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“Serves you right for abandoning me over here,” Jugs shouted in the background.
“I didn’t abandon you, you big baby, I’m right here.”
More fluttering and more shouting.
“I’ll let you go deal with Rodan and friends,” Demetrius said.
“We’ve got two more birds to catch, and then we’re taking them out to the pond. You going there, too?”
“That was the plan.”
“Wait for us at the usual spot and you can give me a ride back so Jugs can go home.”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds good.”
An even louder fluttering of wings came over the line, and Cody shouted as he ended the call. Demetrius chuckled and shook his head before leaning back into the seat and looking at the stoner dude’s house. How would he and Cody handle having so much more space? Would more money change them at all? Or would they still live as simply as they did now, just with more furniture and stuff?
A second bathroom would be nice, preferably in neutral colors and not the pink of an inside out mammal. And maybe a den or an office where they could set up a computer. Maybe an island in the kitchen with a dishwasher and one of those microwaves you lowered stuff into instead of having to reach overhead to pull out hot dishes and risk a permanent burn scar.
But, he and Cody were living in Amelia’s house rent free, and it was, if not fancy or overly large, a warm and happy home. Demetrius was grateful for it, but still, a little more space might be nice.
The chipmunks squeaked and rattled the cage, pulling Demetrius from his thoughts. With one final look at the stoner dude’s house, he put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb.
* * *
It was a little cooler under the trees by Parson’s Pond, but not by much. Birds sang and insects buzzed, and the leafy green of the sunlight filtered by the leaves lifted Demetrius’s mood a bit. When he really thought about his life, putting aside the big houses in Hollow Hills they would never be able to afford, he didn’t have a lot to complain about. He was married to his best friend, running his own business, living rent-free in a nice house, and surrounded by a number of loving friends and family. Well, mostly loving. Some of those friends, like the majority of Cody’s ex-girlfriends, might just be tolerating him. But either way, they were still friends. Things could be a lot worse.
He carried the trap out into the woods and set the chipmunks free, barely able to register their routes as they vanished between the trees. As he returned to the truck, he heard the sound of another vehicle and saw the flash of red between trees as Jugs’s truck approached. Jugs pulled up beside Demetrius’s truck and he and Cody stepped out, apparently in the middle of some kind of disagreement.
“I saved the cat, and I caught the most birds,” Jugs said over the hood of his truck. A few feathers were sticking out of his neatly trimmed hair.
“I saved the cat, and, at last count, I had caught the most birds,” Cody said. His hair was mussed and there was a smear of something across his forehead that Demetrius really hoped wasn’t bird shit.
“Hey guys, how’d the jobs go?”
“Fine,” they said together, both obviously irritated, then Cody gestured toward Jugs. “He thinks he saved the cat and caught the most pigeons.”
“He might be right, judging from the number of feathers in his hair,” Demetrius said.
“Feathers?” Jugs ducked and looked in the side mirror. He plucked the feathers out and straightened up to glare at Cody. “You could have said something.”
Cody tried to hide his smirk but wasn’t quite able to pull it off. “I didn’t see them.”
“Mm-hm.” Jugs reached into the bed of his truck and lifted out an animal carrier filled with a number of cooing and fluttering pigeons.
“Um, Cody?” When Demetrius had Cody’s attention, he gestured to his own forehead. “You’ve got a little something on your face.”
Cody swiped at his forehead then looked at his fingertips before warily sniffing them. He shot Jugs an angry look before shouting at him. Jugs shouted back as he used both hands to carry the plastic animal transport into the trees. Both he and Cody cursed each other as well as pigeons and pythons and all manner of critters.
When Jugs set the carrier down, he pointed to his hair and simply said, “Feathers!” while aiming a ferocious look at Cody.
Cody countered by pointing at his own forehead and shouting, “Bird shit!”
Jugs turned his back and crouched to work on the latch of the carrier’s door. The pigeons took to the trees in a maelstrom of flapping and feathers. Jugs saluted the group of birds and said, “Farewell, feathered fuckers.” Then he closed the carrier door, picked it up, walked up to Cody, and dropped it at his feet as he stared at him. The two maintained angry eye contact for a moment before Jugs turned his head to look at Demetrius.
“He’s all yours. I’m off the clock.”
Demetrius watched Jugs stomp back to his truck, a few feathers still sticking out of the back of his hair. Jugs started his truck, backed onto the trail, and drove off, leaving them in a cloud of dust.
