Chapter 4: Not All Fathers Are Family

Stoney has found his father, a hustler by the name of Finnick, but there was another in his life that helped guide him into becoming the fox that he has become.

May I suggest the song, Dancing in the Sun by Dusty Boots?

I do not own the rights to Zootopia or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable purposes. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. Thank you to Disney for the movie.

The gray-furred wallaby leaned back into the cheap green plastic chair while he seemingly stared at the small campfire in front of him. There was an aluminum coffee pot nestled in some nearby ash gray-looking wood coals that had been scraped earlier from the fire and the comforting scent of the ground coffee beans percolating inside of it was pleasant to his nose. What wasn't so pleasant was the stench coming from the can being held in the paws of the nearby fennec fox. "Mate, how the bloody hell can you eat that stuff?" he finally asked.

"Cooper, this potted fish is great!" the fox enthusiastically proclaimed. "It's full of omega-3 fatty acid which is not only good for my heart but also my healthy and silky-looking fur coat."

"Sure, Stoney,…sure," Cooper chuckled. "So does seaweed and it doesn't bloody well stink to the high heavens."

"You herbivores couldn't even sniff your way out of a box!"

"My sniffer may not be as sharp as yours, but it can bloody well smell that crap from over here!"

"You have potted fish!" a familiar voice exclaimed and a lean meerkat in a pair of blue swim shorts sat down on an old wool beach blanket that had been left near the fire. "Do you have any more of that?"

"Reggie, don't you ever buy your own food?" the fox sarcastically asked before he tossed the other surfer a can of the fish.

"Not when I can mooch off of you and Cooper or get one of my adoring fans to buy me a meal," the meerkat merrily boasted even while he popped the top of the can and stuck one of his claws into the gelatinous meat inside. He closed his eyes while he relished the flavor of the fish he was chewing before giving a content sigh. Finally, after he swallowed, Reggie looked over at Stone again. "So that old fox we met in the parking lot turned out to be your father?"

"Yep, Finnick is my long-lost father!" Stone answered with a smile. "I can't believe my mother hid that secret for so long. She said she didn't want to destroy his youthful dreams by burdening him with an unplanned family. What she didn't realize is that by telling him that we were not his kits and then faking that she had died in childbirth that in his despair, he ended up abandoning those dreams."

"Have you told your brother Storm?"

"Storm is not as forgiving as Stone is," Cooper interjected when the fox didn't answer but seemed to set the can of fish aside while he gave a sad look at the fire.

"Brah, our conversation didn't go very well," Stone finally replied. "I tried to explain to him that Finnick didn't even know we were alive and that Mom had lied to him, but you know how Storm can get?"

"I'm sure he had a few choice words about the matter and threatened to beat the crap out of your dad when he gets out of jail," Reggie mumbled his reply through a mouth full of meat.

"Yeah…" the small fox sadly sighed. "Something like that."

"So, what are you going to do about this Sunday, do you have any plans?" the meerkat continued.

Stone shrugged his shoulders when he replied, "I'm going to spend the day chillin' and surfing, just like always dude."

"Stoney, you really don't know what is special about this Sunday, do you?"

The fox tilted his head the way canids do when confused.

"Mate, it's Father's Day," Cooper interjected.

"Oh?"

Both the fox and the meerkat watched when the wallaby sadly gave a small sigh before he slowly stood up and hopped towards the campground's bathroom without saying another word.

"I sometimes forget what happened between Coop and his father," Reggie whispered to the fennec fox. "I still can't believe his dad tossed him out like that?"

"His father is very religiously conservative and having a gay son…well, he still maintains that Cooper is suffering from some type of mental illness," Stone answered. "He even sent him to conversion therapy when he was younger."

"Cooper is the sanest, most loving, and most dependable animal on the beach!"

"You know that and I know that, but his father still refuses to talk to him since he threw him out of his house."

"Just how many surfboards does Stone own?" the older fennec fox asked in a deep voice while he shifted another board aside from along the wall of the apartment. "And why does he store some of them in your apartment?"

"Finn, be more careful!" Susan barked out as a yellow surfboard began to shift and fall, the vixen quickly leapt over and grabbed it before it could hit the ground. "That was close!"

"What's all the fuss about, it wouldn't have broken anything?"

"That is Stoney's new competition board and he just bought it."

"So what, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Can't you just buy another board in one of the surf shops along the Boardwalk?"

"Finn, that board costs over a thousand bucks. It was handcrafted by Stone's shaper, Papa Sammy, down at the Dunes."

"What's a shaper?"

"Papa Sammy makes custom surfboards and this one has the right volume and dimensions for Stone. Sammy took Stoney under his arm since he was just a grom."

"A what?"

"A grom or grommet is slang for a young kid who's a new surfer. Sammy taught Stoney many of the basic moves, he is kind of a surrogate father figure to him," Susan answered, and then she winced when she realized what she had just said.

"Well, I'm glad this Sammy guy was there for him since I sure the hell wasn't!" Finn sighed. "He sounds like a great guy."

"He's rather rough around the edges like Stone's real father," the vixen giggled while she wrapped her arms around the fox's shoulder. "But not near as sexy." If Finn was going to reply to her words, he failed when he found her lips pressed against his in a passionate kiss.

An hour later, he rubbed his paws over the back of his neck while he quietly slipped out of the bed, the vixen who had been snuggled next to him was sound asleep and he looked back at her with a smile. It had been over twenty years since she had left him, but it seemed just like yesterday to him. Softly he padded his way across the bedroom floor, pulling on his shorts and his black bowling shirt in the living room so that he didn't wake her. Carefully he opened the apartment's front door and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine, blinking a few times before he snapped on his sunglasses and walked towards his van. He was a fox on a mission.

It took several hours, due to the summer seasonal traffic, to drive down the coastal road to the Great Dunes section of the city and there he saw what he was looking for, a large store in an old somewhat decrepit shopping center just across the road from the beach. A worn sign said that it was a surf shop and he pulled into the parking lot.

A bell rang when Finnick opened the door and several of the customers turned to stare at him when he entered, there were some subdued whispers when they saw him. From the looks of the store and the patrons inside, the small fox knew that this wasn't the kind of place you'd find a tourist because everyone inside had "that look" and instinctively he knew that they were true surfers.

"Is that him?" someone softly said and the small fox tried to ignore the stares that he was getting.

"Hey Papa!" a thin seal called out into a backroom. "You've got company."

Finn tucked his sunglasses into his shirt pocket while he pretended to look around. Finally, a somewhat weather-worn-looking elderly beaver wearing nothing but a pair of shorts walked out from the back of the store, his fur was covered with white dust and he pulled off a light blue mask from over his muzzle, and then the pair of plastic goggles. "Dude, you must be him?" the skinny beaver asked even as he walked over and poured himself a glass of something green looking from a blender. "You want a smoothie?"

"You know who I am?" Finnick replied after he shook his head no and while he watched as the beaver walked around the counter towards him.

"Brah, the word on the beach is that you two finally found each other. You should know that I never did quite believe Susan's story, it didn't sit right, you being a fox and all that."

The two animals looked each other over before the beaver took another sip from his glass. "Mojo juice, I call it," he said with a grin as he lifted the glass toward the fox. "It's got seaweed and papaya juice, along with turmeric for these old joints. So, what brings you to my humble shop?"

"I came to meet you and thank you for being there when my son needed someone else besides his mother in his life."

"Dude, Stoney is a good kit, he just needed a little encouragement to get on the right path…to find his true purpose in life. That and helping him make the right board, he loves the one Susan gave him but it is way too big for his scrawny tail."

Finnick followed the beaver outside and across the busy street, where they stood on the beach and looked out over at the surf. There were surfers just off the coast waiting for the right wave and a few of them frantically paddled to catch one when it finally came in, standing up on their surfboards while they rode the briny wave.

"Years ago, I heard about your son from some of the guys. They talked about a grommit who was a fox up in The Strand and said that he showed some promise, but was way out of his league. This intrigued me and so I hauled my furry ass up there to watch him and what I saw surprised me."

"Because he was a fennec fox on a surfboard?" Finn chuckled. "We desert foxes hate the water."

"No dude, I saw a little guy who tried and tried again. He'd wipe out and then just laugh when he finally reached the shore, then he'd sit and watch to see what the others were doing before he'd plow right back in and try again. I've seen plenty like him who love to surf, but never amounted to much…but then…" the thin beaver grew silent while he watched the waves, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Finn stood there next to him and patiently waited. He noticed that the old surfer had wiped a tear from his eye.

"Stone was out beyond the surf and just bobbing on the swells, sitting there with his ears erect and his eyes closed," the beaver reminisced. "Then suddenly he turned and frantically paddled toward the shoreline just in time to catch what we call the perfect wave, it was bodacious and I could see the look of pure joy on his face when he stood up and rode on his board."

The beaver drew quiet again before he sipped from his drink. "And then he wiped out again!" he laughed. "But I knew from that point on that your son just wasn't any young surfer, but a soul surfer."

"A soul surfer?" the fox asked in confusion. "What is that?"

"That is someone who totally becomes one with the wave, who borrows the ocean's spirit for a short while and uses both his mind and body to celebrate the essence of the ride. Your son doesn't surf to win competitions, he surfs purely for the love of it and that is what makes him great."

The fox just smiled with pride while he stood there silently next to the old surfer on the sand.

"I think you taught him a few more things than just surfing," Finnick softly said with a slight smirk.

"Well, I sometimes give those who show up at my shop a little friendly advice when they need it," Papa Sammy admitted. "I'm just trying to keep them from making some of the same mistakes that I made when I was younger, keep them from doing something stupid like getting into drugs or being arrested."

"I've been there myself."

"I figured."

"Is that because I'm a fox?"

"Nope, you give out those always wheeling and dealing for a living kinda vibes."

"Well, I have done a fair amount of hustling in my life."

"So tomorrow is Father's Day?" the beaver suddenly asked.

"Huh, is it?"

"Do you think Stone will get you anything?"

The small fox pondered the beaver's words for a few moments before he answered. "Stone has already given me a gift far greater than he could ever buy at a shop. My son found me, he brought me into his life, and that is the greatest gift any father could ever have."

It was Sunday and the sun shone down on the water near where the small wallaby wearing a pair of tan shorts and a green and gray checkered sport shirt stood while he watched several larger surfers out on the water. His unused cell phone was limply held in his right paw, for he was still thinking about making a Father's Day call which he knew would never be answered. Cooper was alone today, his best friend Stone was at his mother's house having breakfast with his newly found father. Reggie was at home in Hyenahurst with his family and even his boyfriend Billy was spending the day with his father, so the lonely wallaby had taken the bus towards the Big Dunes and now wandered down the southern beaches.

"Brah, it's sort of empty out there this morning," a voice softly spoke from behind him and he turned to see an elderly beaver in a pair of ratty old shorts standing there holding a couple of frosty glasses of a green-looking liquid. He offered one to the lonely wallaby while he gave the younger surfer a thin smile.

Cooper took the glass and sniffed it before he took a sip. "Thanks, Papa," he said. "I haven't had a glass of your Mojo Juice in a long time."

"Not since this day last year," Papa Sammy said as he stepped next to the younger surfer. "So are you interested in helping an old beach bum finish a few boards?"

"Papa, I thought you were closed on Sunday mornings?"

"I am, but you look like you need something to do and maybe someone to talk to."

The wallaby hesitated for only a few moments before he nodded and followed the beaver toward his shop.