by Nigel Bird
Paul didn’t even look human after two weeks in the water. Only knew it was him on account of what was left of the tattoos he wore on his arms.
Something had been taking bites out of him. Nibbled away his privates. Had to bury him that way, like he weren’t even a man no more, just a sexless slab of fish-food.
How the hell was I going to let the scum get away with that?
***
I followed the news of Johnny Cupcake for months. Weren’t difficult. What with him being a star and his wife giving birth to a baby girl and all. They were in every magazine on the stand.
Spent my time training the birds. Put them through their paces.
Mostly I worked Philly. Getting her to do a few new tricks to keep her mind off losing her favourite owner.
When it was time, I packed everything I needed and headed over to California to get me some of that revenge I was owed.
***
Cupcake, Betty and baby Oregon lived on a huge chunk of land, in a house bigger than my school.
Found myself a vantage point. Weren’t difficult on account of the land being in a valley. Trees on the slopes made hiding easy.
Philly was glad to get out the back of the van. I gave her a little fly when the sun went down then tethered her up for the night.
Me, I didn’t sleep much. Too many things rattling in my head. I’d tried to work a way to keep the bird safe, but I guessed that was something I had to leave in the hands of the gods.
Guess Betty hadn’t slept too well either. Her and Oregon were up at the crack of dawn and out on the lawn by mid-morning.
Cupcake wasn’t quite so eager. Didn’t see him till past noon. Idle sloth was still in his dressing gown. Way he looked I didn’t reckon there was even enough going on to get Mamma Creek excited.
I watched it all through my binoculars.
Soon as they set the baby in the carriage, I took Philly from her stump.
Felt the strength of her claws on the back of my hand through the leather of the glove.
Gave her back a stroke, the feathers soft and smooth. Like I was saying goodbye.
She wasn’t going to budge an inch till I took off her hood, like she was royalty perched there on my arm.
I thought about it. Considered putting her back in the cage and heading home.
Didn’t though. Instead I pulled off the hood and threw her into the air.
She was straight up there feeling for currents, waiting to ride the air so’s she could save on her energy. A thing of beauty, she was, circling above me like she expected me to get out a chunk of meat and the lure.
When she ran out of patience, she headed out over the valley.
I watched her all the way.
That span of hers, bigger than a man, threw a shadow onto the ground like she was a bomber plane ready to drop.
Over the fence she went, right by the security hut and the man at the gate. I watched her shadow pass over the roof and saw her closing in.
By the time she swooped, there was nothing anyone could do.
She was going straight for the baby just like she’d been trained.
Cost me plenty replacing them plastic dolls we’d practiced on, but I didn’t mind.
Only thing I didn’t know was how good a grip she was going to get. Could take her real high with a good connect, might not even get her off the ground if her claws didn’t stick.
I held my breath as Philly closed in. Right between the parents she went and hit the target. Bull’s eye.
I could see them throwing their arms about and screaming, running about like headless chickens, but Philly was too high to notice.
Must have been a hundred feet in the air when the grip gave.
Oregon accelerated downwards like she was in a hurry to get back to her folks.
Philly took off with the blanket dangling like a flag, not that it was going to be much use to her out in the wilds.
I’d seen enough. Didn’t even wait for the kid to hit the ground.
Got behind the wheel and drove off with my eyes pointing straight ahead.
Sure, I didn’t feel good about what I’d done. No mother should have to grieve the way she was going to and no kid taken before their time. But there was nothing I could do. I needed paying back. My ma and pa and Paul needed paying back.
I guess after what happened we was just about even.
***
Ma only cries if she’s peeling onions. Didn’t so much as sniffle even when we discovered those McGregor kids all blown to pieces, but that night, when Paul appeared on the screen, I could feel her body sobbing like she was a car doing kangaroos.
Her hand looked like a glove of bones shaking at the end of her arm.
I tried to take hold.
She slapped me hard.
Didn’t hurt none, at least not on the outside, but it was enough to let me know that she was ashamed of herself.
***
All those days of filming and he was only in a couple of scenes.
Give him his due though. He served those customers like he’d been doing it all his life.
He stood tall. Like he might just walk out of the screen at any moment. Was worth all the dressing up and fancy talk we had to sit through before the movie.
Johnny Cupcake sat on the front row. Didn’t move a muscle the entire show. Not even when Paul stared right into the fucker’s eyes.
When the lights came up and we were waiting on the speeches, he passed a note over to one of them Creek twins. Reckon it were Mary, but couldn’t be sure.
Eve stood up on stage and called Johnny up.
The whole crowd stood and whooped and clapped like they was dying seals. Couldn’t blame them neither. Folk from the mountain don’t get out much, not like that.
He thanked everyone and said a few things about how we’d changed his life for ever. Then he winked down at someone near the front.
To see him, aged twenty years in only two, you had to wonder what had been going on in the man’s life. I confess I was glowing inside.
One thing for sure, he weren’t going to be getting any of those action parts no more.
Soon as it was over I got myself ready to leave.
Ma though, she weren’t having any. She was off down those steps waving her stick, making sure she got to him first.
Couldn’t remember the last time she’d moved so quick.
Mounted the stage like an athlete.
Straight over to him she went, pointing and shouting.
Might have been easier to understand if she’d been wearing her teeth.
She jabbed her arm out suddenly, real impolite.
Johnny Cupcake didn’t even flinch.
Took the pen she waved.
Signed everything she put in front of him.
Regret
I’ve been here for a long while, I have seen what I have seen
This town, Regret, my home-town, a recurring ugly dream
At night the bar’s my only friend, they serve an evil brew
The good things never talked about, as they were far and few
Beetles wait on tables, snakes wind around our boots
The faceless man each six o’clock, his brain out he does shoot
As Lennon sits with Stalin wondering what is all you need
Love never gets a mention, only power and wealth and greed
I must have had a few drinks, then again too few to mention
When shots rang out from in the street, adding to the tension
The saloon doors swung back and forth as everybody left
Clutching glass and spilling nought, to find a hideous theft
Of the life of a poor woman, lying in her bloody dress
Regret’s only single female, inhaling her last breaths
The face of every man in town cracked up just like their hearts
Then a sudden sense that right away retribution must soon start
McCarthy at the helm of a thirty handed mob
With
their calluses and powder burns, set to their dirty job
In search of a hat just like that worn by Indiana Jones
And the gringo underneath it, for the chance to crush his bones
And in the end decided that it must have been Old Red
Seen at the bordello once or twice, so somebody had said
The only crime committed was the colour of his hair
He fell to Earth and pleaded that the judgement wasn’t fair
A rope was looped and thrown up to the hangin’ tree’s main bough
To where Red was led upon a horse un-harnessed from its plough
A six foot hole beside him set to be his unmarked grave
Looked up unto the heavens in the hope that Jesus saves
The posse all remember how he turned up back in time
To rescue the poor sinners, tried to get them into line
Found out that in these parts there was too much upon his plate
And they’d run him out of town way back in ‘thirty eight
The reason that the ass has got a cross upon its back
Was to make an easy target for soaking up the flack
Red could see no Jesus, only circling, thirsty crows
When the nag was kicked away by heavy steel capped toes
The fall was quick, the neck was showing off its brand new tie
A life flashed by before him, pictures lighting up the sky
There he found out all the answers in an act of revelation
His legs beneath, they spasmed at this new illumination
Only soon the lights went out, his ginger head gone limp
A life gone out, not with a bang, but with some kind of whimper
Cut down by the undertaker, for every loss is someone’s gain
And thrown into a long box, laid out, no sign of shame
Set upon his eyes to close them, two bright and shiny dollars
Later stolen in the chaos, midst the whooping and the hollers
The requiem waltz by Levi Straus played in his denim gloves
Brought memories then flooding back of long since buried loves
Whilst Red’s child turned over restless, though he’d only two years seen
With no escape from rattles in his mind of things that might have been
Passing through there like the silent ghost of tumbling tumbleweed
To open scars that’ll never heal, only rip apart and bleed
There must be some way out of here, but I ain’t never found it yet
Looks like I’m set to die here, in this stinkin’ pit Regret.
Dance With Me
Tell you straight, this bounty hunter thing ain’t nothing like it is in the movies.
There’s no buddy-buddy shit. No good guy/bad guy thing. Just two fellas from the dark side stuck in the same places.
Take me and Eddie Mailman.
Twice he took me in.
Third time he tried I was in New York.
Hadn’t changed much, other than there was more of him to go round.
I sat in JFK chained to his wrist wondering how I let such a no-good sloth catch an athlete like myself.
No way he could use a disguise. Would have been like trying to hide an elephant in salad. And creeping out? Imagine a hippo in sneakers.
Only way for him to get me was for me to go walking right up to him.
And that’s what I did.
I opened the door to room 301, a belly full of Jamieson’s and a pricey dame on my arm and there he was, legs spread, a shotgun resting on his knee.
The girl wasn’t stupid. Was out the door before I could speak.
Me? I collapsed between his knees.
“Nice to see you, Willie,” he said, grinning through a week-or-so’s stubble.
An almighty explosion ripped from between his legs. Sounded like the devil tearing a directory.
“Pick the bones out of that,” he laughed and, while I was trying not to pass out, he must have popped on the cuffs.
***
Mailman had done his party-piece already.
Took the key from the cuffs, dropped them in an envelope and sent them over to the bondsman in Fresno.
He loved it, watching the hope drain from my face.
Now we were fused as one. The word privacy had just been rubbed from the dictionary.
Some might call that justice; I’d call in the United frigging Nations.
***
In the lounge at JFK, Eddie’s buttocks rested over two seats while I squatted on the floor like a dog.
“Need to take a dump,” he told me.
“You take a dump, that’s murder one, scrote.”
He yanked the chain and pulled me onto my feet. “Ever tried fitting a fat man into an aeroplane crapper?”
He wiped the burger slime from his mouth, balled the wrapper and scored himself two points.
And I was about to go where others had boldly gone before.
Seemed I wasn’t going fast enough for Eddie. He pulled hard and I fell onto his chest.
“Dance?” I asked.
He pushed a finger up my nose. Lifted me be a nostril. Made sure my head followed his hand. “Only dance I’ll be doing is the tango all over your friggin’ face.”
I followed him like a bull being pulled by the nose.
***
At least the disabled bathroom was free.
Eddie undid his belt with his right hand, loosed his waistband and slipped out of his jeans.
I got a flash of turkey-neck and screwed my eyes shut.
The way he strained on his seat, sounded like someone hadn’t been eating his vegetables.
Grunting like a pig he was and grinding his teeth like he was having one big nightmare.
No matter how hard I tried, I kept getting pictures in my mind. Got so bad, I had to open my eyes to see what was happening.
Beads of sweat were dripping down from under the brim of his hat. I guess that’s why they call it a Ten-Gallon. Always fancied himself as a cowboy, Eddie, even if there weren’t a horse on the planet that could cope with him in the saddle.
So there I was, waiting for the splash, when his face got all twisted like a helter-skelter.
His free hand took hold of my collar, then went for my throat. Gripped on like someone was trying to take his double-cheese.
Felt my eyeballs turn into my head and I was just starting to roll the slideshow of my life when he let me go.
Never saw a man having a heart-attack before then. Haven’t seen one since.
Wasn’t as dramatic as I’d imagined.
He slumped right where he was, like a bouncy castle at the end of a party.
So there we was, just me and a tub of lard.
Did I panic?
Guess I did for a while. Soon got some inspiration, though. After that I was as calm as Harry Houdini.
I pulled the emergency cord a pull and waited.
Took no time at all for the attendant to get the door open.
Should have seen his face. Guess it ain’t often a man gets to see a pair of hairy butt-cheeks that size mooning at them.
Positioned him like that to make sure he weren’t seeing anything else but that ass. Funny we can’t stop staring at the things that make us freak.
Rest was simple.
Introduced myself as Skinny Ray, bounty-hunter. Pointed at the corpse.
“This here was ‘Ruthless’ Joe Finney. Bounty says Dead Or Alive, so if you would be so kind sir.” I held out the cuffs. “Already mailed the keys, see?”
The old guy took of his cap. Looked at me and scratched his head.
“Bolt cutters?” he asked.
I nodded and he was off to get his tools.
I sat on Eddie Mailman. Wished it was still OK to smoke in an airport lounge. That crack of his would have made the perfect ash-tray.
KILLER HAIKU
Fish
Destroying their world
Wasn’t so tough.
Like shooting fish
in a barrel
You Talking To Me?
Signal, mirror, manoeuvre,
And off he goes,
Driving yet riding shotgun
Dawn Chorus
Dawn Chorus
A thunderous echo
Scars a county like the ice-age
About the author
Nigel Bird is a Support For Learning teacher in a primary school near Edinburgh. Co-Producer of the Rue Bella magazine between 1998 and 2003, he is the author of the critically acclaimed collection ‘Dirty Old Town’ and other stories.
His work has appeared recently in the collections ‘The Mammoth Book of Best Of British Crime Stories’ and the debut release from Snubnose entitled ‘Speedloader’.
This follows appearances in Crimefactory; Needle; Dark Valentine; Beat to a Pulp; A Twist Of Noirl; Microw; All Due Respect; Pulp Metal; Crimespree; Not From Here Are You; and a number of other wonderful homes.
Later this year he is to put out the anthology ‘Pulp Ink’ with co-editor Chris Rhatigan. He is confident that the names involved and the quality of the work will make it one of the finest short fiction collections of the year.
His blog ‘Sea Minor’ is currently running the ‘Dancing With Myself’ series of interviews. He hopes to complete his novel by the end of 2011.
As always, he would like to offer his sincere thanks to all those who have supported him in any way, assuming you know who you are.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
or via his blog, Sea Minor at http://[email protected]
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
