Entry 29: Talk Show

“So I’ve spoken to the owner of The Café, Rosso Rajput,” Louis was saying with an inflated sense of self-importance, flipping his notepad, as Samson and Kookie hung on to his every word.

“And?” Samson said quietly in a sort of rapture. It was the moment he had been waiting for.

“And – he has agreed to let us return to The Café on a strictly trial basis.”

Samson clapped his wings and tittered gleefully. Kookie said, “Trial basis… that is an interesting idea for ‘permanently’ selling goods.”

“I persuaded him by appealing to his financial interests,” Louis went on, since no one had asked. “Clearly, having Kookie Banjo Jr. in his café would be a major monetary win! It would attract a lot more customers now that Kookie is famous. I’m not so not-famous too. So anyway, now, after waiting for so long, we can return to The Café on Monday.”

“And eat carrot cakes?” Samson said as a question, but more to himself in a sort of disbelief.

“And spaghetti with special sauce, double length?” Kookie said, taking out a ruler.

“Yes, yes,” Louis said in irritation. “All of that. But don’t forget our top priority – executing our plan of action against the Duck. I’ve explained it to you too many times to count, but here goes once again: we will lure the Duck and his skater gang to The Café by setting up camp there for the first full day after the deadline is up to pay our debt.” (He meant his own debt.) “We will refuse to leave, so that the Duck has no choice but to confront us inside The Café. Then, we will suggest negotiating in the privacy of the pantry, where while I’m speaking to him, and Samson is distracting the duck skaters by giving them cake recipes, Kookie will manoeuvre the large oil can so that the Duck makes contact in such a way that it triggers the hidden portal. And then – finally! – he’ll be gone forever, on a one-way ticket to Alaska!”

“Oooh Alaska where snow melts into scrumptious fluff,” Samson noted.

“Ah, here we are,” Louis said, rubbing his wings together. They had been chatting on their way to a television studio, where Louis and Kookie were due on-air for a daytime talk show. Ever since they had been threatened by the duck skaters in the bookstore, Louis had turned down requests for interviews on his and Kookie’s behalf. He had wanted to prioritise hatching a plan to get rid of the Duck. But now that the plan was in motion, it was important to keep pressing on with the business of publicising the book, not to mention building a name for himself as a prestigious author.

Outside the studio, journalists who had been tipped off about the talk show appearance lined the kerb and immediately began to harass Louis and Kookie with questions. Even Samson got a few questions, but they were mostly about his glasses, and he got weirdly defensive about his prescription. Louis refused to engage and pulled along Kookie before he could get too far into the criminal aspects of his business propositions. It had been a strenuous effort on Louis’ part to continuously censor Kookie’s comments anytime they had a public engagement, mainly by interrupting him and redirecting the conversation to more light-hearted stuff. Of course, the biography had been an exposé about Kookie’s many white-collar crimes, but it was important to create the impression that Kookie was now somewhat ‘reformed’ (or, if that was too unbelievable, just too old for crime now).

Inside, the birds were immediately ushered into a dressing room where they were pampered and then Samson stayed behind with an assortment of cupcakes on a tray, while Kookie and Louis made their way to the production studio. They were wired up and sat down on one side of the stage. Soon the talk show hosts joined and the interview began, on-air live.

It was all going well, with hilarious anecdotes from the biography, a quick snapshot of Louis’ ‘successful’ previous job as a private investigator, and a rundown of Kookie’s many colourful careers.

“Wow this has been such a good time,” one of the hosts, Angelica Fire, exclaimed, moving her hands around in excitement. “But I want to spice things up a bit, is that alright with you, Jack?” She spun around towards her co-host Jack Nickels, who gave her a wide grin, “Go for it, Angelica.”

Louis smiled nervously. Kookie was looking straight at the camera.

“Alright, well here’s one for you, Kookie,” Angelica said, leaning forwards and clasping her hands in her lap. “We’ve spoken quite a bit about your ‘exploits’ over the last few decades. Some of which, well a lot, have involved criminal activity. Fraud, theft, consumer rights infringements. That sort of thing.”

“Yes, and tax evasion,” Kookie agreed.

“Yeah, well, my question is – and I know this debate has gone on before and is still continuing – but I want to ask you directly, as a reformed bird: do you think that human legislation should apply to birds, to hold them accountable for their actions just like us humans are? Now, we know bird rights are important-”

“So important,” Jack nodded along.

“-but what about bird responsibilities? Do you think bird rights might be overtaking bird responsibilities? What do you think about introducing laws to enforce the responsibilities of birds, towards each other and other animals, and even humans?”

Kookie paused as if he was thinking it through, then said, “I agree birds break the law - too many times,” he narrowed his eyes as if qualifying in his favour and looked at each of them meaningfully. “But bird ‘rights' mean bird ‘transgressions' should not only be understood, but forgiven.”

Louis buried his face in the palm of his wing and sunk low in the chair.

Angelica looked confused and a bit offended, “Well you don’t mean to say you should have impunity to do whatever you like, without consequence or care for its effect on others?”

“Effect is relative in postmodern times,” Kookie said indignantly. “One bird might view a certain amount of money as maximisation, while others see it as minimisation though it's the same amount, I mean.”

"But wouldn't that be because the first bird stole it from the others?"

"I don't know, I don't follow that."

“Well, what about you Louis, what do you think?” Jack said in a thundering TV-personality voice, keeping the conversation moving.

Louis brainstormed fast, “Of course I think that ideally, birds should face the same legislation. In fact, I myself have been extremely frustrated in the past when investigating Kookie about the lack of avenues to seek justice.”

Kookie was nodding along as if he knew he had been under investigation all this time, which he still didn’t.

“But the reality is,” Louis continued, “Prosecuting the actions of birds is a complicated thing to introduce, in its full form.”

“Well what do you suggest then?” Angelica asked in a stiff voice, crossing her arms.

“I would say that Kookie’s actions, to be fair, are a bit unique and don’t reflect all birds. They’re a result of the Cwazy Gene. Well, actually, I do know of another bird, a mathematical genius, who is also a bit sinister-”

“So what you’re saying is,” Jack interrupted excitedly, “That the real problem is this Cwazy Gene?”

“Well, yes,” Louis said. “I think if anything, that is what needs to be investigated. And, in fact,” he continued with a bit more confidence, “That was the very purpose of my book: to raise awareness about the Cwazy Gene. To encourage research…” His voice trailed off as he grew unsure about the persuasiveness of his argument.

But both hosts seemed satisfied with this suggestion and the last 10 minutes were spent debating whether the Cwazy Gene was a certified diagnosis, which Kookie strenuously denied – alleging that there had never been a certificate issued.

Back outside, an angry crowd had gathered and was waiting for the birds. Journalists were in a clamour to ask Kookie questions about his comment about “bird transgressions needing to be forgiven”. Many people were yelling about detaining Kookie, and even detaining Louis and Samson by association.

“I used to see ‘em around The Café!” one person yelled out, “They’d always eat up all the spaghetti and there would be stray feathers in my soup.”

“I’m pretty sure Kookie hustled me into buying a shoddy umbrella in the street a year ago,” another person said.

“We should drown ‘em in a river full of crocodiles!”

Then, suddenly, the crowd hushed and parted down the middle, giving way to a group of important-looking people in white lab coats. The person in the front, a tall stick-like man with a narrow column for a face, waved at a police officer who, at the pre-arranged signal, cuffed Kookie and began to take him away.

“What’s this!” Louis yelled.

“We work for a very important research lab,” the man said. “And Kookie is being detained indefinitely to be examined so as to build our knowledge about the Cwazy Gene. This has been approved by the government, so I suggest you do not interfere.” The man flashed a card with his credentials.

The crowd cheered but Louis was horrified. Yes, he had meant it when he said he wanted more awareness and research about the Cwazy Gene, but for some reason he never thought it meant locking Kookie up.

As Kookie was shoved along inside a parked van, the crowd clapped.

“What are we going to do now?” Louis said, turning to Samson, mainly because there was no one else to turn to.

Samson, for the first time, looked equally aggrieved and flummoxed.