Chapter 54: It Started with a Movie
Jake and Marie go to a movie with Nick and Judy.
The winter night air was crisp and the city's downtown bright lights banished the evening's darkness from around them as two raccoons, a fox and a rabbit strolled down the sidewalk towards a nearby restaurant. Although chilly, it was a pleasant enough night for the friends to be out and about while they enjoyed the first few days of the brand new year together. A white flake or two of snow lazily drifted down upon them, but they were not enough to be of concern.
"I may not be an expert in the cinema, but that movie was just plain stupid!" One of the raccoons, a handsome thinly muscular male named Jake, complained to the red fox walking next to him. "Dystopia is even a rip-off of this city's name!" He paused for a moment to adjust the black and white checkered scarf he wore and to tuck it into his fashionable black wool peacoat. The female raccoon, his wife Marie, stopped and took the opportunity to zip up her own dark grey parka a little higher before she pulled the hood over her head and ears.
"I didn't think it was that bad for an action flick. A little dark perhaps, but I'm not complaining because the hero fox got his bunny before the end of the movie," the raccoon's best friend Nick replied as the fox's right paw slipped down past the raised gray furred ears of his wife Judy and onto her shoulder, pulling the rabbit doe in the blue jacket even closer to his side. Unlike his friend, who seemed to enjoy wearing his stylish clothing, the fox wore an old lime green ski jacket and a pair of denim blue jeans. "Sure we had the poor innocent fox being chased by those cops and the bad guys all over the city, but in the end, it was the bunny who saved him."
"That sounds familiar, doesn't it Slick?" Judy laughed.
"Yeah, a rabbit and a fox save the city," Jake sarcastically added. "I just wonder where they got that idea from? You know they should have made the movie about you two! You guys solved both the Missing Mammals case and then saved the city from Bellwether and her Nighthowlers scheme. That would have made a great movie!"
"Well, at least no one has ever made those tame collars, like the ones in the movie, for us predators to wear around our necks!" Marie sighed as she took her husband's arm and leaned against the other raccoon's shoulder. "Just think how terrible it would be to have to really have to live like that!"
Jake looked over at Nick and Judy, they were aware just how close Dawn Bellwether and her followers had come to instituting such a plan in the city.
"Still, they should have at least asked you two to be advisors for the movie," Jake complained. "Maybe for the cop scenes, they were not quite realistic, and the other scenes… were...well, you know what I mean?"
"The movie was rated R," Nick laughed. "Although once everyone in the theater realized that Carrots and I were in the audience together, they kept glancing at us during the more romantic scenes. That was a little disconcerting watching a fox making out with a rabbit on the screen while surrounded by all those other animals who were watching the movie and then looking at you wondering if that is the way you two..."
"Nick!" Judy protested, cutting off what else he was going to add.
"Yeah, there was one love scene which I could have skipped," Jake snickered with a grin. "You know, the one with the more than partial nudity…"
"Okay, this conversation is getting very awkward you two perverts!" Judy quickly interjected. Everyone could see her ears were blushing.
"Still it is kind of a milestone to have a red fox as the main character in a movie," Nick mused. "Not long ago we foxes would have been either the silly sidekick for the hero or the first to get killed by the villain."
"Or you were cast as the villain," Marie added. "Unless the fox was a vixen and then she was always a slut or someone not very flattering."
"Vixens in movies," Jake laughed. "Those are mostly porn flicks!"
"Jake!" his wife snapped as she elbowed him in his side. "That wasn't very nice! So stud, do I need to put a parental block on that particular cable channel?"
"Aw, you know I don't watch those kinds of movies anymore!" the male raccoon objected. "I've got you to keep me warm at nights now."
"Sure you don't Stud," Marie giggled. "You should clear your laptop's browser sometimes."
"Well anyway, that was definitely not Oscar material!" Jake quickly stated as he tried to change the subject. He also tried to avoid the knowing grin his mate was giving him.
"Still, it was not bad for an action flick," Nick interjected as he played along with the desperate raccoon's attempt. "Especially the scene when they roared down the street in that stolen muscle car with all those police cars chasing after them. That bunny's driving left the cops in a smoldering pile of twisted metal and she didn't even droop an ear!"
"So says the fox who always teases me about my driving!" Judy laughed.
"Well you are a little heavy pawed on the gas in the police cruisers sometimes," the fox chuckled.
"At least she can drive," Marie snickered at Jake.
"I can drive!" the raccoon objected. "I just can't do so legally. After all, why would anyone want to spend hours at the DMV waiting in line for Flash or one of his sloth coworkers to process your application for a learner's permit? We live in the world's most modern city!" the raccoon dramatically continued as he waved his paw in the air. "A modern metropolis with state of the art public transportation, so who needs a car?"
"Except that the subway never seems to go where you want it to go, without changing lines once or twice" Nick observed.
"That's why we have taxis!" Jake quickly added.
"Why do you never take Zuber?" Judy asked the raccoon.
"Because I know most of the taxi drivers in the city," Jake answered with a shrug. "Besides, there is nothing like taking a traditional yellow taxi cab during your daily adventures."
"You do call Kevin at over at Tundratown Limo a lot to drag your sorry tail around," Nick quipped. "Those large black limos are a far cry from one of those yellow taxi cabs you're talking about."
"When you own a company, sometimes you have to show some class," Jake sighed. "Arriving at a client's mansion in a beat-up old taxi doesn't exactly project an image of success."
"I still say that wasn't a bad movie," Nick quickly added to change the subject again. He liked to do that sometimes to his best friend, just to keep the raccoon off balance during the conversation.
"Okay, I'll confess that it really wasn't that horrible," Jake said as he held the restaurant door open for his wife and then Judy. He playfully cut Nick off from entering, but before he did he called over his shoulder, "There should have been a raccoon or two in the film, that would have made it better!"
"There wasn't a role for a thief in the movie," Nick replied in a semi-serious manner, trying not to grin at the look the raccoon gave him.
"Why do we raccoons have to be cast as always being thieves? We're not all criminals!"
"So says the guy who was arrest for what?" the fox mused as he put his right paw on his chin and looked up like he was pondering something. "What was that again?
"Shut up fox!"
"Oh yes, that's right, you were arrested for burglary."
"So says the flimflam artist!"
"Flimflam, I don't think anyone has used that term in at least one hundred years or so?"
"Okay, you were a con artist…a swindler…" the raccoon began to countdown on his digits.
"I was an independently creative entrepreneur!" the fox laughed.
"You were a street hustler," Jake snapped back with a thin smile. "I should know because you ripped me off that one time."
"Okay!" Nick laughed. "So the raccoon doesn't have to be a thief. He could be a sidekick for the fox instead, just like you are my sidekick!"
"Sidekick? Sidekick?" Jake huffed back. "I'm not your sidekick!
"Sure you are, just ask anyone down at the station," Nick continued with a grin. "They see you and they all say, look here comes Nick's sidekick Jake!"
"They do not!" Jake began to chuckle.
Marie looked down at Judy and just sighed, "Here they go again, so let's grab a drink at the bar while they hash this out."