The birds, the bees, and every other woodland animal: Act II


If there’s a beginning, middle and end in stories, this would most likely be the middle, but shit is supposed to happen in the middle, but not a lot of interesting shit happened when we got our boots on the ground at that place. We might as well have stayed at our humble little shit shack watching Garfield if you ask me. Yep, a day of smoking shit and Garfield would have been just as exciting as what went down around that shit heap. Shit did not hit the fan, defecation never happened. Our shit was not lost, we had our faeces all in order. It was sort of a shitty day in the end, full of boring shit, little bit of chit chat with some Kit Kats but beyond that, I admit the shit was interesting but not exciting. Just your run of the mill, same old, ordinary, boring, common, routine, day at a furry convention.

It began where we left off, me crying in a shower having lost contact with Mr. Spock. Verlaine and Alister had relieved their bladders and were now looking through the map of the convention and planning their route through the maze, while I had entered into a fugue state from the trauma of not finishing what I started with that Showerhead, and yes I capitalized Showerhead, cause he’s a living breathing person to me, and if you can’t understand my love, then maybe you don’t deserve happiness. It took a good 12 hours, 4 of staring into space aimlessly, and 8 of good refreshing sleep, for me to really come out of it. My body was fully detoxified and my mind had repressed any unsavoury memories of losing my third inanimate lover for the time being, I was now ready to face the horrors of sheeps in wolf’s clothing. Sheeps? Sheepie? Wait is sheep singular and plural at the same time? Who made this language? Why must Collin and his “Dictionary” always place holes of logic into my writing? That shithead had better watch his back, cause if one person walks up to me and tells me they didn’t understand one thing that happened in this book, I will solely place all blame on his ass, which I will promptly fuck up while wearing my expensive clogs that I only pull out for ass whopping sessions. Anyway, these humans in sheep’s clothing, in wolf’s clothing, will no longer have a horrific effect on me is what I was trying to tell myself. God I have a shit hangover, my head feels like it’s been cracked open and all my life force is being siphoned out with a straw by God herself.

I took to the bathroom to dose my face in water and reassure myself in the mirror, “You can do this Bernie, you are a good, talented, respectable journalist. You’re like a gayer Anderson Cooper, yeah. You are strong, resilient and brave, this will be your best work yet. And also if you don’t do a good job, they’ll fire your ass faster than a nightshift security guard sleeping on the job. Aw thanks dickhead, I wasn’t worried until you said that. Not my fucking fault that I’m rational, now is it? Oh yes it is, every time I try to be positive, who comes along to piss all over my positivity? BERNARD! It’s almost like you get off on making me shit bricks or something. I absolutely do not, you are taking this way too personally, I am just trying to remind you of the reality of the situation. Oh reality this, reality that, why don’t you just piss off and watch the Kardashians or The Bachelor if you loooove reality so much, better yet, why don’t you marry reality! Maybe I might, then I’d check back on you when everything is falling apart cause no-one was here to tell you the cold honest truth, cause you had everyone else molly coddling your little twink ass. Don’t you fucking dare call me that. What? Twink? You know how that makes me feel. You’re right, I do know, cause I’m you. Damn why did I even fucking start dating you? Cause I’m irresistible? Oh you so are, I mean you have that rocking bod, beautiful stache, and may I say Sebastian you’re looking sexy on my upper lip today. Oh thank you Bernie, you’re such a sweetheart. Now back to you, Bernard, if that even is your real name, I don’t want to hear another piece of negativity out of your pie hole this entire trip, everything is going to be fine, don’t make that face at me mister, now say it. Everything is not going to be fine. OH SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS” and with that, I punched the mirror for giving me backtalk.

We were able to get a first aid box and bandage up the suspected hand, but I had become convinced I no longer had one of those and instead had a fist shaped ball of glass shards and blood. The hotel room was already starting to look like a crime scene and it hadn’t even been 24 hours. As much as Alis requested I go to the hospital for such an injury and how important my hand would be, I relented and told him to just stop the bleeding for the time being. If there was anyone I was gonna trust to fix up my hand with no previous medical experience or licence, meaning the fucker legally can’t slap you with a bill at the end of saving your life, it would be Alis. He had spent most of his childhood engrossing himself in E.R so he had the innate ability to channel the spirit of Dr. Mark Greene whenever life and limb was on the line. I made one request as he was working his magic on my digits, “leave two fingers open for me to smoke with.” My right hand was my go-to writing, smoking and whacking hand, so to have such an important part of my mobility taken away, could have possibly incumbered the assignment, but I decided to just leave all the hand work up to Alis and Verlaine, and if push came to shove, get them to hold my jenkem ciggies and just click my finger at them if I needed a puff. After an hour or so, we had completed our best attempt at DIY surgery, getting any large shards out and bandaging my hand a great deal. I got dressed in my second suit and tie, choosing the pink chrysanthemum floral tie in an effort to distract people from the blood-soaked bandage wrapped around my right hand, but at least I had my ring and pinkie finger to smoke with. “Yeah, very fucking funny Alister, make me smoke with my pinkie. I’m gonna look like so much of a jackass, people will start thinking I’m Californian.” But my complaints couldn’t be heard over the two of them laughing their asses off, I had to join in after a certain point. Smoking with your pinkie, it was pretty good I had to give him that, I’d look like the poshest jenkem addict this town had ever seen.

The phone rang out from my inner jacket pocket as soon as it was on my back. Since it was on my left side, I held the jacket open for Alis to reach in and grab it for me. Alis being such the darling, assisted the poor temporarily disabled Bernard and looked down at the phone, then promptly bit his lip with a nervous disposition. “Well? Who is it?” I asked waving at him to hand it over, but he refused “Nah, you don’t wanna answer it Bernie.” Don’t want to answer it? Now who would I refuse to pick up the phone to, oh, oh God it’s them, “Give me the phone Alis, I’ll deal with it.” He gave me guilty eyes and reluctantly handed it over for me to answer it, which I did in a dignified manner, with grace and class, “You listening you bitch? If you figure out what my next phone number is, I will fuck up your face, worse than I fucked up my own this morning, YA GOT THAT?” and with that I opened the window and pitched that phone into the parking lot down below like it was a wishing well. “Let me guess, Peach?” Verlaine looked up from her reading material, sass emanating from her eyes, “Oh, did I give it away?” They rolled their eyes, having seen this domestic song and dance with my wife nearly a dozen times at this point. There was no concern from them since they knew all my threats were all bark and no bite, the main reason being I forgot where she lived so even if I wanted to go over and crack her phone over my knee to get her to stop calling me, even it was only for a day, I couldn’t track her down. While Alis cleaned up the mess and Verlaine read her literature, I was left to complain about my heterosexual marriage. “I don’t know how she keeps getting my number. I’ve gone through more phones than I can count, even if I don’t get one, she calls one of you guys. She’s like a succubus, following my every move to make my blood boil,” anger got the better of me and I kicked over a chair in the pettiest sight of frustration that you wouldn’t see from a toddler. “Very intimidating there Bernie, I’m sure she’s menstruating in fear.” Verlaine said without even batting an eye away from that book of hers, “Can a man not complain about his wife and get a little bit of support from his best friends forever? And what the hell are you reading?” She looked up from the pages with her answers primed and ready “Your first question, change the forever, cause I am not living in a geriatric’s home with you, and your second question, I’m re-reading Animal Farm, as research, to really get into the mind of these communists.”

It wasn’t long after that, that we got ready to hit the convention ground, there was just one thing we would need, “Okay, Boss explained to me that if we’re going to be walking around this convention, then we’d need badges to prove that we paid to be there and blend in with the crowd more easily. Those badges are in this package that I picked up from the front desk this morning.” They oo’ed with anticipation to see what animal persona that we had been Christened by Boss. I open the thing up and after some debating, we figured out who was supposed to be who on the badges. “Let’s see, we got a beaver, the guy from the Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles, and an elephant with a crack addiction.” My factual errors were enough to make Verlaine’s vein protrude, and her being the closest to a zoologist in the room, was swift to peer review my analysis of the badges, “I think you’ll actually find that the beaver, is a North American Brown Bear, and the name you’re looking for is Splinter, who was a rat. Finally, the long-nosed creature is ACTUALLY, a Northern Elephant Seal.” As she finished, me and Alis locked eyes for one moment, and then in unison said, “well oo lah dee dah Mr. Frenchman.” It took me a moment, but I thought it all out in a matter of seconds, and with my sterling logic, there was no question as to who was who, “Alright, I’m the bear cause, have you seen my body? Alis, you’re the rat, cause you’re the biggest rat bastard I’ve ever met. Verlaine, you’re the seal, cause you’re the most likely to listen to Panpipe covers of Seal.”

Pins and needles had overcome my body in anticipation of getting in the nitty gritty of this furry community. In my imagination, we looked like the cast of Reservoir Dogs, only instead of robbing a jewellery store, we would be committing journalism in a what some might think is worse than a warzone. I was fully prepared for this to go South in 30 seconds of walking through those doors and it to turn into the one-shot scene from True Detective season 1. The tension was killing me, I could feel the grey hairs growing on my head as we got closer to that entrance, and as we reached it, I realized my calculations were a little too optimistic, cause as soon as my foot was through that door, one of these neon coloured fur clad individuals outstretched their arms to me in a gesture of a friendly hug, only I took it as the last thing I’d see before my death, and if you thought it was that, you’d probably do the same as I did. First was the scream, then the manic attempt to protect myself behind Alister’s body, then the shivers. My tactical feminine scream worked however, making the serial hugger back away and state, “Your friend is weird man.” HA! Says the guy dressed in a $5.000 suit that you only get to wear twice a year, I’m just a normal man that has the fear of being eaten alive by furries, nothing weird about that. “Bernie, you have to stop acting weird” I couldn’t believe it, how could Verlaine take the side of this guy? He probably eats babies or, something. “Maybe this would help, why don’t you hug one of these furries to overcome your fear, cause I’m not going to be your human shield for all of this assignment.” Alister’s advise seemed, good yet terrifying at the same time. It was probably the best thing to do, cause every time I saw one of these fursuits, I could feel my body on the verge of pissing itself, and if I did, I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to swap pants. I agreed with them, and I ran after the fox-like creature that tried to hug me less than a minute ago. “Look man, I’m sorry about that. I’ve been a furry for about 20 years now, but I’ve never seen an actual fursuit in person and, as soon as I saw yours, I was just a little overwhelmed is all, I’d really like to actually hug y…” and before I could finish, his arms were wrapped around my body. When he didn’t let go after the third second, I began writing my will and testament in my head, but the fur did feel nice, very soft, wasn’t that scary really, just like a human sized teddy bear, which was actually very fucking scary, but this one has a human living inside it, that’s been coerced into partaking in cult activities. This hug could be part of some ritual to suck my body of its life energy, but if it was, it felt pretty alright, kind of like a hug in many ways. Wait, is it just a hug? Aw fuck, it is, isn’t it, I’ve been looking like a crazy person haven’t I? Well I might aswell hug back, it’s the least I could do for the poor guy, probably got dragged into this furry cult thing by accident and didn’t mean any harm.

That hug gave me the confidence to move forward with this assignment. I walked back to Alis and Verlaine with a certain pep to my step, a little more hair on my chest, I had returned to them, a man. “Did you piss yourself?” but their mocking fell on deaf ears, for I no longer would stay awake at night in fear of furries, but there was still much to be in fear of. We were still in the belly of the beast, and behind any door in this building, could be a ritualistic sacrifice happening, or ritualistic sex, I couldn’t tell which was worse. I now knew they wouldn’t try anything funny in broad daylight, so I could walk around without feeling my instincts telling me I would die within the hour. “You’re looking at a new man guys, no longer am I Bernard the itty bitty baby furry bitch boy, I’m Bernard the gonzo journalist,” and with all the comradery thick in the air, we each jumped up and kicked our heels back to high five into a freeze frame. Would’ve been great if the assignment ended there, but more boring shit happened.

We walked through the convention in a cool strut now, showing these furries that we were just as crazy as them, and to not fuck with us. They probably thought my bandaged hand was from beating some guy up, which it was. After about an hour of walking and observing, we were starting to get an idea for the sorts of things that went on around this place. Mostly these people in overpriced mascot outfits hugging and greeting each other, only to keep doing that for the rest of the day. It became clear to us, that the corridors were going to give us nothing, we’d have to investigate the leisure activities that people had been paid to provide to these convention goers. First was a dance competition, and expecting Magic Mike, I was severely disappointed seeing everyone gyrating, was dressed in layers of fur like everyone on the corridors as well. Boredom was overcoming my body, watching as one by one, these people came to the stage to struggle to move around the weight of their body combined with the massive fursuit on their backs. I made the decision to join in on the fun, moving my hips with the rhythm, only to move up to full body spasms. If I was an avante garde performance artist, I could have been paid for what I was doing at the back of that room, but since I wasn’t wearing a $10,000 sweat rag, no-one was focussed on my moves, except for one man in a trench coat. I had spotted him when we walked in, but I thought nothing of him, but throughout my own background performance, he had been watching me silently. He took his time to walk over to us, and as he got closer, Alister locked eyes with him, quickly becoming a stuttering mess, only repeating “C…C…C,” to our confusion. The man stood next to me and watched the dancer on stage at the moment with us. When the interval between dancers begun, he spoke “My wife, she loves these things, dancing I mean, she can’t get enough of it. Every time when I come home, she’s always got some new move that she’s trying to learn, but I never had the knack for it. I got the curse of two left feet ya see. But they say dancing is good for your health, gets your whole body active. You seem like a healthy enough guy.” At first I thought he was coming onto me, and I didn’t want to proceed with flirting with the guy without approval from Alis and Verlaine, only when I turned to them, Alis had passed out in Verlaine’s arms, “The fuck happened to him?” I asked, and with a heave Verlaine replied, “He’s starstruck,” before eyeing the guy inquiring about my health. “I’m sorry do I know you, Mr…?” He outstretched his hand for me to shake it, and I did, hearing his identity as we shook hands “Columbo, Lt. Frank Columbo, I’m investigating a murder, you’re the forensic team they sent right?” It all made sense now. Alis had dreamed of joining a police force for years because of the Columbo TV series, only I beat that notion out of him, no friend of mine will become a narc on my watch. With Alis passed out behind me, and a homicide detective believing me to be the man that was going to help him solve a murder case, giving me the opportunity to finally have evidence of cult activity happening at these furry meet and greets, I did what anyone else would do, and told him the honest truth, straight from the heart, “Aw finally! We’ve been looking for you all over this place, where’s the body?”

We were escorted to the body by the kind Columbo. We were given a rundown of what they think may have happened. The victim was a male, mid 30s, found by a maid in his hotel room after there was no answer from him, he was found suffocated. No markings were left on his neck or body to indicate strangulation, so the task of the detectives had become trying to find a motive for the crime and catch the killer, if they were attending the convention as well. This wasn’t the first one, a man was found on the first day of the convention, on the convention grounds, only it was assumed that he had choked on a foreign object and no foul play was involved. The crime scene was cleaned up since the organisers didn’t want a media frenzy to be made. As we walked to the scene, Frank began making small talk on the way there, “So you three are a team I take it?” I was beginning to feel confident with my newfound identity as Bernard the homicide detective, so anything that came out of my mouth, I would have believed it myself “That’s right, I’m the team leader, Alister here is the forensic expert and Verlaine is the…” fuck Bernie, think of something fast “…psychic medium.” We probably should have been arrested there and then for that laughable answer, but this Columbo guy didn’t seem to mind one bit, only telling us, “Oh, you’ll have to show your badges at the entrance to the crime scene, just to let you know.” After getting away with that bold faced lie to Columbo’s face, I felt completely confident in my next move. I flashed my Blockbuster membership card, shouting “HOMOCIDE” for a split second to the guard at the door, in the hopes that the action would mentally bombard him to the point of allowing me entry without having to logically think about it. The worst part is, he didn’t even say anything. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed that we had gotten this far, or depressed at the lack of shit given in today’s police force. It didn’t matter to me though, I was now a part of this investigation.

As soon as we walked inside that room I began taking it all in. The man was still on the bed, body covered with a fursuit, all except his head. The head of the suit was nowhere to be seen. His lips were blue indicating suffocation, but a familiar scent filled the air for me, it was covering his face. I leaned in, taking in the familiar smell, much to the disgust and confusion of my colleagues. “Ay, Columbo, you smell that?” He leaned in with me but I could tell he didn’t have the same eureka moment as I was having, his nose was being clogged by cigarette smoke. I felt confident in what I was observing on the man’s face, so in an act of trying to imitate every noir detectives, I lit a ciggie of my own, taking a long puff before revealing my findings, “This man’s face is drenched in cunny juice. He was born by the snatch, and now he’s died by the snatch. What I’m trying to say is, the killer you’re looking for is a woman.”