Editor's Note: For those who are interested, the little conversation between Kitty and Kurt is based on real-world facts and groups. There is a Southern Poverty Law Center (known as SPLC) lead by Morris Dees, they do fight and keep track of hate groups, and the Metzger case was a famous turning point in fighting hate groups in 1991. If you're interested in how mutants would likely be treated in real life, looking through the SPLC site is a real eye-opener to how and why hate groups exist, and how they can be fought. You can find out more about them at splcenter.org
Isolation, part 1
When Kitty came down to make coffee sometime about 3am, she was mildly surprised to see the light on in the kitchen. Since she already passed by John, the "sleepless wonder", in the rec room, she knew it couldn't be him foraging for a late-night snack. So who was it this time? Maybe Logan again? No matter what, she should be courteous and announce herself before she stepped in.
"Hey, there," she called softly as she approached the kitchen. "Who's up?"
"Just me, Kätzchen," Kurt's voice called back, also quiet.
She entered the room. He was perched on the edge of a counter, as usual, a large, steaming mug of coffee in both hands. His disheveled state and sweat pants told Kitty he'd just woken up not too long ago, and the pot of coffee a few feet away couldn't be more than a few minutes old.
"I didn't think you needed the light to see by," she said.
He shrugged and took a sip. "I don't, but I also don't want to startle anyone. The light is warning."
"Rough night, huh?" she asked sympathetically. He grunted an acknowledgement, and she continued, "Anything you want to talk about?"
"Not right now, but thank you for your concern."
She took a mug from a nearby cupboard. "Mind if I help myself to a cup?
"Feel free," he replied.
She poured a cup half full, put three teaspoons of sugar in it, then went to the refrigerator for cream.
"I see you are one who dilutes their coffee," he observed as she filled the cup up the rest of the way with half-and-half.
"Do you like it black like Miss Munroe?" Kitty asked as she stirred.
Kurt spat out his coffee in shock. Kitty phased instinctively, but she wasn't close enough to be in danger of being doused.
"Do you realize what you just said?" he asked incredulously.
"I asked you if you take your coffee black?" Kitty asked back, bewildered.
Kurt grabbed a paper towel off the nearby roll with his tail and wiped up the small mess on the tile floor. "You asked me if 'I like it black like Miss Munroe,'" he clarified.
One of Kitty's hands flew to her mouth in shock. "OmiGod. I didn't mean it that way!"
Kurt laughed and shook his head. "Obviously." He tossed the towel in the "compost" garbage can. "A noodle flogging for you, Kätzchen. And to answer what you meant to ask, I only take sugar. I like to be able to taste the flavor of the coffee."
"I can't believe I slipped like that," she muttered, rubbing her eyes. "After that report I'm working on, I can't believe I said that."
He cocked his head. "You have been up all this time, working on a report?"
"Oh, I'm on a roll." She tried some of her coffee and nodded in satisfaction. "Once I get going like this, I have to finish it. Besides; it's Friday night."
"Saturday morning, now. It must be very interesting to hold your attention so late at night."
She gave a nervous smile. "You're gonna think it's really bizarre."
He gave a single, soft laugh. "What is it? A paper on training cockroaches?"
She shook her head. "It's an examination of hate and hate groups."
His smile faded and he set his cup to the side. "That is a difficult subject to work with."
"Yeah, some of the stuff is just disgusting. But, hey, it's not like I haven't seen it before. My dad contracts for the Southern Poverty Law Center when they need an extra hand."
"I do not know this law firm."
Kitty pulled up a seat at the table. She set her mug down between sips.
"The Southern Poverty Law Center was made in the late 70's, I think," she said. "The guy who runs it is Morris Dees. The whole idea is to give legal help to victims of hate crimes. It's all done for free, since a lot of the people who need the help don't have any money to pay for it." She gave a broad grin. "In the 90's, this guy shut down David Metzger." Upon seeing that Kurt did not recognize the name, she elaborated, "David Metzger was a Neo Nazi in Oregon, and one of his followers beat a black foreign exchange student to death. Mister Dees convinced the court that Metzger was really responsible for it, and they fined him, like, millions of dollars and gave it all to the student's family. Metzger's whole Nazi group just collapsed without the money. My dad helped with the caseload for that. He was even there at the trial. It was fantastic."
Kurt shook his head in bewilderment. "I still do not understand why Nazi groups are allowed to exist here. They should be shut down and their people thrown in jail."
She took a sip and made a sour face that had nothing to do with her coffee. "Believe me, we're throwing them in jail. But now while they're in jail they're making these racist prison brotherhood things. It's like they're using the opportunity to do recruiting. It's scary stuff. And now there's this new 'brotherhood' that has me real worried. Calls itself 'Friends of Humanity.'"
"Just the name makes me worry."
"It should. I'll give you a hint: Senator Kelly used to be one of their biggest supporters. So was Stryker."
"Mutant haters?" Kurt asked softly.
She nodded. "This thing is starting to look like the KKK in the 20s. Used to be the Klan had all sorts of support in Washington. It was, like, the thing to belong to. Now FOH is the trendy thing. There's all sorts of senators and military types that belong to this thing. One guy has me really worried. He's one of Stryker's old buddies, name of Larry Trask. I'm just thanking God that I didn't see President McKenna on their member list."
A half-smile tugged at Kurt's lips. "And just how do you come to know these things, Kätzchen? I do not think this list is public knowledge."
She shrugged. "Some of it is. They've got a website up, and some of the more famous people are listed there as contributors. They're really lambasting Senator Kelly for pulling out of the club. You'd think he'd gone and joined Al Qaida or something."
His eyes widened in surprise. "You look at websites for these people?"
"I've got bookmarks of practically every hate group out there. Everything from Aryan Nation to World Church of the Creator. If you're going to fight the enemy, you've got to know what they're doing, no matter how ugly it is." She looked into her coffee and muttered, "Maybe if we'd paid more attention to Hitler, he wouldn't have gotten the chance to kill six million of us."
Kurt nodded solemnly. "Or one and a half million of us." She looked up at him quizzically, and he continued, "Many of those who raised me were Romani."
"Really? Wow." She grinned as she raised her mug up in both hands, elbows resting on the table. "Looks like we're both screwed twice. A mutant in a minority."
"It was… a bit worse than that for me, I'm afraid. Many of the Rom consider me marimé, if not beng."
She blinked with confusion. "Um… I'm sorry, but I don't know what that means."
"Beng means 'devil.' Marimé means 'impure' or 'dirty.'" Kitty stared at him with wide eyes, and he quickly put up his hands and continued, "Wait, wait, I am not alone with this label. Cats and dogs are considered marimé. A woman has two parts of her body. From the waist up she is considered vujo, or pure. From the waist down, she is marimé."
"Look, no offense to your parents, but that's the most sexist BS I've ever heard," she said, a bit harshly.
He shrugged. "Perhaps it is. But since I am also considered marimé by so many, I did not think so much about it. From the reactions I have gotten from other Rom, it must have been God's will that Mama Margali found me first. I do not think anyone else would have touched me."
" 'Found' you? You mean, she wasn't your real mother?"
"No. And Papa Bashaldé is not my birth father. I was found in an overgrown field as a baby."
"I guess your mom must have gotten in serious trouble for picking you up."
"A kris was called -- a meeting of the tribes," he clarified, seeing she did not understand. "A Rom council. This is how serious law matters are settled. They believed I was an evil spirit, and Margali and Bashaldé did not. They settled the matter by going to the local church. I did not smoke when the holy water touched me. I did not cry when Father Ehrlichmann held me and blessed me." He smiled a little. "In fact, I was the only baby he had seen who did not even fuss during baptism. According to Papa Bashaldé, I just watched him as he sat me in the fountain and ladled water over me." He sighed and looked down and away. "I miss Father Ehrlichmann. He has been dead for years, but I still miss him."
He took a sip of his own coffee. At the same time, he reached out with his tail and deftly picked up the coffee pot.
"In any case," he said as he refilled his mug, "Papa Bashaldé has only been so popular with the others. His mother was not Rom, which is to say she was gadjé. Many of the circus were gadjé as well." He set the pot back on the warmer and added a spoon of sugar to his coffee. "For many Rom, this all makes him almost as marimé as me. It is so complicated. I do not agree with all of it. It is hard to agree to traditions that consider you 'unclean.'"
There was a soft knock on the entryway. Kitty and Kurt looked up to see Isidro there. He had the look of someone who had been trying to sleep, but just couldn't.
"Don't mean to butt in, but would you mind if I had some coffee, too?" he asked.
Kurt lifted the pot with his tail again. "Help yourself to a cup. We can always make more."
He thanked them both and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. Both Kurt and Kitty knew what was likely on the man's mind. In a few hours, Isidro and Hank would be leaving the institute, and Isidro would be talking face to face with the FBI.
"Do you know who you'll be talking to?" Kitty asked him.
Isidro shrugged as Kurt poured for him. "Somebody Hank says he knows really well. Her name's Gloria, I think. At least, he knows her on a first name basis, and that's got to count for something, right?" He sat down at the table, at an angle that he could talk to everyone. "I don't know why this is bugging me so much. Hank's got everything worked out. He's got all the evidence, he's got photos, he knows more than I do, so he's the one who's going to get most of the heat. It's just…." He touched the back of his head. "I'm not sure who to trust anymore. Part of me's still thinking there's a conspiracy here and we'll both disappear into some laboratory." He rotated the cup slowly in his hands. "But if I don't do anything, we'll never find the fucks that did this. Everything's so screwed up."
His concerns did have some merit. Xavier and his Institute were now well-known in the FBI and CIA, and Isidro's association with them, however accidental, would surely color their decisions. And no one knew whether his abductors were aligned with the government, or if they had moles in such positions.
"No matter what happens, Isidro, we will stand by you," Kurt told him. "If you are abducted, we will come for you. If you are harassed, we will provide support."
Isidro nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I know up here." He touched his forehead. "It's just down here--" he touched his chest "--that I'm having trouble with." He took a long sip of his coffee. "Well, that and Granma's been loosing chickens again. Her whole town's up in arms over a chupacabras." He laughed, though a bit nervously. "I'll be missing the soap opera if the FBI keeps me for very long."
Kurt mulled the foreign word around in his mind for a few moments. "Did I hear you correct? A 'goat sucker?'"
Isidro gave him a wry smile. "Yeah, you heard right. You've never heard of the terrible chupacabras? The thing that comes in the night and attacks your farm animals? It's kind of like a Mexican Loch Ness monster. Everyone says they've seen it, but no one has any evidence, except for a bunch of dead animals that could have been killed by anything."
"Oh, yeah, I think I heard about that thing," Kitty said, leaning her head on her fist. "It's supposed to be this short little thing with spikes growing out of its back or a long red tongue or something."
" 'Or something' is as good a description as any. Everyone's seen something different." He laughed again, a little more confidant, now. "Hey, what do you want to bet it's really some poor mutant that's being used as a scapegoat?"
"Ooh, don't say that so loud, or we'll be on a trip to Mexico before you know it," Kitty whispered.
"No, he may have a point," Kurt said thoughtfully. "It's happened to me enough times."
"Nah, it's probably a bunch of coyotes come down from the hills," Isidro said, dismissing it all with a wave of his hand.
"Isidro, I'm serious," Kurt pressed on. "It would only take the professor a few minutes to look."
"Man, that stupid chupacabras's been seen everywhere from Puerto Rico to Baja. You can't tell me a mutant's responsible for all that."
"Not all of that, no, but Logan says there are no coincidences, and from what I've seen while I've been here, I'm starting to agree with him. God had you mention this for a reason."
"Twenty bucks says you don't find a thing."
"Isidro, you don't have twenty dollars with you."
"I will if you take me up on it."
:
Santos considered himself relatively lucky. In his small town, he had managed to avoid the goat sucker's attacks. His chickens and goats remained unmolested, his pens unbroken. Just to be sure, however, he rested with his shotgun loaded in the corner. One frightened bleat, one strangled crow, one unaccustomed bark from his dog, and he'd be outside with that shotgun, ready to shoot. He wasn't losing any of his livestock tonight, nor any other night.
It was his dog that awoke him that night, barking madly from the front room. As Santos grabbed for the longarm, he heard furniture tip and crash to the floor, accompanied by more frantic barks. Thieves. He leapt out of bed, crossed the small bedroom in two bounds, and stood at the threshold, weapon in both hands, poised for action. He peered out into the dark front room, lit only by the half-moon's light from an open window. The dog was backed into the far left corner, its posture more fearful than aggressive. It was facing something to the right. Santos turned that way, shotgun up and ready to shoot. He could see the vague outline of someone small, crouched down with something in his arms. Had Juan's kid broken into his place again?
"Dammit, Paulo, this time I'm gonna wake up both your mamma and daddy," he spat, lowering the shotgun. "Stand up! Now!"
There was a guttural hiss from "Paulo's" spot, and Santos saw the gleam of long teeth in the faint moonlight. His dog whined and cringed in the corner, and Santos' breath caught in his throat. The goat sucker! It was as short as they all said it was, no more than three or four feet tall, with a dog's hind legs and a body lined with shaggy fur. It had hands tipped with claws, and it clutched several items, pressed tightly against its chest.
He brought his shotgun up and fired, but the thing was too fast, leaping out of the way. Santos chambered the next round and shot again, the scatterspray boring dozens of holes in his adobe wall. He heard a high-pitched, inhuman squeal, something clattered to the floor, and then the goat sucker was gone. He never got a good look at it, but he didn't need to. He knew what it was.
Flashlights shone outside, getting closer along with the sounds of running feet.
"Santos? What happened?" Paulo's young voice cried out. "What were you shooting at?"
"It was here," Santos panted, dropping the barrel of his shotgun. "The goat sucker was here. It got into the house."
"Mother of God," someone whispered.
They searched the room with flashlights. The evidence of Santos' words lay everywhere they cared to look. There were strange dusty tracks on the slab floor, claw marks on a wooden crate, and flecks of blood glistening on the wall, drying swiftly in the cold night air. And on the cement floor, close to the blood spatter, lay the item the goat sucker had dropped in its reckless flight: a dented can of beans.
TBC…