Tunes the Sparrow Sang Last Friday

Of Americanos Pianists With Control Issues and Hoodies

        

Bird was more than aware that he was not supposed to be here. Like an arachnophobe in the second Harry Potter film, like a homophobe at a pride parade, like a pianist with control issues and therefore not allowed to be part of free jazz improv sessions, he was definitely in a place that would only encourage what he had labeled as wrong.

But he just couldn't help it.

Not when there was that beautiful girl behind the counter, not when the stutter and crackles and smoothness of the records was so tempting and right fricking there. He pretended he couldn't see her smile and headed to the rock section like a mosquito to a windshield on the highway: headfirst and enevitable. You see, for most, a record shop with a pretty girl is usually a good thing, but not for Bird Howe.

Three months ago he had received a rather pissed off telephone call from his bank manager saying that had fallen into debt because he refused to acknowledge his calls and had spent more than he owned. Bird had been indignant, claiming that, actually I haven't spent nearly that much, thank you very much. Until he saw his bank records. Then he realized that 478.90$ was not an appropriate amount of money to spend when he was a bloody art student who had only recently graduated, and finding a job wasn't an easy thing to do these days.

This was all because of a pretty girl with raspberry hair and tiny galaxies across her skin, all because he didn't have the self-control to buy one album instead of 14 all in one go.

"Hey man!"

Bird hummed and looked over at the guy standing next to him. He grinned, and stood up straight from where he'd been hovering over the records, playing at sifting through The Grateful Dead. Anthony - Toons - was holding two coffees in each hand, the sleeves of his University of Victoria hoodie pushed up past his elbows.

"Hey mate, that for me?"

"'Course, don't know anyone else crazy enough to want an Americano with no sugar." Toons wrinkled his nose and nudged Bird.

"C'mon at least I'm not drinking tea in the middle of the summer. I'm British and I don't even like tea," He teased and Toons laughed, sticking out his tongue and taking a sip from his glass Star Wars mug.

"How'd you know I'd be here anyways? I'm not supposed to be in here and you're usually my parole officer when it comes to shit like this." He tried to make his tone as light as possible, but Toons could read him the way he could read scientific jargon - too well to be human. Bird was almost as good with Toons as Toons was with him, but Toons flat, unemotional stare always told him exactly what he wasn't supposed to know.

"It's Vendredi," he said, once he realized that Bird's unblinking stare wasn't going to stop. "She's missing." If she'd gone missing this morning, if she hadn't been in bed when he'd woken up, Toons would've called him in a panic, voice frantic and trembling. He was too flat, too straight for her to have gone missing this morning. "When?" Toons didn't say anything, just covered his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face. "Toons..." he warned.

Pushing, pushing, pressing.

"A week ago," he sighed. "We had a fight. She told me to call her in a week, that she'd be at her sister's, but when I called yesterday..." His voice cracked in a way Bird hadn't heard since they were kids in grade eight and nine. "Bisous hadn't seen her all week, said she didn't even know that Vendredi and me had fought. She never made it there, Bird." Bird just stared at him, but stayed quiet. Vendredi was crucial, they knew that.

"You think they did it, don't you?" He clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, breathed out, tried not to scream, tried not to worry. Toons didn't move, but he nodded.

"We've gotta find her. Gotta find everybody and get them working this too," Bird said. "Toons, Toons." The other boy looked up, opened his mouth to speak.

"No," Bird snapped. "Shut up. This isn't your fault. We'll find Vendredi, she's gonna be fine, but getting your shit together and stopping the whole drama queen act would make this a helluva lot easier."

Toons huffed, rubbed his eyes with his sleeves and nodded toward the front of the store, toward the girl the raspberry red hair and simply said, "Questions." Bird twisted slightly, to look at the next row of records and to glance up at the girl who was staring at them with a frown. "Yeah," Bird muttered. "She's just like that." He'd hoped he had left the statement devoid of emotion - so that it could be seen as an observation of human nature, not something he had noticed about the sweet girl who worked at Pastimes Music. He often overstepped that line, swayed and stumbled too far to one side or the other. No luck, he'd done it again and Toons didn't look at him, just picked through records. "Shall I?"

Bird shook his head, pulled his gaze to the front of the store and called, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but could you give me and my friend here a hand with something, please?" She smiled, and her freckles danced. Once she was within a few feet, she said, "Of course." Four feet away she stopped and gave them both an impish grin. "What do you gentlemen need?" But before she had reached the last syllable of gentlemen, Bird was reaching across himself to his left hip, closing around it, loving the weight and the feel of it in his palms, could practically smell it; he pulled it out and extended his arm in front of him to hold the '44 to the girl's head.

She didn't even have time to register what was happening to her, before Bird had pulled the trigger, sent her blood onto the wall, her limp body onto the ground. He looked over at Toons, grinning. Toons widened his eyes in mock terror and laughed. "Well, that was fun."

"And it's only 9 in the morning - now let's go find your girlfriend and then we can all kick some bad guy ass."

Toons giggled, shoulders bouncing. "Lead on, MacDuff."

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