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To anyone else, it’s a graveyard of contorted metal.  To Rocky, it’s heaven on earth.  The corpses of automobiles glisten under the desert moon, resting peacefully amongst the heaps of broken tools and shattered glass.  Tom’s Junkyard is Rocky’s happy place.  A little slice of paradise the raccoon retreats to when life drags him down.  He’s been coming here a lot lately.  

The raccoon sits cross-legged in the dirt between two rusted car husks, tinkering with a pair of small metal plates.  He presses them together–2 inches wide, 4 long–perpendicular at their centers, wrapping the intersection in electrical tape.  A loop and some string, and his latest opus takes shape: a steel cross necklace.  The preacher’s son holds it up against the moonlight.  He smiles.  Then the smile flickers.  Would the Good Lord object to a garbage talisman?  His dad certainly would.

Rocky slips the cross over his head, then takes it off.  He turns it over in his calloused paws.  The tape is uneven.  One arm hangs slightly longer than the other.  It’s ugly.  It’s his.

He puts it back on.

Rocky’s ears track the sound of footsteps.  Has Carl come to chase him out again?  The raccoon faces the noise.  His bones turn to ice as his fur stands on end.  It’s not Carl.

A shadow ascends the trash heaps.  A pair of eyes glow with the fires of hell.  Twin revolvers shimmer in the moonlight on the creature’s hips.  A pair of triangular ears stand like obsidian horns upon its head.  Has the devil himself finally come for Rocky’s soul?  No, it’s something far worse.  It’s a devil dog.

Rocky dives behind the nearest trash can and clutches his garbage cross so hard the tape bites into his palm.  His father warned him about jackals.  Canines too ghastly to be wolves and too hideous to be foxes.  They consort with the dead and bring misery and pestilence to all in their wake.

The pungent metallic scent of blood assaults Rocky’s nose as the death dog creeps toward him.  Rocky covers his chest.  “Devil dogs eat the hearts of Christians,” he hears in his father’s voice. “This year alone, 27 souls have been snuffed out by those monsters, all with hollowed-out chests.”

The jackal stumbles toward the trash can carrying a canvas sack labeled “Federation Bank” in its left paw.  A whimper escapes Rocky’s mouth as it drops the sack in the trash can.  He clamps his muzzle tight with his paws and resists the urge to scream as the bloodsoaked devil dog looms over him.  His wavering body is blanketed in cuts and bruises.  The jackal locks eyes with Rocky and grins, displaying shiny gold-plated fangs. 

“Keep y’all paws off my coin, ya hear!” he mutters before collapsing unconscious.  

Rocky scampers ten paces before his legs stop moving.

He stands in the dark valley of junk, breathing hard.  The devil dog is a crumpled heap behind him.  Every sermon his father ever roared comes flooding back.  Devil dogs are cursed by God.  Just one touch invites damnation into your home!  Rocky has sat in the front pew for nineteen years absorbing those words.  They are as real to him as the rust under his claws.

He takes another step away.

The jackal lets out a thin, rattling wheeze.

Rocky stops again.  He looks down at the shabby steel cross resting against his chest.  His father’s cross is carved from imported oak.  Sanded smooth.  Perfectly proportioned.  Rocky’s cross is crooked scrap metal and electrical tape, built by his own two hands in a junkyard.  The Good Book doesn’t say a thing about one being worth more than the other.

I was a stranger and you took me in.

“Shut up,” Rocky mutters to nobody.

I was sick and you visited me.

Rocky groans.  He turns around and carefully approaches the jackal.  It doesn’t look threatening sprawled on the ground.  Rocky is taken aback by the devil dog’s flamboyant fashion: shirtless under a purple high cropped bolero with a gold choker and ankh necklace.  A heart shaped amethyst belt buckle sparkles in the moonlight.  Nothing like the grizzled outlaws from the wanted posters.

The raccoon places a paw on the jackal’s left breast.  He feels no heartbeat, yet the devil dog still somehow breathes.  Underneath his paw is a massive puncture scar.  This one feels much older than his current injuries.

“Hang in there mister.  I’ll fix you up good as new!”

Rocky sets the jackal upright.  His legs wobble as he musters all his strength to hoist him on his back.  The canine is twice his size and fifty pounds heavier than the raccoon.  The twin revolvers add another five.  Rocky’s legs give in and the jackal lets out a pained wheeze as he collapses.

“Ah geez, sorry mister jackal!”

Rocky takes a deep breath and pushes himself up.  He exhales, takes another breath, and puts one step forward.  Then another.  His knees scream.  His spine pops. Somewhere in the back of his skull, his father’s voice bellows that he is carrying damnation on his back.

Rocky keeps walking.

⧫ ⧫ ⧫ ⧫ 

The jackal awakens in a shed the following morning.  He sits up and runs his left fingers through his spikey head fur.

“I’m feelin’ rougher than a fossa’s cock” he mutters to himself.

He looks down and notices his torso crudely wrapped in bandages.  The devil dog scans the interior.  His bolero sits neatly folded beside him.  His twin revolvers remain in their holsters immaculate and untouched.

The jackal slips on his bolero and exits the shed.  He is behind a homely bungalow that sits atop a hill overlooking a quiet little frontier town.  A ball and assorted toys litter the yard by a wooden swing set.  A pristine white picket fence restrains the property.  

The jackal saunters forward when a raccoon opens the back door.

“Morning mister jackal!  Sorry I had to put you in the shed.  My folks weren’t too happy I brought a devil dog home.”  Rocky looks down and rubs the back of his head.  “Dad gave me a real earful this time!”

“This time?” the jackal mutters with a raised eyebrow.  A wave of heat washes through the jackal’s veins.  It feels hauntingly familiar.  The aroma of baked beans caresses his nose as the jackal sniffs the air.  He buries the feeling in the scent.

“Wanna come in?  I made breakfast!”

The jackal’s stomach growls.  ‘This time’ still rattles in his skull.  “I do appreciate y’all hospitality, but my coin is cryin’ for my return.  I’ll leave y’all some for the trouble.”

Rocky remembers the sack of money dropped in the trash can.  “You didn’t steal that I hope!”  Rocky huffs and puts his fists on his hips.

“I stole it fair and square from a fellow thief.  Two wrongs make it arright!”

“The saying is two wrongs DON’T make a right.”

“‘Course they do!  They cancel themselves out.  Basic arithmetic, boy!”

“And stop calling me boy.  I got a name!”

The jackal raises an eyebrow. The little raccoon stands with his fist balled at his side, fur bristling along his shoulders. Nineteen years old and three and a half feet tall and he’s puffing his chest at a gunslinger twice his size.

The jackal smirks. “Arright then. What’s y’all name?”

“Rocky.”

“Rocky,” the jackal repeats, tasting the name. 

The jackal approaches Rocky and extends his right paw.  “The name’s Rallo.  Don’t wear it out!”

Rocky reaches and hesitates.  Rallo’s paw is much larger than his.  Razor sharp claws jet from the jackal’s fingertips.  Rocky’s dad would make him wash his hands a hundred times for shaking a devil dog’s paw.  But he’s not here.  He’ll feed Rallo and send him on his way.  He’ll never know.  Two wrongs make it right, don’t they?

Rocky grabs Rallo’s paw and shakes it.

⧫ ⧫ ⧫ ⧫ 

Rallo soaks in every detail of Rocky’s home.  Every inch of every wall is covered in crosses and bible verses.  Images of Jesus glare back at the devil dog, carefully surveilling every soul in the raccoon’s home.

“Pop a squat!” Rocky pulls a chair back from the dining room table.

Rallo sits on the stiff chair.  It’s pure hard wood with no padding.  He needs to shift his bottom to find a spot that doesn’t make his bones ache.

Rallo reaches for the beans and Rocky slaps his hand.

“The hell’s y’all problem Rocky!?”

“We gotta say grace first!”  Rallo tilts his head to the left as Rocky closes his eyes and folds his paws.

“Dear Lord, bless this food and grant that we may thankful for thy mercies be; teach us to know by whom we’re fed; bless us with—”

Rallo is furiously lapping up the beans, sending drops flying over the table.

“HEY!  You gotta wait till it’s done!”

“SCHLOP — These beans ain’t stayin’ hot and y’all god ain’t goin nowhere!  SCHLOP SCHLOP — I’ll praise ‘em on my own time!”

Rocky’s jaw falls to the table.  He had never witnessed such audacity.  Rocky’s bones rattle and he imagines what his father would do had he said that.  

A car door slams shut outside.

He might not have to imagine it.

Rocky pops out of his chair.

Rocky yanks the beans out of Rallo’s paws.  “I SAID I AIN’T D–”

“S-sorry Rallo I gotta get you outta here!”  Rocky’s paws tremble as he dumps the beans in the trash.

Rallo’s right ear swivels to the sound footsteps approaching the front door.  Rocky pulls his arm and pushes the jackal into his bedroom.

“Y’all got some balls in that sack if y’all think…”

Rocky silently shushes Rallo with a trembling paw.  He slowly closes the door and gently twists the knob so it latches in place without a sound.

⧫ ⧫ ⧫ ⧫ 

Rallo peers through the key hole.  An older raccoon walks into the kitchen.  He is dressed in a black frock over a clerical shirt.  His eyes latch on to Mr. McCartney’s small, round glasses.  That hauntingly familiar feeling returns.

“Rocky?  You’re home?”

Rocky shuts off the faucet and aggressively wipes a bowl.

“‘I’m making sure that devil dog doesn’t come back!”

“You should have never brought him here!  I pray that Our Lord forgives you for inviting the devil into our home!”

“I’ve been praying all night and day, sir.”  Rocky is wiping even harder.

Rallo scans Rocky’s bedroom as the father and son talk.  The walls are naked save for a small wooden cross.  The bed is neatly tucked without so much as a wrinkle.  Except one.  Rallo lifts the mattress to find a cache of comic books and dirty magazines.  Rallo grins.  He pushes a copy of Squirrels Gone Wild deeper into the bed frame and carefully replaces the mattress.

SHATTER. “WHADDYA MEAN YOU SIGNED ME UP?!” 

Rallo returns to the keyhole.  An ancient feeling burns his veins.  He’s been here before.

“LORD FORGIVE YOU ROCKY! THAT WAS YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S BOWL!”

“S-sorry sir…” Rocky kneels over the mess of ceramic and collects the shards.

Rallo’s wounds start to ache.  His fur stands on end.  His ears snap back.

“You’ve been going to that dump almost every night, Rocky!  You need to get a real job!  Your mother and I aren’t going to be in this world forever!  You need to take care of your brothers and sisters!  What happens when I’m too old?  What about your mother?  What will people think when–”

“LOOK HERE!  LOOK LISTEN OLD MAN!”  Rallo storms out of Rocky’s room.

“RALLO?!”

Mr. McCartney raises his paws and stumbles back.  Rallo shoves his right finger in the old raccoon’s face.

Rocky grabs Rallo’s tail and wails “PLEASE, RALLO!  DON’T HURT HIM!”

Mr. McCartney glares at his son.  “Rallo?”

Rallo cocks his head to the right.  “Y’all oughtta learn a thing from y’all son!  That man ain’t got the common sense to let a devil dog die and carried my bleedin’ corpse cross town to y’all idyllic lil domicile not even havin’ the good sense to rob me first!”

Mr. McCartney pushes away Rallo’s hand.  “That ‘man’?  That BOY brought you mangey fleabag into MY home!  That BOY rolls around in filth making gross parodies of our Savior’s cross!  That BOY is a McCartney and he’s going to act like one!”

Rocky jumps between his father and Rallo.  “Let it go, Rallo!”

Rallo cocks his head to the left.  His fur raises and his ears flatten as he pushes into Mr. McCartney’s muzzle.  His hellish eyes locked on the reverend’s spectacles.  “Don’t reflect well when y’all act outta line, don’t it preacherman?” Rallo’s voice is deeper and guttural.  The old scar on his left breast gnaws at his chest.  “What’s y’all congregation gonna think about a son makin’ snow angels in junk?  Y’all worked too damn hard just to be another trash panda!”  

Mr. McCartney is pinned over the table.  His mouth hangs open.  “‘Reflects on all of us’ my perky lil ass y’all four eyed, stilted, limpdicked, old–”

“RALLO STOP!”  Rocky grabs Rallo’s left wrist. Not his tail. His wrist. Firm.

Rallo pants sharply.  His eyes remain locked on the elder raccoon.  

Rallo pulls his wrist away and runs his fingers through his head fur.  He takes a couple steps back and adjusts his bolero.  Neither raccoon can look away.

“AHEM — that all bein’ said I gotta git and see a man about a horse.  Y’all beans were heavenly!”

Rallo struts out the front door.

Rocky lingers.  He looks to his father.  His mouth hangs open and his glasses fogged.  Silent.  No bible verse.  No lecture.  Just a scared old trash panda with nothing to say.

Rocky looks to the door.  Rallo lights a cigar and saunters toward town.  

Rocky looks back at his father.  He’s wiping Rallo’s breath from his spectacles.

“Go to your room Rocky.  We’ll talk after supper.”

Rocky balls his fists.  He’s nineteen years old and still getting grounded.  His gaze wanders.  An audience of Jesuses have witnessed the Christian boy bring the devil into his home. 

The raccoon turns to the door and runs to the devil.  He doesn’t look back.

To be continued