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The Mystery of the CUNY Carbuncle: A Detective Story W/ Klews and EverythingBy Paul Poitier
Holmes and Watson had just returned on the 444 from O’Hare, having wrapped up another satisfying mystery, “The Case of the Chicago Snow in April.” Looking out the window, Holmes commented with glee, “You see, Watson—Rikers Island. Therein lay all the notorious scoundrels who have dared mettle with my superb brains!”
“Really Holmes,” Watson replied. “Control your tongue! We are, after all, aboard the friendly skies, and you never know when one is being videotaped.”
“I beg to differ, good Doctor,” Holmes replied snidely. “If you notice, I was just telling you, and if you were to look out the window you would clearly deduce, that we are currently flying over the very criminal elements who might plan such a demonic and rather generally insidious enterprise.”
“Really Holmes, amazing!”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. You see the clouds but you don’t count them. Had you done so, you would have noticed that your rather apparently sanguine turn of disposition—that I may quite remarkedly remark upon—no doubt enhanced by your robust technique of shaving in the morning glow with your back turned to the shower (thus fogging the mirror of your armoire), is due, as you would no doubt quickly infer (were you out the window), to the shifting pattern winds resulting from our having left the cold Midwestern front of that abysmal lake—and all the secrets it may still hide!—behind.”
“Really Holmes! That’s superfluous!”
“Elementary, my dear dawg. But there now, here arrives the flight attendant. Ah, music, wine!” Saying so, Holmes proceeded to listen to the music emanating from the little ear plugs he had fashioned out of sample Tampax™ he had discovered in the lavatory, lost as he would often become after momentary fits of pangs and depressions, in a momentary haze of ding-dong bliss (and other such things).
Time elapsed while Watson sat staring past Holmes out the window as they descended.
Later, having successfully deplaned at LaGuardia and transferred to the N train, Holmes was momentarily jumbled out of his somnambulism by the paradoxical rumble of the train. “Watson!” he proclaimed, “The foot’s a game!”
“What?” sputtered Watson, eagerly and obviously unblemished.
“Why, the game, the foot, you know, good man!” By now Holmes was sitting up quite straight and crow-elbowing the fat woman next to him who (unbeknownst to even his super-sharp psychodynamic skills) was giving him death stares, his pupils racing.
“Holmes, whatever do you mean I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Why, it’s quite elementary, my dear poodle! My foot, my foot… has awakened!”
Saying so, Holmes suddenly began jerking his left leg around in circles to demonstrate.
“It must have been the resulting formations in the upper ganglia of the second chardonnay,” he replied coolly. “But ho, wo, there you go.”
Having said thus and realizing there was nothing much more to say, Holmes and Watson rode the rest of the way back to their beloved 221B Baker domicile in silence.
A few days later, Watson, having returned to 221B having finished his rounds, found Holmes in a state of disarray and uttering.
“What ever is it, Holmes?” asked Watson.
“Well,” replied Holmes, “it seems there’s a new mystery here presenting itself at our doorstep as we speak, or rather, as I do.”
“Ah, really,” replied Holmes, or rather, Watson.
“Yes indeed,” Holmes said coolly. “You see, this paper here, just arrived in the post, has brought with it some klews, which I feel will shed some light on our current mystery.”
“Klews? Indeed,” said Watson, fingering the aforementioned paper device.
“Yes indeed,” Holmes said more agitatedly. “You see, in this document lies the elixir to the mystery of the CUNY dollars!”
“No, really?!” replied Watson.
“Yes, really!” replied Holmes.
At this point a narrative pause may seem well worth the cause. You see, this paper Holmes was holding (and Watson was about to take) laid out, in the plainest terms, the apparent description of funding for the PhD program at CUNY. No doubt this was of the greatest concern—a case worthy of the great Sherlock Holmes.“Well, my good man,” Holmes continued, some time later (having shaven and shampooed his rather eagle-like nose), smoking his mid-twilight pipe, the third of the afternoon and made of bits of stuff he had found in the ashtray, “What can you make of this?”
Watson scrutinized the document, furrowing his brow and making a rendering of this moment’s external facticity nearly redundant. “Well, I can see it’s a CUNY document, no doubt regarding some PhD program.”
“Some CUNY program? No, my good man! The CUNY program!”
Holmes, obviously feeling the effects of his mid-twilight smoke, puffed and paced around the magic lamp in the center of the room, rubbing it in his hands delightfully.
“Really Holmes!”
“But of course, Watson. It’s elementary. This document says any entering PhD candidate is offered complete tuition remission in exchange for just one hour of teaching!”
“Really Holmes!”
“But of course, Watson. It’s elementary. This document says any entering PhD candidate is offered complete tuition remission in exchange for just one hour of teaching!”
“Good god Holmes! This means, along with the consortium program already in effect, an entering candidate could get coursework at either of the three twin tower programs!”
“Why yes Watson,” Holmes replied coolly. “The only problem is…this.”
Saying so, Holmes overdramatically flounced over to and opened/pulled back aside the shutter drapes (heavy red velvet - why not?) to reveal a battered and aged gnome who made Yoda from Star Wars 5 look like Yoda from Star Wars 6 (in those flashbacks Luke has).
“Good god Holmes! Who the bloody confounded hell and rubbish is that?!”
“My dear Watson, this is Sam. Sam-I-Am.”
“Not the notorious SAM-I-AM!?”
“Why yes,” replied Holmes. “This is him—or rather, he.”
“But what secret can he possibly be expected to deposit—to say nothing of conundrum—upon our laps?”
Until now, the half-hidden by the red velvet drapes/carpet/curtain gnome-like and generally deformed-looking man had said nothing, as he stood slightly trembling on his shaking slightly limbs that were more like twigs. Slowly, and then more gradually, Holmes approached the gnome and the next chapter of THE MYSTERY OF CUNY Dollars began.At this point the story potentially goes back many years ago to some desert-like-Utah-Mormon setting but however having really no need for such mythos in need of knighthood, we’ll skip to the present (being told in flashback).
The gnome was a CUNY PhD student, who had entered the program on an alleged ‘Red-headed’ scholarship. All he had to do, he said, was copy out the NYC Penal Code from .0064-5 to .003945, roughly half a decade’s work at the very least/most. However, having had (always) already begun for some time, the gnome-like man, who name actually it turned out was Mr. Doh, discovered his promised compensation missing.
“Just like that, gentlemen,” he quiveringly whispered to the duo seated around him by the fire in the armoire, snapping his fingers rheumatically as he broke and crackled his middle joints in unison with those of his toes. “I was bereft at sea. Lost in the billows. Clinging to the albatross that had settled itself around the flagship.”
“Clearly, Watson, you can see the mysterious and devious workings of a mysterious and devious mind here.”
“No doubt,” said Watson.
“Clearly, this is no ordinary mind (nor to say institution) we are dealing with here. I would venture to say it is perhaps the third highest ranking jewel in the crown of the city.”
“But Holmes, whatever do you mean?” sputtered Watson, by now getting somewhat tired of sputtering.
“Well, on one hand, Mr. Doh was promised remission. But that clearly was a clever ruse to get him to come to CUNY. Meanwhile the crafty CUNY board reworked the wording of the hearsay agreement, thus reducing Mr. Doh to his current, sorry-ass plight.”
“You don’t mean–”
“Yes, Watson, yes. Precisely. Exactly. Exactly like this. Comme ca. Just so. Etcetera.”
Rising to scratch his ass, which he liked to do ever so often when he had come to the tail end of his coke high, Holmes scratched his ass and mused diffidently off into space.
“Ah, Watson,” he said, musingly. “I guess we’ll never know what lies behind the red and shaky (like a gondolier in Venice) folds of the Mystery of the CUNY Dollars.”
“Yes,” replied the gnome weakly (already being pushed back by greater forces into the same and abovementioned folds), “But why is my name Mr. Doh?”* * *
To be continued…
(or not, you never know. Heck)
Paul Poitier is a student in the PhD program in Theater.