole was useless – the pressure around his neck wasn't going away. Peter, with some dismay, held the gate open just enough so that the convict could be extracted and shut it immediately after he was out, but beyond that he was not going to help the guard torture the poor thing. The con was still fighting, and now choking, from his position on the cement floor.
"Hey! Knock it off or I'll taze you!" the guard yelled.
"Rowrrr!" snarled the convict, and then he hissed at Peter, clearly in a panic and getting upset with the nearest person.
"Stop that, or I'll report you for abuse!" Peter shouted at the guard. "You're gonna strangle him!" The guard, surprised at the order, stopped pulling and Peter used the opportunity to grab the pole from him. He loosened the loop, releasing a little of the pressure on the convict's neck, and knelt down so they were face-to-face. The con gasped for air and hung his head. "Hey. Look at me." Peter raised the con's chin and met his eyes. "You have to calm down," he said.
The guard was flabbergasted. Talking to a con like a person? He didn't know what to make of this unusual technique, so he crossed his arms and watched.
"I know this isn't pleasant," Peter went on, "but you have to trust me. I'm not taking you to be hurt or killed. I'm taking you home. ... No, you stop growling. And no more hissing! If you're bad, then you go back in the cage, you understand? You let the man do his job." He put a hand on the con's skinny shoulder. "I know this is scary, but you're not doing it alone. I'll go with you. You think you can stand up?"
And the guard, mouth agape, watched a small miracle. After a few more seconds, the heaving slowed and the convict calmed down. Having managed this much, he blinked at Peter and proved that he understood Peter's question by slowly but surely staggering to his feet. He was wobbly, but he was upright.
"All right, there we go," Peter praised. He handed the pole back to the guard.
Still slightly in awe of Peter, the guard gave an experimental tug. The convict shuffled forward obediently, but he was shaking and exhausted from the fight, and it was obvious that he needed help to make it to the next station. So Peter took the con's left arm and pulled it over his shoulders, and got his other arm around the con's waist, saddened when he realized he could feel almost every bone under the skin. This one was going to need plenty of exercise, sleep, and good food to get him back up to fighting weight. And he'd need some prettying-up before he went home to Elle, or she might not agree with the choice. Peter wondered what this particular specimen would look like without the beard.
"Come on," he coaxed as they walked towards the PREA (pre-release evaluation area), the con stumbling doggedly along. "You'll be all right. I gotcha."
The PREA was a big bungalow, and as soon as they got inside and out of the wind, the guard led them over to a corner of the area that seemed to be nothing but stainless steel. A blond, bespectacled man in green scrubs stood there waiting for them, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. "We got a customer?" he asked the guard cheerfully.
"Yep," said the guard, pulling the con forward almost faster than Peter could help him walk. "Goin' home with this guy."
"Hi," said Peter.
"Hi," said the doctor. "All right, well, let's get him up here so I can have a look."
The guard got the loop off, and with Peter's assistance the con noisily scrambled up onto the metal examination table, where he folded himself down on his forearms and shins like a Sphinx, and watched the doctor with his luminous eyes. The doctor seemed amused by this. He patted the con on the head and gently scratched him behind the ears. "Hey, who's a good boy, huh? Is it you? Is it you?"
Peter rolled his eyes. "I don't think he appreciates your tone," he said.
The con glared at the doctor and hissed, proving this hypothesis correct.
"Hey, I said no hissing!"
The con looked grumpily at Peter and then pointedly looked off into the distance.
"Are you sulking?" It was half annoyance, and half surprise. Peter hadn't known cons could do that.
"Sorry," the doctor said as he began a visual inspection and readied his stethoscope to have a listen. (The con was kind of fidgety, but Peter helped hold him still.) "Some habits are hard to break. I was a veterinarian for fifteen years. This is basically the same job, though. Most cons like it when you say that stuff. But every once in a while," he paused to squint through the small scope he'd put into his current patient's nostril, and then checked the other, "You get a smart one." He folded back the con's lips and got a look at his teeth. "Wow. His choppers are in really good shape. That'll be helpful. Most owners have to get dental care for their new peets, and that can get expensive."
"Peets?" Peter asked.
"Yep. You run 'People' and 'Pets' together, you get Peets. That's what these guys are," the doctor explained.
The con's clothes had to come off for the rest of the examination. After a traumatic and embarrassing few minutes, the doctor finally decided to give him a clean bill of health, and led him away so he could take a much-needed bath. Peter followed, uncomfortable with letting the con out of his sight, and his charge finally started to relax in the metal tub. He seemed content with the situation and let himself be scrubbed pink all over with a rough washcloth and soap. But only by Peter. He wouldn't let the doctor get anywhere near him, and kept batting him away.
Peter took a weird sort of pride in this choice, and bent to his task with aplomb. He cleaned out almost a flowerbed of dirt from behind his new con's ears while the con raptly stalked some soap bubbles as they drifted across the surface of the water. He pawed at them, finally slapped one to pieces, and raised his fists with a triumphant little "Rowr!" Once he was completely clean, hair and all, Peter helped him out of the tub and grabbed a scratchy prison-issue towel. But before he could use it, the con shook every bit of his body vigorously, wiggling all of his limbs and sending water everywhere. Peter laughed as he used the towel as a shield.
Finally the con was warm and dry, dressed in gray slacks and loafers and a white t-shirt. They got him to perch on a stool so that the barber, a twenty-something Puerto Rican guy with fifteen minutes of experience and a faux hawk, could get the plastic drape over him and clean him up. Peter was a little afraid of what this kid was going to try; he stood by and watched. Fortunately, nothing crazy happened. The barber gave the con a nice short cut but kept the waves in his hair. And his beard was first shortened with scissors, then plastered over with spackle masquerading as shaving cream and expertly whisked off with a razor. The barber didn't use any electric tools. ("It scares 'em," he explained when Peter asked. "They don't like the sound.")
Just then the guard came back in, right as the barber was removing the drape.
"Hey, I ran his barcode. Got a name." Peter looked at him with interest. "Neal Caffrey."
Peter shrugged. "Okay."
He didn't recognize the name, and it wasn't important, anyway. Elizabeth would probably want to pick out a new one. He turned and got a pleasant surprise. Walking over to him with the barber at his elbow was the polar opposite of the con he'd met in the cage. This new version was gaunt yet handsome, slightly built with ropey forearms and hardworking hands, and he now had a very nice jaw line where the fluffy beard used to be. Peter smiled. The con – "Neal" – blinked and tried to mimic the gesture. He got his top lip to rise a little, and exposed a few teeth.
"Hey, look at you! You look good," Peter said. "So your name's Neal, huh? Hmm. It suits you. Come on. Let's get you vaccinated and then we can get out of here." He appraised his new pet's clothes. "Um, excuse me," he said to the barber. "Can you find him a jacket or something? It's chilly out there."
"Yeah, I think there are some clean pea coats in the back," the kid said. "I'll get one."
"Thanks. Come on, Neal. Or whatever Elizabeth decides your name is."
But he liked "Neal," he thought, so he'd see if he could convince her to stick with it. He took the con by the arm and slowly guided him back into the main area of the PREA. The doctor was already busy with another patient. A mother-daughter pair had just decided on one of the accountants, and he was sitting placidly on the exam table while the doctor shined a light in his eyes. A thickset nurse waved them over to a different station.
"Got everything in one needle," she said as she held it up, "And it goes in his arm. Have him turn his face away. I don't want to scare him."
The easiest way to achieve this was to pull Neal into an embrace, so Peter did that. The con stiffened at the shot and let out a choked "meow" into Peter's shoulder, but it was over quickly and as soon as the nurse slapped a band-aid on the site, the Puerto Rican kid came rushing over with a pea coat. Peter helped Neal into it, and then buttoned it when it was apparent that Neal's dexterity wasn't quite up to par.
"Okeedokee," said the nurse. "And now..." Neal stood there obediently as she hooked a thick black belt around his waist. A ring jutted out from the belt right over his belly. She hooked a leash into the ring, pulled it around so that the ring was in the back, and handed the other end of the leash to Peter. "There we go! You're ready to leave."
Peter raised an eyebrow. Neal, who had decided this place no longer held his interest, displayed all of his teeth in a wide, eye-scrunching, tongue-lolling yawn. He smacked his lips and Peter smirked. Then he looked back at the nurse. "Really?" he said, motioning at what he held.
"It's the law, sir. Unless he's in a confined space, he has to be on a leash."
"All right, whatever. Let's go, Neal. Come on." He didn't have to tug at all. Neal stayed by his side quietly, although as they walked towards the exit, he did something odd. Slowly but firmly, he put his hand into Peter's right front pants pocket. And then he drew it out. Put it in, drew it out. And then once again, but faster. Peter shelved it; he'd figure this out later. He gently took Neal's hand, put it into the pocket of his pea coat, and patted it. "Keep your hand in your own coat, okay?"
Neal nodded once. The motion was jerky. The bald guard accompanied them as they walked off past the holding areas, past reception, and out towards the gates. They stopped at the kiosk right near the parking lot, and the guard ducked inside to grab one last thing. Peter was feeling much better for not being inside the prison walls, and Neal couldn't stop turning his head. He was looking around at anything and everything. Cars, bushes, rocks, birds ... didn't matter what it was, it caught his attention. Peter waited impatiently for the guard to find what he needed. They were almost free!
Finally the guard came back out with one last form that required Peter's signature and handed it to him on a greasy clipboard. Peter signed with a flourish and handed it back. "You know, you did great back there," the guard said as he tore the back of the form and handed Peter a piece of pink triplicate. "You really have a way with criminals."
"Well, I ought to know something about 'em by now," Peter said with a smile, putting a hand on Neal's back to guide him to the car. "I'm an FBI agent. Come on, buddy, let's go home."
And so it begins. Hope you laughed, although if you want to get all deep-minded n' junk and respond to the subtextual commentary on the systematic dehumanization of the prison experience, then that's okay by me, too. Onward to the next chapter! (-:
This story is hereby dedicated to Enfleurage. If Neal's going to be treated like a pet in the fandom (realistically, this can't be stopped) then I might as well give all those coddling characters a good reason for it, right? (-; In all seriousness, thank you so much for the inspiration.
- Kiki