On the streets of... #1

That’s me, by the way. Detective Kowalsky, I mean. From the title of the chapter. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start the story where so many other good stories have started before: with a drunk night.

There are only a few moments in your life that you’re gonna remember perfectly and forever. Your first kiss, the day when you graduated from somewhere or other, the first time you had sex, the first time you saw Star Wars, you got the gist. And of course, there are those two or three epic hangovers. You know the type, the one that you will tell your mates about, the one when you’ve got yourself so wasted that the simple act of poisoning yourself became legendary.

Now, I had one of those that particular morning. And when I say morning, I mean, afternoon. I had a good reason, though: I just made detective. And I was only 24. And a half, but it’s still pretty good.

So I was half-sitting, half laying on the sofa in our apartment, fighting the good fight against throwing up. My head felt as if someone was hitting it with a hammer to the rhythm of St Anger from Metallica. Let's not go into details about what was going on in my stomach. I had a bag of frozen peas on my face because it was nice and cold and was also a big help in the not-dying-on-the-spot business. I don’t think it was from our freezer, though.

Carlos groaned on the floor. He was still wearing the blue shirt of his police uniform (he just made detective, too, but he was older than me by a month so I still won), but his pants were nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, he had his boxers on. Let's be thankful for the little things. No pun intended. I remembered a bet between Carlos and one of the neighbour guys about whether or not Carlos' pants could catch on fire. Why would he ever think that the pants of the beat cop’s uniform were fireproof? Mysteries of life.

'Rise and shine jackasses!' that was Laila, my other roommate. She was dating Carlos for some reason I could not understand: she was a real-life goddess with perfect black skin, perfect figure and a big ball of messy afro, while Carlos was a short Latino dude with seriously projecting ears. They were going strong since high school though, so if it's not broken, don't fix it, I guess.

Carlos groaned again, as an answer. I wished I had that much energy, and stayed silent.

'Here,' said Laila and put a glass into one of my hands and two little somethings into the other. Water and aspirin. That girl was way too good for Carlos. And for this world.

I let the bag of peas fall onto my thighs as I sat up, and took the pills. The water was ice-cold and I drank it greedily. It felt good for like three and a half seconds, and then it arrived in my belly and fucked up the very delicate balance. I took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Didn't help.

'Thanks, babe,' said Carlos when he received his care package. The moron poured the water all over himself immediately, trying to drink it while still laying on the floor. Laila shook her head, then she pushed my legs from the couch to the floor and sat beside me. She still wore her paramedic uniform: she just came home from a 12 hours shift.

'Y'all idiots just made sure that we never gonna see a dime from the safety deposit,' she said. 'You know that, right?'

I looked around, blinking. The light was way too strong and I missed my peas but they fell on the floor and Carlos stole them. The bastard. Now, our place is never tip-top. We are cops, Laila rides the emergency car, we barely are home and we don't have time for such things as tidying up. But this was another level. A big plant that we managed not to kill so far was knocked over now, with soil and little white pebbles everywhere on the floor around it. Someone puked into the sink in the kitchen (God, I hope it wasn't me), there was a big red patch on the wall next to the TV, with glass shards under it. No furniture was at the spot they were supposed to be but plates were everywhere, mostly with half-eaten pizza slices. I remembered all of a sudden that someone threw a slice at me: she didn't like mushrooms. I ran my fingers through my hair and found a piece of pepperoni. I wondered who the hell that girl was. There were so many people here yesterday that I have never seen before. Why does that always happen at parties? Who invites them?

Also, I found half a lemon in my breast pocket for some reason. Did we do tequila shots?

'Relax, I'm a detective now,' I said to Laila. 'I'm gonna make a buttload of money… Okay, a little less pathetic money. I'll pay you back.'

'Damn right you will,' said Laila, 'Congratulations, by the way. Detective Pete Kowalsky. I'm proud of you.'

She hugged my shoulders and kissed my cheek.

'Yo, dude, whatcha doing with my girl?' Carlos asked, lifting the corner of the frozen pea-pack to glimpse out from under it. 'And why doesn't my girl congratulate me first?'

‘Get up from the floor and I will,’ said Laila.

Given credit where it’s due, Carlos really tried. After a very awkward thirty seconds, he mumbled something about getting it later and stretched out on his back again.

‘Lovely,’ Laila shook her head.

Her phone beeped way too sharply and she got it out to check.

'That's weird. Pete, it's your Mum,' she answered the phone. 'Hey, Mrs Kowalsky. No, no, he is here, he is, erm… Yeah, hungover. Big time.'

'Why is my Mom called Laila?' I mouthed to Carlos.

'Coz you tried to flush your phone down the toilet, man,' he said. 'It's still in the damn thing. Although, people didn't exactly care about that when nature called them, so you might wanna get a new one.'

'Shit,' I murmured.

'Amongst other things,' Carlos nodded.

The good thing about being a cop is that the force gives me stuff like phones. Bad thing is, I gotta explain what happened to the last one. Gonna be fun.

'Okay, okay. Sure. You too. Bye!' Laila lowered her hand from her ear. 'She says we should switch on the news.'

'Do we have that?' I asked.

'Only if it's on Netflix,' replied Carlos.

Laila hunted down the remote control (it was in the fridge) and turned on the TV on the wall. Thanks to all the gods it still worked.

'Let's see… Yeah, she said CNN,' a classically handsome middle-aged dude appeared on the TV.

'... to tackle the crisis. Meanwhile, the Senate and the President both approved the so-called "Wizard Bill" which came from the President himself. That means from next month every sorcerer needs a licence to use magic. It also means a huge reorganisation inside the police forces of the United States, effective immediately. From next month, every magic-wielding officer must report for service in the precinct they will be assigned during the next week. Those precincts will only deal with magic-related crime, in order to push back the ever-emerging magic-related crime rates and to get a grip on the vampire gang wars as well as help to monitor and control sorcerers under the new law. The Opposition called magicism and the damage of the 28. Amendment, but we asked the people on the street, and they seemes to be…'

Laila switched off the TV.

‘Well, shit,’ commented Carlos.

I was a sorcerer, though not a good one. I mean, I got decent marks in high school magic class, but that was a long time ago. Sure, I still knew the very basics, but I couldn’t tell when was the last time I actually did cast a spell more complicated than finding my car keys or closing the door across the room. I knew jack shit about magic-related crime.

‘So that’s why we got promoted so quickly,’ murmured Carlos, this time actually managing to sit up. ‘They needed the manpower to fill up the new system.’

‘And here I thought we were just plain awesome,’ I said.

I could have done without Laila scoffing at that, but whatever.