This was a piece that got rejected on theTheFirstLine.com. They give you the first line and you write the rest. The first line was, “As she trudged down the alley, Cenessa saw a small_________.” This is what I came up with:
Chicken Joe
As she trudged down the alley, Cenessa saw a small fire. It was being fed with broken pallet boards by a group of vagrants who were snapping the old wood and tossing it into a rusty oil drum. They were all huddled together sharing a cigarette and a nearly empty, plastic bottle of vodka. Even through the soft glow of the fire, Cenessa could see their pockmarked faces and gin blossomed noses from years of hard living and neglect.
She continued to walk toward the group, and as her high heels popped and scrapped on the concrete one by one, the group turned from the warm, dim fire and toward her; their bodies visible, but their faces vanishing in the darkness. Their laughter and loud conversations, reduced to whispers of concern as she got closer to them.
Cenessa joined their circle and took out a pack of Virginia Slims. She looked around the group of dirty, confused faces, smiled and asked, "Does anyone have a light?"
The men all stared at each other, and after a few moments, the man next to Cenessa took a lighter out of his pocket and gave it to her. She lit her cigarette and without looking, handed it back to the man. They all stood in uncomfortable and confused silence as the wood popped and burned in the middle of their circle.
"Listen, lady," the man across from Cenessa said authoritatively, "we ain't doin' nothin' illegal."
"Actually, yes you are," Cenessa replied as smoke billowed out of her mouth. "But, that's not why I'm here." She dug through her Coach purse and pulled out a photograph. As she unfolded it, the men looked cautiously at one another. "Have any of you seen this man?"
The group squinted through the darkness and saw a man in his mid-thirties with dark, shaggy hair and an unkempt beard. They all shook their heads.
Censsa rolled her eyes in frustration. She was tired of doing this speech, and it showed through her flat, unemotional tone. "Listen," she said, exhausted already, "I'm not a cop. This is my brother. He's been missing for a few months now."
"Even if you ain't a cop, lady, we don't trust outsiders. Especially outsiders who dress and talk like you."
"That's fair," Cenessa said, as she took her phone out of her pocket, "I guess what I could do is immediately call the police about a group of homeless people drinking, and starting a fire in an alley. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, I'm sure you all have clean records so it'll probably just be a slap on the wrist." She took another drag of her cigarette and smiled at them.
The tension increased and worried, angry expressions could be seen through the dying light. After a few moments, the man next to her coyly said, "I mighta seen him 'fore." His face was bumpy and acne ridden, and he wore an eyepatch that only partially covered up a deep scar that ran down his cheek.
"What do you want?" Cenessa asked.
The man gave her a puzzled look.
"I have cigarettes, and bottles of whiskey, gin, and vodka. I also have cash."
"I'll take the vodka and a pack."
"Marlboro? Camel? Newports?"
"Camel, please."
She reached back into her purse and took out a pint of Smirnoff and a pack of Camel Lights. The man smiled at her as he took his newly acquired booze and smokes and shoved them into his jacket pocket.
"I've seen your brother."
"What's his name then?"
"I don't know his real name. He's goin' by Chicken Joe."
"Chicken Joe?" She asked in disbelief. "You can keep the goodies if you want, just don't lie to me."
"I'm not, lyin'! Cockfightin' has gotten big 'round here. They had a bust a few years back, and most folks aren't interested in raisin' and fightin' roosters no more. The ones who do, make out pretty good."
"Where's he live?"
"Sorry, don't know that."
"How do you know him then?"
"There's not a lot of work for people like us. We drink too much, we live on the streets, and we don't got good clothes to wear. Chicken Joe hires us for odd jobs. Some of it can be demeanin'. Cleanin' blood off the floor after fights, butcherin' the dead roosters to sell for cheap meat, things like that."
"Yeah, that sounds like my brother," Cenessa said, tossing her cigarette into the fire. "Is there a place he frequents? Bars? Restaurants? Places for cockfighting?"
"Cockfightin' locations change regularly. You don't want the cops figurin’ out your spot. Sometimes it's in an abandoned apartment building. Other times, you might be on someone's farm. Concernin’ restaurants, he eats at places they won't let us into. Nice places with deep leather seats and big steaks, so I don't know about that neither. Bars are going to be your best bet. Chicken Joe can drink."
"I know."
"I'd head to Liquor Lyle's. Your brother has an affinity for Jameson, which I'm sure you also know, and it's always on special there. If I had to guess, that's where he'd be."
"Thanks for your help," Cenessa said, and she took a crisp twenty out of her purse and gave it to the man. He took it and smiled at her. "Good luck," he said gently with a nod as he took the vodka back out of his pocket and cracked it open. “I’m Blinky, by the way.”
Cenessa didn’t respond. She walked away and as she did she looked Liquor Lyle's up on her phone. It was close enough to walk to, but she ordered an Uber anyways. She made her way to the main street, and once she was comfortably out of earshot from the drunken homeless men she made a call, just like she promised she would. She had to call back three times before she got an answer.
"Hello?" The groggy voice on the other end said.
"Father, I know it's late, but I-"
"You find him?"
"Not yet. I have a good lead."
"Some bar again?" He asked, his voice full of disappointment.
"Yes."
"Hmm."
A short silence hung on the line, and Cenessa could see her Uber making its way down the empty streets.
"If he's there I'll call you right after."
"Good," he said, and he hung up.
**************************************************************
When she got to the bar, she had to admit it seemed like the place her brother would enjoy. It was an old, decrepit building with crumbling brick and no windows, and the red neon sign that hung above it was the only light on the lifeless street around her. She handed her ID to the bouncer. He glanced at it and gave her a puzzled look.
"This ID is from New York City," he said, disturbed by it.
"I know."
"Is it a fake?"
"No."
"Ok then," he said with a scowl and handed it back as he motioned her inside.
The bar was small and nearly empty. The walls were covered in old discolored wood paneling and dusty mirrors. In the corner, with his back facing her, was a man with a bottle of Jameson at his table. He was filling up his tumbler when she approached and even through the climax of a Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar solo he could hear the soft clicks of her heels.
"Hey, Cenny," he said, not turning around.
"Hello, Chicken Joe," she mocked. "How'd you know it was me?"
"Nobody in this town wears heels." He quickly downed his whiskey, grimaced, and refilled it. "How'd you find me?"
"Same way I always do."
"Bribing the homeless again? Man, these small towns talk don't they?"
"So, you're into cockfighting now?" Cenessa said trying to change the subject as she sat down in the booth.
"I don't care too much for it. I usually don't even watch or bet on it. I enjoy raising the roosters and getting them ready for the fights though. There's a peace that comes from working with my hands.” He looked around the empty bar, “The city ain’t too bad. I think I’ve found a new home.”
"Well, I've certainly heard that before," she said, taking out her Virginia Slims.
"I'm not going back with you," he said as she lit her cigarette.
“I’ve heard that before too,” she laughed. "Still, that's not why I'm here. I want to know though, what’s it this time? You found a vocation in cockfighting? You meet a good girl? Easy money?"
"I fit in here." He took another healthy gulp of the whiskey, and he coughed to try and get the burning alcohol out of his throat.
"No, you don't, Everett, and you never will."
"Agree to disagree," he slurred.
"Father has a proposition for you," she said taking papers out of her purse and putting them onto the table.
"I ain't gonna read it. Just explain it to me."
"You might want to read this one."
"You're my sister, just gimme the skinny." He finally looked up from his drink, and he had dark bags under his eyes that were accentuated by the dim bar lighting. He took out a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and started rolling a cigarette without looking at it.
"Father wants you out," she said, coldly.
"I'm already out of the state."
"You know what I mean."
"No, I really don't."
"You're a liability, Everett. You-"
"When you're here, you have to call me Chicken Joe or CJ, you can't call me Everett."
"Fine, CJ. He wants you out of the picture. He's offering you $400,000 to just go away."
"I think my birthright to the company is worth closer to $15,000,000," he said while lighting his cigarette.
"He doesn't care, CJ. This is the only deal you're going to get. He's writing you out of the will. He can't have a son vanishing for months, sometimes years at a time and showing up in some tabloids embarrassing the family. Do you know how much we spend on private detectives to hunt you down? Do you know how often we have to bribe cops and homeless people, and other criminals just to figure out where you are and to make sure you don't get a criminal record? He thinks he has done enough for you."
“What do you think?"
"I think you should take the deal. Take the money, stop doing things that are illegal, and do something else, anything else. I mean look at this," she motioned to the empty bar around her, "is this really how you want to be remembered? Some guy who squandered his inheritance so he could fight chickens?"
"They're roosters."
"Nobody gives a shit, CJ."
"I give a shit."
A hushed stillness washed over them as the jukebox started a new song. As it clicked and clattered the brother and sister stopped talking for a minute, and uncomfortably took drags of their cigarettes until a sad singer with an acoustic guitar filled the bar.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Everett said, as a smile crept up his face.
“What?” Cenessa asked. She had seen that smile before. It was the mischievous smile of Everett plotting a way out.
“I’ll sign this deal. But I need the money tomorrow.”
“It will be wired to your account in less than a week. We have to-”
“No. Tomorrow. Cash. Or, I’m not signing.”
“Fine.”
Everett flipped to the back of the contract and signed. He then grabbed his cocktail napkin and wrote an address along with a phone number on it.
“Here’s my new number. Tell me an hour in advance if you are going to be delayed. Meet me at the address tomorrow by six.”
“In the morning?”
“Hell no," he laughed, and he got up to leave. "Wanda," he yelled at the white-haired woman behind the bar, "tonight is on her," he said motioning toward Cenessa.
"Is that necessary?" She asked.
“You're the one snaking me out of $14,600,000 you tell me.”
**************************************************************
By early afternoon, Cenessa had procured the $400,000 in cash just as Everett had asked. After the meeting she had called her father and explained the situation, and that night he had emptied his house safe and called in favors, and loans, to put everything he had on a private jet. Still, it wasn't enough, and Cenessa had to go from town to town and bank to bank withdrawing tens of thousands in cash.
"I know this isn't optimal," her father's gruff, tired voice said through the phone the night before when she left Liquor Lyle's, "but once we're done with this, we're done with him. No more hunting him down. No more detectives. No more wild goose chases through cities and rural towns. You just give him the money and leave. No more questions."
Her small rental car's trunk was filled with four black duffle bags, and each was crammed with whatever bills they could get their hands on. Her father hired two bodyguards to go with her until Everett received the money at the drop point, and one drove in front of Cenessa and the other followed her. It was a cold, rainy day and the drive was boring. So boring in fact, that it became apparent that she didn't need the bodyguards because the streets were completely abandoned.
As she drove, and the water splashed onto the windshield, she reminisced to younger, more carefree days with Everett. He was the only one to ever call her Cenny and it was a name she wouldn't let her boyfriends or other family use. She remembered the time he was ten and they were vacationing in the country. Everett made a peanut butter sandwich and went down to the train tracks which were a few miles away from their cabin. He hopped into a boxcar heading south because he had read about it in one of his adventure books, and the Sheriff the next county over had to call Mother and Father so he could get picked up. Or the time she had broken Mother's vase and he took the blame for it because that was the behavior the family expected out of him. He said he had been dribbling a basketball in the house and had knocked it over. Really, she had smashed it on purpose because they were sending him to a boarding school in the Pacific Northwest.
She remembered the bad times too. She would never forget the time she pulled him out of the gutter in Greensville or the time he was arrested for indecent exposure because he was so high that he didn't know where he was. The day his face was on the front page of the newspapers and tabloids was burnt deep into her memory. "HEIR TO REAL ESTATE MOGUL ELOPES WITH HOOTERS WAITRESS." That was the only one she ever kept. She hid it underneath her bed, and she would secretively pull it out and laugh from time to time. She didn’t get the one a few weeks later claiming it was his fourth divorce, but everyone talked about it.
Buying him out was her Father's idea, but it wasn't one she fought. She was tired of picking up the pieces in her brother’s thoughtless wake. She was sick of the rehabs, and the hours in courtrooms, and interrogating and bribing the homeless to find out the smallest bit of information. She was done with all of it. No matter the good her brother gave her the bad just engulfed it. It killed it all.
Just as the rain was dying down Cenessa arrived between two warehouses on the outskirts of town, right where her brother told her to meet. The bodyguards got out and surveyed the alley they were in. Potholes nearly encircled her car, and the entire block seemed abandoned. Far in the distance, she could see the golden sun setting, and it reflected off the windows and puddles from the early afternoon's rain, and the glare was coming from everywhere. She took out her phone to call Everett, but he was already rounding a corner, that mischievous smile painted onto his face.
"You get it?" He asked as he got close.
"It's in the trunk."
He whistled, and a group of men came from around the corner he had just appeared from. The bodyguards reached into their jacket pockets slowly and cautiously, but the group didn't seem threatening and just went straight to the car that Everett motioned them towards.
"Pop the trunk," Everett demanded.
"Everett, I-"
"It's my money. Pop the trunk."
She took the keys out of her purse, shaking while she did so, and with a metallic release the trunk came open. The men took the black duffle bags and went back the way they came, splashing in muddy puddles as they casually carried everything Everett owned.
Everett watched them round the corner, and once they had gone, he turned back to his sister, "Thanks, Cenny. You can leave now."
"You need to sign this saying you got your money," she said, as she took some paperwork out from her purse. "Where are those-"
"Thanks, Cenny," he repeated, and quickly signed the papers and ran behind the men.
Cenessa stood in the alley and strained her ears, and she heard her brother and the other men running down the wet pavement, joking and laughing in the dead streets.
"Ma'm I think it-" one of the bodyguards started.
"Shhh," she curtly replied, "just go."
"I don't think-"
"Well, we don't pay you to do that."
She could still hear them splashing and talking. They walked too long for them to be going into the warehouse she was parked in front of. She dashed to the corner the men had disappeared from and peaked around it. She could still see them all about a block and a half away in the dying metropolis as they sloshed down the empty allies. Once they turned right, she sprinted after them, wanting to continue to tail her brother, but her high heels and the slick pavement made her roll her ankles. It happened twice and the second injury was painful enough for her to stop, remove her shoes, and jog barefoot. She could feel her joints swelling as they slapped unprotected on the hard ground, and often loose rocks would get jammed into her feet, but she kept pushing through the pain.
She didn't see anybody else in that block and a half. Not a car, or a drunk wandering the streets, or a businessman, or a hobo, so she figured the pack of men should be easy to track. Once she got to where the group turned though, they had all vanished. Instead, she saw a group of vagabonds standing around and sharing a bottle of cheap alcohol. She looked around her again, ensuring it was the right alley. She was positive the group had gone under the fire escape, moved past the dumpster, and had turned right before the warehouse with the exposed bricks painted white. She looked at the homeless men again and confidently made her way to them once she saw a man with a deep scar running down his cheek.
"Hello, Blinky," Cenessa said calmly to one of the men.
The man paused for a second, and then the look of recognition came over his face, and it softened. "I see ya found Chicken Joe."
"Yes, it seems I have."
He motioned to a rusted metal door that nearly blended into the brick around it. Cenessa went over to it and grabbed the lever, and as she pushed the door squeaked and squealed its way open. Immediately a hot burst of air and the sweet, metallic smell of blood rushed toward her. Inside was a bustling mass of people all intermingling. Rich and poor, black and white, hicks and slicks, all talking, drinking, laughing, and fighting. The open room was a swirling chaotic mess with so much movement and angry screaming that Cenessa considered leaving and forgetting her brother and his troubles.
She looked over to the corner of the room and saw Everett, quietly laughing and nervously smoking with a group of well-dressed men. She made her way over to him and stood in front of him, hands on her hips until he noticed her.
"Cenny?" He said in disbelief, "What are you doing here?"
"Chicken Joe, where's all your money?"
The group of men around Everett laughed at him.
"It's not mine anymore."
"How did you spend it so fast?"
"I didn't. I put it all on my rooster, Mussolini."
"Are you insane?"
"It's a sure-fire bet. Trust me," he said, winking at her.
"How much can you win?"
"It pays seven to one. I'll make out with almost three million if-"
"My God, Everett. No wonder Father doesn't want you involved in the family business. This is reckless."
The group around Everett shot him an uneasy look. They were worried because they had never heard that he had a father who owned a family business, let alone his real name before.
"My name is Chicken Joe now," he shouted at her, "and if you can't handle that, then leave. You already paid me to get out of the family, why do you care what happens? You could have talked Father out of it, I know you could have, but you didn't. You’ve made your choices, and I’ve made mine."
A tall, white man approached the group, and said, "It's time, CJ."
"Fine," Cenessa yelled, "good luck with whatever this is. Just remember you wasted your legacy and all your potential."
"If I win, your opinion will mean nothing because I'll have more than you ever had. I’m betting on myself, Cenny. I refuse to just wait until Father dies to cash in. If I lose, your opinion will still mean nothing because you sold your own brother out."
He kept shouting even as Cenessa walked away and the crowd noise engulfed him. She made her way toward the rusted metallic exit, limping the whole way. As she did, everyone began to migrate toward the center of the warehouse, and nervous and excited chatter filled the empty space.
When Cenessa got outside, she lit a cigarette and looked at the homeless men still sitting and keeping watch. She reached into her purse and pulled out a few bottles of alcohol and cigarettes she would use to bribe vagrants and handed them out to the group. They were confused, but took the gifts anyways. Wasting no time they began smoking and drinking. Cenessa started to make her way back, and was about ten yards away when the silence in the alley was broken.
"Hey," Blinky yelled after her, "you find Chicken Joe?"
"I guess,” she said without looking back and kept walking.
Once she was less than a block away from her car, the allies filled with the long, manic shrieks of loss and victory. Then it died down again, and silence rushed through the buildings and streets. Curiosity almost got the best of Cenessa, and she was about to turn back just so she could see her brother's face and know how the fight went.
Then she heard it. Slick tires were sticking and bumping to the wet, pothole laced roads. Through the alley she saw a group of five police cars speeding past her, and two went down under the fire escape, past the dumpster, and turned right before the warehouse with the exposed bricks painted white. Out of instinct, she took out her phone to call Everett to tell him to run. She wanted to tell him that the cops were coming and that he had to leave now, with or without the money. She would offer to pay him back whatever he lost or won just to get out. She wanted to save her brother like he saved her from Mother’s wrath when she broke her precious vase. She wanted to help him.
But she put the phone back into her purse and got into her car. Her ankles pulsated and burned as she thought about Everett. She felt happy. She knew why she did, but she didn’t.