Chapter 4: Rock and Roll

Despite all the imputation
You know you could just go out and dance
to a rock 'n' roll station
And it was alright, hey baby,
You know it was alright

I'd been closing my eyes for awhile. Things always seem just a tad better when your eyes are closed. And when I opened them again, I saw Mr. Jet Black standing over me, next to a heaping hulk of a fishing ship. This was the Bebop? I'm never watching Big Shot again. He was dressed in some sort of police issue riot gear suit with these huge bulks sticking out of his hip pockets. Strange. He had lit a nice fat cigar and just as I blinked up at him, a tiny bit of ash came cascading down onto my forehead. But he wasn't even looking at me. He was giving Faye the sort of look that, to a commonplace, non-bebopian like me seemed quite out of the ordinary, But I'd imagine it to be the sort of look he gives her at all hours of the day. It was an obvious, unspoken, "What the fuck, Faye. Damnit."

"What, Jet? What's your problem?" Her arms were folded and her gun was out of sight. She still had my shades on.

"Well, it looks like my problem here is about 14 or 15 years old. And it's lying down right in front of me. We already have one little kid on board, and I'm not exactly Doctor Suess here, god damnit."

"Yeah," she said. "And I'm not Granny Goose either, but this boy is our bounty. 50 k. His name is Simon Morrison Cale."

I decided to speak up. "I'm 18, that's not actually my real name, and I just told you that I'm not the bounty you guys really want. Just listen to me for a minute and I'll..."

"Um, I think that's enough, kid. We got like an hour flight before we turn you in, and then we can get some decent groceries. So I think I've heard enough from you already." As Jet finished speaking, his eyes seemed to widen a bit, observing a small scene beginning to play out beside me on the ground. "Uh, Faye, I wouldn't do that."

"Shut it, Jet, I know you won't give me one." She was kneeling over the astonishingly still passed out man who by this point I had decided was named Spike Spiegel. She reached down with her right hand towards his left pants pocket. With her index and middle fingers she slowly opened a pack of Marlboro Reds, and then, ever so gently, she began to pull one out...

"Hey!" In an amazing flash that I would only expect to see in some Hollywood special effects blockbuster, he thrust his pelvis forward violently while his arms raised his body up from the ground. He kicked his daddy long legs up and before I knew it, he was flipping in the air. And he landed squarely on Faye Valentine. He took her down hard to the ground, but there really was no way that she was going to let go of that smoke. She yanked her Glock from some unseen region of her body and smacked him hard in the face with the handle. He fell back to the pavement like a piece of the moon striking the Earth. Within another blink, she had lit the cigarette up and took a nice big inhalation of nicotine. She then stood over Spike and blew a horrendously blatant cloud of smoke into his face.

"Ya couldn't have just asked for one, right Faye? I just have to get a black eye out of it. You're lucky I'm hung over."

"Ahhh, do you want mommy to make it better?" She blew another cloud into his mug. He just sort of shrugged and proclaimed, "Shrew."

"Is the honeymoon almost over down there?" Jet observed. "Let's just get 'Simon Morrison Cale' or whoever the fuck he is onto the ship before someone recognizes me around here."

"I already told you guys, I'm not worth it. I can get you a lot more than just fifty thousand. I'm serious." Now the three of them were standing over me. I gingerly stood up myself, brushing some dirt from my navy sports coat. "I can get you guys a decent meal and a huge bounty, maybe before morning time."

More shrugs followed from the Bebop. I could tell that they were the types of people that don't naturally trust others easily. Well, at least that they were once those types of people. Now they were just sick of bothering with intuition.

Eventually Jet took the foreground and prepared to speak. I had the feeling that he was usually the one to do so in these types of situations. Faye and Spike seemed like the most indecisive, fickle people in the galaxy. "How can we..." he hesitated, then dropped the butt of his cigar to the ground and casually stomped it out. "Never mind. We can't trust you at all. You're young and stupid."

A glimmer caught my eye as I quite obviously motioned towards his consistently bickering partners. He noticed this and sighed. "You're right. But that's really no excuse. I try not to trust anybody any more. For all I know your bounty could be an error and maybe your picture was used by mistake. Maybe you aren't who we think you are, and you're really just a nice upstanding gentleman."

"Exactly," I quipped, quite sure that he was finished.

"Or maybe you killed some foreign dignitary and had your way with his wife and daughter. And that bounty on your head really has a couple more zeros on it. I don't know what to think. And I think I speak for my," he again glanced at Mr. Speigel and Miss Valentine, now randomly attempting to poke each other in the funny bone. "I speak for myself, then. I don't care anymore. Your bounty is 50k. How much is the bounty on whoever you are talking about?"

I answered quickly but not too quickly as to assume that this was a previously determined thought, when in actuality it completely was. "Last time I checked it was over 200,000 and that was like last month. No one can find this guy so everyone has given up. But he's still out there and the bounty is rising."

"Got a name?" Faye requested. Spike still wasn't paying attention. "Of course. Lukas Vance. Right here on Ganymede. He's running drugs for everybody and I know for a fact that he has permanently silenced more than a few witnesses and competitors. Probably some gang affiliation, as well."

During the course of this, I had heard a faint whisper from Spike. He had said, in reaction too likely any of the crimes I was reviewing, "Hell, who hasn't?" No one heard this but me, because I'm quite sure that it was aimed solely for me to hear.

Again, though no one was currently speaking, Faye spoke as if she were interrupting someone. She was so used to doing so, I deduced. "Alright, alright. We've heard this all before. You said there would be food involved? Chili fries?" At the mention of this, Spike ears seemed to perk up like a dog's. And although he'd never really let his comrades see such an action, I swear that a teenie tiny drip of drool fell from Jet's chapped lips, before he quickly but not so discretely wiped them with his large cybernetic forearm.

"Mouth watering chili fries." I answered Jet's silent yearning.

It took him a second to ponder all of this. All the mounds of salted, crispy French fries covered in melted cheeses and steaming, spicy chili that could possibly be his. And, in the manner of a great general about to decide his force's next strategic move, he declared, "We've never been a group that would turn down a free meal. If you can feed us, and if we're, naw, if I'm satisfied, maybe we'll go after your bounty. If I'm not or if you're lying or if this is a trap or if there's really an automatic submachine gun in your little guitar case there and you plan to blow us to bits, we'll either turn you in and collect our cash or launch you like a stone into the vast death of space."

"And I'll be sure to put a bullet where it hurts kid, before u choke on the planetary atmosphere and your head explodes." Faye cheerily chimed in. She sounded like a helpless little girl with her dainty finger on a shotgun trigger. With the safety off. I was starting to like these guys a lot.

I briskly lifted my guitar case and opened her up. Jet and Faye sort of winced silently in the horror that I really was about to blow them to bits. Spike sort of giggled. I pulled out my Mitchell acoustic and strummed a G chord. Then I looked up and smiled like a little boy. To these guys I was a little boy. "Then it's settled," Faye decided. "Feed me in at least 20 minutes and you might have a future as a free young man." "Jet gave her that look again, but Faye neglected to notice and frolicked off towards the Bebop.

'Yeah Jet, let's give the kid a shot," Spike said, nearly breaking up in laughter as he did. That one nailed Jet's core, I knew it. Phrases like that get to everybody who isn't actually saying them at the time. Jet took off after Faye, not giving Spike even a glance. But I knew he agreed. That left Mister Green Hair and me. And my guitar.

"Shitty little six string ya got there," he noticed.

"Yeah well it's all I've got."

A little bit of silence. He began to waddle off towards the mothership and I began to follow. Then I gulped and blurted out, "Are you really that hungry, sir? Why do you want to help me?" I sounded like a lost deer in headlights.

"I'm only trying to help myself, and don't you forget that, Mr. Morrison Cale. Or should I say, Mr. Sterling John? Hey, why not Mr. Moe Tucker. Don't think you fooled me for a moment there. And I pretty much don't let nobody lead me into an unknown situation unless it's myself, but..." As he was looking for the end of his thought, I annoyingly suggested, "But what?"

"But the Velvets fucking own, man. So I'm game."

I smiled. "Cool. That's good to hear." Rock and roll.