The Hamilton Household
8:30am
22 Argyle Street
Great Rockton
Great Britain
Beepity-beep, beepity-beep, bee-
Thwap
The alarm clock's shrill call was silenced as a big, red-furred hand descended upon it, roughly slamming it into stillness.
The hand withdrew from the bedside table where the alarm clock was cowed to the single bed where its owner lay, retreating back under the covers.
The navy blue bedsheets were then disturbed and thrown back by said owner rising up out of them and throwing them to the side.
Rusty Hamilton rose up from his single bed and swung his legs over the side, sweeping his long red hair out of his ice-blue eyes as he did so.
Rusty stood up, all the way to his impressive 6-foot height. He was clad in only his black pyjama bottoms, which stood out against his brick-red and white fur. Despite being a size `L' for `large', they bulged at the top over his thick, muscled thighs, while his calf muscles protruded out at the back.
The tales his muscular body told were continued on his torso, with his abdomen showing keen definition, well on its way to becoming washboard. His shoulders were robust-looking and wide, with big biceps that led into toned forearms.
There was no doubt: he was in good shape for a 16-year-old. One reason for this was that, since twelve, he had wanted to be a boxer. His father, James `Jim' Hamilton, had gotten behind this, glad to hear that his boy wanted to stay fit and active, and it went well for a while... until Rusty had started beating the stuffing out of the school bullies, at which point he was promptly banned from boxing. Nonetheless, the training had stuck with the young fox, who liked to keep in shape even to this day.
In fact, this keeping-fit usually started his day, and it would start this day as it had done for the past four years. He moved through his bedroom, past the tens of heavy metal posters lining the walls, past the weights in the corner - there would be time for them later - and into the empty space next to the window, his amplifier and guitar.
On the sill of the window sat a little, rectangular black box, with two little, circular amplifiers on either side of the front of it. Rusty's forefinger found the green `ON' button of his portable DAB radio, and he twisted the protruding volume knob in the centre up.
Instantly, his bedroom was filled the pleasing sounds of crashing drums, thick basslines, hard, cutting guitars and the slightly strained vocals of a Geordie man:
Riot on the radio
Pictures on the TV
Invader man take what he can
Shootout on the silver screen
89.5 WKLR was Rusty's absolute favourite radio station, firing out a non-stop stream of hard rock and heavy metal all day long - nothing later than 1993, except for live performances.
AC/DC set the tone for the soundtrack to Rusty's morning routine - for half an hour, his shoulders, quadriceps, calves, triceps and his abdomen all got a good stretching, to the likes of Sammy Hagar and Queensryche.
Having fully limbered himself up, Rusty reached for the radio volume again and turned it down, exiting his bedroom after the Scorpions had faded into silence. Heading out of his room and onto the landing outside, Rusty's ears beheld the voice of his father, floating up from downstairs:
"...aye, man, aye. Here, listen, Zig, ye sound shattered, away an' get yersel's something tae eat an-eh? 'Toastie'? Ye've never heard o' a toastie?"
Jim looked around, as though the definition of 'toastie' would be conveniently written on a nearby wall.
His eyes travelled around the room and saw his son watching his odd phone conversation from the doorway of the living room.
"Here, Rusty," he said. "Whit?s the American f'r "toastie"?"
Maybe it was the earliness of the morning, or perhaps the oddness of the query, but Rusty simply stared back at his father, slightly dumbfounded. Finally, his brain clunked into place:
"'Grilled sandwich', is it no'?''
"That's the one!'' Jim cried, turning back to the phone. "It's a grilled cheese sandwich, a toastie is. Get some o' them down yous, get over tae yer hoose and we'll be there, awrite?''
Rusty smiled and turned away from the living room, heading to the kitchen for some breakfast.
"Morning, Mam.'' He said to his mother as he entered the kitchen and went through to the adjoining dining room.
"Morning, Rusty!'' replied the soft, lilting Scottish voice of Agnes "Aggie'' Hamilton. "I've got your breakfast here!''
As Rusty sat himself at the dining table, his mother entered. Aggie's hair was a sunny blonde of equal delicacy to her orange fur, which framed a kind face with bright blue eyes.
In accordance with the June sunshine outside, Aggie had decided to wear a thin, lilac-coloured, short-sleeved t-shirt today, in place of her usual favourite violet polo neck.
In her youth, Agnes Patterson had worked as the cashier for a little corner shop in her hometown of Edinburgh, before moving up to Inverness and gaining employment as a hotel receptionist thanks to her pleasant and gentle demeanour.
This led her to meet the cheeky, laddish and slightly coarse James Hamilton, who had left secondary school and got a job as a sheet-metal worker. They met at a disco at the Hootenanny Hall one night and ...
"Nyeek!''
It was at this point that Jim decided to sneak up behind his wife and grope her rear end with both hands.
"James Hamilton!'' The blonde vixen exclaimed, her spine stiffening at this sudden attack by her husband.
"What?'' Jim said, smiling in a thin attempt at innocence. "Am I no' alllowed tae appreciate ma wife?''
"Well, can ye no' do that in a less hands-on manner?'' Aggie huffed.
Jim just smiled in reply. Turning to Rusty (and not really minding the look on his son's face at his actions), he said:
"By the way lad, we're leavin' in a half-oor, awrite?'' Without waiting for an answer, Jim left the kitchen.
There was a moment of silence, before Rusty exhaled noisily in annoyance. He raised his bowl up to his mouth, quickly downed the leftover milk from his breakfast and stiffly got up to place it in the sink in the kitchen.
His guitar practice would have to wait, then...
Annoyingly, it was rather sunny outside, what with it being June, so Rusty decided to go with his `hotter weather' wear; namely, a black vest with a printed white skull on the front and his favourite camouflage cargo shorts. These pieces of clothing allowed for both comfortable wearing and easy breathability, which was quite necessary if you have relatively thick fur like Rusty.
It also had the effect of making the fox look like he was about to attend an Anthrax concert. Which was a look he was quite fond of.
But Rusty, being Scottish and born in winter, definitely resented the raised temperature and radiating brightness of this sunny weather, and thus left the house and went down to the driveway in less-than-amiable spirits.
The Hamilton family car was a Peugeot 406, a 4-doored French saloon car that had seen to the Hamiltons' travel needs for a decade and a half. In the early afternoon sun, the vehicle's navy blue body appeared cobalt as Rusty and Jim approached.
"Right, 'mon then.'' The tone of Rusty's voice negated the need for him to say "Let's get this over with'', as he and his father entered the car.
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With a population of 92,550 and lacking in cathedrals, Great Rockton only counted as a `large town' in Great Britain. Nonetheless, there were still a fair few people of these people out and about in the hours of the late morning, men and women both wearing as little as they could get away with. People could even be seen sunbathing in their gardens, taking advantage of what was usually one of the few sunny days that Britain was likely to see.
Rusty leant his elbow against the sill of the 406's passenger-side door, looking out of the window at all these things, with the window opened slightly to allow a cool breeze into the car. This little stream of wind buffeted a lock of the big fox's long vermilion hair as he voiced a question to his father:
"So, where are your guys from, again?'' Rusty asked.
"Zig and them's from California, I think.'' Jim said.
At this, Rusty sighed aggravatedly, his broad shoulders slumping almost down to his pelvis. California? Fuck sake.
Instantly, a slideshow of images started inside Rusty's head imagining the kind of people he was about to meet: bleach blond hair, irritating hipster facial hair and clothes, probably laid back and lazy, and their taste in everything from decoration to food would be completely fucking shi-
"Ah now,'' Jim reprimanded his son reproachfully, bringing the younger fox out of his train of thought. "Dinnae be like that, Rusty, I've kent Ziggy since I wis in Primary 3.''
"Dad, ye're penpals.'' Rusty pointed out.
"So? I kept in touch wi' him, got him on the phone and, daaaah...''
Jim went silent for a few seconds. The red light had turned green, and the elder fox needed to concentrate to make the turn, before continuing with his point:
"When ye get older, lad, ye'll value havin' friends to talk to an-''
"God, this isnae leadin' into another "When you have kids'' speech, is it?'' Rusty cut across his father. "I'm not havin' kids, Dad, I've told ye afore.''
It was Jim's turn to groan now. This topic of conversation had come up several times before between Rusty and his parents, and the young fox had always been resolute in his stance.
Jim wanted to rebuke his son, to tell him that he shouldn't be so hasty with these bold claims at such a young age, but thought better of it.
In the meantime, they were coming up on Winship Street, where the Blacks' new house was.
As a suburban cul-de-sac, Winship Street was not particularly exciting, comprising of exactly six brown-bricked houses arranged around the dead-end street. In fact, the houses all looked the same for the most part: five detached houses, with brown brick outer walls, white windows and a white-doored garage each. Only the numbers on the front doors differentiated the houses... well, that and the big white moving lorry in front of the second house on the left.
"I -" Rusty's words were cut short, as they passed the white moving van, and got a look at two of the residents of the new house. "Dad, when did we enter an episode of Scooby-Doo?"
Jim laughed as his son gawked out of the car window at Ziggy Black and his wife. To be honest, he couldn't really blame him, because standing there on the pavement outside their new house... were, quite obviously, a pair of hippies.
Because of the motion of the car, Rusty didn't get a clear picture of what the Blacks looked like immediately, but two things were certainly made obvious to him: both of them were black cats, and, in Rusty's opinion, they only looked marginally more subtle than Halloween hippy costumes.
The male cat's black hair was long and straight, and actually had several braided ropes in, identifiable by the multicoloured beads sitting at the ends of them. They framed his smiling face as he looked at them drive past from behind his red-lensed round shades. He wore a mustard-yellow long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves of which slipped down his arm as he waved at them, and over that an aquamarine-and-evergreen waistcoat with little fringes around the hem at the bottom of it.
Finally, a pair of cornflower blue trousers covered up his legs, and looked to be a size too big, as they were nearly dragging on the floor, and nearly obscured his toffee-colour moccasins from view.
He was quite a sight, so much so that Rusty's eyes were completely glued to him, and the fox craned his neck in the car to keep such an odd spectacle in his line of view as they drove past. He turned in the seat as Jim parked up, just past where the removal men were unloading the Blacks' stuff out of their lorry.
Jim exited the car, followed slowly by Rusty. The older fox strode forward towards the black cat, his arms wide open.
"Zig, mate!'' His tone was jovial and friendly as he approached, catching the attention of the hippy, who broke into a wide smile.
"Jimmy, my maaaan!''
The cat's voice was exactly as expected: Californian, with long, slow vowels and a laid-back tone that befitted his personality.
The fox and cat embraced, slightly too hard on Jim's part, very nearly lifting Ziggy from the floor. The smile was nearly forced from his face, and when Jim finally let go, the long-haired cat had to roll his shoulders to get some feeling back into them.
As Jim then moved onto greet the female cat - Willow, apparently - Rusty could do naught but stare at them. Had they recently come out of a costume shop? Halloween wasn't for another 4 months...
"Hey, man!'' Ziggy then turned to Rusty. "Whoa, you're a big dude!''
"Er... aye...'' Rusty said slowly, still coming to terms with this bizarre situation. Ziggy turned towards the removal lorry and started to list off the contents within.
The day's surprises had clearly not yet come to an end for Rusty, and as he turned to look at the removal lorry along with Ziggy, the latest of these surprises was sitting on the tailgate of the lorry and looking straight back at him.
If Ziggy and Willow appeared to have been imported out of 1969, then their son was clearly from 1989.
A white vest stood out against the black cat's thin chest, and Rusty didn't have to look twice to see that it was a 1982 Van Halen Live vest, artfully torn. Perhaps it was a size too big for him, but the article of clothing was practically hanging off of him.
Was wasn't so loose on the cat was the tight pair of stonewashed blue jeans that clung to his legs, and the bottoms were tucked inside a pair of black-and-white hi-top shoes.
And that hair! Utterly saturated in hair spray, the feline's hair was piled high on top of his head, defying gravity as it hung slightly over the right side of his face.
Like his mother (and presumably his father), the young cat's uncovered eye was a brilliant yellow, with a vertical black slit for the pupil. Since the back of the van was facing away from the sun, the inside appeared quite dark, making his visible eye look especially lamplike.
Having only just gotten used to the sight of the Woodstock parents, Rusty found it a bit hard to believe that their only child looked like a member of the crowd at a Poison concert.
The cat swung his legs idly from the tailgate. He had a can of orange Minute Maid in his right hand, from which he casually took a swig, before placing it on the floor of the tailgate and hopping down to meet Rusty.
"'Sup, big dude?'' The cat's voice, much like the rest of him, was straight out of 80's California, a long, slow drawl that reminded Rusty of Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
He held out his right hand to Rusty for a friendly fistbump, to which Rusty did not respond.
"...'K, then.'' The black cat slowly lowered his arm, taking another sip from his Minute Maid. He didn't seem too put out by this rejection, though.
"Right then,'' Rusty said, returning to his all-business tone and turning to the elder Blacks. "What's going where?'' His face was set in a hard frown again - standing this long in the sun was becoming deeply irritating for him.
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"Give us that here,'' Rusty ordered. It was equal parts laughable and irritating watching the black cat struggle to heave the cardboard box up the stairs, arms swinging and quivering like the ends of a hammock in the wind. "Ye need tae get down the gym! Where's this going?''
Maxxie looked relieved as the big fox took the box out of his hands with relative ease, continuing up the stairs until they were on the landing.
"In here, dude!'' the feline said, approaching the door furthest from the top of the stairs and holding it open.
The room inside was bare, as expected. It had four walls laid out in a roughly square shape, covered in old wall paper that had probably once been white, but due to its age had become sepia-coloured. It looked like the walls had been varnished with tea.
The carpet was equally drab, Rusty noted, a utilitarian sort of beigy-brown, almost like the least interesting material in the world: corduroy.
Maxxie seemed to share Rusty's view on this; his nose wrinkled as he entered the room.
"Ugh, this room's so boring," he moaned, gesturing to the room at large. "What kinda old granny used to live here?''
Rusty took the cardboard box into the centre of the room and placed it down... whereupon its contents emitted several plastic-y rattles. They sounded like CDs or cassette tapes or something. Rusty was intrigued...
"But don't you worry, amigo!'' the cat smiled. "I'll get posters up, get, like, a couch in here, set up a TV- man, it'll be bitchin'!''
Rusty was only half listening, though - he was starting to succumb to curiosity: he quite wanted to have a rifle through this box and see what Maxxie had in there.
As though he was reading the foxes mind, Maxxie suddenly piped up:
"Oh! Dude! I gotta show ya somethin'! Wait there while I go and get it!''
"Aye, you away and do that...'' How lucky that that happened, Rusty thought, kneeling down beside the box.
The box was sealed up heavily with a lot of brown tape, but Rusty was strong enough to force a few thick fingers into the gap between the lid and the side and lifting up. The tape gave way, the lid opened and Rusty saw what had been causing the plastic clattering.
Rusty's brows raised, and his strong jaw fell open. He had been right: there had been CDs lurking inside there, but they were not the ones he had expected.
They were arranged face-up in the box in four columns, piled up to the top of the container, and Rusty reached in and took the first one.
The cover was completely red, except for a diagonal white slash that ran from the top left corner to the bottom right.
Unmistakeably, it was Van Halen's Diver Down from 1982. Rusty had this album himself!
Placing the CD on the floor next to himself, Rusty looked again.
Beside Diver Down, on top of its own column was another CD.
The cover beheld a man wearing a shiny red straightjacket, a rough-looking metal mask pinning back scraggly black hair and hiding his face completely, save for one, frightening-looking eye.
'QUIET RIOT
METAL HEALTH' it proclaimed beside him.
Rusty paused. He also had this CD himself, too! If the rest of this cat's music collection continued in this vein, he might have to reconsider his stance on him...
Maxxie's apparent love for 80's rock kept coming as Rusty continued to look through them: Autograph, Rough Cutt, Def Leppard, Poison, Motley Crue, .38 Special, Danger Danger... It wasn't exactly in line with Rusty's almost exclusively heavy metal tastes, but it was certainly better than he had expected.
But there were also other albums that weren't in the rock category, such as Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast, Wham!'s Fantastic and Duran Duran... a lot of Duran Duran...
He was three quarters of the way through the box and inspecting David Lee Roth's painted face on Eat `Em and Smile when a voice issued from the doorway, breaking him out of his reverie:
"You having fun there?''
Rusty jumped a little and twisted towards the door. Evidently, he had been so focused on Maxxie's collection that he hadn't actually noticed the boy himself observing him from the door of the room.
"I... urh...''
The fox scrambled for words, trying to quickly piece together an excuse as to why he had been essentially ransacking Maxxie's own personal belongings. Fuck, how long had he been there?
"S'OK, dude!'' The black cat spoke, entering the room. Slung over his right shoulder, Maxxie carried a long, black bag with him into the room.
Instantly, Rusty recognised it as a guitar gig bag.
"Mate, you play guitar?''
"Oh, totally!'' Maxxie enthused, sitting down cross-legged on the floor in front of Rusty. Laying the gig bag horizontally across his lap, he unzipped it, reached inside and drew out the instrument from within.
The head and upper neck of a bass guitar emerged in his black hand. `Squier by Fender P BASS'' proclaimed the inscription on the maple headstock, underneath the silvery club-shaped tuners. The fretboard was a nice, dark rosewood, covered by 4 thick strings and stretching all the way down to the body, which exited its holdings last.
The body should have been Olympic White, but there wasn't much of it to be seen, as it was utterly littered with stickers. All manner of images were strewn everywhere - an American flag, the state symbol of California, an MTV logo, a thunderbolt, a round Charvel/Jackson symbol as well as other things. Evidently, Maxxie had fired every sticker he deemed cool enough onto it.
Plucking idly at the strings of his bass, Maxxie smiled over at Rusty. "I take it you're a metalhead too?''
He nodded his head at Rusty, indicating the foxes `MTV Headbanger's Ball' attire.
"Aye, I think it suits me,'' Rusty nodded, turning to the CDs that he had scattered on the floor of the room. His hand sought out the CD case of Quiet Riot's `Metal Health', picking up the plastic case and pointing to it with his other hand. "Here, I've got this one as well!''
Maxxie sat forward. "Dude! Have you _seen_ them at the US Festival in `83?''
"Wis that not the one with Priest and Ozzy?''
That was how Maxxie Black and Rusty Hamilton spoke all throughout that day, carrying this conversation as they helped their parents furnish the feline family's new residence, discussing things like: which was the best Iron Maiden album? Did David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar sing better for Van Halen? Is Alice Cooper more of a madman than Ted Nugent? And is Yngwie a better guitarist than Nuno?
Finally, though, after all of the boxes have been transferred from the lorry to the house, the time came for the Hamiltons to leave the Blacks to get acquainted to their new place of residence.
"Right, 'mon then, Rusty!'' came Jim's voice, calling his son.
The big fox and the black cat came tramping down the stairs and into the downstairs hallway, where their parents had just come through the rainbow-patterned bead curtain from the living room.
"Thanks for your help, big man!'' said Ziggy, smiling kindly. Before Rusty could even react, the cat had sprung forward and hugged him, giving him a whiff of what smelled a bit like patchouli as he did so.
Rusty, not used to such a show of affection from people other than his parents, simply stood there awkwardly and took it. The whole time, Rusty could see his own father beaming out of the corner of his eye.
"Well dude,'' Maxxie said, turning to look up at Rusty with his yellow eyes when his father had finally let go of him. ``Here's where we part ways for now!''
"Aye, I guess so," was Rusty's reply, a little quieter than usual. And then, he did something he had never done before: he held out his hand to Maxxie.
The black cat looked down at it, and then, with a grin, reached out and shook it, a black, velvety glove shaking a thick, bear paw-like red hand.
This done, he looked to his father. "Right, shall we go, then?''
Jim's left eyebrow raised slightly. He knew full well that this was a plea from his son for them to leave.
"Awrite, then,'' he said, smirking at his son, before turning to Ziggy and Willow. "Listen, it's been great getting to see you lads. You've got tae come ower some time, yersel's!''
Ziggy and Willow both shook the elder foxes hands, giving their own replies of assurance that they would do so when their house was up and running.
And with that, they left.
Perhaps, Rusty thought as the 406 drove back down the entrance to Winship Street, perhaps Maxxie didn?t annoy him all that much. Perhaps he enjoyed having someone to play guitar with, and perhaps he?d have to come back over and do so again. Perhaps the cat had brought the sun with him from California, and perhaps he didn?t find its brightness so bad. And perhaps it was the start of something... bigger.
