The "Monkeyshines" Case - Entry 12

I awoke shivering, clammy, and bent over the side of the bathtub like I had been host to a First Night Out of Prison party; my mouth tasted like the familiar mixture of mucous, blood and vomit, the memory taking me back to the brutal hazing of my Detective Academy days, which was a nostalgic, though ambivalent, treat; my face felt, from the inside, as though someone had kicked me in it, and to my fingers, from the outside, like it was covered in sweet-toffee; the vision in my left-eye was murky, and, most of all, I was really, really cold. Unbelievably cold.

I meekly stood up to assess my situation, or face, aesthetically speaking, when I stepped in an anthill of glass, which hurt about as much as one could expect at first, but that rapidly became the pain equivalent to pouring Kerosene on an open wound and lighting it with a weather-proof match. Through the searing pain, I could see the neck of what used to be my Corn-Whiskey bottle slyly sitting on the floor at the edge of the bathroom, asking with its anthropomorphic yet baelful cap just what, exactly, had gone on here?

That’s a good question, broken whiskey bottle, and one I intended to get the answer to. I looked at my face, and the goose-egg over my left eye had been opened by some unknown trauma and was slowly seeping. Someone had sent me a message, that was for certain, and they attacked me while I was in the most vulnerable of positions: out cold in an alcohol-coma while lying in the bath. How long had I been out of commission, I wondered, covering myself with four towels to try and stave off hypothermia. My frantic almost-run towards my answering machine quickly became a limp, as I had forgotten about my cut-up & Corn-Whiskied foot, and I was leaving footprints in blood all along my hallway runner. I realized that I had gotten into the tub 4 days earlier, which explained my hunger, for one, and that there had been two phone-calls in the interim, both from the same number. I didn’t bother to see what the message-leavers had to say, but rather dialed the number with a head full of rage and the makings of what was soon to be a terrifying headache.

Shockingly, Randy answered. I immediately surmised that he had been in on the entire caper from the beginning and greeted him as the traitor he was, firing off threats of unfathomable proportions and unimaginable profanity, to which he responded with more confusion than fear. He apparently took my tirade-following silence as an opportunity to explain the situation as he himself saw it: Randy was the first caller, wondering where I was, exactly, since I seemingly disappeared at a very crucial juncture of the "monkeyshines" case; he then worked his way up to my home, where his repeated knocks on my door were eventually met with what he described as a "horrible crashing sound"; Randy then became my second caller of the last 4 days, wondering, at that point, not only where I was, but also if those "terrible noises" he heard were the sounds of me injuring myself. I hung up on Randy and limped back to the bathroom.

The phone started ringing again, giving my grim discoveries the movie-mystery background ambience that they sorely needed. Yes, indeed, Randy’s persistent knocking had caused me to bolt from my whiskey-fueled slumber, slip, and fall, hurting myself emphatically & embarrassingly. Case closed.

To my surprise, though, the case was apparently closed, and by then I had answered the phone and was no longer reminiscing about my own idiocy, but was hearing from Randy that the "monkeyshines" case had concluded while I was incommunicado. I told Randy to meet me at One Duke, pulled some pants and a shirt on, and, incredibly, walked directly into the side of my bedroom door. Almost as if he heard my skull bounce off the unforgiving door-corner, Randy called right back, suggesting that he bring over food to me. I agreed, and lied down where I was, comfortable to wait on my carpet for food and perspective to arrive.

Entry 13