VIXEN - The Legend of the Five Totems

Chapter 3 - Alleyway Confessions

In their Detroit neighborhood, The Baker household does not stand out. It is on a street of relative opulence, where its citizens are protected by both the police and Neighborhood Watch, and just about every residence there has an in-ground pool. This is a family neighborhood, one where children scampering across the street to play with their neighbors is not a lost concept. Since their arrival to the neighborhood a year prior, the Bakers have found themselves host to countless soirees, parties, and impromptu visits. If Buddy Baker were to say anything about this mid-winter day, it would be that it is strange to look out his window and see only his two daughters, Cliff and Maxine playing in their yard.

"Why?" Buddy asks into the cell phone that he has wedged between his right ear and his right shoulder. He has been talking to his agent, Frank Troutman, for the past fifteen minutes while he makes lunches for his two young children.

"Why? Why? Buddy, come on! It'd be a great opportunity! Think of it! You'd be more than just a regular stuntman, you'd be in the starring role!"

"And I'd be compromising my integrity in the process. Marty Pacino's movies are slashers, and I'm not saying horror. You read the press release about how he literally had whatshisname rip open a live chicken right on camera."

"For which he made a public apology," Frank insists. "Besides, that was twenty years ago! He was just a fledgling director at that time. He needed the publicity."

"Yeah, and how would the ASPCA respond to having one of their lead spokesmen go and turn... hold on a sec, Frank." Buddy slides open the glass door separating his kitchen from his porch. A draft of warm air blasts outward even as a swirl of icy cold slides in. From here, he bellows to the two children playing in the backyard jungle gym and swing set he put together for them when they moved here. "Kids! What you want on your sandwiches?"

Cliff yells back, "Just mayo and lettuce on mine!"

"Pickles, tomatoes, mayo, and lettuce for me, dad!" Maxine yells.

"Ellen, how about you?" he calls into the living room, where his wife is researching art styles for the children's book she was recently commissioned to illustrate.

"We have honey mustard? If not, then mayo and tomato."

"DAAAAAD!" Buddy's kids call from the yard. He hears it, too, though only a moment later. It is the roar of a jet engine, far closer than it should be. Indeed, it is so close that it is literally right overhead the house. Buddy steps outside just in time to witness an undercarriage cargo door open. A massive black-furred gorilla leaps out and lands with a heavy thud right in the middle of the frost-bitten grass of his yard.

"Um. Frank. I'll call you back. A gorilla just landed in my back yard."

"Ha ha!" Frank says nervously. "Always the kidder. You think about -" but the rest of his statement disappears as Buddy taps off his phone.

Of all the things to plummet into his backyard under the roar of a jet engine, Buddy is comparatively happy that it is a gorilla as opposed to a gangbanger from some of the less opulent parts of town. Peculiar variations of existence are far more up his alley than bullets, for when he is not actually performing as a stunt man in movies, he spends much of his time as the costumed adventurer, Animal Man. Using his gift to tap into the Red, the morphogenetic field that permeates the universe, he is able to telepathically reach directly into the mind of any living creature. Yet when he does this to the gorilla in his yard, he is blocked from reaching into the gorilla's mind.