Walt's Memorial
#3 of A Slice of Jake and Toki
The crisp, red and orange leaves blew from the trees into the air, as a car drove by on th...
The crisp, red and orange leaves blew from the trees into the air, as a car drove by on the fairly empty road. The sky was an empty light blue, though clouds were starting to form in the distance, with a quiet rumble.
Jake was silent, in the driver's seat of his car, driving along the empty road.
Toki, also in the car, was staring out the window of the passenger's seat, watching the trees go by.
The panda driving the car reached for one of the knobs on the stereo system, and turned it. Light, but sad-sounding classical music started to come out through the speakers.
"E-flat major." The raccoon said, out of habit, breaking the silence.
"Very good, Toki." The panda was slightly jealous of the raccoon's absolute pitch. A relative of Toki's had it as well.
With the addition of music in the atmosphere, smooth stones started to accompany the trees in the otherwise empty fields the panda and raccoon were passing through.
"I wonder what happens when they run out of room here." Toki said, silently.
"Sometimes, they put one on top of the other to save room. Or, if enough time has passed, they simply remove them, and put new ones in, unless it was someone famous." Jake uttered.
"Oh."
Jake had stopped the car, and turned it off. The two had gotten out of the car and walked to one of the stones.
"Hello, Walt." The panda said to the stone.
Toki had cleaned off the moss growing on the stone, and picked up one of the faded pictures left by the stones. He can clearly see a very young version of himself, a big gray-furred raccoon, and a female brown-furred tanuki. It was the only picture he had seen that had his parents together like this.
"Hi, dad." The raccoon said.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING WITH HIM?" The large raccoon shouted.
"We were sitting on his bed." The tanuki said, quietly.
"You were eating each others' faces off! And he was grabbing your chest!" The raccoon replied.
"Stop yelling! Toki will hear you, come in and want to sleep with us. We only got him to stop doing that a few weeks ago!"
The couple heard footsteps outside the door.
"Too late..."
"Mommy? Daddy?" The little brown-furred raccoon was disturbed from his sleep.
"I only remember yelling in Japanese." Toki said, still holding the picture.
Jake said nothing to the raccoon.
"Walt, I'm very sorry Toki and I haven't been visiting for awhile. I'm still doing the teaching thing, and the music thing, fixing Toki's English, taking him to his viola lessons...oh! He had a recent performance! It was great, both of us wished you could've seen it."
Toki had put down the picture, and picked up another. It was him again, his father, and Jake, playing at the public pool. Jake had his arm around his father.
"Who took this one?" Toki asked.
"Your mother." Jake replied. "That was a month or so before things went sour."
Toki was a little puzzled, his father only really told him about the car crash, and not any events going on around that time.
"What happened before the crash?"
Jake went silent again. Toki saw that his eyes were starting to well up with tears.
"She's cheating on me, Jake." Walt said, half-drunk. "Another Asahi, please." The raccoon switched languages for the bartender to understand.
"I'm very sorry, Walt." The panda replied.
"Doesn't she realize that we have a kid to take care of? Toki's still a toddler! What would happen to him if she ran off with this guy?"
"That's something best not thought about too much." Jake said. "But...I wouldn't mind helping to raise Toki if that were to happen, Walt."
The raccoon went silent. The glazed eyes in his face started to get moist.
"Really?" He asked.
"Sure, you know I love seeing your son and babysitting him."
"Oh, thanks, Jake." The drunk Walt replied, starting to cry.
The panda hugged his emotional friend. Walt hugged back, and started to kiss Jake on the cheek.
"Thank you so much. I love you, man." He said.
"Aww. I love you too, Walt. You've been a great friend over the years." Jake replied.
Walt continued kissing Jake. The alcoholic aroma of the raccoon's breath started to overpower him.
"...Heh heh...You remember that day at the onsen, Jake?" Walt said in between kisses. His muzzle was starting to get closer and closer to Jake's.
The bartender and other patrons started to stare a bit at the scene.
"Yes I do, Walt." He replied.
The raccoon just chuckled some more while kissing Jake, now on his lips.
After the kiss, Walt went back to his beer, finished it, and left the bar with Jake.
The two smiled as they stopped at the entrance, and started to kiss each other on the lips again.
Toki put down that photo and before picking up another, he took a closer look at them. It had not occurred to him until now that there had been more photos of his father with Jake than with his mother.
"Walt, Toki looks just like you when you were his age. He's got your eyes, your cute, round belly, and an affinity for music, like us." Jake said, with a cracking in his voice.
Toki also started to get misty-eyed. He knelt down and picked up another photo, this one of Jake and Walt in pairs of shorts and sandals, washing Walt's car.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING WITH HIM?" The shrill-voiced tanuki shouted.
"We were at the bar." Walt replied, still hung over.
"Doing what?!" She asked, furiously.
The raccoon was silent, but only for a minute.
"What place are YOU in to interrogate me? You were being fucked by that asshole lion the other week!"
"Yeah? And I'll bet you and the panda were fucking each other too! I just knew the fag would bring you onto his side."
"DON'T CALL MY FRIEND THAT!" Walt exploded.
Both of them went quiet after that. They heard the silent sounds of sniffling from the entrance of the room. Looking there, they saw Toki, sobbing. He ran out of the room, screaming.
The two looked back at each other.
"This has to end." They both said, at the same time.
"...Are you happy with...him?" Walt asked.
"Well...are you happy with...Jake?" She replied back.
Jake had gone to the car and took out the flowers he had purchased earlier that day. He returned to the gravesite, and placed them down.
Both of them were silent. This time though, Jake was the one to break it.
"There's one thing I didn't tell you about that day, Toki."
"What was that?" The raccoon asked, putting the picture back down.
"The day your parents were in the crash, they were going to get divorced. That's where they were going to go in the car that day. Your mother was going to...be with a lion she met...and Walt was going to stay with me, as were you."
Toki said nothing. He picked up one more picture, one he had not seen before. It was of him at age 2, with his father, both smiling at the camera.
"...I'm sorry for snapping at you, honey." Walt said, while driving the car.
"I'm also sorry. I'm sorry that things had to happen this way." The tanuki replied.
"...I'll let you have Toki on weekends and during holidays."
"Thanks, I'm sure he'll also like Toki. He loves children." She said.
"What do you like about the lion?" Walt asked.
The tanuki hesitated to say, as most of the reasons were fairly vain.
"...Probably what you like about Jake...or what he likes about you."
"...What happened to this?" Walt asked. "I can't remember the last time we spoke like this, it's been all shouting at each other for God knows how long."
"Yeah...I just want to be a better person...for Toki."
"Me too. I don't want him to feel scared of us. He's such a good boy..."
"I love the way he smiles and laughs. Jake always found a way to make him laugh." The tanuki reminisced.
"I remember that one time when Toki just cried and cried and didn't stop until Jake picked him up and made that face." Walt laughed.
"Then we couldn't get him to stop laughing." His wife also started to chuckle over the memory.
They laughed until the light turned green.
"Ah, well..." Walt said, as the sound of screeching tires started to sound to the left. "At least Toki will have a better life noOOOOWWWWAHHHH!"
A teardrop fell on the picture of Toki and his father.
The raccoon started to sob, along with Jake.
"Walt...we miss you..." Jake tried to say in between sobs.
The raccoon sniffled. "Dad...I love you..."
The panda knelt down and hugged Toki. The two cried into each others' arms.
Getting out of the hug, Toki put the picture down.
Jake took a new picture out of his pocket, this one of Jake and Toki smiling at the camera. Toki was holding his viola, and Jake was holding his horn. The two had both performed in the same ensemble for the first time.
The panda placed the picture next to the one Toki had just put down.
"Goodbye, Walt." Jake had said to the stone.
"Goodbye, dad." Toki also said to the stone.
"Come on, Toki...let's go get some ice cream." Jake said.
The two left the site, and drove off.
Jake had opened the door to his apartment, carrying a sleeping young Toki.
Jake was teary-eyed all the way home after watching his friend die.
The panda had carried the sleeping cub to the empty guest bedroom. He laid Toki down on the bed. The little cub woke up, though.
"Jake?" Toki asked.
"Oh, hi Toki." Jake said.
"Are we home?" The little cub asked.
"...We're in my home." The panda replied.
"Why? Where's daddy?"
Jake said nothing.
"Why you crying?" The cub asked.
"Nevermind that, Toki. Please go back to sleep."
"I can't." The cub said, as Jake was tucking him in. "Music."
"You need music? Okay." Jake said. He pulled out a small stereo and put in a CD. He put on Walt's favorite track.
"Your father loves this one. He always said he loved the key. It's in E-flat major. He always pointed that out. He has absolute pitch, you know."
"What's that?" Toki asked.
"...Eh, it's not important. Please, go to bed now, Toki."
"G'night." The cub said.
"Good night, Toki." Jake replied.
The panda left the room, turned off the light, and closed the door, letting the music play, lulling the raccoon to sleep.