Flying Fish

"You sure about this," he asked, scratching the back of his head and looking around the beach suspiciously. He had ice blue eyes, and a thick streak of white that spilled down the center of his otherwise black head of hair. His eyebrows were bushy and came together slightly, forming an almost unibrow.

"Yea, c'mon, it's just a bird; a pigeon for fuck's sake," the bearded man replied as he bent down rummaging through the black leather duffle bag.

"I know, I mean...it's just," he started to say.

"A rat with wings," the man interrupted. "What are you, scared? C'mon, don't be a bitch," he continued, dismissively, as he pulled out a spool of fishing line. "Grab me the rod."

He handed the bearded man in the black leather jacket the fishing rod. The leather man stood up and took it from him. He was tall, and rail thin, with tattooed arms and metal rings on each of his knuckles. Delicately, with long, wart-covered fingers, he fed the line through the fishing pole.

"So we're just gonna do it right here? Just like that; right out on the beach, huh," the skunk-haired man asked.

"It's the middle of winter; no one is on the god damned beach," he shouted impatiently. "Listen, if you don't want to do this, then get the fuck out of here. You knew the plan when you came here; hell, half of this was your idea." His brown eyes were wide and stern, and hanging from his face they illuminated the dark like two full moons. He stared at the striped man waiting for him to protest and, when he didn't, he accepted his silence as a tacit agreement. "Ok then, let's get this show on the road."

The man knelt back down, placing his knee in the sand beside the bag. He reached into it like a devilish magician and extracted a frightened pigeon. "Here," he said, "hold it while I tie the string." The pigeon fought and kicked helplessly in the skunk's hands as the bearded man tied a noose around its foot. "There," the man said as he rose to stand, "all set." He picked up the rod and yelled: let her rip!

They took turns hollering and laughing as they gave the bird slack and slowly reeled it back in with a windup cruelty. Its wings flapped and slapped at the air desperately, straining against the string as they made the bird fly in reverse. Holding the pole in one hand, the bearded man lit a cigarette with the other. They stood in silence listening to the bird's struggling wings fan the sky with futility, the slow roar of the waves rolling in from sea. The night air was cold and a pale layer of thin, ghostly clouds stretched out over the sky above them, concealing small blue stars that twinkled like scattered sapphires.

"You seen that ass on Robin today," the black-and-white man asked, "she looked real good in those jeans." The bearded man nodded dispassionately, as though he were thinking of something else. "She told me she wanted me to meet her tonight, at Lucky's," the monochrome man continued. The bearded man turned his head at him sharply, squinting his eyes like a man staring at the sun.

"What are you sayin'," the beard asked, "you wanna leave; right now? That I need to hurry up because you want to get your dick wet?"

"Nah, that ain't it," he said nervously, shifting his feet in the sand and scratching his neck. "I was just sayin'...listen, you got a problem with me Mikey? Ever since we got here you been actin' funny."

"I been actin' funny, huh," he shot back. "Funny how?"

"Like you're better than me or something, like I'm not hip to it." The bearded man and the white-haired man both thought of his apprehension, about how he was scared. "That ain't right: we're both out here. I wouldn't be, if I was scared," he said.

The beard pulled deeply on his cigarette, lighting up his face in the dark, the color of crimson. He smiled and said, "I was wrong. You're right: I've been hogging all the fun. How about I make it up to you? You can do the honors, and set him free." The thin, bearded, tattooed man handed him the pole and he accepted it reluctantly, like an unwanted gift.

"You mean, you just want to let him go," he asked, not fully understanding.

"Yeah, of living," the man replied. "Time for my half of the plan," he said as he bent down digging through the duffle bag. For his next trick, the man in the black leather jacket produced a small metal container of lighter fluid from the bag.

The skunk clutched the rod like a handrail, leaning on it like a cane. He had to do it, he told himself; he tried to reel it back in as it thumped out of his chest. The white-haired man didn't like it, of course, but he saw no alternative. He was trapped. Mikey would tell everyone what a pussy he was if he didn't; how he didn't have the balls to kill a diseased rat. It would damage his loyalty in the eyes of the gang, it would ruin his reputation as a tough guy. As the bearded man offered him the lighter fluid, the bird - the strange, feathered balloon - seemed to know something worse was happening. It began to huff and cough and flapped its wings faster.

"Looks like we grabbed ourselves a smart one, huh," the bearded man said, chuckling.

"Hey Mikey, I'm thinking you should wet him while I hold the rod," he said, sounding more like a plea. "Then, you gimme the lighter and I'll light him up, okay?"

The warty-handed man sneered and grabbed the bird with one hand. He never moved his eyes off of the skunk while he doused the bird. "Fire it up," he said, handing the white-haired man the lighter. The pigeon's head shook madly as it tried to remove the caustic fluid from its eyes, from its feathers, from its skin. The strong smell stabbed at the man's nose, numbed his nasal passage and loitered in the back of his throat. Sorry, he said to himself as he raised the lighter to the bird's entangled foot, and with a quick metallic chik the spark was kicked off toward the thin stream of butane floating out from the lighter, igniting a miniature mushroom-cloud of flames that engulfed the bird.

The man was shocked by the sudden rush of heat and lost hold of the reel. It whizzed mechanically on the rod, giving the bird slack as it soared up and away, picking up wind, fanning the flames. It rose like a kite on fire, growing, becoming brighter, until the spool snapped and tore into the man's hand. He dropped the rod and it rolled along the sand, trailing the bird. It bounced and kicked along the beach, jerking the bird up and down erratically in the air. Its wings clapped together and rained down drops of burning water.

"YYEEEEEEE HAAAWWWWW," the bearded man yelled, "Look at that! We made a firebird!"

The rod quickly reached the black rolling waves and was dragged into the ocean. The bird, either burned or burdened by the water's friction, struggled for a few fleeting seconds until, with a faint splash, it plummeted into the dark depths, extinguished. The white-haired man felt faint and his insides hardened in his stomach. With a heavy chest and an ashen, brittle heart, he stared out over the sea.

"That's how you do it," the man in the black leather jacket said, lighting a cigarette. "That's how you kill two birds with one stone."