Chapter 12: Badger’s Den

[The previous chapters of this long piece of dreck may be found here. I don’t think this will make any sense if you haven’t read the previous parts.]

The door to Badger’s Den swung open without warning, and in the now accessible portal stood Badger, wearing a flannel bathrobe and a pair of leather slippers. He was a medium sized animal, fit and athletic, with a most shockingly beautiful face. From the top of his head to his snout ran two lines of black fur that contrasted handsomely with the white hair around them. His round dark eyes were almost too dark to see, as they were partially set within the black stripes, but could not be overlooked due to their wet, and penetrating, luminescence.

“I know about your plot to drink my scotch,” he said in a voice that was deep and vigorous. “I could hear every word you said. How many times have I told you that you should encrypt your phone, Shash? The minute the three of you left the Androscoggin dead zone I noticed your approach. I owned the root of both of your phones before you made it to the rock the squirrels call “overlooking”. If I’m listening, then you know that the pigs are listening.” He paused for a second to let that sink in. Sterling wasn’t sure why the pigs would be listening, but pigs listening sounded bad. What little he knew of pigs led him to shudder at the idea of pigs listening to everything he said.

“It’s a good thing you three didn’t make the mistake of talking about the re-enactment. That might have messed up all of our plans.”

Badger turned to Sterling without stepping outside the door. He extended his paw. “Sterling, I am Badger. Welcome.” With a sideways glance at Shash and Randy, he said, “I am nothing like a consultant. By training I am a geologist. By profession I am a cartographer. I am a futurist by avocation.”

“He’s also a knight,” said Randy, “Technically he is Ser Alfred of Badger, or something.”

“That’s Randy’s way of telling you that I am a European badger, which you might have known from the shape of the lines on my face.”

“Oh,” said Sterling, “I don’t know anything about badgers.”

Badger looked at Sterling kindly. “There is no shame in ignorance,” he said. Then he looked at Shash, “Where’s your ax?”

The bear, who was playing with his cell phone, looked up and shrugged.

“It’s not here?” Randy said, “I thought he had sent it ahead. Fuck! You hocked your guitar again, didn’t you Shash? The kid said that Shash had a painting under his arm when they met. Didn’t he have a painting under his arm?”

“Yes, when I first met him he had a painting under his arm.” Sterling said.

“It’s rude to talk about me when I’m standing right here. Why don’t you just ask me if I hocked my guitar?” said Shash.

“Did you hock your guitar?” Badger asked.

The bear looked up from his phone. Sterling had seen this expression before. It was a face devoid of emotion, like the archaic smile on a statue of an Egyptian pharaoh. His small eyes blinked slowly.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“Well, there you have it,” said Randy, “He hocked his fucking guitar and bought a painting. Now I see why he came to my house. He didn’t want to show up here alone without his ax. Fucking-A, Shash, you could have told me. I would have gone down to the swamp mole’s and gotten your guitar, but fuck this!” The rabbit was shouting now. His neck strained as he arched it toward the bear, “I can’t stand this shit! You knew we were lined up to play and you go and hock your fucking guitar? How many times have we been through this? Do you remember the time the gnome women jacked me up because we sucked so bad at their Caprotinia? Have you forgotten that I had to beg the Dragon’s henchmen to give that guitar back to us so we could play that gig at the Luprecal?”

The Rabbit appeared to be growing increasingly apoplectic. Shash remained stone-faced. Badger held up a paw at one point, but the gesture had no affect on Randy’s increasingly agitated state.

“Bullshit. This is bullshit! I knew I shouldn’t have gotten into this. I don’t need this shit. I’ve got four fucking rabbits that I play with on Wednesday nights down at the Elk Lodge and, no, it’s nothing noteworthy but you know what? Those fucking guys show up and we play, duckdamnit. We just open the song book and play; no fucking drama, no bullshit, no ‘I’ll be there in an hour without my fucking guitar.’”

Badger finally interrupted.

“Calm down, calm down,” He said, with a barking shout. “Randy, you are flipping out over nothing. We are just getting together to play music. This is not a gig. Nobody cares. Shash will just have to play Mole’s telecaster. You don’t mind playing that, do you, Shash?”

“No,” said Shash, “I like that guitar a lot.”

“You see,” Badger said to Randy, “No problem. There is nothing to get upset about. We’re all going to have a good time. We’ll go eat some dinner, discuss the reenactment, get high, and then jam for a bit. It will be fun.”

Randy was lighting a cigarette and still rocking back and forth on his big feet in agitation. “Fucking -A,” he said to himself.

“Well, come in,” said Badger, stepping aside.

Sterling entered the den first. Inside the door was a mud room, beautifully paneled and outfitted with a built-in-bench for taking off shoes. When all three were inside, Badger closed the door. There was plenty of space and Randy, still smoking, sat down to take off his shoes.

The interior wall had a glass transom, sidelights, and a pocketed door that also had a window on it. All of the glass was frosted, and through it came a light as soft and inviting as buttercream frosting. Above the door, on the transom glass, the words “Badger & Mole’s” was etched, and beneath it a long set of runes.

“What does that say,” Sterling asked, pointing to the strange characters.

“It says, ‘Say ‘Friend’ And Enter,’” said Badger.

“That’s a gay pickup line, if I ever heard one,” said Randy, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“You’re a pig,” said Badger.

Randy looked up, and laughed his nerdy laugh. He pushed his glasses back on his nose while looking around. His former agitation seemed utterly diffused.

Badger slid open the pocketed door revealing a landing and a wide set of wooden stairs leading steeply downward. There was a rush of well scented, cool air, and a high-pitched whining sound.

The walls were decorated with framed prints symmetrically hung on both sides of the stairs, spaced from one another with attractive precision. Most contained maps, but others were lithographic prints of battles, domestic scenes, and, at the bottom of the stairs, an elaborate picture of a hunt.

Sterling stopped to look at the print. It showed a naked man jumping over a hedgerow with a group of red and black jacketed foxes, rabbits, and pheasants pursuing him on horseback. The hunters were led by a large pack of dogs. The caption on the frame read, “American Hunt.”

The other three, who had been walking ahead of Sterling, stopped and turned towards him.

“I see you’ve found one of the hunting prints, Sterling,” said Badger, “Barbaric, isn’t it?” He came back to stand by Sterling’s side. “Don’t worry, hunting Americans is against the law now. Nobody will be chasing you through the woods, though there are some who, no doubt, would like to.”

Sterling focused on the naked man’s face in the print. The man didn’t look frightened at all. It was as if he were just running at a track meet. The expression struck Sterling as absurd, that someone pursued by hunters and so close to death could be calming leaping a hedgerow as if it were a simple hurdle.

Sterling caught his own reflection, that of a skunk, in the glass of the framed print, which might have led to a reflection on his reflection had Badger not interrupted his contemplation.

“Come on,” said Badger, “Mole has whipped up a great supper for us.”

The hall before them was wide and had an arched ceiling of packed earth. The walls were wood paneled to the chair rail, and then packed earth above, with prints decorating the upper portion. The floor was covered with rubber mats, and there were at least six doors, symmetrically across from one another in three pairs, that each had a wooden sign above them containing clearly printed names. One said, “Data Library”, another “Data Mapping”, and the one marked “Server Room” had an open door. Looking inside, Sterling could see a constellation of blue and green lights where racks of computers were humming in the darkness. The air emanating from the room was dry and cool, and Sterling could smell electricity mixed with the scent of cooking.

When the four of them approached the far end of the hall, which was illuminated by the light of a larger room to the right, Randy suddenly stopped.

“I hear the Brown Fox,” he said, his ears both upright and twitching forward towards the open end of the hall. “What are you up to, Badger?”

“I smell her too,” said Shash.

“She’s here visiting the Wizard,” said Badger.

“I’m not playing with her,” Randy said.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Randy.” Said Badger, “Nobody is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. Don’t be cross. She knew you and Shash were coming and said she looked forward to seeing you both.”

“Which wizard is she visiting?” Said Shash.

“The Grand Prix Wizard of Checkerboard Square,” said Badger.

“Oh, fuck,” said Shash, “I owe that dude a lot of money.”

Next Chapter: A Toast!