Back in May I released a short story I was rather proud of, starring a character I enjoyed writing. Recently I completed a second short story starring this character that is longer and hopefully just as fun. I will be trying something new and releasing it in seven segments starting today. The first two segments will be out this week, the next five will release weekly. This was a labor of love and I am delighted to share it with you. Please enjoy the next Dale Ulysses Monroe adventure.

Blunt Force Trauma – A John J Skrip Short Story

Previously on the adventures of Dale Ulysses Monroe… He got beaten up! Many times! And knocked unconscious and placed in various hotel rooms. By a man named Kenneth. And now they’re friends! Because the guy who hated Dale and hired Kenneth is now in prison where he can’t wear turtlenecks and Dale now pays Kenneth to work for him and not beat him up. Time has passed. And it’s the summer. And another mystery is afoot for our intrepid detective who’s not that intrepid and also isn’t a very good detective. Story time, baby!

Pushing The Envelope
From the Case Files of Dale Ulysses Monroe, P.I.
Published with assistance from
John J Skrip and associates

August 3rd, 2017

It was a scorchingly hot Thursday afternoon, and, judging by the distinct aroma of flaming intestine, I was being slow-cooked surreptitiously by the sun. The deck chair I sat in was starting to fuze with my shorts. I removed myself forcefully, dismounted from my perch, straightened my sunglasses, and gazed out over my domain. My domain being the public pool on the roof of the gym by my office. Two months ago I started volunteering as a lifeguard to work on my tan. I make sure dumbasses don’t drown every Tuesday and Thursday from noon to six.

A small, brown-haired kid stumbled out of the pool and towards the concession stand. I screamed into my whistle. “HEY! BRYAN! YOU RUN AROUND MY POOL LIKE THAT AND YOU’RE OUT. GET IT?!”

“Are you talking to me?” The kid asked. He pulled a soggy dollar from his shorts pocket. “My name is Will.”

“THIS IS MY POOL, BRYAN! IF I SAY YOU’RE BRYAN, THEN YOU’RE BRYAN! SO NO MORE RUNNING, BRYAN!”

Bryan glared at me and thanked Henry from concessions for his choco taco. I helped an elderly gentleman make his way up the pool ladder and sat back down on my hot plastic throne. I like it here. Other than the occasional nuisance like Bryan, Tuesdays and Thursdays have become the perfect reprieve from work. Being a P.I. can just get so depressing. All the affairs and murders and theft and betrayal. It starts to get to you after a while. 

But private investigation was my chosen profession. I wouldn’t let the realities of this horrible planet drag me down and make me regret my life choices. No, roasting my brain cells for twelve hours a week would suffice. 

Bryan cannonballed into the pool and splashed a row of old ladies. I checked my watch. 5:58. No reason to care at this point. Besides, he’d develop a stomach ache from swimming so soon after eating. I surrendered my throne to Night Shift Melissa and made my way to the stairwell. 
At the locker room, I was greeted by the perennially naked gentlemen named Harry and Tom, who were always loitering by my locker. Harry and Tom are two retired lawyers who like to stand uncomfortably close to me and argue loudly about various topics until they manage to forget they aren’t wearing any clothes. I suspect they have been disbarred because most of their arguments make absolutely no sense and they both seem slightly crazy. 

I never see them outside the gym, and whenever I go to change, they’re there. Their casual nature makes me deeply uncomfortable, but I never say anything. This is simply the way of the gym locker room.

“Hey, Dale!” Tom said.
“What’s up, Dale?” Harry said, undulating and stretching his arms and performing visceral leg leans, sending waves of ripply wrinkles in his wake.
“Hey, fellas. What are we arguing about today?”
Tom sat at a nearby bench. “It’s not an argument, it’s a-”
“It’s a spirited debate amongst peers. Right. How could I forget?” I unlocked my locker and grabbed my gym bag.

“There are too many penguins at the Zoo.” Harry spoke to me with a red-eyed stare. 
“Excuse me?” I walked over to the furthest bench I could find and started to change. In seconds Tom and Harry were sitting across from me.
Harry leaned towards me and began to whisper. “I was at the Zoo the other day. Tom was there too. Right, Tom?” Tom nodded. “We went to the penguin enclosure, and there were eighteen penguins. Eighteen!”
“And?” I asked. I couldn’t picture the two of them fully clothed and coexisting in polite society, but I decided to go along with their obvious fallacy. “Why is eighteen too many?”

“If you put more than ten penguins in an enclosure together, they get jealous of each other, go insane, get territorial, and then…” Harry paused for emphasis and used his hands to mime an explosion. “Penguin bloodbath.” 
Tom looked me in the eye. “That Zoo does not know what’s coming. The circle of life can be a horrifying thing, man.” 
“I have to say, all of that sounds incredibly unlikely.” I pulled my pants on over my swim trunks. Not long now until I could make my escape. Why humor them? “What’s the debate about?”
Tom crossed his legs. “Harry thinks that the penguins should be allowed to enact their murderous urges.”

“Nature should be allowed to run its course.” Harry said.
“And I think those penguins should be stopped!” Tom stood and slammed his fist against the wall. “In my day I’ve known a lot of penguins. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that, if aggravated, penguins in captivity will kill the weakest among them, unite, and unleash chaos among the general population! Those penguins cannot be allowed to escape!” 
“Right, well, good luck with that. I’ll see you two next week.” I got up and power-walked towards the door. 
“Bye, Dale!” They called after me as I burst from the locker room back into reality. 

I paused to catch my breath. Being around actively nude old men is very stressful, and if I didn’t love yelling at people and sitting for several hours at a time, I would quit. They were fairly nice oddballs though. They remembered when my birthday was. My leg was buzzing. I pulled out my phone. It was my assistant. 

“How was work, boss?” He asked.
“Hello, Kenneth. What do you have for me?” I left the gym and began to walk towards my favorite grocery store a few blocks away. The sun was descending and the air felt cool in just the right way. 
“We’ve got three possible affairs, a murder, a missing person and one very important meeting.” He said.
“Let’s start with the important meeting and work our way up from there.” I said. I crossed the street and was honked at by three separate motorists who were so insulted by my presence they had to let me know. Ah, city life.
“Busy day, huh, boss?” He asked.

“People never seem to stop doing terrible things to each other, Kenneth. Where’s the meeting and when?” 
“It’s tomorrow at 10:00 AM at the Alworth building.” He whispered something to his wife about bathroom tiles. “You’re meeting with Alexander Matack, the CEO of Wheelz.”
“Is that an app or something?” 
“You don’t know Wheelz?” He was surprised. “Wheelz is the next big thing for biking enthusiasts,” he said, wrongfully assuming that would clear it up for me. I was silent long enough for him to realize he needed to elaborate further. “My friend Jeremiah loves biking, so he tells me about this stuff all the time.”
I rolled my eyes. Kenneth’s friends are morons. “He’s the one that wears his hat backwards all the time?” 

“Yeah, that’s him,” he said. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing? Anyway, Wheelz is this new company that’s producing bikes with artificial intelligence.” My eyes glazed over. “Basically, you can talk to the bike and ask it to craft routes for you or play different songs and if you’re about to fall or go into a ditch or crash into a car, the bike rights itself. It can even move on its own and pedal if you’re getting tired. The guy that invented all of that wants to talk to you.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He didn’t say.”
“So he made a bike that does all the biking for you. Will it brush my teeth and trim my nose for me if I pay an extra $5 a month?.” I narrowly avoided the puke of a man vomiting out of his apartment window. 

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I don’t get it either, but he clearly has a bunch of money, so we should take advantage of that, right?”
I beamed. “That’s it exactly, Kenneth. We swallow our pride and take the money, complaining all the while.” 
“See, I’m getting the hang of this P.I. thing. See you tomorrow, boss.”

I grunted and hung up. Then I passed through the sliding doors and entered my happy place: The Grocery Garage. The Garage (not an actual garage) is not well-known for being clean, or inviting, or for having groceries that haven’t expired. But their air conditioning is top-notch. 

My niece Ellie’s birthday party was in a few days. If I didn’t show up on time with card and gift in hand, my sister would come for me with a righteous fury, and that would be that for Dale Monroe. I’ve gotten into a lot of bad scrapes, but I know never to mess with her. 

I surveyed the Grocery Garage’s collection of Birthday cards. There were many that featured women mischievously holding wine glasses and lying about how old they were. Another cluster of cards featured cartoonish drawings of saggy old people looking perturbed. Neither theme seemed to fit for a seven year old. Finally I found some cards with animals on them. Bingo. Kids love animals. I picked up a card with a toucan on it. 

“Toucan you believe it’s your birthday?” I opened the card, eagerly awaiting the answer. “I sure Toucan’t! Happy Birthday, Fella!” 

The bird was giving me the thumbs up with his wing. It would have to do. I grabbed the envelope behind it and went to tuck the card inside, but the flap to the envelope was stuck. Someone had already closed it, presumably with their own saliva. My brow furrowed. I grabbed the next envelope and pulled at the flap. It ripped apart, already closed. I checked each of the remaining envelopes in the slot. Same goddamn story every time.

After about five minutes of frantic searching, I determined that every single envelope in that grocery store had already been licked and sealed by an unknown perpetrator. I stormed over to Julie, the store manager, to share my findings. Julie was leaning against the register, nearly asleep.

“GOOD EVENING!” I hollered. Her eyes sprung open and she stood straight and looked at me. I continued. “Julie, are you aware that someone came into your store and licked all of your envelopes?” I produced an angrily crumpled handful of moist envelopes.
She squinted at me. She slowly looked down at the envelopes, then back at me, and shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

I sighed and threw the envelopes away. “Have you been paying attention to the security cameras at all?” 

She shuffled into the “secret room” with all the monitors in it. After about a minute, she came back out. “I forgot to turn ‘em on,” she said.
“The cameras or the monitors?” I asked.
“Both,” she said.
“Fantastic.” I’d have to find an envelope somewhere else, and I had no lead on the licker. “Can I at least buy this card?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh.” She logged into the register and scanned the leaf-shaped barcode. As she was taking my money out of the register she looked back down at the card. “Are you gonna get an envelope for that?” She asked.
I glared at her. “Go back to sleep, Julie.”

To Be Continued…