Books : Meanwhile Back at the Ranch : Excerpts

Chapter Three

"C'mon, tell me, Kinkstah!" said Ratso the next day, between several almost feral attempts to suck the flesh off of a large fish head. "What new case are you working on?"

"I'm not working on any new case, Ratso," I said somewhat irritably. "I'm just trying not to hang myself from a shower rod."

We were sitting at a small table at Big Wong's right by the stairs that lead down to the dumper. Ratso had wanted to go to a new place just across Canal Street called Wing Wong's where he contended that most of Big Wong's cooks and waiters had been relocated. I hadn't noticed any significant deterioration in the food or service, however. Just the steady deterioration of everything else in the world. Another good reason to keep the Village Irregulars in innocence of my current caseload.

"Kinkstah!" Ratso continued relentlessly. "I can tell by your distracted demeanor and your shifty eyes, Kinkstah. You've got a big case and you're not sharing it with your favorite Watson."

"First of all," I said, "my eyes always look like Richard Nixon's. I was born that way -- "

"No one was born that way."

"Okay, so life made me that way. Life and watching you suck on that fish head."

"I'm trying to get the cheeks. The Chinese consider fish cheeks to be a great delicacy."

"They also wrap women's feet."

"Seriously, Kinkstah. I can see the wheels turning. I know you've got something on your mind. What's the new case about? I hope it's got nothing to do with Winnie Katz and her lesbian dance class."

"It's not my fault that you kept attending that stupid aerobics class for more than six months after we wrapped up the investigation."

"I know, but the way that whole legion of lesbians turned on me when that vicious dyke Winnie unceremoniously dumped me from the class was enough to emasculate even the strongest male ego."

"I guess it's too late to wrap their feet."

"I was lucky I didn't have to wrap my scrotum."

Yet the affair of the lesbian dance class had not only provided me with new insights into what went on in that Sapphic retreat in the loft above me, but also had allowed me to assess who among my friends possessed the loyalty, talent, and ingenuity to become my perfect Dr. Watson. As I looked across the table at Ratso, still sucking noisily on the fish head, I realized with some finality that perfection in human beings is a quality we are destined to always seek and never attain.

"So what's the new fucking case?" said Ratso. Once again I was taken with his innate ability to send a metaphysical chain of rather lofty thought processes directly into the toilet.

"There is no new case, Ratso," I said. "There is, however, one small matter that has my curiosity mildly piqued."

"And what would that be, Sherlock?"

"That would be the singular occurrence of you ordering fish-head soup, my dear Ratso. My observational powers inform me that this puissant dish is not on the menu."

"Of course not, Sherlock," said Ratso, with no small measure of pride. "You've got to know somebody."

"Ah, Watson! How very like you to be in such intimate contact with the living street! Yet I wonder if it's occurred to you that 'knowing somebody' can have application not only to ordering fish-head soup but to this very life itself. If you don't truly 'know somebody' you can be in for a very empty, lonely meal. And further, Watson, to paraphrase our friend Oscar Wilde, 'The human soul is unknowable.'"

"Maybe that's why it's not on the menu."

"Humorous, Watson! Highly humorous, if not so very tragic for the condition of man in this hard and hopeless world! And, pray tell, why are fish-head soup and the human soul not on the menu?"

"Old menus?"

"Hardly."

"New menus?"

"Hardly."

"Then what's the answer to the riddle, Sherlock? Why aren't fish-head soup or the human soul on the menu?"

"Because neither," I said, "appears to be very much in demand."