Nocturnal

Bryan Clauser: Morning Person

The brown Buick cut across three lanes of traffic. Bryan covered his face, trying to ignore the chorus of horns sounding in the car’s wake.

“Jesus, Pooks. Try not to kill me before we go back on nights, will ya?”

“Pussy,” Pookie said. “Hey, I have some more ideas on our series bible.”

“It’s your TV show, Pooks, not ours. I’m not writing anything.”

“You’re an executive producer,” Pookie said. “No one knows what the hell executive producers do, anyway. Here’s my idea — we make the chief’s wife this smoking-hot MILF. She’s ignored by her work-obsessed husband, so to fulfill her need to feel sexy and wanted she uses her feminine wiles to tease the Young Rebel Detectives. But it backfires on her when the good-looking detective — based on me, of course — finally beds her with the Chang Bang.”

Bryan couldn’t help but laugh. The Chang Bang was from Pookie’s previous pet project, a coffee-table book called 69 Sex Positions the KamaSutra Forgot.

“Is the Chang Bang the one with the trapeze?”

“No, the trapeze is only used in Granger’s Golden Snitch. The Chang Bang is the one with the hula hoop and the semi-inverted angle on the bar stool.”

Bryan sighed and looked out the window. “The hula hoop. How could I forget?”

“Anyway, we check-mark-yes for hot sex scene, but we also get ongoing dramatic tension as our one-night fling turns into a torrent love affair.”

“Torrid.”

“What?”

“Torr-id, not torr-ent.”

“That too,” Pookie said. “The Staff Sergeant with the Heart of Gold finds out and tries to give wisdom to the Young Rebel Detective. And it makes things dicey between Young Rebel Detective and his nemesis, the Crotchety Old-Guard Chief of Police.”

“Your show seems to be more about sex than police work,” Bryan said. “You getting laid these days?”

Pookie shook his head. “Nope. I put Junior and the Twins into a hiatus while I work on the series bible.”

“Well, then maybe you should lay off the torrid scenes for a while, or you’re going to wind up with blue balls.”

Pookie’s head snapped to the right. He stared at Bryan. The car swerved into the left lane.

Bryan pointed at an oncoming truck. “Dude!”

Pookie saw the truck, slammed the Buick back into the proper lane as the truck shot by, horn blaring.

“Pooks, what the fuck?”

“Sorry,” he said. “But that’s it. You did it.”

“I did what?”

“Came up with the name.”

“Of?”

“Of the TV show,” Pookie said. “You know, the thing we’ve been talking about for the past fifteen minutes?”

“And that name is?”

“Blue Balls.”

It would have been a good joke, but the man looked serious. “Pooks, you’re going to name your TV show Blue Balls?”

Pookie nodded.

“You can’t name a show Blue Balls.”

“Like hell I can’t,” he said. “Half cop drama, half soft-core porn. Just think of all the classic TV shows that have lasted more than three seasons — which puts them into syndication, where the big bucks are, by the way — that have the word blue in the title. Hill Street Blues. NYPD Blue. Blue Bloods. Rookie Blue.”

“Those are cop terms,” Bryan said. “Blue balls has, like, a totally different meaning.”

“Right, it’s sexier. That means HBO might pick it up, then we can show titties. Holy shit, Bri-Bri, this is the ticket. I got to email that to myself.”

Pookie drove with one hand, thumbed his cell-phone keys with the other.

Bryan’s gaze nervously flicked between the road ahead and Pookie’s phone. “Is there any point in me reminding you texting and driving is illegal?”

“No,” Pookie said. He hit the last button and put the phone back in his pocket. “Speaking of plot lines, Bri-Bri, any more of those dreams last night?”

Bryan paused, then shook his head.

“L-L-W-T-L,” Pookie said. “Let me hear it. Similar to the first one?”

Bryan closed his eyes. The tangy taste of blood echoed on his tongue. “No. Worse.”

“Talk to a brotha. What happened?”

“Not really sure,” Bryan said. Then, in barely a breath: “I think I tore his arm off.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say what he really remembered: I BIT his arm off, and it tasted better than anything I’ve ever known.

“You tore his arm off,” Pookie said, nodding as if that was the most normal thing in the world. “Nice. And what did you do with said arm?”

Bryan closed his eyes, trying to crystallize his fuzzy dream-memories. “I don’t know. I woke up after that part. It was weird in another way, too.”

“How so?”

“I woke up sporting wood.”

Pookie let out his pfft sound. “That’s new? I wake up with wood every day. Can’t even pee in the toilet. It won’t point down. Gotta whiz in the shower or it’s golden rainbows for all.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“So you woke up with a rager, so what?”

Bryan chewed on his bottom lip. “Because I’m pretty sure I was turned on by the killing.”

Had the first dream also aroused him? No, not that he could remember. But murdering the kid, all that hate mixed up with lust, lust for pain, lust for fear … Bryan tried to push the thoughts away.

“Was it in the same place?” Pookie said. “The dream, did you recognize the location?”

Bryan started to talk, then paused, remembering the red blanket at Fern Street — he’d seen it in his dream, and then, impossibly, found it in real life. What if there was something from last night’s dream waiting for him, something far worse than an abandoned red blanket with yellow duckies and brown bunnies?

All it would take was one quick trip to set his mind at ease.

“Post and Meacham Place,” Bryan said.

“Roger, Adam-12,” Pookie said. “See the man, see the man at Post and Meacham.”

Pookie suddenly changed lanes for no reason, cutting off a Volkswagen as he headed for Post Street.