Rooster Visits the Set

“Why is there a rooster on the call sheet today?” My Sensei’s loyal First Assistant Director is confused, but only for a moment—he knows me, after all. He’s not unaccustomed to seeing non-human talent on the floor at eight a.m. ready to go. “This should say chicken, right? We want one with white feathers.” My Sensei is laughing, blown away that his friend and employee doesn’t know that roosters can have white feathers, too. And beaks. The ensuing conversation reveals they know very little about birds, in movies or otherwise. My Sensei mistakenly places the wingspan of a yellow-tailed spinner at 17 feet. It’s closer to four. He must’ve been thinking of the precious hummingbird, or the majestic eagle. People really only seem to know the big leaguers, the show-offs, the egomaniacs of the bird world. Roosters and hens are content to tough it out here on the ground. We’re okay with the Earth—evidently the rest of you aren’t.

My cousin is coming to visit the “set” today. We’ve wrapped principal photography, but there’s dubbing to be done. I’m waiting anxiously for my part, which could come up any time in the next three or four weeks. Maybe longer. So I told Rooster I was being used and he immediately rushed over. He needs a cause, an adventure to go on. I’m not sure the last time he was on a movie set—maybe it was Pulp Fiction, when we crashed the Jack Rabbit Slim’s scene and almost shut production down due to “biohazard fears.” I wasn’t the one who had food poisoning that day. Miss Uma Thurman was lovely and so was Saturday Night Scientologist John Travolta, who stroked my mane and hackle tenderly. No, he didn’t touch me there. There are good cops and bad cops; the same is true of actors and celebrities.

Rooster meets My Sensei for the second time. “Rooster Quibbits, Smashing Pumpkins.” My Sensei grins. “Quentin Jerome, smiling politely.” They’ve met before, I knew this. I did not know that they had an intimate relationship. Inside jokes? Secret handshakes? This is getting crazy. My Sensei’s middle name is Jerome, and he always says he wishes he chose that as his professional name. He’s wrong. “A Film by Quentin Jerome” sounds terrible. Sounds like a pussy made it. “A Film by Quentin Tarantino” is on some baller shit, some burning down the house shiiiiiii. I speak in the tongue of the present to communicate ancient ideas and ensure the safety and survival of what was once a great institution: pop culture.

My Sensei and my cousin are chicken-scratching and funky dipping on the dubbing floor as if they were on Soul Train. Someone needs to remind them that Don Cornelius is dead. But it won’t be me—clearly, I’m second fiddle to an even older friend, a closer confidante, someone who My Sensei doesn’t need to mentor, or teach, or educate; they’re on the same level, and I wonder why I can’t have this… I wonder who’s done this to me… because who would want to hurt me… other than my very own cousin, Rooster Quibbits?

It’s obvious my cousin has been trying to murder me and take my place for years now. And I was dumb, I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. It’s too horrible to contemplate, and that’s why I denied it for so long. He’s walking past me now, wearing a trench coat and grinning. He knows what he did. He knows what he’s doing. He looks me in the eye and says, “I’m killing you now.” He walks away and I think about the ending of The Departed, when Leonardo DiCaprio says the same thing to Matt Damon while he has a loaded gun pointed to his head. Moments later, someone else shoots DiCaprio square between the eyes, all in the same shot, a medium close-up of both actors.

I resolve to bring this up with My Sensei later, even though I know he hasn’t liked a Scorsese movie since the 1980s. We’re different. Rooster, on the other hand, agrees, and even goes so far to say that the only good Scorsese movie is Taxi Driver. Well. Well, well. He always had to be different. Then again, he might just be harboring a strong anti-Italian American bias. You just never know with my cousin Rooster Quibbits—you just never know. I just know he’s the Anti-Christ and he’s come here to sabotage me and my career. I won’t let him. I won’t let him stop me. I’m carrying a hammer with me everywhere I go now. No one’s going to get to Bennington. No one.

—Follow Bennington Quibbits on Twitter: @RoosterQuibbits