"We need a controlling metaphor," Traveler said, and El
Brujo's groan wasn't the only one I heard.
We'd managed--or I guess I should say I'd managed--
to get out the front gate, down the ramp, and onto the street
without my brain trying any more tricks to kill me, and then it
was a quick slide down the hill to the Ramsays' place, the
afternoon full of blue skies and fleecy clouds. The Ramsays
weren't home, of course: for all the years I'd been rolling
around the neighborhood, I'd only ever seen them there about one
day a month.
Just as well, though. Whenever they are home,
Traveler feels he has to snarl and bark at everyone going by,
and I know he wouldn't've let me undo the gate latch with a
cautious look 'round and wheel myself, El Brujo and Serena into
their yard if we hadn't been alone. "Jefe and Honoria are
already here," the doberman had said.
Which had made Brujo blink. "Honoria?"
The crow herself had hopped around from the back of the
garage, then, her larger brother behind her. "Yes," she'd said,
"What, you think I'm gonna stand by and let you tontos foul this
whole thing up??"
Jefe had shrugged, El Brujo's ears folding, Serena peering
nervously out from the lining of my coat, but I hadn't been able
to keep from laughing. "The more, the merrier, right? And if
this all explodes horribly and I hafta take it on the lam, you
can all come along as my carnival act, see, and--"
"Let's get him inside," El Brujo had said, whapping me
across the face gently with her tail. "He's becoming
delirious."
Which is how we'd all come to be inside the Ramsays' two-
car garage, one of their speedboats taking up half the room.
And that was when Traveler had started talking about
controlling metaphors.
He looked around at the groans. "You are perhaps
unfamiliar with the term?"
Jefe shook himself from his perch on a vise grip. "Too
much talking," he said. "You wanna kill a budding romance
quick, you start getting into terms and metaphors and all that."
"What??" The fur along Traveler's neck spiked up.
"Language is the essence of romance! And the artful use
of it--!"
El Brujo cleared her throat loudly. "Very few of us--"
She shot a look at Traveler. "--by my estimation, should be
making pronouncements about the artful use of language,
especially when it comes to the peculiar sort that humans use."
"Just so," Serena piped in, scurrying up the front of my
jacket to stand on my shoulder. "If we cannot think like
humans, we will be of no use to Mr. Augie at all!"
"Actually," I said, "it's your non-human perspective I'm
interested in."
They all looked at me, and I felt even gladder than I
didn't have to use words to say this. "Human doesn't work for
me anymore." I tapped the bend of my right knee, the only part
of my lap that El Brujo wasn't covering. "Every bit of human is
being squeezed out of me little by little, the whole walking
upright and talking thing that we do all the time. So I've
gotta learn non-human ways of working, the ways you all manage
to get along in a human world, if I'm gonna have any chance of
communicating with Deena."
Honoria was nodding. "I'll drink to that."
Traveler's ears perked. "Yes! Of course!" He sprang for
the tiny refrigerator humming away in the corner of the garage,
nosed it open, and pulled out a bottle of Kilian's Irish Red.
"Jefe! Your beak, if you would?"
Jefe rattled a laugh, glided down to the concrete floor
where Traveler had set the bottle, tucked his beak under the rim
of the bottle cap and somehow popped it off. "Our non-human
pact," Traveler was saying while this was all going on, "will be
sealed in a traditionally human fashion, and this bottle--" He
touched a front paw to it, scooted it away from Jefe, sucking on
the bottle cap. "This bottle with be the symbol of our pact."
He nodded to me. "You will tip the bottle for us, August,
and we will all take sips." He glared at Jefe. "One sip
apiece."
"What?" Jefe sounded hurt. "You think I'd bogart the
whole thing?"
Traveler's glare didn't soften. "It's not unheard of."
I maneuvered the chair closer, bent down, took the cold wet
bottle in my fingers. "Tell you what, Jefe. Everyone else
goes, then you can have whatever's left."
The crow flapped his wings. "I knew there was a reason I
liked you, 'mano."
I went first, the splash of the foul stuff down my throat
reminding me why I don't drink. Serena almost got her head
stuck in the mouth of the bottle and El Brujo rolled her eyes as
she stretched her neck up--"The things I do for you, August..."
Honoria darted her tongue in, I poured a glug or two into
Trav's open mouth, then Jefe flew up to the arm of my chair,
tipped his head back, and gaped his beak. "Just keep it
coming," he said, and I sloshed the rest down into him, the crow
not missing a drop.
"The bottle, please?" Traveler said, and I held it out,
watched him take it in his teeth and slid it behind the
refrigerator. "And there it will sit, a sign of our fellowship
in this endeavor." He spun back around with a crisp nod. "Now,
let us discuss goals and methods."
For that discussion, please continue on to 24.
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