L'EDgendary

by dobanochi

A few years since we last saw any of them, the Peach Creek Boys and the Merry Men run into one another at just the right time, working together to undermine an oppressive city government as well as their burgeoning insecurities. An action-comedy-drama character study about friendship, leadership, self-esteem, and the divide between who we're born as and who we choose to be.

41. Protest the Hero

41. "Protest the Hero"

"Listen, man, I don't actually wanna go to this fuckin' thing, and I can't say in good faith that I think anything of value will be accomplished by me doing it, but- okay, fuck it, one good thing might come of it. We got bad PR in this town and actually engaging with the community might make us look better, even if we are just paying, y'know, bullshit lip-service. Or at the very least I'll look good. M'kay, bud?"

The sheriff and his deputy sat at a red light while driving back to the Nutzinger residence, whereupon Ward would take over the car and George would drive with his mom to the meeting at Amanda Foote's place with her "people" - whoever they were supposed to be.

"And what am I supposed to do all day without my li'l deputy?" asked the wolf, wearing a smirk as though Nutsy was supposed to be flattered that he wanted his company, but the tone of his voice gave away that he was much more desperate for companionship than he was letting on.

The light turned green and the squirrel pressed the accelerator. "I dunno, man, did you always stick around your last deputy all the time like you do with me? Honestly, you could probably go home and do crystal meth and watch Green Acres and Andy Griffith Show reruns and nobody would probably notice you weren't patrolling."

Ward looked out the window and pondered whether watching old TV shows and forgetting his age really would be the best thing he could do today. "Y'know, I was a teenager when they took all those small-town shows off the air for city-slicker shows. Heard them call it the 'rural purge', sounds about right. CBS cancelled everything with a tree - including Lassie! So that all doesn't sound half bad… besides the meth part…"

Nutsy kept his eyes on the road. "...If you think that was an invitation to have witty banter about TV shows from a decade before I was born, it wasn't."

"Oh, I'm just saying…" The sheriff stared straight ahead and tried to lose himself in the trance of traffic. "I just ain't ready to be forty-nine tomorrow. One day shy of being one year shy of being halfway to a hunnerd."

George debated quipping that there was no way an obvious heart-disease victim like Ward was gonna make it to one hundred, but he thought that might be excessively cruel. "Hey, at least ya made it to forty-nine."

"Yeah… doesn't help that it's on Father's Day this year, too."

Okay, Depressed Ward was not a Ward that George was comfortable ripping on. As much of a relief as it was that the sheriff wasn't being an asshole for once, hearing him this bummed out wasn't any more comfortable.

"Trouble with your old man?"

"Aw, he wasn't any better 'er worse'n any other father in those days. I'm sure he loved us, but just like all the other dads on the block, he never could figure a manly way a' showin' it. It's not him I'm hung up on, I'm not like your generation, where y'all Gen-Xers had pussies for paws and mushies for maws and still won't stop bitchin' up a summer storm about how much ya hate yer parents!"

Nutzinger was quiet for a second as he deciphered that 'paws' and 'maws' weren't referring to hands and mouths. "...So I've been told," he finally replied. "So what's on your mind instead, then?"

Woodland hummed in dejected thought. "Just was kinda hoping things woulda turned out different for me."

George spent a few minutes putting the pieces together before it clicked. "...You ever wanted kids, Ward?"

"I'll admit… my parents weren't perfect. My paw did a good job a' bein' a dad and providin' for us, but… he sure never made it seem like he was havin' any fun bein' our dad. Fer the longest time, I didn't wanna ever have any kids, 'cause why would I enjoy fatherhood if my old man never did? And my maw? A sweet woman when she wanted to be, but damn if she didn't seem to enjoy bein' a nag over the littlest things. She would always gimme shit for never findin' a good girl and givin' her grandchildren. But if er'ry woman was as much a' a bitch as her, why would I wanna get tied up to one? The both of 'em always tried to tell me I was lettin' the family down by not carrying on the name Eddward with the extra D… they finally gave up when my li'l sister married some yankee, this Eye-talian guy from Pennsylvania I think, and they gave their son the family name instead. Now there's some little wolf runnin' around out there with a redneck first name and a dago last name."

"Ward, your ability to pull the most obscure ethnic slurs out of your head never ceases to amaze me."

"Aw, shut up, ya dumb kraut! All this political correctness is gonna go away once yer generation grows up!" He chuckled to himself and turned to look out the window again, though his self-amusement quickly faded. "...Talkin' of the kid, though… time he showed up, that was about when I realized… hey, maybe havin' a wife 'n kids one day wouldn't be too bad! Course, then I was already, what, thirty-four? I was already almost outta time… and then time ran out on me."

Nutzinger was starting to have trouble concentrating because of how depressing this was getting, and therefore felt the need to make it less depressing for both of their sakes: "Well, for what it's worth… I've never gotten past a second date with a girl either."

"Kid, how old are you even?"

"...I'll be twenty-seven next month."

"Aw, ya got plenny a' time to right the ship! I don't! And maybe all ya gotta do is stop bein' such a sarcastic little dick and maybe you'd get some girls on your little dick!"

"I'm just saying, sometimes life doesn't turn out as planned. And… shit, maybe this is just wishful thinking… but in my head, what's really impressive is getting dealt a shitty hand and finding a way to make it work anyway. I mean, fuck, you're the goddamn chief of the municipal police and the county sheriff, ain't ya? You've accomplished more by accident than some people do in a lifetime of trying!"

The sheriff was quiet for a second before he turned to his deputy: "I appreciate that, little guy. Hey… at least I got you!"

Aw, hell, there it went again. Ward implying that George was his closest friend and George having nothing to say to claim the opposite wasn't also true. Nutsy still wasn't comfortable with this.

"Hey, uh… let's, let's turn on the radio, huh?" said the squirrel as he pressed the miniaturized buttons on his miniaturized steering setup. "What station do ya want, old timer, classic rock?"

The radio came to life: "Aaall the looonely peeeopllle, where dooo they aaall come frooooom? Aaall the looonely peeeopllle, where dooo they aaall belooooong?"

"Okay, fuck that, let's try the alternative station."

He tuned in just as the opening interlude gave way to lyrics: "So longgg agooo, I don't rememmmberrr whennn, that's whennn they saaay I lossst my ooonly frieeend…"

"Pop station, whatcha got for us?"

"HELLLLOOOOO, HELLLLOOOOO! I'm at a plaaace calllllled Verrrrrtiiigooooo!"

"Okay, that's enough of that," Nutzinger said as he extinguished the radio. They sat in silence for a few more seconds before George felt the need to clarify something. "That last one had nothing to do with our current situation, I just fucking hate U2."

"What!?" said the shocked sheriff. "You hate me, too!? Well in that case, I hate you, too, Nutsy! Hmph! And after I just toldja I appreciated ya!"

"Oh, Jesus Christ, I do not have the mental energy for this…" the deputy mumbled to himself.

"Or, wait…" said Woodland. "...Was that that band from Scotland that was big a while back? The U2s? You know they're called 'The U2s', not just 'U2', don'tcha, Nutsy? A U2 is a airplane!"

But something about that made the squirrel have a sudden moment of clarity: it couldn't have been easy to be as stupid and brash as Ward was. And now it was abundantly obvious that the poor dumb son of a bitch was lonely, too. Maybe this would have been a fool's errand, but perhaps all Ward needed was someone to actually give a shit about him for once for him to stop being such a stupid asshole all the time about everything. And if Ward was actually right about something for once - George's excessive snark and sarcasm driving people away - then perhaps Ward would be a good person for George to practice being genuine toward. It might just help the both of them.

But then stupid Ward pointed at something down the road. "Woo-hoo! Georgie, you seein' this!?" the wolf howled, and as they drew closer, it was clear that he was referring to a tan-furred lupine woman walking down the street - specifically, the sheriff was admiring her prominent derriere. "Goddamn! Look at the shitter on that critter!"

And just like that, as if a magician had waved a wand, all the goodwill the deputy had built up towards his sheriff was gone.

"Gee, Ward, how is it that someone as eloquent as you hasn't found a good girl to take home yet? The mysteries of life shall forever elude us."

They didn't talk for a few minutes after that, Ward thinking to himself that it was ironic that someone as vitriolic as George could also be so easily offended, and George thinking to himself about the possibility that maybe somewhere in England, Simon Cowbell had thought he had found the next big thing in a pair of teenage sheep girls and wanted to give their pop duo the obvious name of "Ewe2" and was losing sleep over whether he would want to deal with the legal trouble of claiming a homophonous name that technically wasn't already taken.

A few excruciating minutes later, they found themselves in a rodent development and pulled up to the apartment building the Nutzingers lived in.

"This dinky little thing is where you live?" observed the wolf. Indeed, the building was eight stories high, but that was about as high as a "normal" two-story building - not that you could describe such a medium-species' building as "normal" in these size-specific enclaves lest mice and elephants come together to call you a bigot for assuming that medium-sized was the default.

"Mmhmm," the squirrel mumbled. "The twenty-one-inch ceilings are a luxury - makes it a pain in the ass to change a light bulb, though." Upon further thought, however… why was this so surprising? Where else did Ward think he would live? That's when George figured it out: Ward was just talking for the sake of saying something. "What's on your mind, man?"

"I'm thinkin' more about my nephew I'll never get to see again. Little Sister and her man don't like me very much."

As much as the sheriff was a vulgar and slobbish asshole, the deputy would never argue that his boss wasn't one tragic son of a bitch. "Well, hey, man… sometimes in life we gotta think long and hard and make a decision: are we the bad guys who need to change or are they the bad guys who we need to leave behind?" Nutzinger of course already had his own opinions on where Woodland fell in that dilemma, but fuck it, if he had to work with this guy, it would be in his own best interest to at least give him some crumbs of hope that he could eventually become a decent person.

"You takin' off already?" asked Woodland as he noted Nutzinger was unbuckling his seat belt.

"Uh… yeah," said George tentatively. "Where else would I be going?"

"Oh, wait! I just realized sumpthin'! I can't drive this thing! It's all set up for you!"

The squirrel stared and blinked at the wolf a couple times before he hopped off the platform built to support his custom-made seat and steering column, shimmied onto one of the arms supporting the platform to unscrew the bolts that secured the plugs for the steering wheel, gearshift, brakes, accelerator, and dashboard controls and subsequently unplugged them, and climbed onto the seat-back and put all his body weight into pulling the platform upright (this was supposed to be something for Ward to do, but clearly he had no interest in helping) where it once again became a regular driver's seat headrest.

"There," said George. "Mission accomplished and with minimal civilian casualties. Get in the driver's seat and motor, Ward. I don't care where."

"Aw, what am I s'posed to do all day without the help a' my deputy?"

"That's your prerogative, hombre, I don't have a horse in that race. Go do something constructive toward finding those Adam Bell wannabes you wanna bag so bad. Or the 'TV Land and crystal meth' option is still on the table, I'm sure you can find some in the evidence room somewhere."

"Hey, speaking a' Adam Bell…" the sheriff mused. "Stole from the rich to give to the poor, right?"

"Uh… yeah?" The deputy already had his paw on the door handle. "That's… that's kinda-sorta the entire M.O. of the copycats who we just discussed seven seconds ago, remember?"

"Yeah, but…" The wolf buried his mouth in his hand for a second. "I'm just thinkin' more about how I'm gettin' older, and how a lot a' people'd tell me I oughta have some money invested in the stock market by now… but ya gotta hire a broker for that, so if I understand correctly, ya gotta already be rich to get richer… why ain't there some service called, like, oh, I dunno, 'Adam Bell Investing' that lets people play stocks without havin' ta' get a goddamn broker? Let us regular people get rich so it ain't all just millionaires, y'know?"

A weird question deserved a cynical response: "Honestly, Ward, that's not a bad idea, and I'd encourage you to explore starting it yourself, but honestly, it'd probably get bought up by billionaires eventually if it ever became mainstream - and then if regular people ever tried to use it to pull some real Adam Bell shit and screw over those billionaires, the billionaires would restrict the shit out of it when the commoners got too far ahead. And then calling it 'Adam Bell Investing' or whatever would just be fucking ironic. And I can just imagine if those guys in the woods found out that regular people were getting rich off a service called 'Adambell' but weren't sharing their winnings with other regular people and charity organizations and shit, they'd probably shit their dicks and start an intra-class war against the people making a mockery of the name of their hero." Nutsy opened the door to make his exit. "Welp, that topic came out of absolutely fucking nowhere, and since I'm about to go to absolutely fucking nowhere, I might as well be kindly and take it back to where it belongs. Toodles."

The wolf watched the squirrel disappear into the apartment building and sat there for a few minutes before getting into the driver's seat. And for about twenty minutes after that, he drove around the city aimlessly for an idea of how to spend his time alone. Eventually, he realized where he wanted to go.

-IllI-

"Now don't you be weird and cynical when we're at her house!"

"I won't if she doesn't give me a reason to."

"Oh, yes you will. You love being a smartass. You don't need people to give you a reason."

"Nice to know you think so highly of me, Mom."

"I don't think lowly of you, it's just-! Everyone has their flaws and that's one of yours!"

"As if my manner of speech isn't heavily influenced by you and the man you chose to marry and copulate with?"

"..."

"I see you giving me that dirty look in the corner of my eye, I'm not gonna look at you."

"Hmph!"

"I'm really only interested in hearing what she knows about them as people from when she was still cool with them. I'm going to listen, not to talk. As long as nobody presses me with stupid questions, we should be good."

"...Uh, you do realize she wants you to talk to us about what the police are doing to catch them, right?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ."

"I told you that! List-en, to, me!"

"First of all, no you didn't. But fine, I'll put the ball back in her fuckin' court and say, 'hey, what we're doing right now is listening to the community, now gimme something to listen to,' and then I'll sit back and watch the fireworks."

"And that's another thing! Watch your language in her house. And I admit, it's a struggle for me, too, but… she heads a very conservative household, and we can do our part to respect that."

"Alright, but if somebody steps on me and the only way I can get their attention is by swearing up a storm, you'd better have my back."

"Well I don't think that'll be an issue. She lives in a rabbit-sized house."

"So people bigger than a rabbit couldn't join this club if they tried?"

"It's not even a club! It's just… a loose organization. Doesn't have a name or anything."

"...So people bigger than a rabbit couldn't join this club if they tried?"

"I mean, they can if they want to. That's why we're meeting outside."

"...Thank God I brought a hat."

"..."

"..."

"...What is the department doing to catch them besides, just, y'know… the usual?"

"The usual."

"...That's it?"

"And keeping our eyes peeled. Like, what else can we be doing?"

"..."

"Light's green, Mom."

"You guys could be doing a little more, don't you think?"

"Hey, I don't even have a hate-boner for these guys like my bosses do, I only want them bagged inasmuch me and Wolfie'll stop getting bitched at for not catching them when we finally do."

"That doesn't seem like a very good mindset for an officer of the law!"

"What can I say? I don't give a rat's ass about the rich. People say cops are class traitors… I agree a lot of the cocksuckers I work with are, but I'm not! They can solve their own problems."

"..."

"...'They' meaning 'the rich'. In case that wasn't clear the way I say it. They might think the cops exist solely to serve them, but fuck that, I ain't giving them preferential treatment. I only serve people who treat me with respect."

"...You realize that her chief concern is that those idiots in the woods are hurting the poor more than they're helping because they're pissing off the cops and the rich and since they can't catch the bandits, the cops and the rich are taking it out on the poor, right?"

"And I agree that that's fucked that it happens that way, but the solution here isn't to pacify the ruling class, it's to get someone like me into a position of power where all the trigger-happy rich-loving brown-nosers like the sheriff can get fired on the spot. And I'd fuckin' do it in a heartbeat if I ever had that power. Honestly, I don't hate these guys on a fundamental level. Their intentions are good. What I hate is what they represent: a source of chaos with no discernable endgame. Like, what, do they think they're going to end poverty in this city by doing what they're doing? Or end corruption? Their major crime to me is their recklessness - recklessness, and sheer fucking vanity of acting like they're the second coming of Christ to this town. But I don't think they're evil. Hell, they probably enjoy their lives more than any of the rest of us do. Must be fun playing Adam Bell for a living."

For the fourth or fifth time, Rebekah took her eyes completely off the road to give her son a dirty look.

"Jesus, Mom, watch where you're driving!" George hollered as he leaned over to steer the car out of the path of a much larger vehicle's tires; federal safety laws meant that rodent-sized cars needed to be as strong and durable as a steel-toed boot, but you still didn't want to find your car under the tire of some hippo's Hummer.

Rebekah was clearly shocked by the near mistake, but she did not verbally acknowledge it. Instead, once her composure was regained, she simply said, "Maybe don't tell Amanda that you secretly envy these guys, huh?"

Her son just shrugged. "Again… I don't plan on running my mouth unless she gives me a damned good reason to."

"George. Again. Language."

It took them a while to find non-permit-only parking around the intersection of 40th and Idaho, but when they eventually did, they didn't bother going to the front door of the row house on the corner, instead going to the concrete backyard abutting Idaho Street and the alley.

On the back patio were people of many shapes and sizes - but not all shapes and sizes. In addition to a plethora of hares and rabbits, there were mice and chipmunks and goats and sheep and beavers and donkeys and even a koala, and… hmm.

"Hey, uh… is there any sort of… restrictions to joining this group?" George asked his mother under his breath as they approached.

"No," said Rebekah, kind of confused. "Well… she doesn't associate much with very large species, so it's just unlikely that she'd ever invite one, but it's not like she's banning them-"

"No, no, you already said that in the car. I mean, like… demographically."

"...You think this is a race thing?"

"I mean… I'm kinda starting to see a pattern here."

Emphasis on kinda, because upon closer inspection… eh, there were a handful of skunks and raccoons and badgers and otters in the mix, but their people had historically preferred bugs and fish and such over other mammals, so a bunny would have to be next-level racist to hate them as predators. He could also see a Husky here and a Malamute there, and although back in Ye Olde Days dogs were 1B to the foxes' 1A on the list of enemies of lapines and other small species, dogs did eventually gain a reputation for having strict self-imposed moral codes and undying loyalty to their friends, so most prey species had been cautiously trusting of them for the last few centuries. And if his eyes didn't deceive him… yup, there was a fox in the crowd. Standard redhead, you see 'em everywhere. Exactly one of them, but she was there.

"...Okay, now I'm just confused," Nutsy muttered to himself, thinking that maybe it was just a case that just as this woman didn't happen to associate with people bigger than a dog on a regular basis, maybe she just didn't happen to know that many predators either.

As George and Rebekah looked around to see whether their host had any appropriately-sized seats for them, Amanda walked out the door along with a ram, carrying a small but sizable TV set with a built-in VCR. She noticed the squirrels had arrived.

"Oh, hi, Rebek-! Kids! Kids, get back inside!"

As she and the ram tried to carry the TV outside, a bunch of children ran out the open door. Probably about a dozen of them, and plenty more stayed inside the house but tried to catch a glimpse of the scene through the open door. These kids seemed to be between the ages of three and seven, and their makeup reflected that of the crowd: mostly rabbits and smaller prey species, but not completely. An elkhound pup, an opossum, a coyote, and, yes, even a fox kit among others could be seen in there. George understood that Amanda's own children were largely old enough to either serve as proctors for the littler kids in the daycare or to just go out and wander the city like big kids, so knowing that few if any of the rabbit kids he was seeing were hers, it begged the question again: was she specifically seeking the company of rabbits and similar species, or were these just the children of the kind of people a rabbit in Georgetown could expect to regularly associate with?

"In, in!" Mrs. Foote scolded the children, corralling them back inside the house.

Most ran back inside by their own accord, laughing all the way, but one little ewe stopped when she saw George and Rebekah. She couldn't have been more than five, and that was a rather liberal estimate.

The little sheep girl gasped as she looked down at the rodents. "Hey, you're squirrels! Do you know Sandy Cheeks!?"

Becky didn't get the reference, but George didn't need to.

"Sure I do!" he beamed. "She owes me twenty bucks!"

The ewe, however, looked confused and unamused.

"Natalie! In!" Amanda shooed the sheep.

Rebekah nudged her son when nobody was looking. "George, don't be weird and cynical to them! They're children!"

George wanted to protest as he was conditioned to do, but he stopped and thought about it. "...Y'know, what? That's actually a fair point. I'll try."

"Hmph. Good," went his mother as she looked off toward the crowd, but still seemed to be thinking. "By the way… who the heck is Sandy Cheeks? Do you know who that is?"

"Uhhh, don't quote me on this, but I thiiink that's the squirrel on SpongeBob?" Now George was getting to thinking. "...Begs the question, though, of whether that kid's seriously never seen a squirrel before in her life or if she asks all the squirrels she sees that question."

"Now that's a good point to be weird and cynical about," Mrs. Nutzinger conceded under her breath.

"Now I'll leave the big door open so you can talk through the screen door if you need me, but it'd better be an emergency!" Amanda dictated to the children as she spoke through the shut storm door, children occupying the opening in the half-shut inner door. "If you call me, you'd better be bleeding or dying!" Her duty done, she walked back over to the Nutzingers. "Rebekah, I'm so sorry about that. But it's great to see you - and hello to you, Deputy Nutzinger! A pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, uh… you can call me George, ma'am," said Nutsy as he extended his hand upwards for a handshake, then remembered that this woman was very conservative, assumed she wouldn't think it was very gentlemanly for a man to ask a lady for a handshake, and sort of awkwardly slipped into a sort of bow. "The pleasure is mine."

"Ooh, such a gentleman," the rabbit cooed.

"To everybody but his mother, I see…" Rebekah quipped, pretending to smile but still sounding sour. "Sorry we're late, Mandy, I had trouble finding parking that didn't require the brown sticker-"

"Oh, no, it's alright. Those permit-only laws are always a pain in the butt for guests!"

"I woulda driven us over here in the squad car so we could park anywhere, but that woulda been a vulgar display of power!" George joked, already having decided that he didn't want to be there but nevertheless trying to add levity to the conversation for the sake of making things less awkward.

"Oh, well why didn't you then!" Amanda asked, though it was more of an exclamation.

Jesus, lady, it was just a joke, you weren't supposed to take it at face value and interrogate me on it. "Well, the sheriff needed it-"

"Miss Amanda!" cried a little gray rabbit girl from the screen door, holding up a plastic baby bunny doll whose mouth appeared to be caked with what looked like… chocolate? "Logan tricked me! He said I could bring Babette to life by feeding her poop but it didn't work!"

"Oh my gosh, Caroline, why would you believe something like that!?" Mrs. Foote huffed as she marched back to the door.

"Logan said that poop is alive because of the germs and the germs would bring her to life but it didn't!"

Basically the entire crowd heard that exchange, and they all tried their best to make it seem like they hadn't.

Deputy Nutzinger, however, decided he just needed to riff on this to someone, so he turned to his mom because she was the only person there he had rapport with. "Heh… I mean, that's how fertilizer works, so that Logan kid ain't totally wrong!"

"Shh!" Rebekah scolded. "George, they can hear you!"

Sure enough, they both glanced back at the crowd, who almost all clearly had been looking at the squirrels and all quickly turned away as soon as the squirrels returned their gaze, some even going so far as to stare directly at the sun or at the brick wall to avoid self-incrimination for eavesdropping.

"Eh, I'm gonna have to address all these people eventually, right? Might as well establish myself as the funny guy."

"George, please just don't get too… gross with your jokes."

"Mom, you married and reproduced with a man whose last name literally contained the word 'zinger' - you think that this ain't just in my blood to call it as I see it?"

She just rolled her eyes and grumbled, regretting once again that she hadn't ponied up and paid to get her name changed back after the divorce.

Amanda was speaking sternly, trying not to scream, to someone or possibly multiple people inside, directing that the doll be cleaned out by a daughter-employee named Shana or Shanna or Jana or Janna - this lady had a lot of kids and gave all of them weird names and we can't get a list of them or anything, so those are our best guesses for spelling and pronunciation based on what people remember about this day. After she was satisfied with her management, she walked back to the table and TV set on the Idaho Avenue side of her patio, next to which was a rabbit-sized chair that she wasn't planning on using for herself.

"Hello there, everybody," she greeted the crowd. "We have a few new people among us today - some friends, some friends-of-friends I'm happy to meet - but among our new guests today, I'd like to welcome my friend Rebekah's son, former City Chief Deputy and current County Sheriff's Deputy George Nutzinger!"

The audience responded with tepid applause for the squirrel, several of whom couldn't see him as he stood on the ground.

"Now, George, just so we can all see you better, would you like to take this seat next to the table?" asked Amanda. "And Becky, you can sit up here, too."

"Uh… sure…" the deputy mumbled. He was hoping to have a moment alone with her before they dived into this, toward the end of being able to ask her privately what she knew about the bandits from her personal interactions with them and also what the hell was this that she was expecting him to give a speech or something and nobody had cared to tell him? But he climbed his way up onto the chair while his mother accepted a lift from the rabbit.

"So… for you, Deputy, as well as for the other new members of this group," Mrs. Foote began, "I'll give a quick little recap of who we are and what we're all about."

The rest of the small speech was chiefly delivered in the direction of the crowd with a few glances toward George now and then.

"So… we're simply a group of people… regular, everyday people… who don't very much care for a certain group of criminals who think they're helping us. Deputy Nutzinger… I'm sure you're familiar with them. The ones making a clear and obvious point to copy the story of Adam Bell and try to make it work in the modern world. Complete with a British guy. They like to call themselves The Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, but… since most of their gang's fallen apart by now, and it's just two of them now… some just call them Those Two Guys. Or The Fox and the Bear. Or just Robin Hood and Little John - or just Robin and Johnny if you're close enough to be on a first-name basis with them."

Nutzinger nodded. Okay, this was actually useful information. This confirmed their names and current number and made clear that there used to be more of them. How many? Man, he wanted to ask, but he didn't want to interrupt, so he didn't.

"And - embarrassed as I am to admit it - I was one of those people who used to be close to them," she continued. "They helped me pay my bills in my time of need. They were kind to my family and the fox even gave my son his bow and arrow and that old-timey hat of his as a birthday present when I couldn't afford to get him a real one. All I thought was that these were people trying to help people, and they were making people happy, and that was enough for me…"

Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "But we all remember that one year. That one summer in particular - the rest of the country remembers how that summer ended with the tragedies in New York, but in this city, we remember the three-four months before that just as clearly. The Merry Men were seriously intimidating the mayor, he took his frustrations out on us by raising our taxes - I myself and many others were even thrown in debtor's prison for an overnight stay. But did you catch something in all that? If you did, keep that in mind."

Another deep breath. "We know what happened next. The worst-kept secret in this town is that the mayor almost resigned before he got the chance to use the attacks in New York as an excuse to get the Delaware National Guard in here… the Merry Men backed off and it was as if the whole summer had just been a complete waste of time. A gross and disgusting act on the part of the mayor, and many of us were disappointed that the Merry Men had to lay low. But then…"

One more deep breath. She looked like she was going to say something that had once made her cry, but she'd said it so many times that she'd lost the urge to weep over it.

"...My son. That Halloween. Him and his friend, the son of my friends from my ward. They went out dressed as the Merry Men… complete with the bow and arrow. And I confess! I confess I should have been more watchful as a mother! - I told him not to take that thing out trick-or-treating and he disobeyed me, but I still acknowledge I was derelict of duty as his mother for letting him get it past me. And in my defense… surely you'll all agree it was a step too far when they arrested the both of them. And it wasn't your typical 'kids messing around get taken to the station and let go' - I haven't been able to hug my son in over three years."

The crowd nodded somberly. Some, presumably the other new people, could be heard mumbling oh, no or ohmigod to themselves.

"That's what planted the seed of doubt about these men in my mind… but what did it for good was a few months later, come winter. Many of you remember that blizzard. Right on a Wednesday morning before dawn. And you might remember how Mayor Norman had all the snow plows in town start on the ritzy East Side before they ever tread a tire over here. Side streets and back alleys and even sidewalks in Long Neck and Oak Orchard were plowed clean before anybody even bothered to start cleaning up Georgetown or Hermosa Park. And when asked why he showed such obvious favoritism? He told the media proudly that he had the rich neighborhoods plowed first because there was where the people who bettered Nottingham's economy lived, they were the important people who needed to get to work first, they were the ones who made this city what it was! And we all thought, is he crazy? How can he be so blatantly anti-poor? He'd never done this before!

"...And that's when it hit me: he'd never done this before… before the Fox and the Bear scared him half to death. Just like with the tax hike, he was taking his frustrations out on us because he couldn't take it out on them. Same with not filling our potholes. Same with not doing anything to stop gang activity. Same with giving extreme punishments to petty criminals in this part of town who they think are inspired by the Merry Men. Same with never building anything west of Illinois that could create jobs and bring some money into this area. The mayor thinks we all love those criminals, so he's punishing us. And we're here because we acknowledge that, yes, the Fox and the Bear have good intentions - but they don't seem to realize that there's a fine line between being confident and being stupid, and that helping people is good and all, but you need to know exactly what you're doing to make sure you don't break everything and make everything worse for everyone. Robin Hood and Little John say they have a mission to serve us, the poor of this city, but they are, tangibly, making our lives worse than they're making them better, despite their good intentions… and for this reason, we oppose them."

She then stopped and turned to address George directly. "And… maybe I should take my own advice, because I don't know if saying this to the sheriff's deputy makes me confident or stupid: we are not fully supportive of John Norman. Far from it, there's a lot he's doing wrong that's also hurting us regardless of the criminals. We simply acknowledge that Robin Hood's and Johnny Little's methods of opposing him are just breeding chaos with no solutions, making things worse for everybody. We might be the ones they think they're fighting for, but we don't have their backs."

George nodded. "Um… duly noted," he muttered. "Yeah, no, um… thi-this isn't like a police state or anything, you're free to criticize whoever's in power all you want, and- hey, I work with the guy. Who here doesn't hate their boss?"

The crowd seemed to be split pretty evenly between those who chuckled at the deputy's quip and those who seemed annoyed that he didn't seem to be taking this completely seriously; Amanda herself fell into the latter group.

"Deputy Nutzinger," she began, "would you care to-?"

"What's everybody laughing at?"

Everyone turned to see there were a bunch of kids standing at the door and looking out the screen window again, with a pair of boys, a couple of goats who could have been twins, standing at the front.

"Dustin… Justin…" Amanda said, trying and clearly failing to maintain her temper, "you're interrupting the adults talking! Deputy Nutzinger here was just about to tell us-!"

"Is he the funny one!?" one of them asked.

"Tell us a joke, Officer Squirrel!" implored the other.

"Boys, seriously-"

"No, no, Miz Foote!" George pleaded with a smile on his face. "Don't worry, I got this." He turned to face the boys; hey, this could be a chance to make up for being too weird and cynical to that other little kid. "Heya, buds! Here's a joke for ya's! Why is six afraid of seven?"

The goat kids looked puzzled. "Uh, I dunno. Why?" one asked.

Don't say because six is racist against odd numbers. Don't say because six is racist against odd numbers… "Because six is ra-!" GODDAMMIT! George, you fucking idiot! "Uh, s-six is rrreally afraid of seven b-because, uh- because seven, eight, nine!"

...D'ya get it? Because ate? Eight? 8. Yup. Now this story can never be translated into other languages. Thanks a lot, George.

The kids got it, but they weren't laughing.

"You aren't funny," said one of the goats as he walked away from the door.

"You need to work on your delivery and stage presence," said the other as he walked away as well, the other kids visible in the doorway eventually stepping away soon after.

George was visibly confused.

"Don't mind their criticisms, George," said Amanda plainly. "Their dad does amateur stand-up as a hobby, they're accustomed to a very specific type of humor nobody can compete with."

"Ohh… kay…" Nutsy said as he turned back to address the crowd. "Uh… good to know."

"So Deputy, I understand that you were going to be kind enough to talk to us about what you're doing to help apprehend those two cretins?"

But you know what? After just botching his attempt at being genuine, he was going to overcorrect and be all too straightforward: "Actually, ma'am, I was not under the impression that I was expected to prepare some sort of speech for all of you today. I came here under the assumption that I was just gonna sit and listen to what you all had to say so that you could all feel like the authority in this town was paying attention to you."

"George!" his mother scolded under her breath as she kicked him in the ankle.

"Mom, you realize this entire crowd of people just saw you do that, right?" (They did.)

"GEORGE!" she seethed through clenched teeth.

"Actually, Becky, maybe we should turn the attention to you," said Amanda. "I'm sorry, Deputy; the idea of having a high-ranking member of the police come to instill confidence in us was so exciting that I forgot the original reason why I gathered us here today. But it's good to know that you're here to make us feel listened to… ahem."

Nutzinger nodded with a stern look on his face, conceding that she had found an unflattering hole in his speech.

"Would you like to tell everyone what you witnessed the other day, Rebekah?" asked Amanda.

"Oh! Yeah, that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?" Rebekah said with a chuckle as she stood on her chair. "Uh, hi, everybody! For those who don't know me, my name's Rebakah Nutzinger, aaand, uh, I'm one of the first people Mandy here spoke too about her, uh, distaste for those criminals in the woods. Now… has anybody else seen the wanted posters they've been putting up of those two?"

Several murmured yeahs and yeses and others raised their hands; others muttered uh, noes and wait, reallys? or shook their heads.

"Well, if you haven't seen their new wanted posters yet… then there's two people who I can guarantee saw those wanted posters before you have: a certain bear and a certain fox."

Gasps and startled looks came from the audience.

"Yes, the very same. Saw them at the TAN station at 55th and Portsmouth just the other day. They were standing out in the open, staring at their own faces, saying things like 'they probably got these pictures of us from the DMV' and 'someone should tell them I've lost weight.' Not even trying to hide who they were, assuming that anybody who was riding the subway must be on their side. But little did they know… people like me might be around."

The crowd was on the edge of their seats.

"Of course… while they didn't see a little old thing like me… a little old thing like me also couldn't run very fast to get to a subway cop, and by the time I had a hold of someone, somebody else had seen them, there was a big commotion, and they ran off down the tunnels."

Some groaned in frustration, others grumbled and swore to themselves, while others gasped at the sheer foolish brazenness of those men.

"But I might have some good news! Now, don't quote me on this, but if I read their reactions right… the bear seemed like he was trying to crack jokes and lighten the mood, and the fox? He was hardly saying anything at all. I think… I think this might just be the thing that makes them start to finally lose some confidence in themselves. The thing that makes 'em start to crack."

The audience seemed pleased by this revelation; several nodded, some oohed and aahed, and many of them found themselves smiling.

"Thank you, Rebekah, for the wonderful update. Hopefully you are right, and these rapscallions will soon start to not feel quite so invincible anymore."

"I saw them too!" said a rabbit woman in the crowd, raising her hand.

The crowd gasped.

"You did!?" asked Amanda. "What were they doing?"

"Oh, I just saw them walking, but I knew it was them alright. Between being so darn tall and his solid-red arms and legs and tail, you can't mistake that fox. And imagine my surprise when I realized he had a cast on his arm!"

More gasps. Someone said "No way!"

The strange rabbit lady nodded. "I'm just wondering where they got healthcare from! Who would mend the arm of a known criminal?"

"Hmph!" Mrs. Foote chuckled. "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they paid out-of-pocket with all that stolen money. Never doubt that they're still keeping most of what they steal for themselves. I've heard people call that fox now and then 'The Prince of Thieves' - you just know they have to keep enough to live like a couple of princes!"

Thanks to that remark, that stupid Spin Doctors song that was popular when he was in high school materialized in George's head, and since he was bored out of his mind by this conversation, he found himself swaying his head back and forth to the mental tune, allowing himself to be goofy because he just didn't care not to be.

"So Deputy," asked Amanda, "with this new information in mind, how can we expect the Department to increase their efforts to catch these criminals?"

Jesus, lady, way to kill my mood. "Well, uh… just like you said. We'll increase our efforts. We'll keep in mind that they might be starting to crack, so we'll keep doing what we were doing, but… in overdrive."

Amanda didn't hide how displeased she looked by his answer. The crowd in the background didn't look as annoyed as she did, but they still did look underwhelmed.

Not that Nutsy cared. Now he just wanted to get back to playing mental karaoke of guilty-pleasure songs from his teenage years that reminded him of a time when he didn't have to work this crappy job for a living. BUUUUUT YOUUUUUUUUU-OOO-OUUUUU… Whyyy you wanna gimme a ruuun-aaarouuund? Iiis it a suuuuure-fire waaay-?

"Is that it?" asked the rabbit. "Nothing… more specific?"

"Well… if any of you have any specific ideas for us, I'd be happy to hear them." IIIIIII saaaaaw the siiiiign, and it ooopened up my eyyyes, III saaaw the- "Uh… anybody have any ideas they'd like to share?" Aaaaand IIIII saaaid, whaaaaat abouuut, Breaaakfaaast at Tiiiffanyyy's? Sheee saaaaaid I, thiiiiink I, rememmmber the fiiiiilm...

The rabbit woman who had seen the Merry Men and noted Hood's cast raised her hand.

"Uh, yes, you, ma'am!" said the deputy, pointing. "Uh, what's your name, ma'am?"

"Cathy," said the rabbit.

Oh, God… "Cathy, it's a pleasure to meet you. What's on your mind?"

"Well, I… I'm just wondering… do you guys ever set traps for them?"

We do, and there was a very big one that was a public event four years ago when I was still tending to freshly-made corpses in literal rat houses. "Yes, uh… we're tried some in the past, didn't work… no reason we can't try again."

"I've got a similar question," said another rabbit woman.

"Yes! Uh… your name, ma'am?"

"Oh," she chuckled. "Kathy."

Oh, you are fucking kidding me… "Oh! Well, uh… that can be a little confusing, eh?" Nutzinger chuckled himself. "Uh… i-is there any way to differentiate you two? Like is one of you Cathy with a C and one of you Kathy with a K?" He could have just asked for last initials, but he wanted to see if he had correctly called his shot from yesterday.

"I'm Cathy with a C," said the first one. "But, uh…" she chuckled. "My last name starts with a K. Klein."

"And I'm Kathy with a K, but my last name starts with a C!" said the other. "Conijn. It's Dutch."

I should have made a fucking bet with Ward, I SHOULD HAVE MADE A FUCKING- "Heh, well ain't that a little sumpthin'-sumpthin'? Uh… Ms. Conijn, what's your idea?"

"So, has the department ever tried, like, uh, oh I don't know… a sting operation? Like… send someone undercover?"

Lady, do YOU wanna volunteer for that? Because nobody currently on the force is that fucking crazy! "You know what? Interesting idea! I'll pass that along to the sheriff."

Kathy C. with a K just nodded slowly, looking unenthused. She didn't buy for a second that George had taken her suggestion seriously.

Neither did Amanda, so she was going to take over the reins. "You know what? I actually have an idea for how we, as civilians, can be doing more to protest those two idiots. That way we needn't be completely reliant upon our law enforcement," she sneered with a side-eye as she picked up a VHS tape from the table and stuck it about halfway into the TV's VCR slot before duty called:

"Miss Amanda!" hollered a rabbit boy from the screen door.

Mrs. Foote put on a smile that wasn't trying as hard as it could have to look real. "Yyyes, Danny?"

"Graciela called me the Antichrist!"

Several in the crowd gasped, in stark contrast to a few other children behind Danny who were giggling at his belittlement.

Amanda looked equal parts infuriated and embarrassed. "Oh…! Deary me. Excuse me, folks, I'll be right back…" she said as she walked into the house to go wring out the one called Graciela.

Nutzinger caught a glimpse inside as she entered, and there were even more children than he'd previously realized were there. "Jeez, how many kids does she have in this place?" he whispered to his mother.

"Oh, hush, George, I told you not all the rabbits in there are hers! Most of them aren't!"

"No, I meant, like, she invites a cop to her house-slash-place-of-business, but she… does she not know or care about occupancy limits? I could get the fire department in here if I really wanted to to see if she's violating code."

But nevermind all that, now they could hear Amanda raising her voice at this girl named Graciela who had called the boy named Danny the Antichrist.

"Man, it was messed up that some little kids are calling each other 'the Antichrist', but considering how she's going off on them, I can't blame them for thinking being mature means being mean," he remarked under his breath.

"George! Enough!" Rebekah scolded again. "You'd have trouble controlling your temper too if your son got sent to prison! You're just looking for things to be negative about!"

"No, if I was looking for things to be negative about, I'd say she must be racist because when the last kids pissed her off, she just told them off from the door, but when the presumably-Hispanic girl messes up, she goes inside to bitch her out personally."

"She probably just found 'Antichrist' to be an excessively mean insult! Plus you know how religious she is!"

"Is this place legally incorporated as a religious entity?"

"What? No! Most of the kids here are just from her neighborhood, not from her church!"

"Alright, because if it turns out she's giving them a religious lecture in what's supposed to be a secular daycare, I can probably get this place shut down."

"George!"

"Oh! Or maybe she does have it listed as a religious-affiliated daycare for a tax exemption but she's not using it for her church! If this opposite problem is also true, I can also get this place shut down!"

"George! She does pay taxes on this business! Will you cut it out with the negativity?"

Everyone could hear the proprietor's angry footsteps growing closer as the yelling finally died out.

"I'm just saying, I'm not getting good vibes from this woman."

Amanda threw the inner door inwards and the outer door out, and let the storm door slam behind her. She went straight to the TV set and pushed the videocassette in, not saying a word until the recording started.

"Apologies for all of that," she said to her audience as she pressed the fast-forward button on the appliance. "So anyway… I have an idea for a way that we can all be more vigilant about… you know… catching the criminals when we have a chance."

"'Catching'?" asked the deputy with a furrowed brow. "What, like making a citizen's arrest?"

Mrs. Foote smirked. "That might be a good way of putting it." She pressed the pause button, rewound a bit, and hit pause again. "Okay everyone, this is a commercial I saw. I already own this product, but I think it'd be best if you all saw it yourselves."

The Nutzingers turned in their seat to see the screen and Amanda stepped out of the way so her audience could see.

The commercial started out with a scene rendered with very crude 3-D animation that looked horrifically primitive and outdated even by 2005 standards; mere seconds later, it would become clear that this artistic choice was made because they wouldn't have been able to find actors willing to play certain roles. The first scene showed a rabbit standing on a sidewalk, and the narrator wasted no time getting right to the point:

"Rabbits, hares, are you tired of foxes harassing you?" the voiceover guy asked as a CGI red fox 'walked' up to the rabbit (its legs weren't even moving, it just sort of glided), the only part of its body animated being the arm that it extended to push the bunny down.

Oh, don't tell me that this is going where I think it's going… Deputy Nutzinger thought to himself as he watched. Surely several others in the audience had the same idea.

"They say they're not all bad…" This next scene showed a rabbit 'walking' (sliding) by a fox, the fox eating what seemed like a drumstick of fried chicken, chewing with its mouth open, its jaw opening and closing in mechanical rhythm as specs of meat flew out and sprinkled upon the bunny as the fox turned its head to keep a taunting eye on it. The subtext was clear: this could be you, rabbit.

"...but it sure seems like most of them are!" The third CGI scene showed another bunny minding its own business as two foxes approached out of nowhere, each grabbing one of the rabbit's ears and ripping them clean off, and despite the low-effort animation, whoever made this commercial took the time to animate blood pooling up in the open wounds and running down the rabbit's body.

"Eww…" George groaned at that particularly graphic scene, several others also making sounds of disgust.

The commercial then cut to a live-action segment with the narrator addressing the camera; this rabbit guy looked like the kind of dude who beat his wife. "My fellow lapines! We shouldn't need to live in fear of our oldest enemies! We now have a product that will ensure those bullies keep their distance!"

He's not really gonna… George thought to himself.

"Introducing Springer's Fox Repellent!"

...He's gonna.

The spokesperson held up a canister of the product. "Springer's Fox Repellent is specially formulated based on modern zoology's most current and updated knowledge of vulpine biology to maximize discomfort for your harasser!"

The scene cut to another CGI segment: a rabbit spraying a fox in the face with the aerosol, and the fox falling straight backwards and rolling back and forth, as if writhing in pain. And maybe it was an animation error, but at a certain point, the fox's beady dot-eyes went from normal in one frame to blood-red in the next and stayed that way.

"Just one spray with Springer's Fox Repellent, and those foxes will be incapacitated, and then they'll know what it's like to feel small and preyed-upon!"

Now it cut to a montage: "And Springer's Fox Repellent doesn't just work on red foxes!" Cue a slideshow of all different types of foxes, corsacs and Capes and arctics and fennecs and more, none of which would be called by their proper names: "It works on Asian foxes, Indian foxes, Middle Eastern foxes, African foxes, even Eskimo foxes!"

Did they just manage to combine species racism with ethnic racism? George wondered. That is… vulgarly impressive, actually.

"And it doesn't end with foxes!" Back to the spokesbunny, presenting related products: "Springer's also makes Dog Repellent! Coyote Repellent! Wolf Repellent! Big Cat Repellent! Even Bear Repellent!"

Amanda pointed to the screen with a knowing smile as the announcer mentioned that the company also made Bear Repellent.

The commercial went on for a little bit longer, reiterating its points and products and hinting at other oft-victimized species who might find such items useful before giving viewers a phone number to call or a P.O. box in Dallas to which prospective buyers could send a check or money order. The ad ended and a Reese's commercial began as if everything was normal. Mrs. Foote pressed the pause button and turned to address her gatherers.

Nutsy was flabbergasted. How were all these people okay with the fact that she'd just shown them this? And this woman said she already owned this product?

"That company isn't owned by Jerry Springer, is it?" his mom joked to Amanda, much to his disgust.

"No, but I'm sure it'd be better for his ratings if he did!" Mrs. Foote chuckled back, then held up her canister. "So this is my can of Fox Repellent, and I'm happy to say that I've only needed to use it once - right there." She pointed to her back window and everybody looked at it for a moment before turning back to her. "That fox had the nerve to come to my home and aggressively demand my forgiveness for all the damage he's caused to my city - and my family."

Gasps. Shock and awe.

"He refused to take No for an answer, so I did what I needed to do to get him to stop bothering me. Yes, he noticed what it was and he dodged it in time - but it still put the fear of God in him! I'd have called the police, but I confess, I stewed with rage at that limey jerk for so long that by the time I had the mind to call, I knew he was probably long gone. But here's what I'm thinking: he wouldn't expect any of you to be armed with this, now would he? Perhaps I'll never have a clear shot at him again if he knows what I have on me, but any of you? You're strangers to him. And he's all too trusting of strangers."

The audience's faces lightened up as they started nodding and murmuring in agreement amongst themselves. And Nutzinger found this reprehensible.

"Okay, stop. Timeout. I need to interject," interjected George interjectionally. "So do you now know or not care that even if you, an otherwise law-abiding citizen, walks up to even the most wanted criminal in the city's history and maces them with something called 'Fox Repellent', that they could still press charges against you from prison for a hate crime? Because as cops, we're aware of this stuff, and it's considered a racist item because it's literally just regular pepper spray with a label on it saying it exists solely to victimize a specific group of people! And all the other sprays they sell are probably just the same too, except mayyybe higher concentrations for bigger mammals or something. And for Christ's sake, that company must know they're doing something wrong, because they called their one spray 'Big Cat Repellent' because they probably realized calling it 'T-word Repellent' was a little too on-the-nose! The fact of the matter is that you carrying that canister alarms me, as does the fact that you saw a commercial for it on television - what channel was that even airing on!?"

"A premium channel I pay extra for which caters to the rabbit and hare community; you've probably never heard of it," said Mrs. Foote said with a glare. "But you know what? I… agree. The fact that this product exists is a bit worrying, I agree completely. Heaven knows I didn't have much of an issue with foxes before I had an issue with this specific fox - I invited him into my home, didn't I?"

"I don't know! I was gonna ask you about how you knew him personally, but instead we jumped right into this little seminar-!"

"And you'll also note that I never said once that I encourage anyone to initiate violence against them. I thought it was understood that I was only speaking of using it when they harass any of us like he harassed me. I don't know why you're making the least charitable assumptions about everything I'm saying."

"I'll tell you exactly why I'm making the least charitable assumptions about everything you're saying! It's because after you instruct a bunch of people to buy a racist product which is also a scam, I'm gonna question your judgment for every subsequent thing that falls out of your mouth!"

Mrs. Nutzinger kicked his son in the ankle again.

"Jesus, Mom, will you cut that out and assess the situation and realize I'm right and side with me for once!? Or do you see me and just think of your ex-husband!?"

Rebekah scoffed and turned her head. "Well you certainly turned out looking like him!"

George really didn't need to hear that, but this was no time for daddy issues. This was a time for racial issues!

"Well the fact of the matter, Deputy," said Amanda, "is whether you like it or not, the fact that you can buy these off TV infomercials means they're not illegal-"

"Neither are knives from Nazi Germany with swastikas and stuff on them if history buffs want to collect them, but if you actually use either of these things for their originally-intended purpose, that's a hate crime, which is not only illegal, but super extra illegal! O-or at least they are here! I don't know how the laws are in Utah or wherever you're from but I can assure you that what you just advocated everybody do is illegal in this city, this county, and this state!"

The rabbit raised an eyebrow. "I'm Delaware born and raised. Were you assuming I'm from Utah because of my faith?"

...Well, shit. "Maybe," George conceded. Fine, he had lost that particular point.

Amanda shrugged and turned away; we still don't know whether she thought deep down that the squirrel was right and was saving herself embarrassment or if she thought the squirrel was wrong and was saving him embarrassment. "Fine then, I'll just use it as a deterrent going forward. Along with the bottle of Bear Repellent I have coming in the mail-"

"Well then you're double racist! Why do you even want to own these things!?"

"You haven't listened to a word I've been saying this whole time, have you? I think I've explained myself quite well."

But then George remembered something. Someone. He stood on his chair and looked into the crowd, looking for someone… reddish.

"Uh- y-you, ma'am!" he said, pointing.

Everyone turned to look at the lone fox in the audience.

"Me?" she asked meekly, clearly nervous.

"Uh, y-yes, you, ma'am! I-I'm sorry, I don't know your name?"

She didn't answer, instead just staring blankly at him. It wasn't clear whether she was withholding this information or if being suddenly called to attention made her freeze up.

"...What's your name, ma'am?" Nutsy repeated, solely because he thought it would be weird if he continued on along without getting an answer.

"...Linda."

"Linda, thank you, I know that it's weird me putting you on the spot like this, but I-I gotta ask… how do you feel about the fact that this woman is advocating for buying a product that specifically targets your people as enemies?"

Linda glanced at Amanda before turning back to George; she looked steadily nervous throughout, so it again wasn't clear whether she was uncomfortable with Mrs. Foote as well and was trying to hide it or if that was just residual nervousness from the deputy's question; suffice it to say that we've never been able to locate this woman to ask her what was going through her head that day. But one way or another, she said this:

"Well… I'm not the most comfortable with it… but considering the circumstances, I get it. I trust Amanda wouldn't use it against any other foxes besides Hood."

George was stunned.

"And… y'know, I actually know a few other vixens who carry that stuff - not necessarily that brand, but fox-geared pepper spray all the same - because, you know, sometimes tods follow them and hit on them. People are generally attracted to their own species first and foremost and, well, men of all species can be creeps."

Many of the women in the audience expressed their agreement with that last part.

"O-okay, well… dog folks!" George exclaimed. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know your names, but, uh… y-you saw the commercial, they sell so-called 'Dog Repellent' too! Are you okay with all this!?"

The malamute and the husky, who were not sitting next two each other and clearly were two entirely separate people with two entirely separate lives, both seemed to think for a moment before eventually nodding tepidly.

"Eh, basically what Linda said," answered the husky woman.

"I definitely would rather it hadn't come to this, but… it has, so… here we are," answered the malamute woman.

"Hm, now I'm thinking about getting Dog Repellent for that Mastiff in my apartment building who keeps asking me if I want his help with my plumbing…" the husky mused aloud.

"Deputy," said Mrs. Foote, "I invited you here to help the police and the common people reach an understanding about these criminals. And I don't expect you to agree with everything I say, that's completely fair. But if you're going to oppose me to the point of painting me as a bigot, then we can't have a meaningful discussion. If you interrupt me so rudely again, I'm going to have to ask you to leave my-"

"Miss Amanda!" Now at the screen door was a beaver boy.

"Speaking of interruptions…" Nutsy quipped to himself.

"What is it now, Brendan?" asked the caretaker, sounding exhausted.

"Jesse called me an autism!"

The crowd gasped yet again, and even Amanda herself looked more shocked than embarrassed.

"He called you what!?" she asked.

"Jesse called me an autism and now he's telling everyone to stay away from me or they'll catch autism from me!"

In a flurry of emotions, Mrs. Foote walked back to the door to go and fulfill her duty as an authority figure. "I-I'm sorry, everybody, this doesn't usually happen! I'll be right back!"

"Jeez, 'an autism'?" Nutzinger wondered aloud under his breath. "I don't know what's worse, their manners or their grammar. Reminds me of elementary school when the teachers wouldn't let us call each other 'retarded' but we all found out the full phrase was 'mental retardation' so we figured out a way around it and started calling each other 'mental' instead, as if saying 'are you mental?' made any freaking sense."

"When do you let off!?" his mom scolded in a hushed tone. "Amanda's a nice woman who just happens to be having a bad day, and you're picking on her for every little thing that goes wrong!"

"You're saying this like her encouraging people to buy something racist wasn't a choice she made."

And his mom didn't have an immediate response to that one. "...Yeah, I agree, that was sketchy, but she explained herself well. If I ever get the feeling she was just genuinely hateful toward foxes, I wouldn't allow myself to stay here."

"If that didn't convince you, what would!?"

"Oh, I don't know!" she said with a huff.

"I'm just saying, between the racial shit - ethnically and zoologically - and the not-very-tight ship she's running here, my opinion of this woman is in freefall right now. And it alarms me that you don't feel the same way… though I'll concede that she's giving this Jesse kid the business the same way she did Graciela, so I'm open to the idea that she's off the hook for the ethnic thing. Or is Jesse Hispanic too? I dunno, have I ever met a Hispanic dude named Jesse? Don't say Jesse Ventura."

"George, stop."

The rabbit stepped back out of the house, and once again she went straight to the TV set before saying anything to anybody. She pressed the fast-forward button again and held it before speaking to the crowd behind her head:

"Again I apologize for that, everyone… it really does seem like kids these days are getting meaner and meaner to one another. Must be all those grown-up cartoon shows they keep making, the kids think they're regular cartoons for kids and their parents don't know any better. Although… speaking of television… wouldn't you know it, during the same program I was taping, they aired another commercial that… I think would be another good idea for us."

She pressed pause, stepped out of the way, and pressed play.

The group was greeted by imagery of an American flag blowing in the wind.

"This… is America," began the bass-baritone narrator.

Oh, don't tell me this is going where I think it's going, too, Nutzinger found himself thinking.

The screen dissolved to a quick montage of several nuclear families, all with multiple children: a deer family, a rabbit family, a wolf family, and - probably as tokenism - a lion family.

"We raise our families with American values, including honoring our freedom to do all we can to protect our families."

Don't do this to me, Mormon rabbit lady.

Now began a montage of prominent Democratic politicians. "But certain people have a very different idea of American values than we do, and they want to do all they can to take our freedoms away."

Am I seriously about to go 3-for-3 in my predictions?

More shots of traditionally-structured families with two-point-five kids and a two-story house on a large wooded lot: a family of otters, then horses, then chipmunks, then pandas - 'sure, throw some Asian people in there so people don't think our commercial is racist,' someone had probably thought.

"Exercise your Second Amendment rights to protect your family… before they're taken away from you." Ah, the clever wordplay in the double-meaning of "they".

"I should buy a freaking lottery ticket today," George voicelessly whispered to himself. Nobody at the time seemed to hear him, but when he was later telling his boss everything that had been going through his head at that meeting, Sheriff Woodland agreed that he ought to have stopped at a 7-Eleven and picked up some Mega Millions or Powerball numbers.

The commercial gave viewers a website to consult to learn about what one would need to do to legally acquire a firearm in any particular state, with more scenes of upper-middle-class exurban homes occupied by happy, smiling families, most (but not quite all) belonging to species whose people had at least some roots in the European continent. There was even a family of red foxes in there at the end.

Mrs. Foote made a point to pause the tape so the screen froze on the name of the website on screen. "If anyone needs a piece of paper or a pen to write this down with, just let me know," she said with a soft smile. "Now, this we would need to be much more careful with, and if some of you don't feel comfortable doing this yourselves, that's fine. But the man in the commercial was right: we have a right to defend ourselves. And I wouldn't even tell you to carry a pistol in your purse unless you felt so inclined! I'm simply saying if either one of those two ever tries to visit you on your property, and you don't want them there… you have the right."

Everyone understood what right she was referring to.

And what George found even more disturbing is that not a single one of them seemed to realize that she was grossly misinterpreting that "right".

Amanda turned to him, looking still unfriendly. "I hope you're more content with this idea since it's even more clear than the last one that it's a self-defense strategy, Deputy."

Nutzinger shook his head a few times, his mouth hanging open and his eyes squinting a bit, before he stood up to speak.

"Okay… I'm glad I came today, because I don't know what woulda happened with all of you if I wasn't here to tell you how the law worked! So first things first, lady, Delaware isn't a stand-your-ground state, it's a duty-to-retreat state, which means that if someone's attacking you… you'd better make damn sure that you do everything you can to escape the situation before retaliating in any way that might hurt them. If someone's attacking you on the street and you straight-up shoot them, it'd better be because you ran away for a mile and they're still on your tail! So automatic nix on anybody here carrying a Glock in their handbags. Now, to be fair, there is tehhhchnically a provision that there's an exception if this happens inside your house - it's called castle law. So in Delaware, if you decide to stand your ground and up and shoot them, you'd better be inside your home or workplace. BUT! About that! Notice that I said 'inside your house'! Or workplace, whatever - but not on your property! Not on your lawn, not on your stoop, not on your fire escape. They'd need to be breaking into your freaking house, your apartment, the physical space in which you live in and all your stuff is - for bonus points, they'd better be armed with a deadly weapon - before you're even remotely within your 'rights' to shoot them in cold blood! And they'd better… be… ATTACKING you. Not just an unwanted guest, they need to be physically trying to make you die, before you're even remotely legally justified in using deadly force on them. The defense needs to fit the offense! If they're in your bedroom and pointing a gun at your face, then fine! Fire away! But if they're just welcoming themselves in and they sit at your kitchen table and try to make small talk - then call us, and don't you dare think about hitting them with anything harder than a newspaper! Yeah, these are wanted criminals. No, duh! But they aren't like… outlaws from the Wild West who are literally outside the protection of the law! They still deserve a fair trial! The posters all over town? They don't say 'wanted dead or alive' - they say call us! Do not take the law into your own hands unless you're ready to tell it to the judge - and probably a bunch more judges after that! Now please tell me you all understand why what she just proposed is an enormously bad idea!"

Looking at his mom, Amanda, and the audience, they all looked speechless, taken aback by not just his words but also the sheer quantity of words. And he just kept scanning back and forth, looking for the first person who'd dare to speak. And when someone finally did, they weren't within the deputy's line of vision.

"That law's stupid!"

Now George was the one who was speechless. And in his silence, a chorus of dissent sang:

"Yeah, why aren't we a stand-your-ground state?"

"I shouldn't have to be the one who runs away if someone attacks me on the street!"

"It's like he forgot that they literally carry bows and arrows with them."

"Sounds like these laws are meant to protect the attackers and not the victims!"

"If it wasn't legal to shoot people on your property, why would that commercial be allowed to say it was?"

"Nice to know that the elitists in power don't trust the people to use good judgment!"

"Officer, you really should tell them to change the laws."

And to cap it all off, Cathy K. with a C raised her hand meekly. "You know, I was actually going to ask earlier why you guys don't use deadly force on them more often, but I didn't wanna ask a second question if other people were still waiting to ask one."

Nutsy found his voice again: "Well- we have, and it didn't work! That happens sometimes! That happens a lot of the time! But having a bunch of emboldened civilians open fire on them won't magically increase our chances of catching them-!"

"Yes it will," said someone.

"No, it won't!"

"More shots means more chances, that's literally how math works," said this strange woman who the squirrel still couldn't see.

He didn't have a comeback for that. Jeez, maybe this was how it felt to be Ward.

"Well one way or another, as a representative of the Nottingham City and County Police Department, my official stance is: don't shoot them unless they shoot you first."

Several men and women in the audience audibly groaned and scoffed at that.

"Okay then, Deputy," said Amanda, leaning over the squirrel. "Would you rather we go back to our original plan of arming ourselves with Fox Repellent instead of a firearm?"

"I dunno, is getting charged with a hate crime on your bucket list or something!?"

"Pah!" she scoffed. "I already explained to you how we were planning on using a questionably prejudiced product for righteous reasons. And actually, if anything, if they get the impression that the people they're trying to help don't like foxes and bears, that might finally damage their morale!"

George was stunned.

"So…" he began, "you're using racism… as a strategy."

Amanda closed her eyes for a moment as she took a deep breath through her nose. "...If you must put it that way. Yes."

"Lady, what the FUCK is wrong with you!?"

"Do NOT use such foul language in my house!" the rabbit hollered as she pointed a finger at him.

"We're not in your house! Castle law doesn't apply here! And you're still not addressing the fact that there is indeed something wrong with you!"

"Your mother was right about you! You really are just an insolent little boy who never grew up and just stumbled butt-backwards into an authority position!"

Nutzinger turned to his mom. "Thanks for talking about me that way-"

But he stopped talking when he realized that she didn't actually look angry with him. Rebekah looked scared. Not necessarily scared of him, but more like… scared of the scene unfolding before her.

"I was kind enough to invite you to my home and you repay me but not only questioning the soundness of my ideas but my morality!? All while you see I'm doing my best to maintain my composure and stop these children from calling each other horrible names so they can stop interrupting me!"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, lady! Make sure you teach these kids that calling each other 'antichrists' and 'autisms' is bad because it's mean to you."

"Get off this chair and get out of my yard right this insta-!"

"Miss Amanda?"

Everyone looked once again to the screen door. This time the voice came from a little girl who hadn't been seen in the doorway yet. She was one of those small felines from the Arabian peninsula who used to be considered 'silvestris cats' before they decided to start calling themselves 'lybica cats' to differentiate themselves from their cousins on the European continent; hers were the people who had given the city of Muscat its western name. This little lybica girl was dressed in garb that rivalled that of the Foote family in its sheer conservatism.

"What is it, Hamidah?" asked Amanda, trying to sweeten her tone.

"Kenny called me a terrorist!"

That elicited the biggest gasp from the crowd that day.

"Jeez, these kids are being actually racist to each other," the deputy muttered to himself and his mom, sharing in the crowd's shock. "Usually kids don't start tossing around ethnic stuff until they're, what, eight? Nine? Ten? Eleven? Gotta wonder who they're learning it from."

His mom had nothing to say to that. And strangely, Mrs. Foote was also completely silent, just staring at the little Middle Eastern girl with a completely blank expression. And she kept staring until she turned and walked away from the door and the crowd, a hand over her mouth, turning and taking a few steps down the alley.

"Miss Amanda?" asked the little cat girl. She didn't sound like she was about to cry, but she did sound like she was processing the feeling of being abandoned.

George looked around at the rest of the crowd. Everyone must have figured it was impolite to keep staring at the little girl, so they stared into space instead.

"Seriously? Nobody's going to be an adult here?" the deputy wondered at full volume.

He kept looking over the audience. A few people got up to go talk to Amanda, but that was as far as taking action in the situation was going.

"Aw, hell, I'll do it myself," Nutzinger muttered as he stood up and started shimmying down his chair's leg. "And then said the Lord, wisdom will come not from the mouths of the elders, but from the twenty-six-year-old guy who lives with his mom!"

He walked over to the screen door where the little Muslim lybica girl was standing on the other side, watching curiously as the littler squirrel man dressed like a police officer approached.

"Hello there, young lady," the deputy greeted as he looked up at the cat. "My name's George. What's your name?"

"Hamidah," she replied.

"Hi, Hamidah, it's nice to meet you," he said softly. "By the way, that's a cute little dress you're wearing." I'm just trying to make her feel better, I hope to fuck that wasn't a creepy thing to say to a five-year-old.

"Thanks." She didn't immediately lighten up, but she did seem like she felt like she was being thoroughly acknowledged. "Are you a cop?"

George nodded with a chuckle. "Yes… yes, I'm a police officer."

"I've never seen a cop as little as you."

"Ah, I get that a lot."

"Am I in trouble?"

"What?"

"Are you gonna arrest me because I made Miss Amanda mad?"

"Oh, no no no no no!" he insisted with a smile. "You're not in any trouble. If anything, Miss Amanda's in trouble because she was supposed to help you when you had a problem but she didn't. But first, I'm gonna try to help you if she won't. So I heard someone said something really mean to you?"

"Yeah, Kenny called me a terrorist."

"Oh, that's not a nice thing to say to a sweet little girl like you! You seem like a perfectly good girl, you don't deserve to be called something like that!" I swear to God, if one of these other adults who didn't even attempt to help this little girl accuses me of insinuating that it's okay to call other people terrorists, my hand on a fuckin' bible, I'm gonna bite somebody's jugular out. "You're not a terrorist and he shouldn't be telling you that you are one."

Hamidah still wasn't smiling, but she did look like she was at peace with what the deputy was saying. "Thanks, Mister George."

"You're very welcome, Hamidah. Now… where's that Kenny kid? I wanna tell him why what he did was wrong."

"Okay. Kenny, a cop wants to talk to you!"

The lybica girl walked away from the door to go retrieve the one called Kenny, and a few seconds later, the offender came to the door. And wouldn't you know it, it was that lone fox boy George had seen earlier.

Upon seeing the deputy, Kenny looked both surprised and worried.

"Are you the cop?" asked the kit.

The squirrel nodded. "Yes. Yes I am. Deputy George Nutzinger."

"Um… hi, Mr. Nutzinger… why did you want to talk to me?"

George took a second to take the boy in. Okay, so this kid's fur was such a desaturated shade of orange that it was damn-near yellow, as opposed to Linda's whose fur was such a deep red that it was almost brown. But just to be safe…

"Uh, Linda?" the deputy asked.

Linda didn't hear, but a sheep next to her did, elbowed her and pointed to the deputy. George gestured to Kenny with his head and eyes; Linda understood the question and shook her head.

The squirrel turned back to the kit. "So that nice little kitten tells me that you called her something not very nice. Is this true, Kenny?"

"...No?"

"You didn't call her a terrorist?" Wait, crap, you're not supposed to ask questions with negatives or 'yes' and 'no' both sound like denials. "Because she tells me you called her that."

The boy seemed very disconnected. A little worried, a little embarrassed, but he also seemed like he was having trouble paying attention, switching back and forth between giving eye contact - and to be fair, Hamidah had basically acted the same way. But nothing too odd, kids of that age often responded to talkings-to by authority figures by barely responding at all.

"Kenny, grown-ups will think better of you if you look them in the eyes when they're talking to you."

Kenny looked at him.

"Yes or no, Kenny, did you call her that?"

"...Yeah."

"That wasn't very nice, Ken. Why did you call her that?"

"...Because I thought people like her hate America and want to destroy it."

"And you know what? I'm not gonna lie to you, there are some people like that, but for the most part, if they hate America, they're not gonna move here and live here. And if her parents are cool enough with other cultures to let their daughter go to a daycare run by a lady who isn't even the same religion as them, I'm willing to bet her family doesn't hate America. Does that all make sense?"

"...Kinda, I guess…" Kenny trailed off again and looked up beyond the deputy, and George was so used to this kit's eyes wandering that the thought didn't even cross his mind that maybe Kenny was looking at something specific beyond him rather than just staring off into space.

"Well I can explain it more to you later, Kenny, but for right now, I'd like you to call Hamidah back over here, because I wanna hear you give her an apol-"

That rabbit woman must have been light-footed because Nutsy neither heard nor felt her footsteps approaching behind him. All he knew was that one moment he was talking to Kenny through the screen and the next the storm door quickly swung open into him, sweeping and rolling him away. His vision was a blur as he took that tumble, but he could see the purple-clad bespectacled bunny had her hand on the door handle, and now she was leaning over the little yellow-orange fox kit.

"What, the HECK, do YOU know, about calling somebody a terrorist!?" she spat, pointing and ultimately poking his face and chest. "YOU'RE the one terrorizing innocent people! YOU, are the one hurting innocent people and ruining their lives! You are a bad, EVIL little fox and you have absolutely NO place to be calling yourself a good person! YOU are the one damaging the lives of good people! YOU are!"

The crowd was stunned. Every single person there understood the subtext of what she was saying - except for Kenny.

"You know the only way you'll ever make up for all the damage you've caused!? By GOING AWAY! Just… go away! Nobody ever wants to see you again! You want to make our lives better!? Well you can make our lives better by going away! Everyone's lives are gonna be a lot better when YOU'RE not in them! You stupid fudging FOX!"

That's when the little fox started crying, and a few moments later, he ran away into the house, sobbing at the top of his lungs.

Upon closer inspection, one could see that Amanda had been screaming through tears of her own. But those tears didn't stop when she started chuckling at the little kit running away from her.

"Yeah! Go on! Run off like you always do! You COWARD! Everyone knows deep down you're a COWARD!"

Mrs. Foote stood there cry-chuckling for a few moments as members of the audience stood up to console her, and almost as soon as they put their paws upon her shoulders, she buried her face in her hands and began weeping.

"My son is not a fudging terrorist!" Sniff. "...My son… is not a FUDGING TERRORIST!"

Nutsy just sat on the concrete, palms on the ground, looking up at the scene and not having a clue what to say or do. But - as one is often guilty of doing when someone says or does something bigotted and a member of the belittled demographic is present - he snuck a glance over at Linda to gauge her reaction. But the vixen wasn't there anymore. It was tough to see from his low vantage point, but he could see through the legs of the chairs that she was walking away down the alley, a few others with her, and none of them seemed to have any plans to return.

Talk about saved by the bell, his radio dinged. He got to his feet and walked around the side of the house. As he did, he glanced at his mom.

"Be right back, work's ringing me."

She nodded. She too looked rather disconnected from the scene before her.

The deputy turned on his radio. "This is Nutzinger, what's up?"

"Deputy, are you and the chief - or, goddammit, the sheriff - are you and Woodland not together right now?" asked the dispatcher.

"Uh, no, we split up for the day. I'm by 40th and Idaho lending my ear to a, uh… a community event. I don't know where he is. Why, what's up?"

"Well Woodland's all the way out in Peach Creek, so you're a lot closer to downtown. I mean, we need you both there, but you can probably get there faster, and we need authority there ASAP."

"Where's 'there' and what's happening downtown?"

"Just like we expected, we released the video of the hyena kid getting beat up, and now there's riots downtown."

"Riots!? Not just a protest?"

"Aw, protests, riots, same difference."

"No, big difference."

"Well hurry up and just get down here. The epicenter seems like it's around the Constitution Avenue bridge."

"Alright, alright, I'll get over there. Don't know my ETA though."

"Just get there as fast as you can, Dep. Over and out."

Nutzinger extinguished his radio and went back to the back patio, where amid a few people still trying to comfort Amanda, several others were having an open debate.

"Oh c'mon, you know what happened to her son! That word set her off!"

"I don't care, that was uncalled for, you don't take your trauma out on a child."

"May I remind you that kid was being honest-to-God racist against that little Muslim girl?"

"You wanna stick around for when his parents come to pick him up to tell them he deserved all that?"

"Does anybody know where Linda went? She was my ride over here…"

George walked over to the chair his mom was sitting on, still seemingly desensitized to the madness that surrounded her.

"Uh… sorry, Mom, but I need you to take me home now. Or at least to a station where they can give me a ride downtown. There's… some shit going on down there, I'm not exactly sure what myself."

There was no protest. "Alright. Understood. Let's go."

The way that she didn't even attempt to admonish him for trying to sneak out of an awkward situation was enough of a surprise to him. So imagine how surprised he was when Rebekah shimmied down the chair and went straight toward the street.

"Uh- Mom, aren't you gonna say something to your friend?" George asked as he gestured to Amanda, who was still scream-sobbing.

Mrs. Nutzinger was quiet for a second as she stared at the rabbit and took a deep breath through her nose. "Uh… no, she… she seems a bit preoccupied." She turned back to the street and took off for her parked car. "I'll just… I'll just call her later."

George took one last glance at the messy scene. He would have liked to have imagined that he'd have stuck around and done something to help if he didn't genuinely have a higher order of duty to tend to.

-IllI-

"So can we just… agree that… both of the following things are true?" George ventured tentatively. "That A, yes, that kid said something wildly racist and needed to be punished in some capacity, but also… B, that lady was clearly taking out her issues with The Fox on that fox and that kid didn't deserve to be berated just like that?"

Rebekah didn't take her eyes off the road as she drove him to the Georgetown precinct. "You don't have to fight me on this, George, I agree with you. I wasn't comfortable with how she treated that fox boy. And when you asked me if I didn't already think she had a problem with foxes, what would? Well… there you have it. And I'm ashamed that it even took me that long." Something about her tone was disturbingly distant again.

"...Mom, you okay?"

"Eh, I'm not the victim here, I have no reason not to be okay… You win this one, George. You were right. She's not somebody I should be associating with."

This might have been a shitty question to ask, but… hell, he only had one chance at it:

"Mom, you sound like you're… you sound like you're really torn up to admit I was right."

"I am," she said with a shrug. "I admit it, I'm a proud person who doesn't like to be proven wrong. Just like your father. And just like you never had any chance of not being."

George forced himself to chuckle through his nose. "Alright, I can't dispute that."

"So now I win that round!"

And they both chuckled out loud, if only briefly. They were silent again for a moment before Rebekah felt compelled to clarify something:

"Now… I'm not completely ruling out that I'd ever attend one of her meetings ever again… but it'd hafta be after I talk to her privately and hear her say that she regrets how she acted today. And if I feel like pushing my luck, I might have her say that you were right to be a snarky little dick to her."

Nutsy smiled. "And what if she doesn't apologize?"

Becky thought for a moment before she shrugged. "What if I don't call her in the first place?"

George nodded.

"...I am gonna call some other people from that group, though," his mother continued. "I could see some of them being disgusted, too, but… I can also see some of them defending her. And what I'm really afraid of is that if there're people in that group that'll have her back after all that… they might have her back on anything."

"...What, like they're a cult?"

"Not quite, but close enough."

"Hm," the deputy wondered. "No disrespect to her, but she was breaking some of the key rules of good leadership… chief among them, 'don't flip the fuck out at people if you're actually a confident person.' And I mean that in reference to both how she treated me and the kids she told off."

"Yeah, well sometimes you don't have to be a textbook-good leader to inspire people to follow you. Sometimes people wanna see their leaders misbehave in the same way they would in their position. Hell, that's probably why all those racist war-loving hicks re-elected Bush."

George smiled and chuckled again.

"By the way…" his mom began, "...do you have some experience working with children that I don't know about?" (It must be said, Dear Reader, that recalling this conversation with Rebekah has been by far the most difficult interview we've conducted yet.)

"...You think I have children you don't know about?"

"Experience I don't know about, with children."

"Uh… no, why?"

For the first time that drive, Rebekah took her eyes off the road for just a second to glance at her son. "Because you handled those kids pretty well."

That struck him as an odd compliment. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean- yeah, you got off to a rocky start, but especially with that little Muslim girl and her bully… not flawless, but for someone with no experience dealing with kids, yeah, that was pretty good."

George didn't feel right accepting such praise. "Oh, I was just treating them the way I woulda wanted to be treated in their position."

"And that's the key that so many other people forget when they deal with kids - or, hell, with other people for that matter." She glanced at him again, smiling. "I think you'll be a good father some day."

"Oh, well that ain't never happening."

"Oh, not with that negative attitude, it wont!"

"Well, considering I'm not even gonna attempt to have kids-"

"Why not?"

"Just doesn't appeal to me. I don't ever wanna change a diaper in my life. That means my options are either to be a shitty father or to not be a father at all. Tell me: of those, which is the less shameful option?"

"What if you fall in love with a girl who wants kids?"

"Mom, any woman with self-respect isn't gonna want me."

"Women are attracted to self-confidence, George, and statements like that don't make you sound very self-confident! And the fact that I can't tell if you're being sarcastic isn't helping."

"Fine. Let them think I lack self-esteem and stay away from me. I know exactly how much of a mess I am."

"George-"

"At this point, I follow the Groucho Marx philosophy on dating: I wouldn't hook up with a woman who'd hook up with a guy like me."

"George, you're one of the few decent police officers in this city, and any woman worth keeping would admire that you try to be a good man… when you wanna be, at least."

Again, that was a shocker. "I… thought you didn't care for my career."

Rebekah sighed. "I think I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that you're just not somebody who gets a sense of fulfillment out of hard work and no job is ever gonna truly make you happy in and of itself - and the fact that this country is run by hard-line workaholics isn't gonna make that any easier on you. I dunno, George, all I know is that I just want you to be happy, and if no job is ever gonna make you feel happy and fulfilled… maybe having a family would. And you're definitely good enough at this job you hate to be deserving of a good life, whether you think you are or not."

George found himself smiling, but he still had a burning question on his mind: "...You sure you aren't just saying all this because you want grandkids?"

"Okay, so maybe that's a part of it-"

"I fucking knew it."

"George, in a world full of shitty fathers - like yours - we can use some more good ones. Don't deprive the world of that. And also, yes, you're my only child so my only chance at a lasting legacy is through you."

"Yeah, that's not selfish or anything."

"I'm not selfish, I'm just stubborn. Like you," she giggled.

She pulled up to the Georgetown precinct and threw the car in park.

"Alright, now you be safe out there," she said as he unbuckled his seat belt. "Don't make me lose my only son or I'll end up even crazier than Mandy!"

You know what was fucked up? This was the first time in a while that George had found his mom to be so agreeable for more than a few minutes. Being stuck in a living situation with her for longer than he was thinking he would and with no exit strategy was making them both go stir crazy and driving a wedge between them, but now after seeing how messed up some other families were, she was suddenly back to the doting mom he remembered from years ago. And he knew perfectly well that some people would mock him for being a grown man seeking comfort from his mommy - God knows his boss ribbed him about it when he told him about this - but screw it, there would come a time when one of them wouldn't be around anymore and such moments between them would no longer be possible, so he was going to indulge while he still could.

"You still worry about me, don't you?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"And I always will," she said, happy that she could still have such a moment when so many others couldn't. "Hug!" she ordered, and he provided, and she kissed him on the cheek for good measure.

"By the way, we need to talk later about what you know about what she knew about them on a personal level," George added as he stepped out of the car.

"Of course," she said, and he shut the door and she drove away.

Deputy Nutzinger had a very interesting day of work after that. Extremely interesting, with a bunch of really interesting stories that would make anyone laugh and cry, but unfortunately they would add nothing to this narrative. For you see, his superior never did make it downtown to tend to the protests. Sheriff Woodland went ahead and did something that would make Deputy Nutzinger wonder whether the old wolf really did go and do some methamphetamine.