From: Silver Fox 
Date: 21 May 1998 23:35:04 GMT
Subject: NEW- "Fox"  1/1 VA

Title: "Fox"
Author: Kathleen Brown
Class: VA
Rating: PG.
Summary: The Fox of today contemplates a decision he made at 16. A
semi-companion piece to "Fox Mulder, May 6, 1977".
Note: No note, really. Just bored and writing. And I have no talent for
naming stories, but I sure can name a term paper. Why is that?


*~*~*~*~*
Fox
*~*~*~*~*

	I was sixteen when I decided to love my name. I had never 
given it much thought before.
	One day, as I sat quietly in my chemistry class, staring out the 
window into the tall maple trees outside my lab, I saw a squirrel quietly 
opening up the helicopter-seeds of the tree. It was maybe three feet 
away, deep within the starlike leaves, and by it's enormous size I 
_knew_ it was a fox squirrel.
	So, while Mr. Andrews got himself more and more excited over 
the wonders of the periodic table, I watched this squirrel feed himself 
outside my classroom. I began to wonder about the squirrel, 
wondering, obtusely, if he had been born in a litter of two, if he had 
ever had a sister squirrel. Had she one day disappeared into the night? 
Did her tiny bleached bones lay on the side of Greer street? Had she 
been wounded, taken in by a young girl, nursed her back to health and 
adopted as a pet?
	I never lied to myself when I was young. I never felt the need. 
When I was sixteen my mind was my haven and at that point no one 
dared violate me there. My body could be bruised and broken, my soul 
could be tormented, but my mind was mine. People could try to 
destroy me, they could hurt me and ignore me, but the comfort I 
found in the sanctuary of my mind was, as far as I was concerned, 
completely protected. I had my memories, my intelligence, and my 
fantasies. My father couldn't see the things I did alone. My mother 
couldn't read my deepest thoughts. They were mine. I took great pride 
in that. I had confidence when, a year ago, there had been only 
shame and terror. I was almost seventeen. I was ready to run away 
from Massachusetts, the Vineyard, Chilmark, and everything that had 
happened there. 
	But I had to wait another two years.

	I watched this squirrel, and thought about his name. Fox 
Squirrel. I am Fox Mulder. Over there, wearing the glasses, was Alexis 
Burke. James Materowski. Jillian Black. I thought about how there must 
have been a thousand Alexis'. A million James'. Countless Jillians. How 
many Foxes? Ten? Twelve? Only one? Just me? The thought filled me 
with excitement. My name made me different. How many people in the 
world would meet other people named Alexis - James - Jillian? How 
many people would look up in the hallway at the cry for a single Tina? 
How many times had my mother made the same mistake? How about 
my father?
	I wondered then if anyone else would ever understand my love 
for my name. Would they understand my smile at the sound of "Fox" 
spoken in loving tones? No one wondered when I cringed in fear at the 
sound of my father's gruff "Fox!". Everyone thought I hated my name. 
Everyone thought I merely respected my father like any God-fearing 
kid on the Vineyard. Neither assumption was true. I simply hated the 
way my father murdered my name. He tried to make me hate my name. 
He had given it to me as a punishment. To destroy me further each 
time it was spoken. I was getting too much enjoyment out of my 
name. It had been meant as a curse.
	Of course I had heard the story. Of course. I was born on 
October 13, 1961. I was exactly seven pounds. I was born with two 
teeth. When I was born, I didn't cry a lot. The doctors placed me on 
my mother's chest, and I yawned at her and Dad, much to my father's 
fascination. He said that I looked like a baby animal that had been 
awakened before he was ready. For some reason, he began calling me 
Fox. The name stuck. At least I'm not Bill Jr., too.
	So, as I sat in that sunny Chemistry lab, I thought about the 
circumstances surrounding my birth, and the manner in which my name 
had been born. I was happy. I was thrilled. My life was planned out 
before me, and my future looked bright. I would go to Harvard and get 
a degree in Psychology, then cross the pond and get a doctorate from 
Oxford. That was my plan when I was sixteen, and, by God, I would do 
it. I would free myself from my family and the haunting memories of my 
father, and I would find myself a home among books and volumes and 
texts, warmed by their facts and fantasies, finding my own a home 
among them. I would have a beautiful life.
	The nightmares would go away.
	I would sleep.
	I would be find a girl, and we would love each other, would 
marry, would buy a home up in beautiful Maine, and live a beautiful life 
together.
	I was an idealist then, before I realized that fantasies lay 
unrealized except in movies, and that no girl would want a boy like me.

	Such is the life of Fox Mulder.

*~*~*~*~*

Copyright Kathleen Brown, May 1998.

-- 
"Hell hath no fury like a small gay man."
*~*~*~*~*
[ kathyb@raven.cybercomm.net ]
Member ~~ SPCDD
Bachelors, the College of Fox Mulder, X F U.
[ http://www.sqx.simplenet.com/kb ]

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