Willie Lobster, Detective: PART 5 "Krazy Klown Komedy"

Koqteese had just turned Detective Lobster’s car around when a small, slightly comical looking Ford Fiesta traveling in the opposite direction erupted into a ball of flames. The crappy lime green Fiesta lifted off the ground and tumbled through the air like a child’s toy. As it spun through the air a handful of people spilled out onto the blacktop.

People in baggy trousers and enormous shoes.

“Holy shit,” Koqteese said. “I have just forgotten all about taking you back to your apartment to get your glasses!”

“Glasses!” Lobster shouted. “What are you even talking about!”

Koqteese managed to steer their car out of the fireballs bouncing trajectory.

“You know,” Lobster said. “Ford makes one helluva basketball…”

“It is bouncing pretty high,” Koqteese said in agreement.

“Oh Jesus,” Lobster said as the flaming Fiesta hurtled past his window. “That’s not a basket ball, that’s a fucking flaming car!”

Koqteese decided to pretend like she hadn’t heard him—this would be her new way of dealing with Detective Lobster’s many short-comings. This was the same method employed by Lobster’s mother and father, as well as his first two wives (Rebecca and Sayshauna Ann).

“Pull over, we gotta see if there’s anyone left to pull outta that wreck,” Lobster said, banging his hand against the dashboard dramatically as he spoke.

“Whatever,” Koqteese told him as he slowed their car down.

Detective Lobster didn’t wait for the come to a complete stop—he was so badass that he leaped out of the car when it was still rolling to a stop. He’d seen that done in the movies and had always wanted to give it a whirl. Of course, what they don’t tell or show you in the movies is the wear that this tends to put on the souls of ones shoes. Detective Lobster could suddenly feel the pavement through the bottoms of both shoes.

“It was time to get a new pair, anyway,” he said as he stomped over to the wrecked Fiesta.

Though it was smashed against a streetlight, and consumed with flames, Detective Lobster could tell that this was no ordinary sub-compact. The rear fender was shaped like the backend of a goose, and the front of the car was bent to look like an enormous bird bill. Clearly this was some kind of bird-Fiesta hybrid.

Not that it mattered. The flames danced along the green paint job, licking away the frivolity like a fat kid licking an ice cream cone on a balmy July afternoon when the air conditioner is broken and he won’t shut up about being so fucking hot so his mother gives in and gives him an ice cream cone even though he’s just developed Type II diabetes and the State is going to take him away because she’s let him grow so enormously fat that it’s become a sick kind of child abuse.

It was kind of like that.

“Hey!” Lobster screamed into the flames. “Anyone still in there!”

“H-h-haaa!” a shrieking clown laugh sounded from somewhere inside the burning wreck. “H-h-haaa! This haahahahaha, this hahahah burns…”

Then there was a series of strange honking sounds. It wasn’t like the honking of a goose (which would have kinda made sense) but rather, it was like the sound of a deflating bicycle horn.

“Oh my gawd!” Koqteese said, shoving her heaving bosom against Lobster’s back. “There’s a clown in there! He’s fryin’ like a piece of succulent cod!”

“Take it easy,” Lobster said. “I’m canceling this fish fry.”

Without thinking, which was pretty much how he always operated, Detective Lobster dove through the flaming (broken) windshield and reached down to grab a hold of the burning clown.

“Hahaha…don’t try to save me…I’m done for,” the clown coughed. “Hahahaha!”

By this time the other clowns, the ones who’d fallen out of the Fiesta as it tumbled through the air, were limping towards the burning wreck.

“Chuckle-chuckle! Garsh, we gotta save Mr. Giggle-Pants!” one of the injured clowns said as he limped to the burning car.

“Stay back!” Koqteese said. “Detective Lobster will save your friend.”

“Well I couldn’t save him,” Lobster said as he leaped out of the burning Fiesta. “Poor bastard wouldn’t stop laughing…I couldn’t get him to leave the car.”

“That was Mr. Giggle-Pants,” another of the injured clowns said. “Always laughing…right up to the end.”

In the distance there came the sound of sirens.

“The fire department can handle the rest,” Lobster said, wiping the soot from his pants. “Let’s spilt before those bananas show up and start making trouble.”

“Hey mister,” one of the clowns said. “Did you say bananas?”

“Do you know about this gang of vicious, killer banana bullies?” Koqteese said, pursing her lips in a way that reminded all of the clowns, as well as Detective Lobster, of that fat boy licking his beloved ice cream cone.

“Those rubber heads have been muscling in on our territory,” the smoking clown said. He wasn’t smoking a cigarette; his clothes were singed and giving off little trails of jet black smoke. It was really distracting.

“The bananas are doing kids parties?” Lobster said skeptically.

“No, no, we’re cocaine smugglers,” the sort-of-still-burning Clown said.

“I should have known,” Lobster said. “That explains the red noses…”

“Those bastard bananas must have slipped a bomb under our Klown Kar,” the clown explained.

Lobster frowned.

“Why did you say it like that?” he asked the clown.

“Say what like what?”

“You called your clown car your ‘klown kar,’ that’s really very stupid,” Lobster said. Detective Lobster was a very good judge of stupid. This was because of Einstein’s famous theory of “Takes One to Know One.” This rule applies to a lot of people, in a lot of instances.

“I guess I was trying to add a bit of levity,” the clown said. “To a terrible situation. You see, that ‘s what we clowns do—we add levity to a terrible situation. That terrible situation is called ‘reality.’ You see, the world is full of chaos and pain, there’s nothing I can do about that. What I can do, however, is try to make both you and your voluptuous friend smile by wearing baggy pants…and calling my car a ‘klown kar.’ Is that so wrong?”

Another of the dazed, and injured clowns nodded in agreement and said: “We also sell cocaine…to help with all that suffering and shit…honk-a-honk-a!”

Detective Lobster grunted in disgust and turned away.

“Come on Koqteese,” he said, heading back to his car. “Let’s leave these Klowns to their Krime scene.”

SCATTERSHOT READERS YOU DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

DOES DETECTIVE LOBSTER PLAY POOL WITH AN UMBRELLA?

OR

DOES DETECTIVE LOBSTER DIG A REALLY DEEP HOLE WITH A SLOTTED SPOON?

VOTE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!!!

Willie Lobster, Detective: PART 4 "Not Much Happens Because Jason Is Getting Burned Out (the second to last installment)""

Willie Lobster started up at the banana thug. The thug's mouth trickled blood. The blood was red. The redness reminded Lobster that he had a weapon hidden under his divan.

The divan was a ratty-looking piece of furniture that Lobster kept for sentimental reasons. Most of these reasons had to do with his bitches. Lobster had, over the course of his life, had several female dogs...they'd loved the divan. They were gone now (just like poor Daniel) but Lobster kept their memory alive with the divan.

Lobster groaned and rolled towards the tattered divan.

"Hey!" one of the banana thugs shouted.

"Get him!" another shouted.

"Mu mufth!" the one with the bloody mouth said.

Detective Lobster stuck his hand beneath the divan and groped frantically for the weapon he'd stashed underneath--because one never knew when one was going to be attacked inside one's home by a rang of bananas.

"Get back! Stay back!" Lobster said, whipping out his secret stashed weapon. "I don't want to...but I'll use this if I have to."

The banana thugs stopped dead in their tracks.

"An apple?" one said.

"Yo, am I trippin' or is that dude holding an apple?" another asked.

The banana thugs were not seeing things, Detective Lobster was indeed brandishing an apple. He'd thought he'd left a 9mm under the divan, but apparently he'd moved it to another (presumably more secure) location.

Instead, Lobster had found nothing but a moldy apple.

"What?" Lobster said. "This is a fucking gun."

He looked at the grimy apple in his left hand. There was a generous dusting of dog hair and dust bunny remnants upon the apples mushy flesh.

"Ha! Ha! This muthafucka is nuts!" one of the banana's said.

"Grab 'em!" the banana leader said, spitting blood onto the floor.

As the thugs descended upon him, Lobster thrust the nasty apple in their direction. The first thug to reach the desperate detective got a face full of moldy apple mush.

"Gah!" the blinded banana shouted, frantically wiping the offensive gunk off his face.

The blinded thug's flailing smacked the second thug, whose gun went off.

Detective Lobster, who'd grown up in a bad neighborhood, wasn't fazed by the gunshot and jumped to his feet and raced towards his front door.

"Oooooawwww!" the lead banana thug screamed. "Youf -hot me! Youf -hot me inna mouf!"

"Oh man...I am so sorry, man."

The trickle of blood pouring out the lead banana thug's mouth was now a geyser of gushing crimson death. This banana's problems were now bigger than a few popped stitches.

"Dude, we gotta take you to the hospital..."

Lobster, meanwhile was racing out the door and down the steps of his apartment building. As he neared his car, he saw that Savanna Koqteese was sitting behind the wheel. Her face was a mixture of concern and constipation.

"Go! Go! Go!" Lobster shouted as he leaped into the car.

A true lady of action, Koqteese didn't question him--she just got them the hell out of there.

"I heard the gunshot and decided to get the engine warm for you," she told him after they'd gone a few blocks.

"You're one helluva woman, Koqteese," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"Shady Street, to see DeJesus's cousin, DeMoses," Lobster told her. "I'm getting to the bottom of this mess..."

"Fine," she said. "Could you do me one favor?"

"Anything, sweetheart."

"Put on your seatbelt."

Lobster, who was never a fan of mandatory safety devices, reluctantly reached back and grabbed his seatbelt.

"These bananas are driving me nuts," Lobster said gravely.

"Did you get your glasses?" Koqteese asked.

A thousand thoughts had been racing though Lobster's razor-sharp mind. Where was his 9mm? Who were these bananas? Why were they trying to kill him? Was Koqteese really a cock tease? Were DeJesus and DeMoses Catholics?

He was thinking about everything...everything but his glasses.

"Damn it," he grumbled.

"What?"

"We gotta go back," Lobster told her. "I forgot to get them."

SCATTERSHOT READERS YOU CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

DOES KOQTEESE DRIVE THEM BACK TO LOBSTERS APARTMENT?

OR

DOES A CARLOAD OF CLOWNS EXPLODE NEARBY, MAKING BOTH OF THEM FORGET ALL ABOUT LOBSTER'S GLASSES?

Willie Lobster, Detective: PART 3 "A Familiar Fruit"

Detective Willie Lobster lived in an apartment over on Maple Avenue. It was a small, rinky-dink affair with just enough room for a a mattress, wardrobe, bidet, and hot plate.

Apartment 1313.

The neighborhood was diseased, a gathering place for those waiting to die and those who'd already done it. Lobster's next-door-neighbor had died a few years back, and no one had noticed for almost the month.

The stink was that bad.

Curling wisps of stream shot out of a number of crevasses on the sidewalk--no one asked what it was exactly that was leaking out of ground. All anyone could tell was that it stank. It stank like the apartment, the building, the street, the neighborhood, the borough, the city, the county, the State, the nation, the continent, the hemisphere, the planet...the whole goddamn universe.

"Everything stinks in the miserable city," Savanna Koqteese said.

She was sitting next to Detective Lobster. They were inside his 1971 Chevy Crapi. As you can imagine, it wasn't a very good car.

"Yeah, well..." Lobster grumbled, "It ain't so bad."

"It ain't so bad?" Koqteese said in disbelief.

"That's what I said," Lobster told her. "Now you wait here, I gotta run inside and fetch something..."

The word "fetch" reminded Lobster of Daniel, his fallen Spaniel.

"Get it together, Lobster. Get it together," he murmured to himself as he climbed out of the shit-bucket seat and oozed himself out onto the steaming streets.

The climb up to his apartment was long and arduous. In the winter, when there was snow and ice on the cold concrete steps, Lobster liked to pretend he was an explorer climbing some treacherous, far-way mountain.

Like Mount Kill-a-Man-orrow.

Lobster knew something was wrong even before he'd reached his front door. The "Wipe Your Fucking Feet" mat was slightly askew. As he approached his front door, he could see that it was part of the way open.

"Better check my piece," Lobster said.

He reached down and gave his dick a squeeze.

That was what he called his pistol--Lobster called it his "dick." He called his penis his "gun." The last time he'd tried to make love to a woman...well...you can see that there was a misunderstanding. Four hours and several phone calls to Sloan Whixler, his attorney, straightened everyone out (except his "gun" which was no longer very straight).

"Well, well..." a voice said as Lobster entered his apartment. "Look what the proverbial cat dragged in!"

There were five men lurking amid Lobsters meager possessions. These (the possessions) included: pizza boxes, empty tin cans, used tissues, discarded candy wrappers, a can opener, a TV Guide from 10 years ago, several dozen cardboard tubes (from paper towels, one never knows when one might need a cardboard tube), and a carton of milk--aged to a fine blue cheddar.

"A gang! Inside my apartment!" Lobster exclaimed as he reached for his gun, but he was confused himself and reached for his...well you know...which wasn't very helpful in this situation.

"Yo, check out this perv," the leader of the lurkers said.

All the men were wearing identical rubber banana costumes. There was something familiar about them...but Lobster couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"What the fuck are you doing in here?" he asked them.

"Okay, first off--we're not a "gang" we're a bunch," the leader of the lurkers said.

The rest of the bunch sniggered in approval.

"You lady friend, a Ms. Neverputt, she's a bit of a problem for us," the banana man said.

"What are you talking about?" Lobster said, wondering where his glasses were.

Lobster fumbled over to the light switch near the front door and turned on the apartments single dim-bulb.

"Like roaches," Lobster said as the bananas scrambled to avoid the light.

"Hey! Let's trash his shit 'an leave!"

"Let's bash his brains in!"

The leader of the lurkers huffed, "Nah man, we gotta rare opportunity to do a little one-on-five counseling..."

The banana thugs descended upon Detective Lobster in a loose configuration roughly resembling a crescent moon.

The Moon. It had been Daniel's favorite celestial body. He'd stay up all night a yawl at it, his furry paws occasionally swiping the air as if he could somehow...get at the moon.

"You're standing on Daniel's nest," Lobster sobbed.

It was true, one of the banana thugs was trampling on Daniel's circular puppy bed--Lobster had left it untouched in the dog's honor. Now it was soiled by the rubbed robed brute.

"Fuck you, Lobster...and your damn dog bed," the banana thug spat.

Lobster gritted his teeth and lunged in anger at the banana.

"I'll PEEL you! I'll PEEL all of you!" Lobster shouted as he transformed himself into a whirling dervish of hands, feet, teeth, and eyebrows.

Someone kicked someone else in the face, while someone smacked someone else in the knee cap.

It was all very exciting.

But in the end, Detective Lobster was no match for a gang of fruit-themed thugs.

"Hold 'em down!" the leader said, spitting blood.

The blood was from a recent oral surgery and not, as one might expect, all the excitement and scrapping.

"Oh crap, I popped a stitch. My dentist is gonna kill me!" the banana thug said. "Listen boys, wail on Detective Lobster until he knows better than to get mixed up with mysterious, provocatively-named dames."

SCATTERSHOT READERS YOU CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

WHAT FRUIT SAVES DETECTIVE LOBSTER?

APPLE?

OR

PEAR?

Willie Lobster, Detective: PART 2 "Taco Night"

Detective Willie Lobster clutched his gut and took several quick gulps of air.

The panting reminded him of Daniel, his recently dead Spaniel.

"My God," Savanna Koqteese asked. She hesitantly stepped out from behind the office door. Grimacing, she tried to to stare at the watery-eyed Detective.

"I'm not crying," Lobster wheezed. "I'm just...still in mourning."

"Shouldn't you go after him?" Koqteese asked, motioning out the still open office door.

"What?"

"The banana that attacked you," she said. "He's getting away..."

"Oh my God," Detective Lobster exclaimed. "Lady, what day is it?"

"Huh?"

"You know, Monday...Tuesday..."

"Oh, it's Thursday," Koqteese said, not sure what the day of the week had to do with running after the maniac-banana.

"Thursday," Detective Lobster said. "Thursday, Taco-Day. Come on..."

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Down to Nacho Heaven to see a man about a taco."

***

Detective Lobster and Savanna Koqteese were sitting in a grimy paper-mache booth. Lobster was wearing a massive, cheap, foam sombrero and a large bib. Koqteese, on the other hand, wore only an embarrassed look.

"This place is...interesting," she said.

"Yes," Lobster said. "It certainly is! Best tacos in the city."

"Listen, Detective, I can't go any further with you until I know if you'll take my case."

"Case?" Lobster repeated. "What case? I thought you were just looking for your dog."

And then the tears began to flow once again on the grizzled Detective's face.

"Daniel...you son-of-a-bitch..." Lobster sobbed. "That bullet was meant for me...for ME damn it!"

Koqteese got up to fetch a few extra napkins. She hated to see snot on a grown-man.

"Speaking of terrible injustices," Koqteese said, segueing into her brother's disappearance like a lazy podcaster. "My brother Pedro has gone missing."

"Really?" Detective Lobster said, wiping salsa from his fingers.

"My family hasn't heard from him in days," Koqteese said. "We're getting really worried."

"Maybe he can't remember your phone number," Lobster said. "Ever think about that?"

"But if he couldn't call, surely he could just come over..."

Lobster smiled.

"Honey, you ever think your brother might have forgotten your phone number AND where you live?"

"Could that happen?" Koqteese asked.

"Could a cocker-spaniel catch a bullet with his teeth? No. But damned if he didn't try..."

Just then, the portly-criminally-connected (but not a criminal) owner of Nacho Heaven, David DeJesus waddled over to their booth.

"Hola, Detective, how es your tacos?"

"Fabulous," Lobster said, sniffling. "I was just about to get up and order another soft-shell..."

"Con carne?"

"Si," Lobster nodded.

DeJesus snapped his fingers and a waitress appeared with the Detectives delicious soft-shell taco.

"So," the portly restaurant owner began, "You never bring a date with you to Taco Night...so I know that this lady must be a client of yours, senior."

DeJesus was right, Willie Lobster never mixed business and tacos. It was just bad business.

"Mr. Lobster was just about to take the case of my missing brother Pedro," Koqteese said.

DeJesus nodded, "Pedro. I like that, I have a few sons with that nombre."

Detective Lobster squinted across the greasy taco platter at Koqteese. He didn't like how she's presumed he was taking her case--he also didn't like how much make-up she was wearing.

"We were so happy when he got that job, working at the used car dealership off Interstate-21," Koqteese said, starting to cry. "But now my brother is missing..."

DeJesus stroked his mustache and said, "Interstate-21? You mean your brother got a job working at Carmageddon?"

"Yes," Koqteese said. "That's right, working for Mr. Baddguy."

"Oh man," DeJesus said groaning. "That's over in the Sunbelt...that's a real rough part of town."

"The Sunbelt," Detective Lobster repeated. "The Sunbelt. Why does that ring a bell? There's something I'm supposed to not do..."

"Hey Lobster, you gonna investigate this lady's brother you should be careful," DeJesus said. "Go see my cousin DeMoses, he owns a bar on Shady Street...it's not too far from the Sunbelt. He can tell you more about this Baddguy."

Detective Lobster bit into his taco, uncertain if his gut hurt from being punched or from all the Grade-F meat.

"Maybe I'll do that...maybe I will..."

SCATTERSHOT READERS YOU CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

Does Lobster take an antacid?

OR

Does Lobster go home and get his glasses?

Willie Lobster, Detective: A SCATTERSHOT Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

“Mr. Lobster,” Savanna Koqteese said as she entered the cramped office. “I’m in desperate need of your services.”

Detective Willie Lobster looked up from his Jumbo Crossword puzzle book and squinted. It wasn’t because the room was bright, but because he’d forgotten his glasses at home.

“Look Mister, I’m not taking any new clients right now,” Lobster grumbled.

“But Detective Lobster, you’re my only hope.”

“Hope? Hope?” Lobster repeated. “Nope, I’m nobody’s hope…more like a dope. I just realized you’re a dame for Christsake. You can do better.”

“But I want you!” Koqteese said. She bent over and maneuvered her shoulders together in such a way that her massive breasts smooshed together. This erotic display was lost on Lobster, who as previously mentioned had forgotten his glasses at home.

“Look, I’m not taking on any new clients,” Lobster said. “If you want I can recommend a very good fella…does mostly doggie recovery work….”

Koqteese huffed and crossed her arms.

“Mr. Lobster, I don’t need anyone to help me find my doggie!”

“Oh,” Lobster said, shrugging. “Then you ain’t doing too bad, honey.”

Detective Lobster had recently buried his pet spaniel, Daniel. Daniel the spaniel had been Lobster’s pet and life-friend. The two had chased cars and perps for nearly fifteen years. The death of Daniel was one of the reasons why Detective Lobster wasn’t taking on any new clients.

“I lost my license,” Lobster said, revealing the other reason he wasn’t eager to acquire new work.

“But Mr. Lobster, I don’t care about all that,” Koqteese huffed. “I need help—your help.”

Squinting, Lobster tried to tell if Koqteese had smeared her lipstick or if she had a ginger mustache. Lobster couldn’t abide mustaches.

Hell, any facial hair for that matter. Nasty stuff, facial hair, it was always soaking up soup and catching crumbs. If this dame had a mustache she really was barking up the wrong tree. Lobster told her as much:

“Lady,” he said “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Mister, what’s with you and all this dog talk?” Koqteese whined.

It was starting to dawn on her that perhaps she’d made a mistake in coming to Lobster’s office. Koqteese bringing up “dog” made Lobster think of Daniel which caused his eyes to well up with quivering tears.

“Aww, I’m sorry,” he said sniffing. “I got something in my eye, will you excuse me?”

Lobster started to get up and head for the office door, when someone starting knocking on it from the other side.

“I can’t believe I wasted my lunch hour coming down here,” Ms. Koqteese muttered to herself. She followed Detective Lobster over to the front door. She’d come with the intention of hiring Willie Lobster to find her brother, Pedro. Pedro was a good boy who’d just gotten mixed up in some very bad things.

His last job, for example, was selling used cars off Interstate-21.

“I just forgot to take my Claritin this morning,”’ Lobster told her as he whipped the tears from his eyes.

The person on the other side of the office’s door continued to obnoxiously hammer away at the door.

“Alright, alright,” Lobster grunted as he opened the door. “What? Whattdya want?”

Standing in the hallway was a man wearing a rubber banana costume. His tan face poked out from the costume’s round face-hole.

“You Lobster?” the banana man asked.

“Who wants to know?” Lobster said. Again, the Detective had to squint because he’d left his glasses at home.

“Me.”

“Me who?”

“The Top Banana.”

Koqteese’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened. Before the banana man could see her, she ducked behind the door.

“Look, I’ll tell ya what I just told that lady with the stash,” Lobster began. “I’m not accepting any new clients…”

Before Detective Lobster could finish, the man in the banana costume punched him right in the gut. Detective Lobster didn’t have a large gut, but he was middle aged and had very little will power when it came to pasta and savory crepes.

These things tended to add up over time.

“Oof!” Lobster groaned and doubled over.

Staring down at the banana’s feet, Lobster could see a pair of blurry Nikes. There were a few flecks of white powder on them. Lobster noticed the powder because as he gasped for air his eyes narrowed and the world momentarily jumped into focus.

“Jesus…” Lobster wheezed. “Are…you…in…a…fuckin…banana…costume?”

“Hey man, you see me judging you?” the banana man asked.

“Good…point…”

“Look, I gotta split, but before I do remember what the Top Banana says—you listening?”

Detective Lobster shook his head.

“Stay outta the Sunbelt. That’s Banana Town, ya dig?”

Lobster grunted and said, “Oh, is that all? Of course…Sunbelt…stay out…got it.”

It should be noted that Detective Lobster had no idea what the banana man was talking about. But Lobster knew, from years of experience, that one never argues with a costumed bandit. A costume tended to lower one’s social inhibitions, allowing most folk to do things they’d normally know better than to do.

“Oh shit,” the banana man said, suddenly erupting into laughter. “I fucking said ‘split.’ That shit was not intentional, I assure you. I ain’t that wack!”

“No,” Lobster said, still gasping for breath. “Of course you’re not…that wack.”

“Alright Lobster, remember—I got my eye on you.”

And with that the banana man turned and fled down into the darkened hallway. Just as the rubber-suited attacked had disappeared from view, Lobster got his wind back.

SCATTERSHOT READERS YOU CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

DOES LOBSTER GRAB A TOILET PLUNGER ?

OR

DOES LOBSTER GO BUY A TACO?

VOTE IN THE COMMENTS!!!

Detectives

I've had Detectives on my mind a lot lately. Back in July I finished my second novel-length manuscript about a Detective (and his young niece) living in 1900 London. Currently I’m two-thirds of the way through the latest Thomas Pynchon novel INHERENT VICE, which is about—you guessed it—a stoner Detective in 1970’s California.

Every since I can recall, I’ve been fascinated by Detectives. People whose job it is to right wrongs and solve impossible puzzles. Private Detectives are of course, the most romanticized. There’s something about them—I guess it’s the fact that they’re beholden to no boss or code of conduct. Even on TV, 99% of cop shows are about police detectives. After all who wants to watch guys write parking tickets?

No one.

Growing up, I really only had one friend—my little sister Amber. She and I got it into our heads somewhere between third and fifth grade that we were going to grow up and become “PI’s.” I think this partly came for a “Junior Detective Book” I had acquired via one of those school sponsored book orders (you know the kind that hawk books with tissue-paper catalogs).

With chapters on fingerprint taking, disguise making, and how to write in secret code, this book promised to teach you the basics of criminology. Our first, and only case, involved the sudden appearance of an ambulance up the street at our neighbor’s house. Amber and I were friends with the young boy who lived there, and after reading the chapter on subversive interviewing techniques, I saddled up to him and posed this sly question:

“Why was there an ambulance at your house last night?”

Later, when I told this story to my Dad he snorted and said “Smooth.”

Indeed.

It turned out that this was question, which I had asked so nonchalantly, was actually quite painful to our friend. He winced and told me that his father had had a stroke. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I knew that with very little effort, Amber and I solved our first case!

Of course, this triumph was short-lived, because now this poor kid was looking very upset. I hadn’t wanted to make him sad, or hurt his feelings…I was just curious and too stupid to know that it wasn’t any of my business. Children, it is often said, are some of the cruelest people on Earth, and that is sadly very true. But it’s not their fault, most of the time they just don’t know any better.

“It’ll be alright,” I told my friend, in a vain attempt to make him feel better.

But it wouldn’t be “alright.” My friend’s vital, fiery, ex-military father was now a withered shell of a human being. His speech was slurred and he shuffled around like a man decades older than he was. In the words of Pynchon’s stoner-detective: “It was a bummer man.” My friend’s father lived a fairly long time in this state, and seeing him always made me uncomfortable. Part of the reason was just simply that old people tend to freak me out (sorry), but it was also because of what an idiot I’d been when he’d suffered his stroke. Our friend up the street had enough problems at the time, he didn’t need me and my snot-nosed sister butting into it with our “sly” line of questioning.

Being a Detective wasn’t just glamorous, exciting adventure where you got to act tough and rescue “dames,” it was also hard, thankless work. Work that sometimes meant doing things that often times hurt other people (in ways other than stabbing or shooting a guy, which I also imagine is something Detectives must do, from time to time). I think that realization was what killed me and my sister’s dream of becoming Private Investigators.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it...