Has it ever happened to you that, when you remember what you did when you were younger, you realize that you were really, really fucking dumb?
Well, the thing is, I was a clown for so many years that all that killing, torturing, kidnapping stuff became like routine. There were missions where I killed almost all our rivals. Everyone in the gang knew me, and everyone respected me.
But still Darius didn't give me a nickname, and like I told you, in our gang, Darius only gave nicknames to his best men. Sometimes, I and some colleagues would imagine what nicknames Darius might give us, and what happened at those parties he went and never invited us to, not even to guard the entrance.
We also wanted our nicknames so we could be on equal footing with those who already had them, 'cause they were always acting like jerks and calling us "clowns" with disdain. Oh, but you should have seen how angry they'd get if you didn't tell them their nicknames.
"You laughing at me, you piece of shit?" they used to say.
Or:
"We're not the same, clown."
Bullshit like that.
Worst of all, they weren't even that strong. Sure, there were one or two who could use magic, but it was so fucking pathetic I could easily beat the crap out of all of them.
And still Darius hadn't given me a nickname yet.
Sometimes I thought about going to his office to show him that I was the most powerful guy of the whole gang, but I knew that his right hands wouldn't let me see him 'cause they never let anyone there, and beating the shit out of them would only make me look like a traitor.
But at least Darius did notice how fucking powerful I was. Late, but he noticed.
One night we came back from a mission with someone tied up.
"Darius wants to see him," one of his right hands told us as soon as we got there and took us to his office.
We got into a very large room, where the other right hands, some whores, and Darius were.
"How did it go, Rapunzel?" Darius asked the leader of our group, a tall and bald asshole.
The funny thing was that this piece of shit would get so fucking pissed if you didn't call him "Rapunzel" even though we all knew that Darius had given him that nickname to make fun of him.
"Call me Rapunzel, even if your snout bleeds, you clowns," he always told us.
Anyway, Rapunzel took the bag off the head of the guy we'd caught. He was in his early twenties and had his face painted white. He was the leader of a gang I think was called Ghost, though I don't really remember 'cause it was a pretty small gang.
"Take him away, then," Darius said, and me and another colleague lifted him up to take him away and torture him, as we always did with everyone we caught. "Not you, clowns," he told us. "Today we celebrate." Then he gave the order to some right hand, and they took that guy away.
We left there and went back to our truck.
"Well, go get ready," Rapunzel told us. In our group, it was just me, Rapunzel, and some other guy.
We grabbed our backpacks with our stuff; we always had a change of clothes (in any mission you always got dirt, mud or someone else's blood on you) and our makeup (all the clowns needed their makeup).
The other guy and I went to the bathroom to fix ourselves up.
"We made it, little mage," he told me.
"About time," I said, trying not to sound too excited.
"You think he gonna to give us nicknames?" he asked me while changing his clothes. "What you do if Darius calls you 'little mage'?"
"He'd better not," I said that 'cause I must have been about eighteen at that time, and that nickname was starting to piss me off, mostly 'cause of the "little" on it. I wasn't a kid anymore, and I was way stronger than all of them.
Then we put on cologne and started touching up our clown makeup, which was the most important thing of all.
In our gang, the worst thing you could do was to hace some shitty makeup 'cause, as Darius used to say, "if you look like an idiot, you make me and everyone else look like idiots."
There weren't any strict rules about how you had to do your makeup, just that you had to look like a clown. Almost everyone painted their face white and then their mouth and eyes red, but to stand out, I painted them black. At first, there were assholes who even made fun of me.
"You're supposed to be a clown, not a mime."
But when they saw me killing everyone in my way, they backed down.
"Dawg, you even look elegant," they would end up saying stuff like that.
When we finished getting ready, we went with Rapunzel and got into the truck and waited for Darius. He took about an hour and came out with his right hands. They all got into three trucks and left. We followed them.
We arrived at a club, and the people at the entrance, as soon as they saw us, stepped aside and let us in.
"Please, this way," they told us nervously. "We'll get you guys the VIP lounge."
We arrived there and saw that there was a group of rich kids there fighting with the waiters.
"We were here first. You're not taking this lounge from us. Don't you know who I am?" They were saying things like that, but as soon as they saw us they backed down. "No, come in, please. The lounge is yours. We were just leaving. Check, please."
That makeup let you do whatever you wanted, people were afraid of you and respected you; that's why we weren't ashamed to go out on the street like that, that's why we even felt proud to look like clowns.
"Have whatever you want, clowns," Darius told us, and that's what we did. Several waiters got us those champagne bottles with sparklers, and we drank like we'd never done it before, even though we always celebrated after a mission or any other day, we celebrated while we could 'cause we knew very well that we could die at any moment.
The mere fact of still being alive was reason enough to celebrate.
We all got so fucking wasted. A couple guys saw some girls they liked and tried to pick them up, whether they were alone or with someone; some other got into fights for whatever reason, and a few started crying and saying things like:
"I trust you, bro."
Or:
"You're like my brother, bro."
They even looked like friends.
Even though most of them ended up killing each other.
And there were some dumbasses like me, who approached Darius and told him:
"You're a fucking asshole."
His right hands were about to pull me out, but Darius grabbed one of them and shook his head.
"You told me I was a badass," I continued. "I'm better than all these assholes. I can handle the biggest missions."
"Wanna handle something big? Well, here's Kimberly," he said, pointing to one of his whores. She stood up and came over to me. She was very tall and grabbed my shoulder to take me somewhere else.
"Don't make fun of me, you asshole," I said, trying to gather up some magic, but I was so wasted I just couldn't. "I can beat the shit out of everyone here."
Darius just smirked.
"You're a badass," he told me. "I remember you. You were the kid who kicked the shit out of my men. The 'little mage,' right? I didn't give you that nickname, did I?" He put his hand on my shoulder and smirked at me. "I wouldn't give you such a shitty nickname. From now on, you're gonna be... 'Dark.'"
He took the glass from one of his right hands and gave it to me.
"Everyone, cheer for Dark."
Everyone cheered.
"Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark!" they shouted and drank, and I drank too and they served me more and more and more and they even shook my head every time I drank and was so fucking stupid I kept drinking.
I don't know how much I drank.
"Come, Dark." Darius grabbed my shoulder and led me outside. I could barely walk, but his right hands held me so I wouldn't fall.
Suddenly, one of them punched me in the back of the head and I fell to the ground.
Darius came up to me and hit me in the face with his knee. I fell to the floor and felt blood pouring from my mouth.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, having nicknames I didn't give you?" He grabbed my hair and hit me again. "I don't give a flying fuck if you made up that nickname or not, only I can give them."
He hit me again, and I fell to the ground.
"And you think you can call me a "asshole" without me doing anything about it, you piece of shit? Be grateful you're still useful to me, because otherwise I'd fucking kill you."
He started kicking me on the ground, and I tried to gather up some magic to defend myself, but I was too drunk and just couldn't, so I just covered my face with my arms and curled up into a ball. He and his right hands kicked me for a good while. One of them took a bat out of one of the trucks and smashed my legs with it.
Luckily, I was so drunk I barely felt it. In fact, I barely remember it.
But what I can't forget is that I couldn't walk for three months, even though I learned healing magic and healed myself every day, just to get back with the gang as soon as possible. I just wanted everyone to call me Dark.
And when I came back I was also one of those pieces of shit who got pissed off if they didn't called them by their nickname.