Detective Rosa Diaz (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
died8yearsago) wrote2021-02-17 04:30 pm
died8yearsago) wrote2021-02-17 04:30 pm
A Train Station Outside of Baltimore; Wednesday Afternoon [02/17].
Indistinct chatter droned over the static-filled PA system, usually buried under the clatter and clang of incoming trains, but that that afternoon. It was much quieter in the station that day, as a small capuchan monkey in discheveled suit sat, distressed, on one side of a table in an otherwise empty room. Waiting for his fate to decend upon him in the form of a willowy, stern-faced detective in a leather jacket.
"So," said Rosa, entering the room and ambling slowly across it toward the other seat on the other side of the table, "we meet in a train station."
She sat, cigarette stunted from the long drags she took from it, even now, gazing at the monkey that had been causing her all this trouble these past few weeks.
"Jack," she reached over to snub the cigarette out in an ashtray on the table, while the screeching brakes of a train filled the air outside the room. She waited until the screeching came to a halt.
"You know anything about birds, Jack?"
A long, uncomfortable silence followed, until, finally, avoiding her eyes, Jack asked, "Why do you ask?" then lifted his gaze toward her.
"It's just a simple question," said Rosa, shaking her head lightly.
"Don't worry," said the monkey, shifting in his seat. "I've heard the phrase, 'Birds of a feather flock together.'"
"Yes," agreed Rosa.
"A perceived fundamental," Jack continued. "There are, of course, exceptions."
"You've been seen with birds," Rosa reminded him. "Farm birds."
"For a while," said Jack, after another long silence. "I lived near a farm." Then his voice grew demanding. "Look at me! Are my pupils dilated?
"You're avoiding the question," said Rosa, coolly, unmoved by this outburst.
"Listen to me," Jack insisted. "If my train was on time, I wouldn't even be here now!"
"Now, you listen," Rosa countered, firmly. "You've been seen with chickens. Associating with chickens!"
"But you said..."
"I know what I said."
Jack looked down, a deep frown in his fuzzy brow, contemplating this for a moment.
"You are..." He looked back at the detective, "a strong-arm woman?"
Rosa's head bobbed incrimentally. "You could say that."
"I just did."
"Well," Rosa didn't move; the indifferent shrug was all in her voice, "there is no Santa Claus.""
"I won't be here for Christmas," said Jack.
"But the ladies have been talkin', Jack," said Rosa.
"What?" Jack's attention snapped onto Rosa, then relaxed. "Right. With the Easter Bunny, I suppose! Is that what you want me to believe?"
"You'll not get a free lunch around here," Rosa informed him.
"I read the papers."
Rosa was silent for a long, long moment.
"Tell me about Toototabon," she said.
"You can burn in hell," said Jack.
"Don't you ever wonder about anything?"
"The wonder was in my heart," said Jack, with an incrimental crack in his voice, "but you wouldn't understand something like that.
"There's an elephant in the room," Rosa said firmly. "I'd like you to start talking turkey."
For a moment, Jack kept his gaze with Rosa, but it fell away, toward the door to the room.
"I ordered coffee about a half hour ago," he complained.
And Rosa didn't say anything. Not for a very, very long time.
"Do you play for keeps?" Jack asked.
"Is there any other way?" asked Rosa.
Jack didn't respond, and, a moment later, the door squeaked open. In walked a woman, wearing a coffee shop uniform and balancing a tray with two white mugs on it.
"All right," she said, striding forward with a bored nonchalance before setting the tray on the table to remove the mogs, "two coffees."
"Keep the change," said Jack, dropping a few coins onto the tray with a rattle.
A grin smoothed easily onto the server's face. "Aw," she gushed. "Thanks, hotshot. Sorry it took so long. All the outgoing trains are stopped. The place is crawling with hungry passengers and cops.
"It seems," she paused a moment as she straightened from dropping off the mugs, glancing over to the detective, "there's a murderer on the loose."
The waitress left, her steps even on the floor as she did, and Jack turned to watch until he was sure she was gone and the door was closed, then he looked to Rosa with a look of wide-eyed betrayal.
"Cops?"
"Are you now," demanded Rosa, unphased and undeterred, her voice steady and even, "or have you ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party?"
"Let me tell you a story," Jack said, by way of answering. "My father was a pipefitter for the DeWitt family. I'm not shittin' you. I would've laid my life on the line for any chicken...or rooster."
"You ever ride the rodeo?"
"Who told you that? Sally? I'm a plastic bag specialist!"
"Is that so?"
"A jack of many trades."
Rosa watched that wide-eyed face carefully.
"You ever do farm work?"
"There you go again! You'd toss an animal up on a roof just to see the look on its face! My place was raided, set to fire! I'm lucky to have my life, let alone the hair on my body!"
"Are you going to drink your coffee?"
The coffee sat, black and untouched, while another train cried out mournfully in the distance."
"Maybe I will," said Jack, defiantly. "Maybe I won't."
Rosa almost sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she shifted a little, looking at Jack imploringly for a moment. When he seemed stubbornly set in this story, she tried again.
"They found feathers."
There was a tight pause.
"Bullshit," Jack insisted, simply.
"Are you calling me a liar?" asked Rosa. "I know why the chicken crossed the road."
"This conversation just came to a screeching halt," Jack warned, hands on the table as he pressed himself forward, pressed himself up in his anger.
Again, Rosa was unphased.
"Be a man, Jack, and tell me about her."
"Go climb a tree."
"Gettin' nervous?"
"What?" Jack was incredulous. "You think you just rolled a seven?"
Rosa blinked, bobbed her head. "Maybe."
"Well," said Jack, "think again. I used to hang out with clowns like you."
"Where?" There was a skeptical, pointed tone in Rosa's question, to the arch of her brow. "In Bristol?"
Jack rose even taller.
"Never mention that place to me again!" he demanded. "Don't you have any sense of decency?"
"You were wrong," Rosa ventured after a long moment, "you know. No one was with her that night. She was aaaallll alone. Waitin' for you."
She let that settle in for a moment.
"You were so sure she was with someone," she continued steadily, "that you never showed. Don't you know that she cried
all night long over you? Right or wrong, she loved you."
"You're brewing a poisonous batch," warned Jack. "This thing is bigger than both of us."
"I'm tellin' you how it was," said Rosa, "for real. Think back. You have no proof Max left the club."
"Don't need proof."
The hiss of a striked match filled the space between them; Rosa leaned in toward the cigarette, drew in a long drag, then settled back in her chair, peering over at her suspect.
"I have the police report," she informed him after a second, long drag, another puff of smoke.
"No matter," Jack dismissed it. "I saw it all in her eyes."
Rosa leaned forward. "So you admit it. You saw her that night."
"I saw her from the window when she leaned out to see him get his tab!" Jack said. "I saw Max."
"And that's when you shot him," Rosa concluded.
"Prove it!"
"We have Sally," Rosa revealed.
"Who's gonna believe an orangutan?"
"Maybe a jury, big boy."
"I'll see you," said Jack, "and raise you five."
Rosa lowered her cigarette. "I don't bluff."
"Yeah," Jack said, "and you don't smoke."
"You're right," Rosa agreed, flicking the cigarette away. "I don't. And it takes two to tango, Jack."
"Oh? So now we're dancing? The party is over, cowboy, and everyone's gone home. The musicians are packing up, and the janitor is standing by with his whore named Sally! Did anyone ever question him? His name is Shelby Tidsworth. Shelby was banging Sally like there was no tomorrow and yesterday was gone! And he had his eye on Toototabon. I don't own a gun. I have a Buck knife which I only use going into the wild. I once sliced a gator that was going after a rabbit friend. There was blood everywhere! Before that mess, I'd only seen a red rabbit in a dream."
"The janitor, huh?" asked Rosa, after a moment.
"Am I all alone here? Yeah. Shelby. Suffers from advanced stages of gonorrhea. His left arm weighs 75 pounds! He could have shot Max that night."
"Okay," said Rosa, patiently, "let's go back to the beginning."
"Life in those times was hard," Jack said. "Hard enough to crack a coconut. For argument's sake, let's say I was a horse. Even so, it'd be hard to imagine how hard my first wife rode my ass. I'm a small man, and not necessarily of what you could call good health. But I took it from her for six long years. Finally some banshee killed her out in the bush. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! The freedom I felt was extraordinary..."
He trailed off for a moment, the light of nostalgia bright in his eyes.
"That's when I met Toototabon," he said, quietly, "and fell head over heels. Looking back, she really was my first love. Real love, it was. They say real love is a banana, sweet with a golden hue. Yes...Toototabon was a hen. A chicken. I'd never been with a chicken before."
Rosa said nothing, just watching, waiting out the story.
"In my mind's eye," Jack said, "I can still see her."
He looked up, with a long, far-away look in his eyes, and said no more. Not until Rosa prompted him.
"What happened, Jack?"
"I don't know." Jack hung his head. "It's all like a crazy nightmare to me now. But let me tell you, you get your hands up under those feathers and feel those full breasts...There's nothing like it in this world. She was the love of my life. I'm not shittin' you! She and I lit the flame of love."
A train rumbled on a track somewhere in the distance; it almost sounded like music, as Jack stood up on his chair and reached one hand out, and began to sing, low and off-key:
♪ True love's flame ♪
♪ Burns so bright ♪
♪ It's love's delight ♪
♪ Oh... ♪
♪ Once upon a time we danced ♪
♪ Once upon a time we took a chance ♪
♪ And fell ♪
♪ In love ♪
♪ Once upon a time ♪
♪ Now I long to know ♪
♪ The glow ♪
♪ Oh, I wish to know ♪
♪ To be with her and know again ♪
♪ The glow ♪
♪ Of true love's flame ♪
And, then, in the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flash of something familiar, a ruffle of feathers, disapearring through the door, and a blood-curdling screem escaped his wide, shocked mouth.
"Toototabon!" he cried out, hopping off the chair in an attempt to chase after her. "Toototabon! My love! My love!"
Rosa reached out to pull her gun from the inside of her jacket, blowing a whistle to signal the cops ready and waiting for this moment.
"Get 'em, boys!" she said, moving to chase after him.
To chase after a monkey. Who had just sang a song. About the love of his life who was a chicken whose love he had murdered.
"Hands up against the wall, Jack. You're under arrest for the murder of Max Clegg. Cuff him, boys, and take him in."
"Toototabon!" Jack cried as they dragged him away. "Toototabon! Toototabon!"
And Rosa just stood there, in the shadows of the station platform, shaking her head.
"Jesus," she murmured, "and I thought Fandom was weird..."
[[ Entire dialogue and scene (with one minor edit) taken from "What Did Jack Do?", a Netflix short written and directed by David Lynch from 2017 that I saw a few weeks ago and have been absolutely obsessed with since and so I decided to put Rosa on the deepest cut little side adventure ever for my own weird amusement.
Like you do.
DOn't mind me.
Can definitely be open, though, if anyone wants to get in touch! ]]
"So," said Rosa, entering the room and ambling slowly across it toward the other seat on the other side of the table, "we meet in a train station."
She sat, cigarette stunted from the long drags she took from it, even now, gazing at the monkey that had been causing her all this trouble these past few weeks.
"Jack," she reached over to snub the cigarette out in an ashtray on the table, while the screeching brakes of a train filled the air outside the room. She waited until the screeching came to a halt.
"You know anything about birds, Jack?"
A long, uncomfortable silence followed, until, finally, avoiding her eyes, Jack asked, "Why do you ask?" then lifted his gaze toward her.
"It's just a simple question," said Rosa, shaking her head lightly.
"Don't worry," said the monkey, shifting in his seat. "I've heard the phrase, 'Birds of a feather flock together.'"
"Yes," agreed Rosa.
"A perceived fundamental," Jack continued. "There are, of course, exceptions."
"You've been seen with birds," Rosa reminded him. "Farm birds."
"For a while," said Jack, after another long silence. "I lived near a farm." Then his voice grew demanding. "Look at me! Are my pupils dilated?
"You're avoiding the question," said Rosa, coolly, unmoved by this outburst.
"Listen to me," Jack insisted. "If my train was on time, I wouldn't even be here now!"
"Now, you listen," Rosa countered, firmly. "You've been seen with chickens. Associating with chickens!"
"But you said..."
"I know what I said."
Jack looked down, a deep frown in his fuzzy brow, contemplating this for a moment.
"You are..." He looked back at the detective, "a strong-arm woman?"
Rosa's head bobbed incrimentally. "You could say that."
"I just did."
"Well," Rosa didn't move; the indifferent shrug was all in her voice, "there is no Santa Claus.""
"I won't be here for Christmas," said Jack.
"But the ladies have been talkin', Jack," said Rosa.
"What?" Jack's attention snapped onto Rosa, then relaxed. "Right. With the Easter Bunny, I suppose! Is that what you want me to believe?"
"You'll not get a free lunch around here," Rosa informed him.
"I read the papers."
Rosa was silent for a long, long moment.
"Tell me about Toototabon," she said.
"You can burn in hell," said Jack.
"Don't you ever wonder about anything?"
"The wonder was in my heart," said Jack, with an incrimental crack in his voice, "but you wouldn't understand something like that.
"There's an elephant in the room," Rosa said firmly. "I'd like you to start talking turkey."
For a moment, Jack kept his gaze with Rosa, but it fell away, toward the door to the room.
"I ordered coffee about a half hour ago," he complained.
And Rosa didn't say anything. Not for a very, very long time.
"Do you play for keeps?" Jack asked.
"Is there any other way?" asked Rosa.
Jack didn't respond, and, a moment later, the door squeaked open. In walked a woman, wearing a coffee shop uniform and balancing a tray with two white mugs on it.
"All right," she said, striding forward with a bored nonchalance before setting the tray on the table to remove the mogs, "two coffees."
"Keep the change," said Jack, dropping a few coins onto the tray with a rattle.
A grin smoothed easily onto the server's face. "Aw," she gushed. "Thanks, hotshot. Sorry it took so long. All the outgoing trains are stopped. The place is crawling with hungry passengers and cops.
"It seems," she paused a moment as she straightened from dropping off the mugs, glancing over to the detective, "there's a murderer on the loose."
The waitress left, her steps even on the floor as she did, and Jack turned to watch until he was sure she was gone and the door was closed, then he looked to Rosa with a look of wide-eyed betrayal.
"Cops?"
"Are you now," demanded Rosa, unphased and undeterred, her voice steady and even, "or have you ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party?"
"Let me tell you a story," Jack said, by way of answering. "My father was a pipefitter for the DeWitt family. I'm not shittin' you. I would've laid my life on the line for any chicken...or rooster."
"You ever ride the rodeo?"
"Who told you that? Sally? I'm a plastic bag specialist!"
"Is that so?"
"A jack of many trades."
Rosa watched that wide-eyed face carefully.
"You ever do farm work?"
"There you go again! You'd toss an animal up on a roof just to see the look on its face! My place was raided, set to fire! I'm lucky to have my life, let alone the hair on my body!"
"Are you going to drink your coffee?"
The coffee sat, black and untouched, while another train cried out mournfully in the distance."
"Maybe I will," said Jack, defiantly. "Maybe I won't."
Rosa almost sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she shifted a little, looking at Jack imploringly for a moment. When he seemed stubbornly set in this story, she tried again.
"They found feathers."
There was a tight pause.
"Bullshit," Jack insisted, simply.
"Are you calling me a liar?" asked Rosa. "I know why the chicken crossed the road."
"This conversation just came to a screeching halt," Jack warned, hands on the table as he pressed himself forward, pressed himself up in his anger.
Again, Rosa was unphased.
"Be a man, Jack, and tell me about her."
"Go climb a tree."
"Gettin' nervous?"
"What?" Jack was incredulous. "You think you just rolled a seven?"
Rosa blinked, bobbed her head. "Maybe."
"Well," said Jack, "think again. I used to hang out with clowns like you."
"Where?" There was a skeptical, pointed tone in Rosa's question, to the arch of her brow. "In Bristol?"
Jack rose even taller.
"Never mention that place to me again!" he demanded. "Don't you have any sense of decency?"
"You were wrong," Rosa ventured after a long moment, "you know. No one was with her that night. She was aaaallll alone. Waitin' for you."
She let that settle in for a moment.
"You were so sure she was with someone," she continued steadily, "that you never showed. Don't you know that she cried
all night long over you? Right or wrong, she loved you."
"You're brewing a poisonous batch," warned Jack. "This thing is bigger than both of us."
"I'm tellin' you how it was," said Rosa, "for real. Think back. You have no proof Max left the club."
"Don't need proof."
The hiss of a striked match filled the space between them; Rosa leaned in toward the cigarette, drew in a long drag, then settled back in her chair, peering over at her suspect.
"I have the police report," she informed him after a second, long drag, another puff of smoke.
"No matter," Jack dismissed it. "I saw it all in her eyes."
Rosa leaned forward. "So you admit it. You saw her that night."
"I saw her from the window when she leaned out to see him get his tab!" Jack said. "I saw Max."
"And that's when you shot him," Rosa concluded.
"Prove it!"
"We have Sally," Rosa revealed.
"Who's gonna believe an orangutan?"
"Maybe a jury, big boy."
"I'll see you," said Jack, "and raise you five."
Rosa lowered her cigarette. "I don't bluff."
"Yeah," Jack said, "and you don't smoke."
"You're right," Rosa agreed, flicking the cigarette away. "I don't. And it takes two to tango, Jack."
"Oh? So now we're dancing? The party is over, cowboy, and everyone's gone home. The musicians are packing up, and the janitor is standing by with his whore named Sally! Did anyone ever question him? His name is Shelby Tidsworth. Shelby was banging Sally like there was no tomorrow and yesterday was gone! And he had his eye on Toototabon. I don't own a gun. I have a Buck knife which I only use going into the wild. I once sliced a gator that was going after a rabbit friend. There was blood everywhere! Before that mess, I'd only seen a red rabbit in a dream."
"The janitor, huh?" asked Rosa, after a moment.
"Am I all alone here? Yeah. Shelby. Suffers from advanced stages of gonorrhea. His left arm weighs 75 pounds! He could have shot Max that night."
"Okay," said Rosa, patiently, "let's go back to the beginning."
"Life in those times was hard," Jack said. "Hard enough to crack a coconut. For argument's sake, let's say I was a horse. Even so, it'd be hard to imagine how hard my first wife rode my ass. I'm a small man, and not necessarily of what you could call good health. But I took it from her for six long years. Finally some banshee killed her out in the bush. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! The freedom I felt was extraordinary..."
He trailed off for a moment, the light of nostalgia bright in his eyes.
"That's when I met Toototabon," he said, quietly, "and fell head over heels. Looking back, she really was my first love. Real love, it was. They say real love is a banana, sweet with a golden hue. Yes...Toototabon was a hen. A chicken. I'd never been with a chicken before."
Rosa said nothing, just watching, waiting out the story.
"In my mind's eye," Jack said, "I can still see her."
He looked up, with a long, far-away look in his eyes, and said no more. Not until Rosa prompted him.
"What happened, Jack?"
"I don't know." Jack hung his head. "It's all like a crazy nightmare to me now. But let me tell you, you get your hands up under those feathers and feel those full breasts...There's nothing like it in this world. She was the love of my life. I'm not shittin' you! She and I lit the flame of love."
A train rumbled on a track somewhere in the distance; it almost sounded like music, as Jack stood up on his chair and reached one hand out, and began to sing, low and off-key:
♪ True love's flame ♪
♪ Burns so bright ♪
♪ It's love's delight ♪
♪ Oh... ♪
♪ Once upon a time we danced ♪
♪ Once upon a time we took a chance ♪
♪ And fell ♪
♪ In love ♪
♪ Once upon a time ♪
♪ Now I long to know ♪
♪ The glow ♪
♪ Oh, I wish to know ♪
♪ To be with her and know again ♪
♪ The glow ♪
♪ Of true love's flame ♪
And, then, in the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flash of something familiar, a ruffle of feathers, disapearring through the door, and a blood-curdling screem escaped his wide, shocked mouth.
"Toototabon!" he cried out, hopping off the chair in an attempt to chase after her. "Toototabon! My love! My love!"
Rosa reached out to pull her gun from the inside of her jacket, blowing a whistle to signal the cops ready and waiting for this moment.
"Get 'em, boys!" she said, moving to chase after him.
To chase after a monkey. Who had just sang a song. About the love of his life who was a chicken whose love he had murdered.
"Hands up against the wall, Jack. You're under arrest for the murder of Max Clegg. Cuff him, boys, and take him in."
"Toototabon!" Jack cried as they dragged him away. "Toototabon! Toototabon!"
And Rosa just stood there, in the shadows of the station platform, shaking her head.
"Jesus," she murmured, "and I thought Fandom was weird..."
[[ Entire dialogue and scene (with one minor edit) taken from "What Did Jack Do?", a Netflix short written and directed by David Lynch from 2017 that I saw a few weeks ago and have been absolutely obsessed with since and so I decided to put Rosa on the deepest cut little side adventure ever for my own weird amusement.
Like you do.
DOn't mind me.
Can definitely be open, though, if anyone wants to get in touch! ]]