The cold November rain poured down onto the streets of Inverness - they smacked off of the roads and pavements, rattled against the bus stops and bounced off of the awnings that covered the shop fronts.
Because of this, the streets were mostly empty, but those that were out had gloves on and the hoods of their clothes up.
All, that is, except for Rusty Hamilton.
He stomped his way down the street, wearing nothing but a black vest, his best black jeans, white hi-tops and a scowl that could have curdled milk.
The red foxes hands were jammed into the pockets of his jeans - they had been in his boxing gloves not 15 minutes earlier - and his crimson hair was plastered to his face by the constant rain, but he didn’t seem to care.
After all, he had been given bigger things to worry about than the weather:
—
Rusty had entered the Highland Boxing Club to find his nemesis (and fellow Boxing Club member) Bobby Kinnaird, Bobby’s parents and the club owner waiting ominously for him at the reception area.
What followed was 10 minutes of finger-wagging, moaning and aggravated chastisement, as Bobby’s parents laid into him for punching their son in the face at school a few days ago.
The club owner did nothing to stop this verbal barrage, and Rusty was forced to take all of their abuse as Bobby hung back and smirked, his face sporting an oversized plaster where Rusty’s blow had landed.
All the while, Rusty just stared at them through narrowed eyes, his jaw set - he was almost as tall as they were, he could take them…
“I’m afraid I’m gonnae have to ask you tae hand over yer gloves, Rusty.”
“WHAT?”
Rusty turned his attention to the Highland Boxing Club’s owner, who had approached him whilst the Kinnairds had been lambasting him.
“I can’t have ye goin’ around assaultin’ fowks wherever ye like - it kind of reflects badly on us, ken?”
“What… you…” Rusty was so outraged that could barely speak. He could take the shouting from Bobby’s parents, but this felt like an absolute betrayal of the highest order.
“You heard him, Hamilton,” Bobby sneered. “Hand them ower!”
Rusty moved forward, intent on bursting that burly haemorrhoid once and for all, but the Boxing Club owner quickly intercepted him, placing his hands on the 15-year-old fox's shoulders to stop him.
“DON’T.” The owner said warningly, and Rusty looked into his face with wild eyes. “Dinnae make it harder on yersel’, son.”
“Get him ootae here, already!” squeaked Bobby’s mother, who had curled herself into a kind of protective cocoon around her son in the background.
But Rusty wasn’t looking - he was still angrily staring the club owner in the face, and briefly considered decking the man in the face for siding with Bobby…
…but he decided against it, instead reaching to take off the black boxing gloves that he’d tied around his neck in anticipation of today’s boxing. The owner looked relieved, but his expression quickly turned to shock as Rusty threw his gloves between the man’s hands and straight to the ground.
Rusty didn't bother to listen to his shout of protest, nor the complaints and objections of Bobby Kinnaird’s parents, as he’d already turned on his heel and stomped out.
—
Rusty’s head was still tilted downwards as he marched home through the wet Inverness streets - the only sounds in his world now were the clattering of the rain, the thumping of the rain on the ground and-
Ha ha oh ah ah oh ha-aa…
Ha ha oh ah ah oh ha-aa…
…and AC/DC?
Rusty looked up, his ears instinctively turning in the direction of the noise as his eyes recognised the street he was walking down.
He had been so deep in his anger that he hadn’t noticed that he was on Church Street, which meant that the source of the noise could only be one place…
Rusty approached the window of the creatively-named Music Shop, his displeasure briefly washing away with the rain, and pressed his face to the display window like a kid observing a particularly interesting animal at the zoo.
This was something he’d done ever since he’d discovered what a guitar was as a kit - staring at the guitars in the shop window and wondering what it’d be like to own and play these wonderful instruments.
Ha ha oh ah ah oh ha-aa, THUNDER!
Ha ha oh ah ah oh ha-aa, THUNDER!
Today, though, Rusty wasn’t looking at the instruments but rather, he was looking into the shop itself.
There, in the middle of the shop floor, a guy sat on a music stool - for the rest of his life, Rusty would never quite be able to recall his appearance in any real detail, but that was mostly because of his actions and his guitar.
In this man’s left hand, Rusty recognised an Epiphone SG Standard, with two silver Alnico humbucker pickups, a fretboard of Indian Laurel and a resplendent Heritage Cherry body finish.
But even though the guitar was a very tasty one, Rusty was equally captivated by what the man was doing with it:
Thunderstruck was playing on the radio in the shop, and this guy was playing along with it.
One-handed.
Rusty marvelled at the awesome sight of Angus Young’s lead guitar part being perfectly played: every hammer-on and pull-off was performed with the utmost precision, his fingers always where they needed to be!
The red fox peeled himself off of the Music Shop window and returned to his journey home, no longer feeling quite so bad about his situation.
—
“Hullo?” came the voice of Agnes Hamilton as Rusty tromped in through the front door of the house. “Is that you, Russ? What are you doing back so early?”
“Dad wis right,” Rusty sighed, taking his wet trainers off and leaving them by the door. “I’m not allowed tae box any more.”
“I thocht ye might be!” sounded the voice of James Hamilton from the kitchen.
“Och, look at you, you’re soaked through!” Agnes came through the hallway with a white towel, wrapping her beefy son in it when she approached him.
“Cheers, Mam.” he replied, accepting the towel and walking into the house whilst drying himself. Going through the hallway and entering into the kitchen, Rusty found his father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the day’s newspaper.
“I telt ye something lik’ that wid happen, lad. “Jim said, folding the paper over to look at his large son. “So - guess ye’ll be needin’ a new hobby then, eh?”
Rusty finished drying off his tail, throwing the wet towel into the laundry basket before sitting down at the table, fixing his father with a characteristically stoic look.
“I want a guitar for Christmas.”
------------------------------
I felt like making Guitar Hero-esque bios for all 5 members of Whyte Knuckle, so I did!
I felt like writing up defining musical moments from their childhoods, so I did!
