The "Expletive-Deleted" Case - Entry 8

I woke up in a puddle of horror, a pool of shame from which I was dripping with fear...I checked my wallet for confirmation of the awful feeling wedged in my stomach next to the slowly-digesting aspirin tablets: I didn’t pay my tab at One Duke.

I scampered to my living room, grasping for the telephone in the dark, but stopped and held my breath. Was it too far gone, I thought, the damage...done? It couldn’t be, not for a loyal regular such as myself, no...they could forgive one night of drunken idiocity, couldn’t they? I finally located my phone and called Randy, who wasn’t answering; I let it ring again and again until the repeated drone of said ring forced me into a realization: The Plan. I was nowhere near ready, but a quick glance at my Lawson Detective Agency © Brand Silver Time-Piece told me all I needed to know: I was late, and Randy’s very life depended on my getting to Old Lady Sinkleblossom’s house before he did what we agreed he would do...our plan had gone so far past mere Detective Agency Work, past even logic or revenge, that I began to seriously contemplate the disadvantageousness of forming a scheme while overzealously, embarrassingly, ludicrously, revoltingly drunk like I hadn’t ever before.

I checked off the necessities as I stumbled around my abode: 1 batch, Brown-Ground Broken-Down Southwest Norwegian Coffee (that was the skin-tightening blend); 1 togo cup, filled with the aforementioned coffee and copious amounts of sugar and cream; 1 Lawson Detective Agency © Brand Rain Coat; 1 Lawson Detective Agency © Imitation-Brand Knock-Off Rain Coat; two glow-sticks, 1 red, 1 green; 1 traffic pylon; 1 twelve-pack, shaving mirrors; 3 rolls, low-grade toilet paper; 1 donkey-saddle. There was work to be done, to be sure, but Randy would be the dried out corn-field to Shinkleblossom’s lit match if I didn’t hustle over there with my extinguisher but fast.

The inebriated planning stage be damned...this still seemed the best way to get that ancient, godless old tramp, and we needed to, for Randy’s sake. He hasn’t been the same since she got her claws into him, and he may never be well again, but at least the future might hold a time where he’ll be able to close his eyes at night and dream of something other than the wrinkled visage of Tabitha Shinkleblossom commanding him to get dressed up in a Lone Ranger costume, to get on all fours, to clean the bronzed kick-shield of her home-made bar while she spanked him with a tennis racket...at least, after this, he’ll have his revenge. And maybe, just maybe, a story worth telling.

Entry 9