Private Eye, Reloaded

I never dream. I always sleep like a baby. That's something yous should know about me. I don't dream that I can fly, or that I'm being chased by a pack of wolves, or that I can talk to monkeys. I've never dreamed that I found myself walking around naked in public - unless you count the time last Christmas when I dreamt I was bare-buck and up on stage with a troupe of Rockettes at the Radio City Music Hall. That one doesn't count, though, because it may not have been a dream. I'm not sure. Camshaft and I had been boozing it up all day and Cam' bet me I couldn't drink a beer in every Irish pub in Midtown. Well one thing led to another and the next thing you knew... Well, I'm just not sure, and it's not what I was getting at anyway. The point is, I almost never dream.

So when Will the Whacko turned into a space-goober, I knew something strange was afoot. Stranger still was Camshaft's sudden acquisition of a massive amount of body hair, and Sally's transformation from a south-side hooker to a high-class upper east-side dame to a bona fide princess. And Jackie Valentine was worse than a booger on the finger. I could not shake him. No matter how many bullets he took or how many times I hauled him out of the trunk and tossed him into Jamaica Bay, he kept turning up.

When my head began to clear and I found myself in a white room, under industrial-strength fluorescent lighting, lying on my side. My face was against the floor in a puddle of drool. I tried to push myself up with my hands, but my arms were tightly strapped into a straight jacket. I rolled over on my back and scooted across the floor to the edge of the room where I could lean against the padded wall. The crotch strap of the jacket pinched into a place where it shouldn't have and sent a sharp pain through me. I looked up through the only window in the room, which was on the ceiling, and spotted the smoke stacks. I was afraid of this. They'd gotten me into the Loony Bin. I was on Roosevelt Island, for Christ's sake.

I scooted across the room on my backside several times. There was only one thing on my mind: boy do my balls itch.

I lay in that crazyhouse overcoat for a long time in a padded room, which I thought was overkill. I heard a confab outside my room and pulled myself painfully over to where I could hear.

"He's gone totally bonkers. When we caught up with him, he was firing blanks at old man Valentine, yelling something about Jack the Ripper, and calling the barmaid Irene Adler. He put Will Wheaton, whom he kept calling Whacko, in a coma when Will tried to stop him. He totally blew Officer Camshaft's cover, ruining the undercover sting we had going on Scarface Jackson and his moll, Sally. We think he was sprayed with a fast-acting dose of the Blue Paradise dope Jackson and Sally deal. He could be brain damaged. hopeless case."

I screamed "I can hear you, damn it! I'm fine! I really am fine! Lemme outa here!" They didn't appear to hear me...

Finally the door to the padded room opened. Finally I'd be able make the case for my own sanity with a certified mental-health professional. But a lab-coated physician did not enter the room, instead four jump-suited Puerto Ricans did. One of them busied himself setting up a gurney and other three amused themselves by subduing me. Several kicks to the ribs and about fifty rabbit punches to the kidneys were administered before they were ready to load me on the gurney.

The good thing was: they got me out of the straightjacket. The bad thing was: they then strapped me to the gurney. Next I was whisked down a hallway to a destination unknown. The whole place had a lovely aroma of what could only have been a combination of ammonia, bleach, piss, and sh*t.

One of the orderlies was close enough that I could read the name embroidered on his jumpsuit - P. Sanchez. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Esta en mi casa ahora, Señor."

I said to him, "Hey man, scratch my balls."

That bought me a sharp back-fist to the brain. P. Sanchez evidently understood some English.

We came into a waiting room and that's where I saw a familiar face. The old Sally was back. But she had a far-away look in her eyes and she was wearing a threadbare bathrobe with NYCPH stenciled on the pocket.

I called to her, "Sweet Sally. How you been?"

She may have been spaced-out, but recognition crossed her face and she managed a smile, "Mick?" She said.

"The one and only, sweetheart."

"Mick, where they taking you?"

"I've demanded to see the head shrink in this joint, the big kahuna, El Jefe ." I glanced at the orderly. "So that's where they're taking me. Ain't that right, Sanchez?"

The Puerto Rican said, "No, señor."

Down at the end of the room was a door and on the door was an officious-looking sign that said, Authorized Personnel Only, Electroshock Therapy In Progress, New York City Psychiatric Hospital. And that was where the Puerto Ricans seemed to be aiming the gurney.

As I write these words I am looking out the window of my locked room in this institution. The sun is bleeding through the thin fabric of the sky. I run my hand over where my hair used to reside, feeling the small dents left by the electrodes. There's a whole swarm of bees buzzing in my brain, or what isn't cooked by the EST. Faces blur, memories stalk like specters, voices echo, and I'm trying hard to remember something, I don't know what.

I have been informed that my name is Mickey Lee Sledge, but that I am not a private eye. I was the DA for Manhattan District court. I was supposed to finish my case on an Dorothy Irene Adams, accused of seven murders of young men. Apparently I was in and had survived an Amtrak crash, but was in a coma for a while. Now I have memory loss and Dissociative identity disorder, whatever the hell that is. I am told that the various protagonists in my little tale are either products of my wounded mind or patients here in bedlam, such as Sweet Sally Sonderstorm. Seems I was a reader of noir detective novels and did crime consultation for a famous author of what they call Pulp Fiction. I dunno, I dunno.

I got to run, Jacky Valentine is in my mirror, Scarface is sitting on my bed, and Camshaft is leaning against the wall. Why will they say that I am mad? True very nervous I was and still am, but my senses are sharp. Will the Whacko just walked in pushing a cartload of beer. Should be a lively conservation tonight!

And so ends the tale of the loaded P.I. /District Attorney.

Or does it?

Out next week, Mick strikes up a friendship with a huge Native American chap and the two of them plan to break out of the Looney Bin. Check your local news stand. Available Monday wherever high-class, hoity-toity literature is sold. Just ten cents, one thin dime, a tenth of a dollar is all it'll cost to find out what happens to our hero. (hint, Mick finally gets to scratch his itch)




**Story note: I wasn't sure where Mick Sledge would wind up, but the way he was going, I was pretty sure it would be on one of two notorious islands in the greater NYC area - Roosevelt Island or Rikers Island.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAKFlpdcfc

@ Gilliatt Gurgle

Thank you! Thank you very much! (Bows) Allow me to present my co-conspirator, er, that is, co-author, Sancho! (Sancho bows!)(We bow together!) Encore soon to come, I hope!

@ Sancho

Will take your lead on the next one. As I seem to wind them to an end, perhaps you should end the next one. Any direction nods as to where we might be headed can be PMed to me behind the scenes. Love working with you on these crossed-up, whacky stories!

God Bless

Pen