Black Bird 1x4

1. And that is why we are here today,

2. to pray for our brother whose body lies here in rest.

3. He has passed from death to life in the company of Lord Jesus,

4. who died and rose to a new life…

5. and is purified in all his faults.

6. And we pray God welcome him among all the saints of heaven. Amen.

7. Amen.

8. Get up, Larry.

9. - Why can't Gary come? - Yeah, why can't I come?

10. 'Cause Gary don't wet the bed.

11. Get your ass out the door. Come on.

12. Hey, pal.

13. Hey, Dad.

14. You still want to do this?

15. You had to work.

16. Just got off shift.

17. Aren't you tired?

18. I'm okay.

19. All right, get up.

20. There we go! Good adjustment, Jimmy.

21. Alabama, hike!

22. We got it. I want you to turn a little bit quicker. Okay, Jim?

23. Go long. Turn right, go!

24. Touchdown, Jimmy Keene!

25. Elephant, six, four. Hike.

26. Set. Hike.

27. Giraffe, six, four.

28. - No. - I got you.

29. I'm partial to Corvettes.

30. You know, when you make it to the NFL.

31. I was thinking more like a Gremlin,

32. with the thing in the back that lifts up?

33. Called a hatchback.

34. Yeah, one of those.

35. A Gremlin.

36. With a racing stripe, I promise.

37. Gremlin. I'll Gremlin you.

38. Hey, bud.

39. Hey.

40. Where were you?

41. - You know… - No, I don't.

42. That's why I'm asking.

43. Just came back from chow.

44. So, your old man couldn't lay his hands on any product. That right?

45. Unfortunately, yeah.

46. Didn't mean to block your door.

47. - No, it's fine. - No. Come on in.

48. So you're saying there's no money left?

49. He spent it.

50. Fucking guy's the gift that keeps on giving, huh?

51. Guys on the outside want their money. What am I gonna do, Jim?

52. I tried, Mr. Carter.

53. If you say that's what you did, I gotta believe you.

54. - Hope so. - I just wish we'd known each other longer.

55. Then I'd have a better sense of your character.

56. I did everything I could.

57. Riot quiet

58. What's that?

59. When it's quiet like this, they call it "riot quiet."

60. Like the calm before a storm.

61. Really?

62. Yeah.

63. Yeah, or it just means it's quiet.

64. Did you see anyone in here?

65. No.

66. Something missing?

67. Why would something be missing?

68. Well, if I was worried someone had been in my spot,

69. I'd worry someone took something.

70. I'm not worried someone was in my spot.

71. No?

72. Oh, no.

73. Then why did you ask if I saw someone in there?

74. Why are you looking at me like that?

75. I'm not looking at you any way.

76. Like you know me.

77. Larry, what the fuck?

78. Is that a question?

79. 'Cause that's one thing you do. You ask a lot of questions.

80. Where's this coming from?

81. That was a question.

82. Okay, Larry.

83. Okay, what?

84. I'm gonna leave you to it. Whatever this is.

85. Wait, Jimmy.

86. When there's doubt, there's no doubt.

87. How's that?

88. Something Gary says.

89. He heard it from a friend who liberated Kuwait.

90. If you think you could be in danger…

91. you are in danger.

92. Something's gonna happen.

93. What?

94. I don't know, but something bad. Don't you think?

95. Sorry about earlier.

96. I get…

97. You get what?

98. Paranoid.

99. Or whatever.

100. - You know? - No, Larry. I don't.

101. Jimmy, I know you're upset.

102. I am not upset.

103. I just— I don't know you from one minute to the next.

104. Hold it open.

105. Fuck you!

106. All inmates, return to your cells.

107. We're on lockdown.

108. Attention. Lockdown in progress. Attention. Lockdown in progress.

109. Inmates, go to your cells! Full lockdown.

110. 89304, report to Central Command.

111. Jimmy?

112. Jimmy, you in there?

113. What's up, Larry?

114. Are you still mad at me?

115. I was never mad at you, Larry.

116. I think you were.

117. Just 'cause you think it, don't make it so.

118. Yeah.

119. Friends? Jimmy, friends?

120. What?

121. Friends again?

122. Yeah.

123. Sure, Larry.

124. Friends.

125. What?

126. I take care of my friends.

127. Mr. Holt?

128. Convict Hall?

129. Could we lay our hands on a hose or two, Mr. Holt?

130. That's a negative, Convict Hall.

131. May I ask why?

132. 'Cause somebody could fucking strangle someone with it, Convict.

133. Work with what you got.

134. Okay. We're gonna stack the large debris first.

135. Anywhere you see or feel cooking oil on the floor,

136. I want you to hit it with some Comet, but don't clean it up yet.

137. We're gonna stack all the debris in the east corner there.

138. Donny.

139. Donny?

140. Hi. I need you to sweep up the glass,

141. so that we can work the debris without cutting ourselves.

142. I trust you with that?

143. Yes, Larry.

144. Have at it, son.

145. Well. Let's get to it, men.

146. Grab some gloves.

147. Hey, guys. Don't forget about the front up here, okay?

148. Don't worry about all the food. We're gonna sweep that up.

149. Just grab the big items.

150. Jimmy, it's actually kind of fun, right?

151. Can I have you on this end with him?

152. All right, one, two, three.

153. It's very slippery. There's a lot of blood. Be careful.

154. Guys, we— Gentlemen, we still have all the cups down here.

155. Let's grab all of those cups. How's it look down there?

156. It's okay.

157. Guys, we're going to sweep first, and then we're going to mop.

158. But we need spray bottles.

159. We need putty knives.

160. They ain't giving us putty knives.

161. We'll find the really hard spots, spray 'em and leave 'em for an hour.

162. They might come up on a sponge then.

163. After that, we'll get the oil up.

164. How'd you get into this?

165. Cleaning?

166. High school.

167. After school I would go work a job at a feedstore in town.

168. And then I moved to a place that specialized in medical supplies.

169. What'd you do?

170. In high school?

171. To support yourself, yeah.

172. Sold weed.

173. I'm not sure we had weed in my high school.

174. Larry, if you were in America, you had weed.

175. Well, Wabash was just so innocent, though. It's like where Opie lived.

176. Mayberry.

177. Yeah, or, like, where Opie lived.

178. We didn't have any crime.

179. We were, like, stuck in a time warp, you know?

180. Malt shops and pigtails.

181. It was Tanner's Grocer.

182. Everybody wore white hats.

183. And all the appliances and all the food chests,

184. they just gleamed.

185. and Main Street, my word.

186. Just blocks of department stores and candy stores.

187. Remember candy stores?

188. And nice people sweeping the sidewalks,

189. everybody waving hello.

190. Our high school had the greenest lawns.

191. I never saw green like that before, or since.

192. And the prettiest cheerleaders the world's ever seen.

193. What a world it was, James.

194. Even living in a cemetery.

195. You grew up in a cemetery?

196. Oh, yeah. Sure did.

197. You'd be surprised how much fun you can have in a place like that

198. when you stop seeing the headstones and just see fields and trees.

199. Never thought of it that way.

200. It was actually a pretty nice way to grow up.

201. Happiness is a choice. Don't you think, James?

202. Sometimes.

203. I say happiness is a choice

204. because I don't think my parents were happy.

205. They let that grind them down.

206. That was hard to watch sometimes.

207. How about you?

208. I was lucky. I had a great dad.

209. I never had, like, a best friend because I always had my old man.

210. 'Cause you're out all night.

211. - You're never fucking here. - Because I fucking work.

212. - What do you think I do? - I don't know.

213. What do you do, Lynne? What do you fucking do?

214. - Fuck you. - Fuck you.

215. You cock that fist, you better use it, big man.

216. Tough man. Big, tough cop can't even get it up.

217. That's right!

218. Break things like a fucking child.

219. Fuck you, Lynne!

220. Dad?

221. All that time your old man spent with you, did that help?

222. Were you a good football player?

223. Best my high school had seen in 15 years.

224. And that guy got a scholarship to USC.

225. Sometimes you remind me so much of Gary, my gums ache.

226. You both talk so big.

227. I lied.

228. You what?

229. I was second string.

230. I rode the bench, all four years.

231. But you still made the team.

232. A lot of people made the team.

233. No, James, you made the team. That's an accomplishment.

234. Why did you lie about it?

235. You know how it is.

236. I do not.

237. Come on.

238. Dudes try to impress other dudes

239. with stories that make them look bigger than they are.

240. Why?

241. So they'll like 'em? I don't know.

242. If you had a pet chicken, could you eat it?

243. Who has a pet chicken?

244. I don't know. I'd suspect some folks do.

245. And I suspect no folks do.

246. But if you did?

247. I wouldn't.

248. Well, I would. I would have one and I would eat it.

249. You'd eat your pet?

250. Yeah, it's just meat.

251. We're all just… meat.

252. I would eat my pet dog.

253. Have you?

254. What?

255. Eaten your dog?

256. Well, we weren't allowed to have pets growing up.

257. That's probably a good thing.

258. But what is the difference between a pet and a meal?

259. People don't have pet chickens or pet cows.

260. They have pet fish.

261. How is a puppy different?

262. Nobody plates a puppy.

263. "No one plates a puppy."

264. Hey, convicts. This isn't a date.

265. Do your job and stop fucking goofing off.

266. Hey.

267. We weren't allowed to have pets growing up

268. because my dad said that it got in the way of real work.

269. We were put on God's green to do real work.

270. Get to it then.

271. Did I stutter?

272. Hurry up about it.

273. Wait, how old were you again?

274. I was 14 when I started digging graves, like, officially.

275. But I'd dug plenty up before then.

276. What's the difference?

277. Well, you dig a grave. You dig up a coffin.

278. Why?

279. Why dig up…

280. Well, people bury the dead with all sorts of things they can't use.

281. Watches, shoes, money.

282. I remember one old gal,

283. she got buried with a solid gold Siamese cat,

284. like a doorstop, you know?

285. She's dead, what does she need a doorstop for?

286. Or a cat, or gold?

287. Some people are just so sick that they would take something

288. that could do good in the world for someone,

289. and they just hoard it all to themselves

290. in a casket six feet under the ground,

291. where it won't help nobody, James.

292. It ain't serving any kind of benefit.

293. You weren't scared, though?

294. Down in a dark hole with a—

295. You know, a corpse?

296. The dead are pleasant.

297. They don't talk down to you, don't talk back.

298. They're just so peaceful.

299. I look into their faces, and it gives me hope that the next world—

300. That the next world is gonna be the good one.

301. I'll tell you something else, James.

302. No matter who a person was in real life, death evens it all out.

303. I knew a girl named Debra Kyle.

304. She was the— She was untouchable.

305. Kindergarten through senior year. She went off to college.

306. We all thought, "She's gonna rule the world, that one."

307. Then she went to college and learned about roof jumping.

308. She didn't learn good, and she fell between two buildings.

309. She broke her fucking neck.

310. She got a lot less untouchable after that.

311. Like I said,

312. evens it out.

313. Evens what out?

314. Whatever they thought they were in life.

315. Get to it. Come on.

316. Is your father still alive?

317. Yeah. Yours?

318. What does he do for work?

319. Fireman.

320. Did your mommy work?

321. My mother…

322. she owned her own bar.

323. She loved everything about it.

324. It's a weird lifestyle.

325. She'd be going to work when most kids' moms were making them dinner.

326. Come home, like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

327. Not what my old man thought he was signing up for

328. when he married an Italian girl from the neighborhood.

329. They fought a lot.

330. 'Cause she was fucking guys at the bar?

331. I fucking beg your pardon?

332. He thought she was, maybe.

333. Either way, he didn't like her flirting, and she loved to flirt. So…

334. How did you feel about her flirting?

335. We'll just say Lynne's a piece of work and leave it at that.

336. My mom's fat.

337. We'll leave it at that.

338. Tell me something true, James.

339. "Something true"?

340. About you.

341. - I've been telling you the truth all day. - Have you?

342. Okay.

343. So my parents broke up when I was a kid.

344. Then my mother, six months later, she let him move in.

345. "Him"?

346. Glen.

347. Real scumbag.

348. Anyway, they'd been together around a year when he started hitting her.

349. Would he hit you?

350. All the time.

351. Me and my brother, but… mostly me.

352. Anyway, she would not leave him.

353. I couldn't figure it out.

354. And then I got it.

355. She was waiting for me to get old enough and strong enough to protect her.

356. That wasn't fair to put that on you.

357. I don't mind.

358. Anyway, I started taking my Tae Kwon Do and karate and jujitsu classes

359. way more seriously than I ever had.

360. Changed my diet, changed everything.

361. And pretty soon, I could beat any kid's ass.

362. But, you know, I still needed to age,

363. to grow until I could take on a full-grown man.

364. And Glen, big fucking guy.

365. But by the time I was 14…

366. I was ready.

367. So, one night, we're all in the kitchen,

368. and Glen hits my mother.

369. Just a little flick of his fingers back into her mouth.

370. And I bring it.

371. - You kicked his ass. - No, Larry.

372. Glen paints the fucking kitchen with me.

373. He bloodied my nose, gave me what I'm pretty sure was my first concussion,

374. and fractured three of my ribs.

375. He sends me to my room that way.

376. And where was she?

377. She was taking a shower.

378. Do you know why she took a shower, Larry?

379. 'Cause she wanted to smell good when she was fucking him.

380. That's what she did…

381. with me on the other side of the wall.

382. They're giggling in there, gasping and moaning,

383. with the ice cubes rattling in their glasses.

384. And I gotta sit there…

385. with a bloody nose and my head ringing and my fucking ribs barking—

386. That wasn't what hurt!

387. All right. Wrap it up, bitches.

388. That wasn't…

389. It actually hurt like hell, Larry.

390. No, bones heal.

391. Concussions end.

392. James, no.

393. What hurt was that…

394. What hurt was that she loved him so much more than she loved you.

395. There's something else.

396. No. No, there isn't.

397. I want to live with Dad.

398. Well, you can't.

399. Jim… what do you want me to say here?

400. Someday, you'll be old enough to stand up to Glen, but today ain't that day.

401. Now I'm sorry that you got tuned up,

402. but you put the quarter in the jukebox. You gotta dance.

403. I was protecting you.

404. This wasn't about me.

405. This was about you.

406. And you got what you were asking for,

407. but it didn't turn out the way that you wanted it to.

408. Well, there'll be other chances.

409. Just learn to walk before you try and run.

410. - Do you want some ice or anything? - No.

411. - I'll go get it for you. No problem. - I'm fine.

412. Suit yourself, hon.

413. But you'll feel a lot better in the morning if you put some ice on your face.

414. Good night.

415. Night.

416. You ever want to hurt her?

417. My mother?

418. Yes.

419. Yeah, I wanted to hurt her.

420. Beat her?

421. Kill her?

422. Yeah, I wanted to fucking kill her sometimes.

423. Did you think about how?

424. Chuck her down the stairs.

425. Although, what if she hung on for a few minutes after?

426. They do that.

427. Particularly with neck breaks.

428. All right, convicts. Feet on the line.

429. Could you do things to her then?

430. What things?

431. Things.

432. To my mother?

433. Well, to anyone.

434. I don't understand.

435. I soak a rag in starter fluid and put it in a Mason jar in my van.

436. If you put it over a person's face…

437. they're out in seconds.

438. Nothing to it.

439. I gotta figure it's a lot more pleasant than being thrown down a flight of stairs.

440. Forget stairs.

441. Why would you do that, Larry?

442. So they'll stop hitting me.

443. "They"?

444. Girls, you know.

445. What girls?

446. Girls I meet.

447. What do you do with girls you meet?

448. I like you almost as much as you like you.

449. That's good.

450. Cheers.

451. Yeah.

452. So, what's next?

453. Jimmy.

454. Yeah?

455. Today was real fun.

456. Yeah, it was.

457. Good night.

458. Good night, Larry.

459. What's that?

460. Birds. They're watching.

461. Owls?

462. Falcons. They watch over the dead.

463. Falcons do that?

464. Some do. Now, get back to work now.

465. Fuck you doing, boy?

466. Come on.

467. Got it.

468. Mine now.

469. How long did it last?

470. A few hours.

471. Were you scared?

472. For sure, yeah. It's, like, barbaric.

473. Riots are barbaric.

474. Well, you look good. You put on some weight.

475. Do I look fat?

476. No, you needed to gain a few.

477. You look good, I said.

478. Girls don't like fat guys.

479. Are you runnin' into a lot of girls in here?

480. I mean, once I'm out.

481. Hey, Gar, what was the name of that girl we picked up?

482. To California? That one?

483. On the road trip.

484. I don't remember her name. That was a long time ago.

485. No, it was—

486. I think it was Lois.

487. Wasn't Lois.

488. Or Louise.

489. It wasn't fucking Louise.

490. Donna.

491. It wasn't Lois or Louise or Donna. We never knew her name.

492. We didn't? I'm sure we did.

493. Larry, she was some chick that we picked up.

494. The next morning, she headed out with that biker who had that puke-green Harley.

495. That was the last we saw of her.

496. Now I remember.

497. Wanda?

498. Police dropped by the house.

499. - The— When? - Couple days back.

500. - Which ones? - Local. Wabash.

501. What'd they want?

502. They didn't say.

503. They just sort of talked around things.

504. But they wanted to make it clear they didn't forget you, Larry.

505. That's the point here.

506. They got you in their sights, and they ain't planning to stop.

507. - Why? - You embarrassed them.

508. Sharon.

509. Yeah. That was it.

510. You know what, Gary? You know something?

511. If they're coming around now trying to make me feel like

512. they're gonna be all over me when I get out,

513. I mean, that's…

514. It means they think you're gonna get out.

515. Yeah.