fiction - brigits_flame - Caesar

[hwango]

My name is Julian Temms, and I hate the 15th of March. I've been a cop for seventeen years, the last dozen of them a detective. It would be nice to be called "Detective Temms." But no, the guys at the precinct might be great cops, but they can't resist a good joke. So they call me Caesar.

Some guys take it a little further than that. I can't tell you how many Caesar salads have showed up on my desk from when people order takeout. One Christmas a bunch of guys chipped in and got me - I kid you not - a stone bust of Julius Caesar. I put it on my desk and I leave my hat on it when I'm not wearing it. What else am I gonna do with something like that, right?

I try to be a good sport about it. I laugh when I can, and I don't complain. That's how these things go. I don't really blame them. They don't really know what else to do. It's either try to laugh about it, or…or what?

But the thing is, it's still tough for me every March. Any night of the year I might dream about it, but it's always more often and more vividly as the 15th gets closer. The thing that haunts me isn't really how close I came to dying, but that it would have been my own damned fault for being so stupid.

I didn't wait for my partner, or any other backup. It was dark, it was raining, and I chased the guy into the alley all alone. How dumb is that? You don’t do that with anybody, and certainly not with murder suspects. But when the suspect you're chasing might be the guy who cut up all those people and put the pieces into those neat little piles? Then, my friend, you've got to be a world-class idiot.

Anyway, I don't know where he was hiding, but one minute I'm looking around to see where he went, and the next minute he jumps out of nowhere with this ridiculous knife. At the time, when it was coming at me, it looked like a freaking samurai sword. I got a look at it again well after the fact, and it wasn't quite that big. But it was big enough. So then I've got this big hole in my best jacket and my favorite shirt, and I'm bleeding all over the place.

I hit the pavement and probably started going into shock, because I wasn't thinking that I might die or anything like that. No, I was mad that he was going to get away. But he didn't run off like any sane person would. He stabbed me again. And again. And you know what, I'm not going to type "again" another twenty times, but he stabbed me twenty-three times. I admit that I only felt the first six or so.

I don't remember shooting the bastard, but that's what the report says happened. I don’t like to think how many times he would have stabbed me if I hadn't. Or how many pieces I might have been when they found me.

So, a couple of really amazing surgeons, a whole lot of hospital time, and a heck of a lot of mandatory visits with a shrink, and I'm back on duty. And people have two choices – they can walk on eggshells around me and treat me like I'm made of glass, or we can try to joke about it.

A few years back, on the Ides of March, I got stabbed twenty-three times. So they call me Caesar. But you know what? I'm still alive and kicking and taking bad people off the street rather than rotting in the ground. I figure I got off easy.

But I still hate the 15th of March.

Comments

[ephemeralbreath.livejournal.com]

I really liked that! It's interesting how people deal with hard times, and I do think that true friends know how to kid around about serious things to make them not-so-serious.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you liked it!

[drippedonpaper.livejournal.com]

This was great! What a creative take on the topic, I never, ever would have thought of this!

I love how you tied in the ides of March, taking a piece of the Caesar story.

It's true, sometimes difficult memories meld certain dates into our minds.

Are you going to continue writing more about the adventures of this character, will he travel to an island next week?:)

Thanks for sharing!

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

I don't think I'd continue with this guy next week even if I make it through the poll. It's nothing personal against him, it's just that if I do episodic things I like to start them in week 1. = )