The "Monkeyshines" Case - Entry 4

Armed with my traveler’s mug of Oriental coffee, I walked over to the last known address of one Bernice Sheppenwastein, as, by twist of fate, or, possibly, cruel inconvenience, she lived right around the corner from me. Sipping my coffee slowly, the way a baby calf savors the suckling of their mother’s teat, was all I could do to keep the over-powering feelings of Bad Karma at bay...at least until I saw the slick, degenerate concrete steps leading up to the tipster’s abode.

Like an alarm bell, sans the bell, as whatever ill-thoughts I had did not have an audio soundtrack, just the metaphoric red, flashing lights of an alarm...so, like an alarm, my skin crawled backwards, as if retreating from an image too horrible to contemplate; the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, akin to the inner-workings of an adolescent boy’s gym-shorts when provided with too much friction; my knees knocking like a discount muffler-shop salesman selling 3 oil changes for the price of 1 door-to-door; my similes running for cover, like...something, leaving me helpless to end this run-on sentence properly. The rusted, half-torn screen-door creaked as I made my way up the second step, and I took a quick glance at the open window facing me, seeing only the flickering light of an abandoned television set in the front room. I got up the remaining three steps without incident, and, blowing out a slow-roasted blend of coffee-breath & medically-diagnosed halitosis, I knocked on the front door not once, but one-and-a-half times, as I couldn’t quite make up my mind. The silhouette appeared first; a small, curvaceous shadow that unlatched the front door, simultaneously alleviating my seemingly unfounded fears, and, quite possibly, allowing me in.

But then, as the door flew open, the air of such a mighty pull sucked me in a step, like a doorway undertow, and I saw who I presumed to be Ms. Sheppenwastein on her knees in front of the door. It was then that I realized that, not only was the sinewy form I had seen just moments earlier the curves of this woman’s gigantic head, but that I had inadvertently pulled back at such a horrid sight, thrusting my pelvis towards this behemoth’s unfortunately situated crotch-level head.

Suffice it to say, Ms. Sheppenwastein was neither impressed, nor a small lady, so all of the earlier feelings of Bad Karma came flooding back. Standing, but apparently understanding my response to her countenance, as she very well could have been the Missing Link, she invited me in with a guttural grunt, and a wave of her mighty, multi-knuckled hand. It was at precisely that time that I desperately wished I had called ahead.

Entry 5