HTB Chronicills - Sherlock Homeless

Back by poxular remand, Harold the Bum continues his zany antics in lieu of a life...

Harold donned his tweed deer stalker cap and transformed into Sherlock Homeless, the blindingly brilliant, brilliantly blind sleuth. He was searching for clues because he's really smart. Surely, they had to be here somewhere. Surely, he would find them because he was Sherlock Homeless the greatest detective from Shit bridge all the way to the trailer park. Shirley had said so, surely he was.

Methodoniclly moving from side to side with only moderate resistance from gravity, he surveyed the scene through his lenseless magnifying glass in the pitch dark blackness. Suddenly, hours had past and still nothing pointed in the direction of the perpetrator. Nope, not a fucking thing. These were obviously evasive clues attempting to elude his detection. Sherlock understood the mind and motives of malicious inanimate objects having been one for much of his life. Sherlock momentarily indulged himself to reminisce of those bygone salad days of many minutes ago, before he wore the hat of a man who couldn't decide if was either coming or going.

Things had been going so well. He'd managed to work his magic. Starting with little more than a withdrawal wracked body, a misfiring mind, and a pocket full of key chains he'd acquired in a manic misappropriation binge at half a dozen retail outlets, he had built an empire from the ground up. The true wizardry was that his vast dominion fit neatly into a tiny Ziploc baggy tucked away in his left breast pocket. Right here...

That was the moment, that horrible, heart skips a beat moment, when he realized she had left him. It was like all the worst parts of the Old Testament happening at once. No, worse, it was as if Warren just walked in to the room.

Now, he was on this case like so many others, such as the Case of the Un-missing Bar and Grill Hose or the Eighth Street Garage Inquiry, but this case was different. This case was personal. This case was close to his heart. At least, it had been until the object of his desire had vanished from his left breast pocket. Now, he would stop at nothing, extended pauses due to nods notwithstanding, until he was reunited with her. That beautiful, tiny brunette baggy of yore.

How he pined for her when he realized she (the baggy) had run off and left him like yesterday's high. She was all he ever wanted, all he ever needed, but mostly all he fucking had left! This is why he specifically put it in his left pocket, because it didn't seem right. There had been so much more just a few hazy, muddled, incoherent increments of time ago. But now, as Sherlock sleuthfully stumbled through the darkness everything seemed like a drug induced nightmare!

"Oww!" Howled a well camouflaged urban outdoorsman type chap whose groin was being compression checked by Sherlock's size twelve sneaker.

"Sorry, so sorry, my good mongrel", Harold offered quickly but insincerely to the previously half dazed and recently half testicled miscreant. The stranger was fortunate that Sherlock had worn his golf shoe on his right foot tonight. Seizing the opportunity to take a statement from this potential suspect/witness/mostly suspect who lay rolling and cursing wildly at his feet. Very suspicious behavior, indeed!

Sherlock demanded, "I say, has anyone told you that you bear a striking resemblance to Gordon Gano?"

[Incoherent moaning with a festive smattering of profanity]

"What, what? Yes, indubitably." Sherlock Homeless absently chimed in reply to the continuing groans.

"Very well then. I'll cut to the quick since you seem to be previously engaged. I'm on a bit of a fox hunt, you might say. Tally-Ho! My quarry is one-inch tall, translucent plastic baggy last seen in the vicinity of me. I had it and now it seems to be gone. Have you seen, touched, or ingested anything matching that description recently?"

"Gone, baggy, gone, yeah the bag is gone!", the suspect blurted out.

"Precisely", Sherlock was on the right path. His instincts told him so, and it was the only path on this side of the bridge.

"Gone, baggy, gone, yeah the bag is gone!", the man shouted as he gripped his crotch protectively.

Meanwhile, back in the deepest recesses of Sherlock's opiate enhanced skull bone...

Braincell #1 - "Did you hear that xylophone music?"
Braincell #2 - "What's it sound like?"
Braincell #1 - "uhm... Like a fucking xylophone!"
Braincell #2 - "I'm drawing a blank here."
Braincell #1 - "Seriously? You're a fucking brain cell and you don't know what a xylophone sounds like?"
Braincell #2 - "Gimme a break, dude. I majored in mildew husbandry, not audible hallucinations!"
Braincell #1 - "Fuck! That's all I can say. Fuck!!!"

Back on the other less sensible side of Harold’s brainbone…

Sherlock applied the NCIS Gibbs technique, "Regrettably, yes, the baggy is gone. Now, what have you done with her?"

"Gone, baggy, gone, yeah the bag has gone away. Gone away."

A confession! Sherlock reached into his left breast pocket to pull out his Scotland trailer park back Yard identification to make the arrest. Out came the big joker playing card that doubled as his badge and a little plastic baggy flew into the air whimsically spiraling down before his eyes.

Reunited and it feels so good!

She had returned to him. How he loved her so. Harold’s face took on the look of a newborn suckling at their mother’s breast, then faded off into Narcoleptic Catatonia. He was addicted. 

The young boy whispered under his breath, "No shit, Sherlock."

Go to Part 2 of this story by clicking on the brain cell below or check out the clues to the mystery.

Clues to the Mystery and Bonus Blatherings

Q: Who the fuck is Gordon Gano?

A: He's the vocalist from the 80's band The Violent Femmes.

Q: Who the fuck are The Violent Femmes?

A: Let me go on like a blister in the sun

Q: That's retarded.

A: That's not a Question.

A: The Femmes also recorded a song called Gone Daddy (baggy) Gone with a chick in the video who looks a lot like my friend, Alison.

Q: I didn't ask a question.

A: Fuck you.

Q: Can we go now?

A Real Election Choice

Click here for more political satire

From the Last in Line

One of the seldom appreciated aspects of being the last in rhe line of  siblings is that we are spoken of and not spoken to. We are objectified as a thing and not a person. Not in the same way women are objectified, guys will spend all day chatting them up, buying them drinks, and pretending to like everything about her. Not that I would care for anything like that. The idea of waking up next to some hairy backed ogre is as disturbing to me now as it would have been then. However, an orange crush and a paragraph of dialogue from anyone I shared an identicle last name with would have been cool.

As last in liners we are always the thing which decisions are made for and decisions are not made by.  When this becomes too much derision and distain to bear, l WOULD DO WHAT THE FUCK I WANT! 

There wasn't much thought put into the decision because it wasn't a decision. It was a reaction. An impulsive, explosive, do and die reaction. Decisions are things you learn to make by participating with others, not by others, who have more experience. So, after my carpe diem disaster blew up in my face and the dust settled, someone spoke to me, a privilege I was seldom afforded. The dialogue usually took the form of a monologue but their eyes were focused exclusive on me and I was deserving of adult attention on my own (de)merit. As my father compulsively balanced the glass top on the dresser (since the corners were never quite plumb) he would look directly almost piercingly at me and I became for the next few sentences a person worthy of his time.

My mother's correctional methodology was more spiritual in that she would speak (mostly to my father) from an unseen place in the hall (?), kitchen (?), attic (?) offer the occasional comment that I knew had been routed to me by its context. Her voice would  eventually trail off and then stop. An additional five to ten minutes later so would my father's. The hall light would be clicked off and the bedroom door left open. I could hear my parents in the kitchen. They were speaking about me in low hushed tones, but they were still speaking about me.

In a family where there is a decade or so between the last in line and their nearest sibling, I grew up in a world of grown-ups but was always and only a kid. A "semi-bothersome, wanting to participate, actively annoying, look at me, not now we are talking adult stuff, close the bedroom door so he can't hear" kind of kid.

That is me, and it always has been.

Everyone in the family scratched their heads at my libertarian politics and conspiracy theories. Why would he be led to believe so strongly in individual liberty and see conspiracy behind every corner?Who are these shadowy people and mysterious powers that he thinks control his life?

What a weirdo! What bizarre childish fantasies these are!

Oh well, he'll grow out of it, back to the adult stuff.

So, I would talk more with the family dog because she was more peer than pet, or my friends whom my family though I spent entirely too much time with at their expense.

When my family and I were together, they talked about things of which I had no concept. It was all far more important than my simple school work which I was told was important, but just not important enough to be spoken about when there were exciting world travelers, gymnastics coaches, colleges, and weddings to take the headlines. Barring those important event there were aunts with life threatening cancer or grandparents in need of care. I spent much of my childhood wandering around hospitals and nursing homes. One of my closest adult friends who always made time to talk to me was a black man named Charlie who worked in the laundry of the nursing home. He was wirey but strong, balding but young at heart, uneducated but wise (by a twelve-year old's estimation), and he was busy but available to listen and respond in kind.

At home, Coco would listen and raise an eyebrow or wag a tail every so often as an appreciated form acknowledgement of my contributions. Things like finding the homework I had lost three weeks earlier behind the bookshelf, my latest journal entry about the tyranny of snow, how to properly position the blanket over the heater vent to make it snugly, and how to aim an arrow fired by a wrist-rocket to hit the target. Coco focused and wagged as I spoke, then I would scratch her behind the ears in appreciation, and return to the adult world of being yelled at for getting paint on the back of the garage. Someone had noticed that redwood paint from three weeks ago and now they had noticed me too.

I know there are some first, second, third, eleventh, in liners out there that will say, God, what fucking drama! Cry baby! Get over it. Grow up! Be responsible like me! Be as I am not as you are. Run along now I have important adult things to do. Or something along those lines, because that is what I have heard from some of you much of my life.

The conversation was a "nversation" meaning...

n ...the abbreviation for Negative or No, also Nitrogen which suffocates or eviscerates human beings.

verse... a short phrase or passage

a... an utterance to indicate nothing further is immediately forthcoming

ion... I am moving ON in the real world which is how I perceive it and nothing else exists.

As the "last in line" I acknowledge receipt of all you have tendered. Now, allow me to retort,
"Go fuck yourself! Oh, and thanks for playing."

a

Ion

LiL Mikey the Last in Line

SILE is pronounced: "Silly"

That's a relief!

Me Unwanted?!

I tried turning myself in on a serious camping beef (it was a bell-ringer of a  flail). Here’s how it turned out…

HTB Chronicills - Harold's Revolution

Yes, HTB, Harold the Bum is back for an encore (and to pay some fines) It's a limited engagement, so order tickets now. Operators are standing by, have credit cards ready.

Harold was mired up to the height of his most recent abscess in a bona fide body revolt. He had spent most of his life being revolting to others, and now some woman named Karma was being a fucking bitch about the whole thing.

Unfair, if you ask me, but I'm just the narrator. The narrator never gets a chance to answer any questions the reader might have, which is also unfair. It just goes to show you how things are rigged against a disembodied, mystical voice that knows all and sees all. I mean really, have you ever considered...

What? Oh, yes...

Sorry, I was merely pointing out how...

Yes, of course I want to keep my job. I don't think you appreciate how difficult it is to stay working ex corpus. I  mean really ,have you ever considered... 

Sorry. Really. Sorry. (Narrator clears his imaginary throat and then continues to navigate the thinning ice of his employability.)

Harold's revolution had begun as most juntas do with a minor incident. Nothing to be concerned about, like a few thousand irate and heavily armed Bolsheviks knocking on your Winter Palace gate. Predictably, the timing of Harold's insurrection was inconvenient, like Maximilien de Robespierre rolling out a new, more humane method of execution when it was time to cut the cake.

The uprising commenced at the crack of wake up time early this much later afternoon with a prelude, just a couple of cramping fingers. Yes, Harold's heralds of  revolution came in the misshapen form of both middle fingers fully, painfully, and nearly hyper-extended while the rest curled into an excruciating pair of filth encrusted hibernating claws.

(Ab) Normally, Harold would have dispatched such a challenge by wildly and repeatedly impaling himself with a blunt hypodermic filled with "clean up breakfast". The difficulty in implementing this garbage variety impaling was, of course, the two erect digits he had at his disposal.

Harold consulted with both brain cells and after a prolonged debate which consisted of grunting and flatulence this Triumvirate decided to divine the will of the gods via Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Laser Beam.

Harold won because the extended middle finger ("the laser beam") cuts through everything. The brain cells mysteriously failed to pick up on this in the best three out of five rounds. The final determination was that Harold's fingers/ laser beams would be used like chopsticks. It was the best Harold could do with the brain cell brothers excusing themselves so often to register the SEARING PAIN of cramping fingers which sent Harold staggering away in pitiful fits of tearful whimpering. The whole scene was quite pathetic really, and the cells were moved to register more SEARING PAIN simply to excuse themselves from having to watch. It was a negative feedback loop that results in the kind of gridlock which happens in any parliament, congress, committee, every other legislative body known to man since some idiot asked Samuel to put a king over us, and in choosing a wedding dress.

There is deep wisdom here, but Harold and his brain-bone failed to notice the deafening angelic choir singing in a blinding halo of illumination over head.

Brain Cell #1: Did you hear that? Tell me one of you did. 

Harold and Brain Cell #2 (in unison): Hear what? 

Brain Cell #1 (after a momentary pause): Fuck! Never mind...

Like most Americans trying to operate chopsticks, Harold mis-manipulated the dull, bent needle into vein striking position. This was according to the plan. The over simplified and ill conceived "Russian roulette with a bolt action rifle" of a plan. Predictability, what transpired was Harold sliced his thigh, elbow himself directly in the nuts, while simultaneously launching the hypodermic over the rocks beneath the bridge and into one of those wormhole things from which nothing ever returns. This result was oddly absent from the plan.

Weird.

It was now a scant eleven minutes into the early just before night time and forces were already aligning themselves against Harold and his brain trust. He could sense the treasonous unrest stirring like the vapor rising from the sulfurous bile gurgling, churning, and oozing about its business in his stomach. Soon enough, he would have to face both.

He had time enough to consider what had brought him to this dilemma. Admittedly, he had contributed to his bodily rebellion. Yes, he had played some negligible role in the whole sordid affair. He had plenty of sleep last week, ate a proper meal within the past, and washed a mouthful of multivitamins down with a swig of mouthwash just a few days before the prolonged blackout that eluded his critically fragmented hard drive.

The amnesia was probably for the best anyway, the prosecutor would fill in the blanks at his next arraignment. Half of the fun was trying to manufacture an equally preposterous explanation for his bizarre, abhorrent, and completely irreconcilable behavior. It was a great game he and the lady prosecutor played, like a fast paced form of impromptu speed dating for hook-ups. It didn't matter if he successfully confused or convince her with his "genofeces" (self-replicating spontaneous bullshit), he would surely be fucked by her that very night. It was foreplay, kind of.. Okay, "oneplay" since she was oblivious to the game Harold had made of their regular dalliances.

What? It's just a game. Give me, (I mean "Harold") a break! She's the only woman he knows who wears heels that isn't a practicing or recovering (yeah, right) hooker!  I mean really, have you ever considered...  

What? 

Sorry. It won't happen again... (beads of fictional sweat forming upon his non-corporeal brow, the narrator continues sheepishly)

Anyways, getting back to the over indulging of Harold's body which predicated this unwashed tumorous mass fighting back. In retrospect, Harold had been far too easy on himself recently, and the ignorant proletariat being bag had the wherewithal to rise up against its sovereign bum.

Harold's nasal septum* had declared itself a "International Workers Paradise", then set off to hunt down and execute the two remaining brain cells hiding in the dark, dank hollows of his head for promoting anti-revolutionary ideas and other such nonsense. However, the septum was distracted from its ideological cleansing by the hyoid bone** which had foolishly proclaimed itself a "National Workers Paradises" and marched off to execute the same elitists brain cells. Both paradises clashed over some minor difference of ideology which neither understood and were immediately basked in the warm crimson hue of worker's blood.

The next brush fire of unrest Harold had to quell came from his feet, which in a drunken orgy of defiance declared independence from Harold's despotic (yet delinquent) rule. "Fraternity and Equality" was their podiatric patriotic motto.

As with all who tried to fill The Bum's shoe (singular, lace not included) they quickly fell into anarchy. Feet are a decidedly egalitarian appendage, thus requiring that both the top and bottom of each foot bear Harold's weight equally by alternating with each step. Harold wouldn't have minded so much if only his ankles would throw off their bourgeois chains and swivel a full 180 degrees. Harold looked down at his feet running amok and longed for the good day when he sported a stout pair of flippers. 

That had been another coup d'etat Harold had suffered at the inept, loathsome, idle hands of that drunken buffoon, Warren. His brother had obviously stolen the flippers and traded them for a (way short) twenty bag of dope. Oh, Warren denied it as always, but Harold was certain his brother had been the culprit because Harold had been the one who traded the ill gotten flippers to the dope man. Consequently, that may have had a causal relationship in the missing bag mass upon delivery. Harold denied it as always. Revolutions eat their own children, except in Harold's family, where the children conveniently ate each other. There is  a philosophically Darwinian reward in consuming a sibling. It makes the whole "who mom and dad loved the most" argument moot.

Moot. That's the sound cows make. What the hell does that mean in this... Uhm... way word used?

Harold was unaware of the condition known as aphasia, which was what he was currently experiencing. The brain cells in fear of the surviving worker's mob had turned on him!

This was very nasty business, but Harold was clueless, witless, and increasingly unable to formulate a thought above the intellectual capacity of a modest salad bar.

"Bahhr. Baahhrr. Bahhrr", Harold babbled semi-contently, the remaining portion of Harold's consciousness was diligently working on evolving a bacterial flagellum so he go get something to eat. The evolutionary building process began and ended with a slimy, glistening tail of drool that never propelled anything but achieved a commendable state of partial coagulation. That's the best a bum can hope for in the barf and mumble world of...

Eh... Let's just leave it at "world". No need for socially disparaging labels.

Viva la Revolucion! 

(as soon as Harold gets his food card...)

* - Why the septum? Because Communism (International Socialism) separates two things that are the same and then pits them against one another (Rich vs. Poor, Educated vs. Uneducated, Caucasian vs. Negro, Theist vs. Atheist, Worker vs. Entrepreneur, etc.) even though they are all countrymen.

** - What the hell is a hyoid bone and why? The hyoid is the only bone in the body which is not connected to another bone. It is also essential for speach. Fascism (National Socialism) tells people (via speeches) that they are special, unique, and "Royal". We're not like them! We are us and we don't need them!

In short, Socialism (of both extremes) when taken to its logical conclusion promulgates that "if we just kill enough of the right (or left) people, we can make heaven on earth. Utopia is just over the horizon... of a huge body count."

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