Take My Hand for The Wild Hunt

For K.

      My fox is English and looks like Elizabeth Taylor dressed as Elvis on a skateboard.
      When we know each other but don’t know each other, we share a hotel room for a friend’s birthday getaway. I don’t yet know my roommate is a trickster. She hides in the wardrobe and jumps out and I invent new curse words while she collapses with laughter. She tells me of other pranks, of how she once hid in a suitcase. When the weekend is over, we stay a few more days, just the two of us, talking and swimming and smearing sunscreen on each other with exacting fingers.

~

      One year into dating, she comes to the States and we visit D.C. I take her to the Museum of Natural History which, in addition to rarities, also encases my childhood. We wander between animals frozen in time. When we get to the fennec fox, she says, “That’s me,” and I take a photo of her beside it with the same wild eyes. Then she insists we walk past the FBI building to wave hi to Scully. When I eventually dye my hair red, my fox will purr with enthusiasm.

~

      We eat dinner with a husband and wife who have been married for two dozen years and the wife still calls her husband her boyfriend “Because he is that, too.” My fox squeezes my hand and whispers, “I want us to be like them.”

~

      She cuts off all her hair and I pet where the peachy sides fade to skin. She shaves that and tattoos on a spaceship. This will be how I imagine her forever, even when she grows her hair long, keeps it long for her mother’s wedding. The other tattoos, the lip ring, they stay visible. I do, too, and she introduces me as hers. After the wedding, she cuts off all her hair again and I run my fingers through the fur of it, happy to have her back.

~

      Everyone always notices when my trickster arrives. She has swagger and a rainbow head. She is a streak of red through the forest. And she is all play. The video I see of a fox bouncing on a trampoline reminds me of her. She is all song, too. She gets to be; she works with children. Colleagues call her Mary Poppins—who is also a trickster, if you think about it.

~

      At work, my love slips and falls, shattering the delicate parts of her hand that surgeons must re-carve, re-set. Bandaged up, we go to a club for a friend’s birthday. An older gay man teases, asking if I’ve been knocking her around. I’m too drunk to respond without offending reciprocally. But the thought of hurting her breaks my ribs open.

~

      In her burrow, my fox has two electric guitars. Drums. A trumpet. Dust fuzzes over them while her hand heals. I miss her Dido voice, pure and so at odds with the System of a Down in her ears. She won’t sing without her guitar—except to annoy me, sculpting her throat to precisely mimic Mary Poppins. She swallows painkillers, warbling “A Spoonful of Sugar,” and I beg her to stop. “It’s the opposite of sexy.” She says, “You never fancied Julie Andrews?”

~

      No, when I was little, I had a crush on Disney’s fox Robin Hood. Like him, my trickster is originally from Nottingham. TSA agents make a point of this when they inspect her passport. But the first time she flew into Seattle, the agent saw her hair and asked if she was in the U.S. for a P!nk concert. She said, “No, I’m here to visit my girlfriend,” and he took her to the back office and screamed until his supervisor stepped in. I’ve found my fox. She doesn’t steal, but in her walkabout theater troupe she once played an Edwardian pickpocket and made an elegant, public mockery of a man who didn’t notice the small mountain of things she drew from his jeans—until she tapped him on the shoulder, pointed, and ran.

~

      Before I knew her, when her hair was always long and a dress wasn’t out of the question, she played the little girl in a re-telling of “The Juniper Tree.” I have never seen her act. What would fairy tales look like on her now? Shopping With My Girlfriend in the Boys Department and a Stranger Asks How Old My Son Is is what I joke I’ll call my memoir. I’m only two years older, but that’s not the point. It hurts, being invisible. It hurts when she is, too. She exists to be seen, red against the green.

      Even so, we don’t hold hands in public. Or if we do, my ears are pricked, my eyes scanning the periphery. My other thumb ready to curl over a fist. Am I the rabbit or the hunter?

~

      People wait until they get to know us (or drink enough) to ask if she “turned me.” They’re interpreting her shaved head and my long hair. I unroll a verbal list of ex-girlfriends to prove myself. They don’t ask for her history, but she shares it anyway. Eyebrows raise at mentions of boyfriends and they fall silent.

~

      Before we ever meet, her friend who is also my friend tells me of the fox. She says, “I think she’ll marry a man,” and a sharp, contrary voice inside me says, No, I think she’ll marry me. And I am right.

~

      When we get married, we walk back down the aisle to “Foxy Lady” because our guitarist friend forgot what he was supposed to play. I love our wedding and my wife and our friend more for it.

~

      So very married, we snuggle and watch re-runs of the British detective show A Touch of Frost. In this episode, a murder occurs during the protest for a fox hunt. I think of the animated fox chase in Mary Poppins and kiss my own fox, my own butch Julie Andrews, who delights in both hiding and shining.

~

      By the way, she wanted me to call this piece “Oo-De-Lally” and wondered why I said nothing about her love of pirates or how she taught me to make tea. Please excuse my muse’s intrusion. She can’t help but make herself known—unless she’s curled up, camouflaged against the autumn leaves, lying in wait.

~

      At parties, my trickster wife likes to tell people what a bad liar I am. Inevitably, their heads whip toward me, like, Why are you lying to your wife, huh? To which I say, “Whoa. Let me explain. I’m no good at pranks. I’m terrible at not telling her what I got her for Christmas.” She slips behind them, quietly refilling a drink and laughing. When I glare her way, she returns to kiss me on the forehead until I smile again. She’s proud of me, don’t I know?

      Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

~

      Before I too move to the U.K., she rents a flat with a bedroom that opens onto a wild garden where a fox family lives. One day while I’m visiting we see five of them out enjoying the sun. In the mornings, gifts appear. My wife finds a pile of lamb bones and, on top, a child’s sneaker. Gnawed-up dirty diapers spill gel and I ache for the fox kits’ swollen bellies. One time, I discover a knee-high leather boot and imagine what sort of parties the foxes host in their den. My wife’s love language is also gift-giving. She brings me tokens nicked from conversation. A toy excavator she painted teal because I said, “You never see them in that color.” Molasses for American gingerbread cookies. A bouquet of birds-of-paradise because they remind me of a house I left long ago. On the blue-beaked flowers is an orange comb, the petals like fox tails. I put them in a vase in a flat where I don’t yet live but call home because she’s there in the dark, waiting.

For K.

      My fox is English and looks like Elizabeth Taylor dressed as Elvis on a skateboard.
      When we know each other but don’t know each other, we share a hotel room for a friend’s birthday getaway. I don’t yet know my roommate is a trickster. She hides in the wardrobe and jumps out and I invent new curse words while she collapses with laughter. She tells me of other pranks, of how she once hid in a suitcase. When the weekend is over, we stay a few more days, just the two of us, talking and swimming and smearing sunscreen on each other with exacting fingers.

~

      One year into dating, she comes to the States and we visit D.C. I take her to the Museum of Natural History which, in addition to rarities, also encases my childhood. We wander between animals frozen in time. When we get to the fennec fox, she says, “That’s me,” and I take a photo of her beside it with the same wild eyes. Then she insists we walk past the FBI building to wave hi to Scully. When I eventually dye my hair red, my fox will purr with enthusiasm.

~

      We eat dinner with a husband and wife who have been married for two dozen years and the wife still calls her husband her boyfriend “Because he is that, too.” My fox squeezes my hand and whispers, “I want us to be like them.”

~

      She cuts off all her hair and I pet where the peachy sides fade to skin. She shaves that and tattoos on a spaceship. This will be how I imagine her forever, even when she grows her hair long, keeps it long for her mother’s wedding. The other tattoos, the lip ring, they stay visible. I do, too, and she introduces me as hers. After the wedding, she cuts off all her hair again and I run my fingers through the fur of it, happy to have her back.

~

      Everyone always notices when my trickster arrives. She has swagger and a rainbow head. She is a streak of red through the forest. And she is all play. The video I see of a fox bouncing on a trampoline reminds me of her. She is all song, too. She gets to be; she works with children. Colleagues call her Mary Poppins—who is also a trickster, if you think about it.

~

      At work, my love slips and falls, shattering the delicate parts of her hand that surgeons must re-carve, re-set. Bandaged up, we go to a club for a friend’s birthday. An older gay man teases, asking if I’ve been knocking her around. I’m too drunk to respond without offending reciprocally. But the thought of hurting her breaks my ribs open.

~

      In her burrow, my fox has two electric guitars. Drums. A trumpet. Dust fuzzes over them while her hand heals. I miss her Dido voice, pure and so at odds with the System of a Down in her ears. She won’t sing without her guitar—except to annoy me, sculpting her throat to precisely mimic Mary Poppins. She swallows painkillers, warbling “A Spoonful of Sugar,” and I beg her to stop. “It’s the opposite of sexy.” She says, “You never fancied Julie Andrews?”

~

      No, when I was little, I had a crush on Disney’s fox Robin Hood. Like him, my trickster is originally from Nottingham. TSA agents make a point of this when they inspect her passport. But the first time she flew into Seattle, the agent saw her hair and asked if she was in the U.S. for a P!nk concert. She said, “No, I’m here to visit my girlfriend,” and he took her to the back office and screamed until his supervisor stepped in. I’ve found my fox. She doesn’t steal, but in her walkabout theater troupe she once played an Edwardian pickpocket and made an elegant, public mockery of a man who didn’t notice the small mountain of things she drew from his jeans—until she tapped him on the shoulder, pointed, and ran.

~

      Before I knew her, when her hair was always long and a dress wasn’t out of the question, she played the little girl in a re-telling of “The Juniper Tree.” I have never seen her act. What would fairy tales look like on her now? Shopping With My Girlfriend in the Boys Department and a Stranger Asks How Old My Son Is is what I joke I’ll call my memoir. I’m only two years older, but that’s not the point. It hurts, being invisible. It hurts when she is, too. She exists to be seen, red against the green.

      Even so, we don’t hold hands in public. Or if we do, my ears are pricked, my eyes scanning the periphery. My other thumb ready to curl over a fist. Am I the rabbit or the hunter?

~

      People wait until they get to know us (or drink enough) to ask if she “turned me.” They’re interpreting her shaved head and my long hair. I unroll a verbal list of ex-girlfriends to prove myself. They don’t ask for her history, but she shares it anyway. Eyebrows raise at mentions of boyfriends and they fall silent.

~

      Before we ever meet, her friend who is also my friend tells me of the fox. She says, “I think she’ll marry a man,” and a sharp, contrary voice inside me says, No, I think she’ll marry me. And I am right.

~

      When we get married, we walk back down the aisle to “Foxy Lady” because our guitarist friend forgot what he was supposed to play. I love our wedding and my wife and our friend more for it.

~

      So very married, we snuggle and watch re-runs of the British detective show A Touch of Frost. In this episode, a murder occurs during the protest for a fox hunt. I think of the animated fox chase in Mary Poppins and kiss my own fox, my own butch Julie Andrews, who delights in both hiding and shining.

~

      By the way, she wanted me to call this piece “Oo-De-Lally” and wondered why I said nothing about her love of pirates or how she taught me to make tea. Please excuse my muse’s intrusion. She can’t help but make herself known—unless she’s curled up, camouflaged against the autumn leaves, lying in wait.

~

      At parties, my trickster wife likes to tell people what a bad liar I am. Inevitably, their heads whip toward me, like, Why are you lying to your wife, huh? To which I say, “Whoa. Let me explain. I’m no good at pranks. I’m terrible at not telling her what I got her for Christmas.” She slips behind them, quietly refilling a drink and laughing. When I glare her way, she returns to kiss me on the forehead until I smile again. She’s proud of me, don’t I know?

      Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

~

      Before I too move to the U.K., she rents a flat with a bedroom that opens onto a wild garden where a fox family lives. One day while I’m visiting we see five of them out enjoying the sun. In the mornings, gifts appear. My wife finds a pile of lamb bones and, on top, a child’s sneaker. Gnawed-up dirty diapers spill gel and I ache for the fox kits’ swollen bellies. One time, I discover a knee-high leather boot and imagine what sort of parties the foxes host in their den. My wife’s love language is also gift-giving. She brings me tokens nicked from conversation. A toy excavator she painted teal because I said, “You never see them in that color.” Molasses for American gingerbread cookies. A bouquet of birds-of-paradise because they remind me of a house I left long ago. On the blue-beaked flowers is an orange comb, the petals like fox tails. I put them in a vase in a flat where I don’t yet live but call home because she’s there in the dark, waiting.

Kathryn McMahon is a queer, cross-genre writer who divides her time between the Puget Sound and southwest England. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, Booth, Passages North, The Cincinnati Review, Split Lip, PodCastle, and elsewhere. She is the winner of both Prime Number Magazine’s quarterly flash fiction contest and as well as New Delta Review’s Ryan R. Gibbs Award for Flash Fiction. Find more of her writing at www.darkandsparklystories.com and follow her on Twitter at @katoscope.

Kathryn McMahon is a queer, cross-genre writer who divides her time between the Puget Sound and southwest England. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, Booth, Passages North, The Cincinnati Review, Split Lip, PodCastle, and elsewhere. She is the winner of both Prime Number Magazine’s quarterly flash fiction contest and as well as New Delta Review’s Ryan R. Gibbs Award for Flash Fiction. Find more of her writing at www.darkandsparklystories.com and follow her on Twitter at @katoscope.