48. New Adventures of Wino, P.I. (MC Tracheotomy, Robot Alien or Ghost)

Wino, P.I. is hammered on a mix of Aristocrat vodka and mentholated Mickey's malt liquor. Wino, P.I. has a method for mentholating malt liquor which involves infusing the it with three menthol cigarettes wrapped in gauze. After he finishes the malt liquor, he dumps the cigarettes out and dries them.

"Them's perfectly fine cigarettes," he says.

"Goddammit," he says.

Wino, P.I. is on the case. This week's case. He is in a dumpster searching for a clue. He's close, he thinks. Then the sky goes dark and he's getting a three-course dinner of boot. He wakes up in the same dumpster. He doesn't scare easily. He's gonna keep looking.

"Shit, this ain't the same dumpster," he says aloud. He finds a perfectly good goddamn sandwich just lying there.

Wino, P.I. meets up with a contact. "Whaddaya want?" "I want info, Jerry." "We all got wants and needs, man."

Wino, P.I. slips him some speed that's been cut with Doan's back pills maybe seven times. Jerry folds it into his sleeve. His beard looks like certain Himalayan lichens.

"Secret sauce is just fuckin' 1000 Ibin dressing, Wino. S'all BOOshit."

"What's 1000 Ibin dressing, Jerry."

"Far as I know iss Fresh dressin and relish."

"Thanks Jerry."

Wino, P.I. does a lot of his best thinking in the bathrooms of the Cambridge Episcopalian Church because he was raised High Church. Smells and Bells. He speaks the language. Also they have no smells in there whatsoever. He writes in his journal. "Genesis 1:3-4 II, 7, 15; 1:27-28 IV, 5, 9; 1:28 IV, 2, 2; 2:24 I, 5, 9; 3:17-19 IV, 8, 22; 25:23 II, 7, 15. Exodus 4:12 II, 9, 20; 20:17 I, 7, 12; 33:20 IV, 11, 31." He looks at the list and squints. Bibliomancy? Three stalls over someone is apparently suffering massive internal organ failure.

In the hall outside, he thinks about how cigarettes were invented. The sexton leaves the bathroom a couple of minutes behind him, wincing.

"Padre," says Wino, P.I.

"Lord have mercy upon us all," says the sexton. As he leaves, a slip of paper falls from his pocket. Wino, P.I. waits for him to round the corner and picks up the paper. A betting slip, but on the back: "39. But you ask: 'Why did God look for righteous persons among the Sodomites, (See Gn 18:26.) †38 if nature made them such?' As if we say that concupiscence of the flesh cannot be reined in by the superior nature of the mind! Rather, we say that concupiscence is such an evil that its resistance must be defeated in battle until, like a wound in the body, it is healed completely." Now we're getting somewhere, he thinks. This is a clue. I haven't gotten laid in five months, he thinks. That's another clue.

Putting the clues together, he thinks. That's my job. Nobody knows shit. And business is good.

Next episode: Wino, P.I. vs. Randy.