SPEAK! Chapter 1

JIMBO

A pair of bare legs stuck out from under the dorm room bunkbed. Crablike, the legs kicked until Jimbo Kid, dressed only in boxers, scuttled out and smacked his head on the bed frame.
“Fuck.” He rubbed at a tender knot of fluid already swelling under his scalp. “Fuck. Fuck me fucking sideways.”

He cut his eyes across the room. A cornered animal.

Snatched a cell phone from a desk.

Dead.

“Fuck me.”

He swiped another cell phone, punched numbers.

Waited.

A phone on the other end rang.

And rang.

And fucking rang.

“Fuck. C’mon. C’mon c’mon c’mon. Fuck. C’m- Hey. Hey hey hey. I go loopy and leave my backpack at your digs last night? Well shit. Shit all over me. What the mother Christ’d I do with it? No. No. He’s AWOL. Christ on a pony if he took it. I told him to get his own shit and keep his brown paws off my shit; this is how shit happens, people messing with other people’s shit. Tolbert’s money’s in there. Tolbert. Tolbert. You know. Tolbert. Forget it. Fuck it. Fuck me. I don’t cop the dough I’m fucked. Like, right up my dirty brown starfish fucked. Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUUUUUUCK!”

RAY and BIRD

The trailer sat in The Valley dawn, amid the Simi foothills, bedecked in gaudy Christmas lights that framed every window and looped in a tangled nest on the satellite dish atop the roof.

Inside, Ray smacked the kitchen AC unit.

Sweat slid off the tip of his nose.

“Careful,” he said.

Bird sat at the card table wiping down a rifle in his lap, the rifle barrel pointed at Ray.

“More people killed in one day by accidents than a whole year by cancers,” Ray said. “Number one killer in America. Accidents. Gun accidents. Car accidents. Plane accidents. People falling off ladders. Rocks falling on people. Lotsa falling going on. Lotsa lotsa falling.”

Bird pointed the rifle muzzle at the floor.

Behind him the TV played. A Talking Head prattled, “The three were holed up in an apartment building in Detroit and were American citizens. They are charged with building homemade bombs from materials they bought at Wal Mart.”

Bird wiped the rifle down and set it against the entertainment center, knocking over a photo. He picked up the photo and dusted it, placed it with the others, just so. A shrine of photos of soldiers- a Civil War soldier; a WWI soldier; a WWII soldier; a Korean War Soldier; a Viet Nam soldier; a Gulf War soldier. Amid them swept the long arc of a Civil War sword’s blade.

The Talking Head continued, “The CIA maintains all means of extracting information from the suspects were legal. In a local update, a third sighting of a mountain lion in Griffith Park was reported yesterday- The Los Angeles city council insists they’re taking measures to keep the public safe. From KCAL— Merry Christm- uh, happy holidays and stay cool. This is Drake Justice.”

Bird picked up the remote and switched the TV to a pastoral scene of mallard ducks. “Anas platyrhynchos,” Bird mumbled as the ducks paddled on a mountain lake and he licked at sweat as it slid down his face. “Birds are smart,” he said. “North in summer, south in winter. Go where the weather’s good. A nice lake. That’s what we should do, Ray. Smart.”

“’Cept birds fly for free.”

“Right. Smart.”

Ray slapped dry English muffins and cold beans on Bird’s plate. Bird stared at it.

“Where’s the muffins with the crannies and holes? I like how the butter melts in them.”

“These’re the same muffins. The others are just pretty packaging. Can’t eat pretty packaging. It’s a— a mind thing, a mental thing, the pretty packaging makes you think they’re better, so you pay more. Leroy. He knows. He works for Mr. Krispy Chip now. He told me. He’ll get us crumpets next time. They got a big promotion going on them.”

“Crumpets?”

“Fancy European deal. Lotsa lotsa holes.”

Bird shoveled beans in his mouth, looked at Ray’s empty plate.

“You eating?”

“That’s all there is.” Ray glanced at the TV, picked up the remote and clicked it back to the news.

Bird slid his plate to Ray.

Ray slid the plate back to Bird.

“Y’go on.”

Ray came out of the bathroom dressed in a khaki jumpsuit with embroidery at the pocket: Canyon Cougar Control. He moved a Santa suit draped on the back of the recliner and sat. He smoked a cigarette and yanked on his hiking boots.

Bird struggled to squeeze on his boot, wincing. “Tighter than a nun’s ass,” he said

Outside, they slapped a magnetic sign for Canyon Cougar Control on the Bronco II door, loaded the rifles into the front, and hopped in.

Ray drove out of The Valley in the dark, Bird in the passenger seat, rifles between them.

They drove south away from the Simis eventually dropping out onto Ventura and heading up Laurel Canyon, a blue dawn creeping over the hills slowly, like smoke.

A left on Mulholland, Universal City a slumber.

The Bronco’s headlights sweep the sign for —

GRIFFITH PARK

Ray parked the Bronco behind some chaparral scrub and killed the engine. He took a swig of water from a canteen and handed the canteen to Bird who took a swig and screwed the cap back on tight.

They got out.

Ray lit a cigarette, crushed the pack and dropped it.

Bird shot him a look. “Give a hoot,” he said.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Ray said and picked up the cigarette pack, stuck it in his jumpsuit. He pulled out a pair of ratty gloves and handed them to Bird. “Here. Fend off the brush. We got an hour ‘fore the tourists start crawling all over the place.”

They grabbed the rifles from Bronco and sneaked in different directions.

Ray sat on a rock among the chaparral hills, his rifle settled in the crook of his arm. His face slick with sweat.

Bird sat on a stump and wiped sweat from his face then took his boots off and rubbed his sore feet. They ached and throbbed where they’d been squeezed in so tightly, the tops of his toes raw with peeled blisters.
Ray lit a cigarette. He turned to see movement in the chaparral below. He squinted. Cougar? Brown for sure.

Definitely brown.

He raised his rifle. Got a glimpse of brown. He eased the rifle safety off, slipped his finger on the trigger.
Brown for sure. Big and brown. Not much up here in the hills big and brown but a cat.

He pulled the trigger.

Bird dozed.

A gunshot startled him into the living world. He looked about, bewildered and fumbled for his boots. Slipped them on unlaced. He crashed along, tripping and careening, falling. He got up and brushed himself off and kept running.

He came to stand beside Ray, huffing and puffing, slickened with sweat as if he’d been dipped in a vat of cooking oil.

They stared down at their feet.

“That ain’t no mountain lion,” Bird said.

“I see that,” Ray said. “I see that.’’