I was just thirteen when I joined the clowns.
I thought they were gonna pay me as much as the first time, when Darius left me a stack full of cash. But the truth is, I was so fucking stupid back then, and I didn't know how things worked.
I started as a falcon, just like everyone else. They always put me next to kid who were fifteen or sixteen at the time. I don't remember their faces. They gave them a gun and a radio to report anything suspicious. We had to watch Freedom Street, I do remember that.
We'd stay there all day or all night long, watching who came by that street (obviously by this point I'd already dropped out of school, and I thought my mom would be mad when I told her, but no, she just complained about how expensive things were, and I ended up giving her almost all the money I earned, which wasn't much, but in that shitty town there was nothing else I could do to earn it. And I liked thinking I gave her more money than my dad used to). It wasn't that unusual for suspicious people to pass by, and we often heard everything that was happening in town on the radio. There were quite a few shootouts in different places, and even though we clowns had killed all the Kings, there were a lot of other gangs that would appear out of nowhere and tried to fuck with us, or there were others that came from another town and wanted to expand.
Those were the toughest ones 'cause they always brought more people and more weapons and were well organized.
Sometimes cops or special agents would also come in, and we had to report how many there were and where they were going. Although it was almost always just a smokescreen. Let me explain: when there were a lot of shootouts and gang fights, people complained about the insecurity; the government would then bring in tons of cops and special agents with turrets and military-grade weaponry to patrol the town, but they would only catch two or three low-ranked gang members, just cannon fodder, and present them as commanders or gang leaders so it would seem like they were actually doing their job, you know. After two or three weeks they would leave and little by little everything would go back to the way it was before, the other gangs would reappear, and the fights would start all over again.
As a falcon I hardly ever saw any shootouts; I only heard them on the radio.
The first one I saw wasn't long after I became a clown. I went at the spot where we always watch the street, and that kid asked me:
"The password," he was holding the gun.
All the clowns knew a password, so we'd know who actually was a clown and who was pretending to be one. I don't remember what it was back then 'cause it changed all the time so the rival gangs would never find it out.
"Fuck you, clowns," Let's say that was the password at that time, and I said exactly that.
"Good," he put away the gun, and I settled in there.
While we were watching Freedom Street, I spent my time practicing magic and listening to the radio reports. In those days, I was practicing my magic shields. I would open my hands and make small bubbles with magic, about the size of my face, but I could make bigger ones, so big they covered my whole body and protected me from everything.
"There's a suspicious car on Sovereignty Street," a voice said on the radio. "It's heading towards Freedom Street now."
I looked at the street both ways, and since there was no one suspicious, I continued practicing my shields.
"What's the point of all that shit?" that asshole I was watching the street with said to me. I don't even remember his name.
Let's call him Asshole.
"What's the point of all that shit?" Asshole said again. "You think you gonna fight the other gangs with fucking bubbles?"
I ignored him and kept practicing my shields.
"This shits useless," he said and slapped the shield I was making, but it didn't pop.
He then started hitting it harder and harder, and I made it more and more resistant.
Finally, he hit it as hard as he could, and the shield burst in his hand. Asshole yelled and clutched his bleeding hand.
"Motherfucker!" he yelled at me.
I couldn't hold back and laughed as hard as I could.
But he took out his gun.
"You think is funny, huh?" He pointed the gun at my face, and I stopped laughing. Seeing the gun reminded me of Darius and how he killed those two in the abandoned building. I remembered the sound of the gunshots, the pools of blood growing larger and larger. "Laugh again, you piece of shit." He hit me in the face with the gun, and I fell to the floor. "Come on. Laugh again," he started kicking me all over my body.
"Where's the car?" someone asked over the radio. "Answer: Is the car in Freedom street, yes or no?"
Asshole stopped kicking me, grabbed the radio and watch both sides of the street."
"Nuh, no one's been here," he said.
"They should have by now," the voice said. "That car must be somewhere."
"They were going to Freedom Street," said another voice. "We saw them."
"No one's been here," Asshole said again.
"Maybe they stopped somewhere," said a different voice.
"Well, look for it, you fucks," said the first voice.
Suddenly we heard gunshots from far away.
"They're attacking us!" shouted another voice. "They're on Solidarity Street. Bring reinforcements." Solidarity Street was after Freedom, so the car had indeed passed through our street.
"You said they didn't go to Freedom Street, you idiot?!" the first voice shouted. Probably they did while Asshole was too busy kicking me on the floor and didn't notice.
"No one's been here," Asshole was so fucking stubborn.
Then we heard a car hitting the gas.
"Get them, get them!" a voice yelled. "They're going to Freedom Street."
Not even two seconds had passed when we saw a car getting in the street, and it kept going faster and faster.
"Get them, get them!" the voice yelled.
At that moment I didn't even think about it, but I concentrated a bit of magic in my hand and threw it at the car just as it passed in front of us, and I ended up hitting the back tire, and the car went to one side, lost control and crashed into a pole.
Three guys, around 18, got out of the car; they were injured, but nothing serious. While they were checking if they were okay, Asshole pulled out his gun, pointed it at them, and tried to shoot, but his hand was badly injured from that shield exploding on it, so he couldn't fire and just screamed in pain. The guys saw him with the gun and pointed it at us. At that moment, I closed my eyes and felt so much magic coming from me. I created a shield so large it covered my entire body, and then the guys fired at us. I could only hear the gunshots and feel the shield shattering with each bullet, but I concentrated as hard as I could to keep it from breaking.
But there was a moment when I couldn't hold it anymore, and the shield exploded. I went flying and crashed into a wall.
I opened my eyes and stood up. The enemies were on the ground and were slowly getting up.
"They're here in Freedom Street!" Asshole yelled into the radio. He was lying on the ground, covered in blood. I looked down at my body and saw that the shield had stopped all the bullets those guys fired at me. "They shot me, they shot me! Send backup!"
Those guys heard him and pointed their guns at him.
"They're in Freedom Street! Send backup!" Asshole yelled and looked at me. I stood there and watched as the counter-soldiers shot him a bunch of times. His body jerked every time he was hit by a bullet, and blood dripped and flew everywhere.
Finally, he fell to the ground. He was more a pile of flesh and blood than a person.
They then ran away, but I snapped out of it and started throwing some magic at them.
I shot one of them in the back, and he fell to the ground. The others hid behind a car and started shooting at me. I made another shield and concentrated as hard as I could so it wouldn't break like the other one.
The guy I knocked to the ground got up and hide with the others, who were shooting at me. I was exhausted, and then I saw the shield cracking faster and faster, but I used all my strength to keep it together for a little longer.
Then two pickup trucks came and blocked the street. In the back of both were several clowns with some machine guns, and they started shooting at those other guys. I think they killed one of them. The remaining ones started shooting back, and they ignored me.
I then approached them without them seeing me, and when I was right behind them, I threw some magic at them, and they just screamed in pain and writhed every time I hit them, and I kept attacking until I got tired. Then they aimed at me, and I made another shield, but it almost broke after two shots.
The good thing is that the clowns approached while those guys were busy with me and shot them from every direction.
Then they looked at me.
"Fuck you, clowns," I yelled and raised my hands.
They laughed.
"Don't worry, bro," one of them told me, "we saw how you kicked their asses."
"Where's your partner?" another guy asked me, and I pointed to where Asshole was.
"Holy shit, dude. You're the shit," another one came up to me and patted me on the shoulder.
"You fucking rule, kid," someone else told me, and several people shook my hand as a sign of respect, and I felt happy 'cause that had never happened to me before.
Never before I had so many people congratulating me, never before I had felt so important.
I looked at the dead guys with their guns in their hands and thought that those weren't that big of a deal 'cause they hadn't done anything to me.
I felt almost invincible.
Later life would make me afraid of them again, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I also saw Asshole's body lying there. For many years I thought it wasn't my fault he died 'cause I froze just before they shot him; I didn't know how to use magic well enough to make such a large shield so far away from me; it wasn't my fault he didn't take cover to protect himself from the bullets; if he hadn't screwed me over that day, we would have seen the car go by, and everything would have been very different.
But now I'm not so sure.
Maybe it was my fault he died that day.
Maybe he was the first person I've killed.
It's not like I feel blame or anything; I've killed so many people I don't feel anything for them anymore. It's just curiosity 'cause I didn't even try to help him when they were about to shoot him; I was also stubbornly practicing my shields instead of watching the street. If I hadn't been distracted by that, we would have seen the car go by and reported it right away.
You think I killed him too?