Had a long night. I wake up this morning and walk around in a daze, wishing like shit that I had a cup of coffee, but too fried to even contemplate making coffee or walking over to the local coffee merchant. And then I see it.
At first, it looks just like a spot of sunlight, right in front of the door, but I know that can't be right, because the door's too far away from the window to be getting any direct sunlight. Besides, there's something wrong with the color. It was too white.
It was an envelope. Apparently, someone had slid it under the door--someone real classy, given the loop of red ribbon (lined with gold colored thread) tied around its unmarked surface.
Like any no-nonsense private eye, Steve Forceman has a lot of enemies. And some of them are clever enough to have, oh, maybe laced an envelope with some deadly biological or chemical agent. So you'll understand if the first thing I did was to don a pair of latex gloves and give the thing a look.
Now I couldn't have a full toxicological screen run on the thing, as I'd pissed off my contact at the FBI. (The regular cops had hated me for a long time already.) We were drunk one night, and I told him he looked like Cher. And he said, like Cher when she was on Sonny & Cher? And I said, no, more like she looked in Silkwood. And he got mad and said to go fuck myself. With relish. And I was gonna ask him where he got that 'with relish' part, because it seemed pretty clever at the time. (It seems pretty dumb now.)
But instead I started to tell him about this secret fantasy I'd always had about doing a three-way with Cher and Gertrude Stein, while Alice B. Toklas watched and jerked off, but he'd already left right after he'd told me to go fuck myself with relish, so instead I told my fantasy to the whole bar. Little Joe, the bartender, wanted to know whether Alice B. Toklas was using her hand to jerk off, because he sorta pictured her using a vibrator or maybe a dildo. And this burntout lady with dyed red hair at the end of the bar wanted to know what positions we'd all be in, but she must've had too much to drink, because she had to go puke before I finished my description. And this guy in a Mark Prior jersey--come to think of it, he could've been Mark Prior--he was that bland and pale and fishy--(and if it was Mark Prior, I'm really pissed that I didn't have the presence of mind to ask him for his autograph, or at least threaten to beat the shit out of him if he landed on the disabled list again anytime in the next, like, 5 years)--well, he wanted to know if maybe Sonny could get in on the action--maybe on the sidelines with Alice B. Toklas or something. And I said that was a stupid idea.
And this old guy, who actually seemed to've waxed his mustache like they used to in the old days, wanted to know if Gertrude Stein would be saying, Don't, pussy. Don't. Don't, please don't. I'll do anything, pussy, but please don't do it. Please don't. Please don't pussy... as Ernest Hemingway claimed he heard her 'pleading and begging' under (presumably) similar circumstances in A Moveable Feast. And if so, this guy wanted to know, whom would she be addressing? Me, Cher, or Alice B. Toklas? And would the stresses fall on 'please' or 'don't' or 'pussy' or what?
And someone else wanted to know who Gertrude Stein was, and when I scornfully replied, You don't know who arguably the greatest voice of modernism in 20th century English literature is, you little piece of shit? he tried to save face by saying that he might not know who Gertrude Stein was, but he sure as shit knew who Alice B. Toklas was. And I said, gimme a break. (I sure do need one). How the fuck can you know who Alice B. Toklas is if you don't know who Gertrude Stein is? Otherwise Alice B. Toklas is, at best, a literary footnote.
And then he really threw me and said that Alice B. Toklas was the main character in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which was his favorite book. As everyone knows, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was written by Gertrude Stein for Chrissake!!!! So I asked him who wrote the goddamned book, since it was his favorite and all. And he said that the copy his beloved Czech grandmother gave him on her bedbug be-ridden deathbed, was missing its cover and frontispiece, and he'd always wondered who'd written the thing, but had never checked, because he wanted to remember the book exactly as his grandmother had given it to him, which meant that, among other things, he must never know who wrote the book, and that I had now ruined it for him.
I was going to mention that avoiding knowledge of the authorial identity of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas seemed like a peculiarly idiosyncratic way to maintain his memory of the book's original condition, since how did the absence of a page and a cover--that is strictly physical details, which could easily be preserved otherwise--necessitate this ignorance?
That bit of incisive thinking probably would've really pissed him off, because it might be construed as insensitive, but he was already taking a swing at me, so I didn't have time to utter a single word. Instead, I ducked beneath his out-flung arm. (His aim was bad due to his state of inebriation.) And I grabbed a bottle and tried to break it across the bar, like they do in the movies, and then I'd slash at him and stuff like that--not really hurt him, as I didn't want any long term jail time, but, you know, just kind of keep him at bay--maybe even scare him off. But after the second try, the bottle still hadn't broken (which seemed pretty unlikely). Fortunately he passed out at exactly that moment--probably due to the sudden exertion of taking a swing at me after god knows how many hours of sessile boozing.
And Little Joe the bartender told me I'd have to leave because I was too drunk and rowdy. And while he led me to the door, I saw that the woman at the end of the bar had returned from the lavatory and that her hair wasn't dyed--it was a wig. Anyway, I asked her if she'd like to fuck. And she called me an asshole, and she was probably right. I'm not sure.
But so, I couldn't get the tox screen. So I was just gonna try to eyeball the envelope--you know, look for white powder and stuff like that. And maybe give it a good sniff, but from a distance, because if it smelled like almonds, it was cyanide, and if it smelled like oranges, I was about to have a seizure. There might have been the faintest breath of cologne, but otherwise, it didn't smell much at all. So I opened it, taking similar precautions, and found nothing that appeared to be dangerous. Only a crisply folded piece of plain white paper, that, when unfolded bore a bold, flowing script.
In black ink it was, and judging from its layout, it was a poem. Its title was: "So you want a sonnet? Then I will give you a sonnet!" Beneath that, lay the verse itself:
The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
Thus do I bear the poop you do sling;
Poop? Who the hell wrote this thing anyway? And I'm not so sure about that meter. But it continued:
These words are razors aimed at your foul heart,
I hope they do rip and tear it apart;
My sphincter you call tight, but yours is quite loose,
For you love riding the fleshy caboose;
Now that's getting a little personal. But like, how seriously can you take this guy's writing? It didn't hurt me one bit. And notice how he avoids vulgar words, but still uses vulgar metaphors! What a hypocrite and/or prude!
And he's also a homophobe. And like, if you are going to write insensitively about acts of homoeros, at least get your imagery straight. One doesn't ride the caboose, one takes it there. I mean, in there. (Except, to be fair, now that I think about it, his modification of this popular metaphor sorta makes sense. The caboose is in the rear--of the train, I mean. So he's making it like it's in the rear of the receiving party. See?)
But so, here's more:
You find me alluring, or so you do say;
Deep is my dislike of those who are gay;
See? I told you. Homophobic asshole!
In marsh do I lurk, sometimes it is true,
But at least I have a real job, unlike you;
Ha! I knew I saw him in the mud! And I knew he thought I was some kinda bum too.
When Yuletide arrives, your spirits are cheap;
In poop may you drown, a big steamin' heap!
Well, fuck. Was that the problem? I mean, do you tip your building maintenance guy? But, OK, it's a human concern, at least--a personal pain I unintentionally inflicted on the guy. Maybe he's not such a bad building maintenance guy after all! Maybe he just needs a little love...
At least, that's what I thought till I saw the bottom of the page:
"My poetry is better than yours, poophead! And your 'blog' stinks of year old oats and beet paste! Write never of me there again, or else I will cut off all your water! Try and make a poop then! Hahaha!"
I guess I'll have to take his word on that oats and beet paste thing. (He actually wrote out "Hahaha," by the way.) Anyway, I guess I'll make sure to tip the fucker, come the holidays. But he better watch out...
Anyway, that's it till next time. It'll be about Hawaii, I hope, because otherwise, I'm gonna forget everything that happened on my trip. Hope all is well, Sloth. And anybody else who might read this...
Yours Truly, S Forceman, P.I.
