The "Expletive-Deleted" Case - Entry 13

I had gotten myself worked up over a non-issue, apparently, as the kindly waitress had resolved the whole "drunkenly walking out on my bill" issue by just tacking said bill up on the Wall of Shame behind the cash register at One Duke...they knew I would be back, so strong was their hold on my palette. Since I was sitting in good standing at my favourite watering-hole, even though I hadn’t cleared the debt as of yet, I decided to alleviate my stress with a couple of thimblefuls of East-Tallahallowockian Moonshine...knowing me like she does, the sweet-natured waitress left me the bottle to read like the back of a cereal-box while downing my fire-water.

I felt a pang in my stomach that I mistook to be hunger; as I read the liquor bottle further, I became aware that it was curiosity that had my stomach twisting in knots...the strong, boy-scout-training knots that the Moonshine had already tied my mind up into. I wasn’t alone in my liquor-induced epiphany, it would seem, as the Tallahallowockian tribe responsible for my stress-alleviation held that this Moonshine, along with the teachings of one Mossol-Belk, were the two keys necessary for an introduction into their structure of religious belief. The Voncorp, or family, of renown within was the Nihs family; theirs was the only remaining undiluted bloodline in the greater Tallahallowockian tribe, which, by my own drunken calculations, meant that they had managed to keep their incestuous relations going longer than the other Voncorps, which, in my admittedly small-scale understanding of the world, wasn’t something to be all that proud of.

Regardless, this Mossol-Belk was something of a Christ-figure to the Tallahallowockians, though his teachings were sparse on the tattered label adorning the back of the liquor bottle, leaving the interested reader with only these words to ponder:

“In Voncorps, only righteous yearning cures all...nothing else”

I blinked heavily twice, re-reading the seemingly wise-words of Mossol-Belk until I could no longer focus...until it dawned on me that Randy was still missing, and that I had no leads to speak of. I quickly stood up, just as quickly losing my balance and sitting back down; I stood up again, this time taking into account the level of inebriation I had attained, and left a hearty tip for the waitress, hoping that my hand-scrawled note explaining "post-visit" payment was enough for her to tack this new bill next to my old one of the Shame Wall. I left for sleep, remembering that Detective Work and alcohol don‘t mix, as I previously learned when our ill-conceived "plan" resulted in disaster and Randy’s disappearance on the back of a galloping Shinkleblossom. But, still, there was something about the picture of Mossol-Belk on the bottle...an image and a thought I would hopefully hold on to once I awoke from the liquor-slumber I was about to resoundingly enjoy.

Entry 14