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Whether they succeed or fail, Wile E. Coyote found after 70-plus years of scheming that the hardest part of any plan was figuring out what to do after it was finished.
The part of the plan where you had to decide whether to adjust and improve your original plan, completely start a new plan from scratch, call it a day and wait to start again the following day after some sleep, or to do something in-between. There were no wrong answers per say, though it would still usually take some time to figure out the best plan forward.
But when it came to this particular plan, Wile E. had no idea what to do next, or even where to start. Wile E. - inventor, hunter, and super-genius extraordinaire - was completely and utterly stumped, and the only thing that made him feel the slightest bit better was that he wasn’t the only one.
They hadn’t exactly regretted how they left the hearing at Congress - quite the opposite, in fact, as while trapping Buddy Crane and Foghorn in a cage wasn’t the victory they had initially wanted going into the hearing, it was still a small victory regardless.
But, understandably, something that bold was bound to attract the attention of the media, hence the mob of reporters that had tried to follow them in the hopes of getting a quick comment or another impassioned speech from the underdog lawyers and their cartoon canine client. It took some running and hiding (and a bit of cartoon hijinks) but they had managed to escape them for now, and as far as they could tell, neither the police nor ACME’s people were currently after them either.
So they were safe… But they were also stuck.
Their scheduled flight back to Albuquerque wouldn’t be leaving until the wee hours of the following morning (a decision based on cost over convenience, not that it mattered much now…), and there was no way they could just hang out in the airport until then. The hotel they’d stayed at the night before wasn’t an option either, as even if Paige hadn’t already checked them out, it was just way too public. They would need to wait until the press was distracted by something else.
Outside of that, their options were incredibly limited, given just how many people had been paying attention to their case. Unless they’d want to spend the next several hours answering questions from citizens and reporters alike, they would need to lay low - and although this was a strategy Wile E. knew well as a seasoned predator, it was still dreadfully boring.
He imagined his lawyers felt similarly, as neither of them were saying a word as they sat beside him in the mostly-empty park they had found, their phones each buzzing with a new message or call every few seconds.
Sighing, Wile E. slumped further into himself, his tailbone already growing sore despite the grass beneath him being comparably softer than the dirt and sand-covered ground he usually sat on… The dirt and sand he called home. Goodness, had it really been nearly two months since he left it?
He never would have expected to actually miss it, just as he never would have expected-
A series of beeps echoed through his skull, nearly making his eyes water once more.
For all the failure he’d faced in the end of his journey to D.C., Wile E. was at least glad to know he had something (someone) to return to, no matter how harsh and tiring that life could sometimes be. He was glad to know that someone actually missed him just as much as he would have missed them. That could be counted as another victory, couldn’t it?
Before Wile E. could fully decide (or argue that he was just grasping at straws), he was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of Kevin clapping his hands together.
“Alright then… Who’s hungry?” he asked them, forcing a smile to his face.
Wile E. and Paige both stared at him. “I… What?” his niece asked.
“Look, I dunno about you two, but I haven’t eaten anything since the room service we got last night, which was way overpriced by the way, given I only ordered a sandwich,” Kevin told her. “I also feel like it’s been a long and - I feel like I’m speaking for all of us here - VERY emotional morning. So… I’d say we’ve earned a decent meal.”
Not having much of an argument to that, Paige looked over at Wile E., silently asking for his thoughts - to which Wile E. responded with a shrug and a sign that said “EH, I COULD EAT”.
“Well… Okay. Yeah, let’s go have lunch. But, where can we even go?” Paige asked.
For once, Kevin didn’t seem too worried about having a plan or keeping things from going wrong. “Every city’s got its hole in the wall places,” he replied as he stood up, only wincing a little at how his sore muscles still ached. “I’m sure we can find one that’s got some good enough food. Maybe a buffet.”
Wile E. straightened up at that. An all-you-can-eat buffet? Easily the best thing humans have ever invented, at least as far as he was concerned.
Not wanting to rely on anything that could potentially be tracked, the trio made their way to the nearest subway station, and with a bit more searching and asking around, they were recommended a Chinese buffet that seemed far enough from the Capitol to seem fairly safe while also having food of a decent enough quality to be worth the big city prices.
Going in with the knowledge that they wouldn’t have any roadrunner dishes, Wile E. instead (and only somewhat reluctantly) filled his plate up with every other meat-based dish he could find along the buffet. Paige, meanwhile, leaned a bit more towards veggies and noodles while Kevin indulged on the seafood side of the buffet, though he still helped himself to plenty of deep-fried items as well.
It occurred to Wile E., as they were all sitting down, that this was the first real meal they had shared together. With all there had been to do to prepare for their trials, the team of Avery, Jones & Maltese opted for take-out, delivery, and gas station snacks more often than not.
Even when they ordered something together, Kevin, Paige and the other humans would usually eat it separately at their own desks as they continued to work. Not that Wile E. necessarily minded this, as someone who was already used to eating alone and who could understand focusing solely on the task at hand over everything else - and besides, he’d been saving his first proper at-the-table meal for when he had FINALLY caught the Roadrunner.
But the case was over now, his lawsuit officially dismissed. No more trials left to prepare for or evidence to gather, no new leads to follow or traps to build and no Roadrunner stews to prep.
They had failed in their pursuits, and now they had nothing but time. A quiet sort of failure, the coyote noted. Certainly a lot less painful than the type of failure Wile E. was used to dealing with, though it still had a bit of sting to it.
But it was quiet. Peaceful, even. How? The coyote couldn’t say. Maybe because he’d still gotten a bit of revenge (and a bit of closure) in the end, even if ultimately failed in his goal.
Or, maybe it was simply because he wasn’t alone in his failure.
Looking up from his third helping of buffet food, he looked across the table at Kevin and Paige, the two of them quietly chewing their own bites of lunch, eyes locked on the table as their ever-buzzing phones remained tucked away.
Wile E. furrowed his brow. He wasn’t one for long conversations typically, and for as much as he had already accepted its outcome, he didn’t really want to talk about the case anymore either (something he was sure his table mates would agree on), but surely there had to be something-!
The retro-style lamp hanging above their table flickered briefly before becoming brighter, doing so just as Wile E. was struck with an idea.
Smiling now, he took one of the plates that he had already licked clean and grabbed some sauce packets, squeezing them open. A bit dripped onto his fingertips, but he’d lick them off later, once he was finished.
It only took a couple seconds for Kevin to notice his activity, though he didn’t seem to approve of it, at first.
“Wile E… Wile E., come on, man, don’t make a mess,” Kevin told him, wondering if cartoon coyotes ever told their pups not to play with their food.
Of course, Wile E. just ignored the lawyer, too focused to even acknowledge him. Judging by the determined smile now stretched underneath the canine’s snout, Kevin figured it was best to just let Wile E. do whatever he needed to do and hope it wasn’t destructive enough to get them immediately kicked out.
By this point, both he and Paige were watching Wile E. work, his niece being much more curious about his ‘painting’ than concerned about the potential mess of it. After a couple minutes, Wile E. slowed his paw and began glancing up at the two of them after each additional sauce-y brushstroke.
Was he hoping for a compliment? “Oh, uh- I mean, it’s- it’s a very nice sauce drawing,” Kevin offered, leaning in a bit now as he squinted his eyes slightly at the plate. “Though, I don’t really know-“
“Oh, wait!” Paige chimed in. Reaching over, she pointed out how familiar the curves of Wile E.’s painting looked - how they would rise or dip dramatically, going from vertical to horizontal in nearly an instant. “Those are cliffs, right? Are you drawing the desert cliffs near your home?”
Wile E. shook his head before holding up two fingers. “A.. peaceful cliffside? Is that what you’re drawing?” Paige guessed again. Another headshake from the coyote.
Grabbing some more soy sauce, Wile E. carefully drizzled some across the bottom of his plate, directly underneath but also in-between what he had already drawn.
“I- I don’t underst-” It was then that Kevin finally got it, nearly jumping out of his seat as he said the answer. “The Grand Canyon!” Wile E. smiled, tapping his snout. “That’s decently far from Albuquerque - at least a day’s drive for the round trip. Have you ever been?”
Wile E. nodded. Once, when he was a pup and had gone to go see it with his father. Even toons need a vacation and a change of scenery every once in a while, though he remembered his father claiming the spot’s “unique yet still familiar terrain” would be a great training spot for a growing hunter.
“Wow… Maybe we should think about heading out that way ourselves,” Paige suggested, smiling over at her uncle. “Could make for a fun road trip.”
Kevin opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself, instead deciding to simply say, “Yeah, maybe. I’ve heard it’s good to go in the fall when it’s not as hot out and you can really enjoy yourself.”
Granted, he had no idea what things were going to look like for them by the time autumn came around - if they would have new jobs, if Paige would have to move back into her parents, if Kevin himself would be out on the streets after being deemed a laughing stock in the legal field - but Kevin decided that he could start worrying about all that tomorrow.
As for today, he was happy to just watch Wile E. do another drawing, this one a bit more abstract at first with tons of shading as well as details like cartoon-y wiggle lines that made Kevin think the coyote was drawing a garbage bag at first. That earned the lawyer a sharp and somewhat-offended looking glare, prompting Kevin to quickly apologize.
Thankfully, Wile E.’s mood was saved by Paige correctly guessing that it was a stuffed, cooked turkey - a drawing apparently so delicious that Wile E., after tapping his snout once more, was willing to lick this one away as opposed to just setting the plate down or cleaning it with a napkin. (Neither Kevin nor Paige pointed out that Wile E. had specifically drawn a stuffed turkey, and NOT a stuffed roadrunner.)
“Okay, my turn,” Kevin told them, grabbing one of his own empty plates and some orange sauce packets. “I may have gone with legal over cartooning, but I’ve done a doodle or two back in my day. See if you guys can guess this one…”
Over the next couple hours, the trio continued their game of food-focused charades. Sauce and stray noodles were used to help paint pictures of copy-machines and rabbits and giant cartoon bombs, while something like a half-eaten eggroll or a bit of chicken and broccoli easily became the Washington Monument or a cactus with a desert hawk on it.
Slowly but surely, it became less about the game itself and all the points they weren’t really keeping track of and more about the conversations being inspired by each correct guess.
An anecdote about one of Wile E.’s more light-hearted experiences in the desert, a story about a vacation that had long since past, a tale about a wild night in the college dorms at Oxford, or an impassioned argument over whether or not a hotdog was a sandwich (complete with citations and specific definitions, as was to be expected from two lawyers and a self-proclaimed genius).
Regardless of what it was, Wile E. listened to every word, and his tablemates in return read every sign and, when he eventually ran out of them, paid attention to every mimed gesture.
As Wile E. was finishing up another plate of deliciously satisfying teriyaki chicken skewers and the conversation began drifting towards a new argument, the words of Foghorn and his croney-lawyer returned to him:
“Some low-life, cave-dwelling desert dog with no connections, no family, no friends… “ “Is there anyone in the whole wide world who cares what happens to the coyote at all?”
In that moment at Congress, these words had made Wile E. feel lower than dirt, made him wonder if anything he’d done had even been worth it. Now though, they just bounced off him glue bouncing off rubber, with Wile E. now knowing for certain just how wrong they truly were.
The case was long over, and his lawyers were technically no longer HIS lawyers, as all their professional duties to him had officially been fulfilled. If Kevin and Paige had really wanted to, they could have ditched him at the first opportunity, sending him off with his plane ticket and trusting him to make his own way back to Albuquerque.
Instead they were swapping stories as they ate together, the three of them simply enjoying each other’s company, his human companions laughing with him instead of AT him.
Of all the meals the starving coyote had planned for himself over the decades (both actual and theoretical, the ones lived and the ones that only existed as sketches on blueprints), Wile E. never would have guessed that he’d end up enjoying the presence of those he would be eating with just as much (if not more so!) than the food himself.
Eventually, as midday finally turned into late afternoon, it finally came time to make their leave. Pooling the funds they had left together, Kevin and Paige made sure to leave a good-sized tip to make up the amount of time they stayed for as well as any extra mess they may have left on their plates, while Wile E. decided to just leave a “Thank you for the food” note written in the nicest handwriting his paws could muster.
Standing together at the restaurant’s exit, they steeled themselves as they prepared for whatever might have been waiting for them out in D.C. and beyond. Though he didn’t fully know what his new friends were thinking or how worried they were about the near future, Wile E. liked to think he could handle it.
For one, it was just a fact that he’d been through MUCH worse. He had survived this long, and for as rough as it could be sometimes, he was ready to quit just yet. But for another - just as every close call or near grab had kept him motivated enough to try again, Wile E. had an inkling this particular meal would keep him feeling fed and warm for a good long while.
Maybe he didn’t completely know what their next steps were. For all he knew, maybe this would be their last meal together.
But, if that were indeed the case, as bittersweet as it would be, Wile E. couldn’t think of a better ending. Even failures had their small victories, and for him, this was a victory meal that he’d remember for years to come.
THE END