Black Bird (2022) s01e04 Episode Script

1
And that is why we are here today,
to pray for our brother
whose body lies here in rest.
He has passed from death to life
in the company of Lord Jesus,
who died and rose to a new life…
and is purified in all his faults.
And we pray God welcome him
among all the saints of heaven. Amen.
Amen.
Get up, Larry.
- Why can't Gary come?
- Yeah, why can't I come?
'Cause Gary don't wet the bed.
Get your ass out the door.
Come on.
Hey, pal.
Hey, Dad.
You still want to do this?
You had to work.
Just got off shift.
Aren't you tired?
I'm okay.
All right, get up.
There we go!
Good adjustment, Jimmy.
Alabama, hike!
We got it. I want you to turn
a little bit quicker. Okay, Jim?
Go long.
Turn right, go!
Touchdown, Jimmy Keene!
Elephant, six, four. Hike.
Set. Hike.
Giraffe, six, four.
- No.
- I got you.
I'm partial to Corvettes.
You know,
when you make it to the NFL.
I was thinking more like a Gremlin,
with the thing in the back
that lifts up?
Called a hatchback.
Yeah, one of those.
A Gremlin.
With a racing stripe, I promise.
Gremlin. I'll Gremlin you.
Hey, bud.
Hey.
Where were you?
- You know…
- No, I don't.
That's why I'm asking.
Just came back from chow.
So, your old man couldn't lay his hands
on any product. That right?
Unfortunately, yeah.
Didn't mean to block your door.
- No, it's fine.
- No. Come on in.
So you're saying
there's no money left?
He spent it.
Fucking guy's the gift
that keeps on giving, huh?
Guys on the outside want their money.
What am I gonna do, Jim?
I tried, Mr. Carter.
If you say that's what you did,
I gotta believe you.
Hope so.
I just wish
we'd known each other longer.
Then I'd have a better sense
of your character.
I did everything I could.
Riot quiet
What's that?
When it's quiet like this,
they call it "riot quiet."
Like the calm before a storm.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, or it just means it's quiet.
Did you see anyone in here?
No.
Something missing?
Why would something be missing?
Well, if I was worried
someone had been in my spot,
I'd worry someone took something.
I'm not worried
someone was in my spot.
No?
Oh, no.
Then why did you ask
if I saw someone in there?
Why are you looking
at me like that?
I'm not looking at you any way.
Like you know me.
Larry, what the fuck?
Is that a question?
'Cause that's one thing you do.
You ask a lot of questions.
Where's this coming from?
That was a question.
Okay, Larry.
Okay, what?
I'm gonna leave you to it.
Whatever this is.
Wait, Jimmy.
When there's doubt,
there's no doubt.
How's that?
Something Gary says.
He heard it from a friend
who liberated Kuwait.
If you think you could be in danger…
you are in danger.
Something's gonna happen.
What?
I don't know, but something bad.
Don't you think?
Sorry about earlier.
I get…
You get what?
Paranoid.
Or whatever.
- You know?
- No, Larry. I don't.
Jimmy, I know you're upset.
I am not upset.
I just I don't know you
from one minute to the next.
Hold it open.
Fuck you!
All inmates, return to your cells.
We're on lockdown.
Attention. Lockdown in progress.
Attention. Lockdown in progress.
Inmates, go to your cells!
Full lockdown.
89304, report to Central Command.
Jimmy?
Jimmy, you in there?
What's up, Larry?
Are you still mad at me?
I was never mad at you, Larry.
I think you were.
Just 'cause you think it,
don't make it so.
Yeah.
Friends? Jimmy, friends?
What?
Friends again?
Yeah.
Sure, Larry.
Friends.
What?
I take care of my friends.
Mr. Holt?
Convict Hall?
Could we lay our hands on
a hose or two, Mr. Holt?
That's a negative, Convict Hall.
May I ask why?
'Cause somebody could fucking strangle
someone with it, Convict.
Work with what you got.
Okay.
We're gonna stack the large debris first.
Anywhere you see or feel
cooking oil on the floor,
I want you to hit it with some Comet,
but don't clean it up yet.
We're gonna stack all the debris
in the east corner there.
Donny.
Donny?
Hi. I need you to sweep up the glass,
so that we can work the debris
without cutting ourselves.
I trust you with that?
Yes, Larry.
Have at it, son.
Well. Let's get to it, men.
Grab some gloves.
Hey, guys. Don't forget about
the front up here, okay?
Don't worry about all the food.
We're gonna sweep that up.
Just grab the big items.
Jimmy, it's actually kind of fun,
right?
Can I have you
on this end with him?
All right, one, two, three.
It's very slippery.
There's a lot of blood. Be careful.
Guys, we Gentlemen, we still have
all the cups down here.
Let's grab all of those cups.
How's it look down there?
It's okay.
Guys, we're going to sweep first,
and then we're going to mop.
But we need spray bottles.
We need putty knives.
They ain't giving us putty knives.
We'll find the really hard spots,
spray 'em and leave 'em for an hour.
They might come up on a sponge then.
After that, we'll get the oil up.
How'd you get into this?
Cleaning?
High school.
After school I would go work a job
at a feedstore in town.
And then I moved to a place
that specialized in medical supplies.
What'd you do?
In high school?
To support yourself, yeah.
Sold weed.
I'm not sure we had weed
in my high school.
Larry, if you were in America,
you had weed.
Well, Wabash was just
so innocent, though.
It's like where Opie lived.
Mayberry.
Yeah, or, like, where Opie lived.
We didn't have any crime.
We were, like, stuck in a time warp,
you know?
Malt shops and pigtails.
It was Tanner's Grocer.
Everybody wore white hats.
And all the appliances
and all the food chests,
they just gleamed.
And Main Street, my word.
Just blocks of department stores
and candy stores.
Remember candy stores?
And nice people sweeping
the sidewalks,
everybody waving hello.
Our high school had
the greenest lawns.
I never saw green like that before,
or since.
And the prettiest cheerleaders
the world's ever seen.
What a world it was, James.
Even living in a cemetery.
You grew up in a cemetery?
Oh, yeah. Sure did.
You'd be surprised how much fun
you can have in a place like that
when you stop seeing the headstones
and just see fields and trees.
Never thought of it that way.
It was actually
a pretty nice way to grow up.
Happiness is a choice.
Don't you think, James?
Sometimes.
I say happiness is a choice
because I don't think
my parents were happy.
They let that grind them down.
That was hard to watch sometimes.
How about you?
I was lucky.
I had a great dad.
I never had, like, a best friend
because I always had my old man.
'Cause you're out all night.
- You're never fucking here.
- Because I fucking work.
- What do you think I do?
- I don't know.
What do you do, Lynne?
What do you fucking do?
- Fuck you.
- Fuck you.
You cock that fist,
you better use it, big man.
Tough man.
Big, tough cop can't even get it up.
That's right!
Break things like a fucking child.
Fuck you, Lynne!
Dad?
All that time
your old man spent with you,
did that help?
Were you a good football player?
Best my high school
had seen in 15 years.
And that guy
got a scholarship to USC.
Sometimes you remind me
so much of Gary, my gums ache.
You both talk so big.
I lied.
You what?
I was second string.
I rode the bench, all four years.
But you still made the team.
A lot of people made the team.
No, James, you made the team.
That's an accomplishment.
Why did you lie about it?
You know how it is.
I do not.
Come on.
Dudes try to impress other dudes
with stories that make them look bigger
than they are.
Why?
So they'll like 'em?
I don't know.
If you had a pet chicken,
could you eat it?
Who has a pet chicken?
I don't know.
I'd suspect some folks do.
And I suspect no folks do.
But if you did?
I wouldn't.
Well, I would. I would have one
and I would eat it.
You'd eat your pet?
Yeah, it's just meat.
We're all just… meat.
I would eat my pet dog.
Have you?
What?
Eaten your dog?
Well, we weren't allowed
to have pets growing up.
That's probably a good thing.
But what is the difference
between a pet and a meal?
People don't have
pet chickens or pet cows.
They have pet fish.
How is a puppy different?
Nobody plates a puppy.
"No one plates a puppy."
Hey, convicts. This isn't a date.
Do your job
and stop fucking goofing off.
Hey.
We weren't allowed
to have pets growing up
because my dad said that
it got in the way of real work.
We were put on God's green
to do real work.
Get to it then.
Did I stutter?
Hurry up about it.
Wait, how old were you again?
I was 14 when I started
digging graves, like, officially.
But I'd dug plenty up before then.
What's the difference?
Well, you dig a grave.
You dig up a coffin.
Why?
Why dig up…
Well, people bury the dead
with all sorts of things they can't use.
Watches, shoes, money.
I remember one old gal,
she got buried
with a solid gold Siamese cat,
like a doorstop, you know?
She's dead,
what does she need a doorstop for?
Or a cat, or gold?
Some people are just so sick
that they would take something
that could do good in the world
for someone,
and they just hoard it
all to themselves
in a casket
six feet under the ground,
where it won't help nobody, James.
It ain't serving any kind of benefit.
You weren't scared, though?
Down in a dark hole with a
You know, a corpse?
The dead are pleasant.
They don't talk down to you,
don't talk back.
They're just so peaceful.
I look into their faces,
and it gives me hope
that the next world
That the next world is gonna be
the good one.
I'll tell you something else, James.
No matter who a person was
in real life,
death evens it all out.
I knew a girl named Debra Kyle.
She was the She was untouchable.
Kindergarten through senior year.
She went off to college.
We all thought, "She's gonna
rule the world, that one."
Then she went to college
and learned about roof jumping.
She didn't learn good,
and she fell between two buildings.
She broke her fucking neck.
She got a lot less untouchable
after that.
Like I said,
evens it out.
Evens what out?
Whatever they thought
they were in life.
Get to it.
Come on.
Is your father still alive?
Yeah. Yours?
What does he do for work?
Fireman.
Did your mommy work?
My mother…
she owned her own bar.
She loved everything about it.
It's a weird lifestyle.
She'd be going to work
when most kids' moms
were making them dinner.
Come home, like,
2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.
Not what my old man
thought he was signing up for
when he married an Italian girl
from the neighborhood.
They fought a lot.
'Cause she was fucking guys
at the bar?
I fucking beg your pardon?
He thought she was, maybe.
Either way, he didn't like her flirting,
and she loved to flirt. So…
How did you feel about her flirting?
We'll just say Lynne's a piece of work
and leave it at that.
My mom's fat.
We'll leave it at that.
Tell me something true, James.
"Something true"?
About you.
I've been telling you
the truth all day.
Have you?
Okay.
So my parents broke up
when I was a kid.
Then my mother,
six months later, she let him move in.
"Him"?
Glen.
Real scumbag.
Anyway, they'd been together
around a year
when he started hitting her.
Would he hit you?
All the time.
Me and my brother, but…
mostly me.
Anyway, she would not leave him.
I couldn't figure it out.
And then I got it.
She was waiting for me
to get old enough
and strong enough
to protect her.
That wasn't fair
to put that on you.
I don't mind.
Anyway, I started taking my Tae Kwon Do
and karate and jujitsu classes
way more seriously than I ever had.
Changed my diet, changed everything.
And pretty soon,
I could beat any kid's ass.
But, you know, I still needed to age,
to grow until I could take on
a full-grown man.
And Glen, big fucking guy.
But by the time I was 14…
I was ready.
So, one night,
we're all in the kitchen,
and Glen hits my mother.
Just a little flick of his fingers
back into her mouth.
And I bring it.
- You kicked his ass.
- No, Larry.
Glen paints the fucking kitchen
with me.
He bloodied my nose,
gave me what I'm pretty sure
was my first concussion,
and fractured three of my ribs.
He sends me to my room that way.
And where was she?
She was taking a shower.
Do you know why she took a shower,
Larry?
'Cause she wanted to smell good
when she was fucking him.
That's what she did…
with me
on the other side of the wall.
They're giggling in there,
gasping and moaning,
with the ice cubes
rattling in their glasses.
And I gotta sit there…
with a bloody nose and my head ringing
and my fucking ribs barking
That wasn't what hurt!
All right.
Wrap it up, bitches.
That wasn't…
It actually hurt like hell, Larry.
No, bones heal.
Concussions end.
James, no.
What hurt was that…
What hurt was that she loved him
so much more than she loved you.
There's something else.
No. No, there isn't.
I want to live with Dad.
Well, you can't.
Jim…
what do you want me to say here?
Someday, you'll be old enough
to stand up to Glen,
but today ain't that day.
Now I'm sorry that you got tuned up,
but you put the quarter in the jukebox.
You gotta dance.
I was protecting you.
This wasn't about me.
This was about you.
And you got what you were asking for,
but it didn't turn out the way
that you wanted it to.
Well, there'll be other chances.
Just learn to walk
before you try and run.
- Do you want some ice or anything?
- No.
- I'll go get it for you. No problem.
- I'm fine.
Suit yourself, hon.
But you'll feel a lot better
in the morning
if you put some ice on your face.
Good night.
Night.
You ever want to hurt her?
My mother?
Yes.
Yeah, I wanted to hurt her.
Beat her?
Kill her?
Yeah,
I wanted to fucking kill her sometimes.
Did you think about how?
Chuck her down the stairs.
Although, what if she hung on
for a few minutes after?
They do that.
Particularly with neck breaks.
All right, convicts.
Feet on the line.
Could you do things to her then?
What things?
Things.
To my mother?
Well, to anyone.
I don't understand.
I soak a rag in starter fluid
and put it in a Mason jar in my van.
If you put it over a person's face…
they're out in seconds.
Nothing to it.
I gotta figure it's a lot more pleasant
than being thrown down a flight of stairs.
Forget stairs.
Why would you do that, Larry?
So they'll stop hitting me.
"They"?
Girls, you know.
What girls?
Girls I meet.
What do you do with girls you meet?
I like you almost
as much as you like you.
That's good.
Cheers.
Yeah.
So, what's next?
Jimmy.
Yeah?
Today was real fun.
Yeah, it was.
Good night.
Good night, Larry.
What's that?
Birds. They're watching.
Owls?
Falcons. They watch over the dead.
Falcons do that?
Some do.
Now, get back to work now.
Fuck you doing, boy?
Come on.
Got it.
Mine now.
How long did it last?
A few hours.
Were you scared?
For sure, yeah.
It's, like, barbaric.
Riots are barbaric.
Well, you look good.
You put on some weight.
Do I look fat?
No, you needed to gain a few.
You look good, I said.
Girls don't like fat guys.
Are you runnin' into a lot of girls
in here?
I mean, once I'm out.
Hey, Gar, what was the name of that girl
we picked up?
To California?
That one?
On the road trip.
I don't remember her name.
That was a long time ago.
No, it was
I think it was Lois.
Wasn't Lois.
Or Louise.
It wasn't fucking Louise.
Donna.
It wasn't Lois or Louise or Donna.
We never knew her name.
We didn't?
I'm sure we did.
Larry, she was some chick
that we picked up.
The next morning,
she headed out with that biker
who had that puke-green Harley.
That was the last we saw of her.
Now I remember.
Wanda?
Police dropped by the house.
- The When?
- Couple days back.
- Which ones?
- Local. Wabash.
What'd they want?
They didn't say.
They just sort
of talked around things.
But they wanted to make it clear
they didn't forget you, Larry.
That's the point here.
They got you in their sights,
and they ain't planning to stop.
- Why?
- You embarrassed them.
Sharon.
Yeah. That was it.
You know what, Gary?
You know something?
If they're coming around now
trying to make me feel like
they're gonna be all over me
when I get out,
I mean, that's…
It means they think
you're gonna get out.
Yeah.