The Poet, His Husband, and The Fox (Part I)
A free and queer adaptation of “The Fisherman and His Wife” by the Grimm Brothers
This story comes to us from Soft Star contributor James Penha. Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Twitter: @JamesPenha
This story will be published in two parts. Part II will be published here on Saturday, September 10, 2022.
Joshua lived for his husband Gabe—both in the positive sense that Gabe was the love of Joshua’s life and in the negative sense that Joshua spent most of his waking hours (including those in the deep of night) fearing another paranoid outburst or surge of melancholia from his spouse. And so, Joshua would do just about anything to satisfy Gabe and keep their home life bearable. He had trained himself not to argue, not to disagree, nor to try to explain away the concurrences and vexations that, Gabe believed, were parts of a plot by unidentified enemies to drive him mad.
They lived, thanks to an inheritance from Joshua’s parents, in a huge old Victorian house on forty-two acres of a mountainside in upstate New York. Their nearest neighbor was on the other side of the mountain. There was no connecting road between them. The village of Maryville was a mile down a rugged driveway. Except for the team that cleaned the house and cared for the lawns and gardens once each week, the thirty-something couple saw no one who might accidentally (Gabe would say intentionally) upset their lives with a word, a gesture, or an oversight. They both worked online from home, Joshua teaching writing workshops when not crafting his own poetry, Gabe playing and blogging about domestic and international lotteries.
“I think they hacked my phone,” Gabe said. The couple had, until then, been stretched out contentedly on the long coach that faced the great bay window of the sunken living room. Joshua was reading The New Yorker on his iPad; Gabe swept through Instagram.
Joshua felt the familiar tightening of his stomach muscles. “What makes you say that?”
“They did.”
“But, I mean, what makes you say that now?”
“Remember how we talked about buying a new car?”
“Yes.”
“I WhatsApped my sister yesterday about our conversation, and now suddenly there are all these ads for cars on my Facebook and Instagram!”
“That's how these apps work, Gabe. You're not being hacked.”
“How can you be sure?
“I'm as sure as I can be. Honey, you are not important enough to be hacked.”
Silence.
“You okay?” Joshua asked nervously.
“Yeah.” That Gabe continued playing with his iPhone was a good sign.
But Joshua needed a break. “I'm gonna take the dog for a walk.” Joshua roused the poodle curled in a corner of the couch and pointed to the front door. The dog followed Joshua into the cool autumn afternoon.
When Joshua had walked high enough up the mountain to be certain that he couldn't be heard, he screamed at the top of his lungs—just screamed, wordlessly, to release the tension. The dog was used to it and didn't flinch, but he did run far ahead to the crest of the hill. “Joey! Wait up!” But the dog, by now barking furiously, was after something.
By the time Joshua found Joey, the dog was sitting quietly in front of a stunning red fox tethered to a pine tree. “Jesus!” Joshua exclaimed. “What happened to you, Beautiful?”
“Funny you should ask,” said the fox. Joshua did a double-take so rapidly his neck muscles throbbed. Pulling himself together, he closed in on the fox. It must be a robot or drone or AI thing of some kind, he thought.
But the fox set him straight. “I'm a fox. For now, I am a fox, although I am really a man. Sit with us, Joshua—you, me, and Joey here.” The dog wagged his tail and lay on his haunches, his head resting on his forepaws. The fox sat up, like a dog. “But, first, can you undo this fucking leash from around the tree?” Joshua opted to remove the collar around the fox's neck to which the leash had been attached. “Oh, yes, that's better. Thank you. Really... thank you.”
“You— you're welcome.” Joshua sat between the two animals.
“I suppose you are wond— I guess you have questions. The least I can do is explain.”
Joshua nodded.
“I live on the other side of the mountain with my lover. We are magicians. Not stage magicians. Real magicians.” The fox paused. “Do you believe in magic, Joshua?”
“I do now.”
The fox—his name was Michael—“but you can call me Mischa”—said his lover Benjy had the power to shape-shift “not himself but others.”
“Like you.”
“Yes, like me. In the best of times, it can make for quite a bit of fun and some very good sex.” Mischa had been metamorphosed into Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, and Ronaldo among other human beauties. Rarely animals.
“But not never.”
“No, not never. And in the worst of times, when he is angry with me, Benjy traps me in appalling guises: a cockroach—”
“Speaking of ‘Metamorphosis.’”
“Exactly. Or a snail. Or a naked Donald Trump—”
“No!” Joshua burst out laughing.
“Yes, and of course he peed on me.”
“So why the fox now?”
“I'm a redhead—”
“A ginger!”
“Ginger twink, yes, which Benjy loves and loves to make fun of. I'm being punished.”
“For?”
“I need to explain my magical power first.” Mischa was a wish-granter, like a genie in the thousand and one nights stories. “Benjy wanted me to grant him a wish to make his previous lover sick.” Deadly sick. “Benjy knows I will never grant wishes to do harm. I'm not even sure I can since I've never tried.”
“Why doesn't Benjy just turn his old lover into... I don't know... a snake... or a virus... or,” Joshua giggled, “Ted Cruz?”
“Distance. Benjy's power is limited by distance. When he broke up with his old boyfriend, the guy knew to put miles between them.”
“Your powers are not so limited?”
“Not geographically, no.”
“But why didn't you make a wish to undo the leash or, now, to undo your foxiness?”
“I can only make one wish for my own benefit in my lifetime. If I had the ability to wish endlessly for myself, I could become as all-powerful as a god. There are beings far greater than magicians who will not allow that. So I have to save that one wish in case, if worse really comes to worst for me, I have to escape existence entirely.”
“By the way, how do you know my name is Joshua?”
“Sometimes, Benjy turns me into a moth so I can snoop around the village, peek in our neighbors' windows and listen. Moths have very good hearing, you know.”
“I've learned a lot today.” Joshua exhaled deeply. “What will you do now?”
“My turn to punish Benjy. I'll make myself scarce—put some distance between us for a while.”
“And live like a fox? Can I help you somehow?”
“Maybe I'll wander by your house from time to time for some food and fresh water?”
“Yes! Give me a signal when you come—not words… some other kind of signal. Something foxy, maybe. Do you howl?”
“Not really… not like a wolf. I’ll gekker.”
“Gekker?”
Mischa gekkered, “Ack-ack-ack-ackawoooo-ack-ack-ack. Quite distinctive, right? You’ll know it’s me. But why don’t you want me just to call out, Hey, Joshua?”
“My husband. Gabe. Gabe is not very trusting of people.”
“What? Like autistic?”
“Paranoid. I never know how he’s going to deal—if he’s going to deal—with surprises, with strangers.” Joshua frowned. “I don’t know if I’ll even tell him about you. But wait!” Joshua’s frown turned into an excited smile. “I can wish for you to cure him of his paranoia, right?”
“Shit!” Mischa cried out. “The worst things about magical powers are their many limitations. I can’t change someone’s personality. Believe me… if I could, Benjy would be a far better human being, and I wouldn’t be a fox right now.” Mischa snickered. Joshua shook his head. “But what would your Gabe want? Something special. Let me fulfill a wish that will help Gabe trust the world a little more, trust you, trust me.”
Joshua said nothing for a while. “Okay. Let’s try something. But I don’t know if it will increase Gabe’s trust or erode it further. But then, I never know.”
“Tell me what you wish, Josh.”
“Gabe lost his grandfather’s Le Coultre watch. Well, ‘lost’ is my word. He says someone stole it or hid it or who knows what. Can you find it or recreate it and put it in my hand so I can explain you and your magic?”
“Wish it!”
“I wish for you to put Gabe’s Le Coultre in my hand.” Joshua stretched out his arm and felt his hand depress with the weight of the watch. But neither he nor Mischa were depressed; they could not hide their glee. “That’s it. Exactly. Even down to the scratches on the crystal.”
The fox promised to come by Joshua’s house the following evening not only for food and drink, but to hear what happened after Joshua reunited his husband with the antique watch.
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