Max Pasamonte
Nika Cavat
Noir
10/22/13
Clarkson

I swear it feels like every night I come to this bar. It smells like shit, and it’s so dark I can’t even see who’s sitting at the booth in the far corner. I can’t tell if this rotting fish smell is coming from the ocean outside the window or from the kitchen in the back. This fucking bartender won’t even acknowledge my existence. All he cares for are these sluts at the bar and his “best friend,” Derek. Derek is supposed to be my best friend, my blood brother. He has no respect for his job, look at him. We are supposed to be on call! I’m in uniform, the patrol car is outside, and somehow during our entrance he has changed into his nightclothes and picked up another two girls. He drags them in to this the fucking bar, sits on my right and has both girls sit on his right. What a selfish fuck? Not that I really need a woman’s company, after all, we’re on call. But how he can be so ignorant to have them sit to his right, stealing both of their attention. Listen to them laughing at his pathetic jokes. He’s an animal. Look at this bartender laughing is ass off, what does he want to suck his dick too?

“Clarkson! You look tired!” The bartender shouts above the music. “Perhaps another White Russian.”
“A what,” I replied?
“A White Russian. That disgusting coffee shit your always drinking.” Confused with what he was referring to, I just ordered a Levitt. Nothing like the way whisky allows my conscience to sink to the leather of the barstool. If Derek wants to ignore me for two French girls, so be it. All I need is my glass a whisky and this wood bar to rest my head. It used to be just me in my whiskey, those were the days! Before Derek came into my life everything seemed peaceful. Boring, normal, miserable, but peaceful. I still remember that day he was waiting for me with his coat over his shoulder, sitting on top of my patrol car with a toothpick in his mouth.

“You Clarkson, he said with a devilish smile?”
“Why are you on my car?”
“Sergeant sent me; I’m your new partner. Names Durton, Officer Derek Durton. From Chicago.”
“Searge Didn’t say anything to me.”
“Well he told me to tell you. You’ve been slacking. He thinks you “lack motivation.” I’m here to keep you in check. Maybe show you a couple things I learned back in the real shithole. When you really gotta take control of your city, and shake the shit out of it until all the assholes fall into your lap.” Every morning for next six months he was waiting for me on the hood of my car at the station. Every morning he had a new toothpick in his mouth and a new joke to tell me from the daily paper he read at Chez Jay’s the night before. We spent a lot of time together in those patrol rides. For those first few months we couldn’t have hit it off better. He saw things in me that no one else did. I hadn’t realized how alone I was before Tyler came into my life. I didn’t understand what living truly meant. Tyler showed me how play by the rules just enough to get by. He was everything I wasn’t, and that guy every man wanted to be. We’d head over to Chez Jay’s every other night and somehow he never managed to show up without two girls. At first I thought he was trying to show off, but he never seemed to disappoint. It was as if he was sent from a higher power to rescue me from my inevitable self-destruction. Tyler became my angel who took care of me, saved my ass when the heat turned up, gave me the confidence to talk to the girl at the bar, and the nerve to sock out the boyfriend she was sitting next to. But like all good things in my life, Tyler has gone bad. I hate him! I hate him! I fucking hate him. He thinks he owns me, that I love him so much I’ll never leave him. He thinks I need him, depend on him, and worship him. Just because everyone else does, does not mean I respect the littlest peace of happiness he has brought to my life. I’ve lost all my pre-Durton friends, lost touch with my family, months behind on my rent, fuck I don’t think I have a dollar left that I haven’t already spent on alcohol and women. And how does Derek treat these issues, “everything’s gonna be okayyyyy.” His favorite words to whisper to me when I hesitate to follow him. He doesn’t realize life isn’t a game! We can’t live like this forever. But I just can’t leave him, I can’t get away from his mind games. He’ll simply never allow it. God knows what he’ll do to me if I leave him. Tyler leans over to me, interrupting my aggressive thoughts and rests his head on my shoulder. He reaches arm and across my back pinches my side below my ribs. I jump because I’m ticklish, but I would rather spit in his face that give him the hint of smile he intended to get out of me. “What’s wrong,” he said. He looked at my serious face for three silent seconds. “Get him a white Russian,” he exclaims as he bangs the wood bar with his closed fists. The noise jolted my body so much I almost reached for my gun out of instinct. The girls and the bartender cheer at Tyler’s remark.
Tyler turns and stares at them, “You girls ever drove down the coast up to Malibu with the sirens on before, sticking your head out the window trying to keep your eyes open? Of course they haven’t, I thought Not one time have the two girls ever responded yes to that question. And not one time have they refused the proposition that followed. We took them down PCH to our routine spot up in the mountains. We called it, “Top of the World.” It was our transitional stage where we would win over the girls by letting them shoot our guns into the ocean, then take them home and handle our business. Bang! The blonde one jumped and threw the gun after pulling the trigger. She fell into Tyler’s arms shaking her head. “Too loud, too loud,” she whispers in broken English. Tyler looks at me and throws me his gun. “Show them how it’s done,” he says. Those were the words he said to me every night we were up here with two chicks. The brunette wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Show us how a real man does it,” she whispered in my ear as her tongue made her way up my neck. I pointed my gun at the ocean, and then threw it back at Tyler. “Not tonight Durton, not tonight.” I made my way towards the cop car, turning my back on the girls and Tyler. Suddenly a shot was fired and the bullet bounced off the side mirror inches away from my arm. Tyler and the girls burst in hysterical laughter; the brunette even fell to the floor. Almost in slow motion, I turned my head to see Tyler waving his gun around in the air shooting and howling like a wolf. The girls couldn’t take their eyes off him; never had they witnessed such a unique desirable specimen. The next moment is what I believe people refer to when they say your life flashes before your eyes. Only it wasn’t my life that flashed before my eyes, it was Tyler’s. I saw all the moments we shared in that patrol car. All the nights like this with two sluts on the hill, shooting out pistols into the night. Before I knew it my gun was drawn and I immediately fired three shots. The fire of the gun broke the laughter like someone smashing a record player with a hammer. One shot hit the blonde in the back of the head, the next hit the brunette in her chest, and the last took out the arm of Tyler that was holding the gun. I approached Tyler, knelt down next to him and shoved my gun in his mouth. I could of spoke, but I couldn’t find the appropriate words, so I stared into his eyes. A sense of fear arose across his face. It was an expression I had never seen him make. For some reason, it made me smile. I pulled the trigger The morning after, sergeant realized patrol car 17 never made it back to the station last night. The low jack took him and three other officers to the hill where they stared in awe of the scene. The blood pooled around all of the bodies and seeped into the hard ground. Officer Wilson approached the Sergeant from the back, “are you going to call his family or should I.” Sergeant fell to his knees and held Clarkson’s head in his hands. He turned around, “and tell his mother her son took two hookers up in the mountains, shot them both and then took his own life. No Wilson, you can fucking do that.”