…the only differences between a tenor and a bass is a soprano and a baritone…
Monroe D. Underwood
Illinois dawn poked slim gray fingers into our motel room.
I stretched and yawned.
I said well I suppose Doctor Ho Ho Ho is halfway to Manchuria and Sir Lennox Nilgood Fiddleduck is en route to London.
Brandy said no he’s in the Radish River jail.
I said who?
I said which one?
Brandy said both.
She said Purdue they’re the same man.
I blinked.
I said Ho Ho Ho and Fiddleduck?
Brandy said oh yes.
She said Fiddleduck came to me with oodles of identification.
She said I bought his story but I began to become suspicious when he kept insisting that Doctor Ho Ho Ho just had to be Chinese and that he would pop up in Gunther’s Woods.
She said ten special operatives nailed Fiddleduck shortly after the scoreboard blew up.
She said he was singing tenor with the 000th Field Artillery.
I said yeah I heard them.
I said “We’ll Be Standing ’Neath the Streetlight at Ten on Friday Night Singing Songs of Love in Harmony.”
Brandy said gee I like those words.
She said what’s the name of the song?
I shrugged.
I said I thought Ho Ho Ho sang bass.
I said is that all you had to go on?
Brandy said certainly not.
She said on Thursday night I learned that Fiddleduck wears leopard-skin shorts.
A scowl crept into my voice.
I said how the hell did you do that?
A smile crept into Brandy’s voice.
She said why?
I said because goddammit I want to know goddammit that’s why goddammit!
Brandy said Purdue don’t be naive.
I said well I’ll be a dirty no-good rotten miserable low-down double-jointed web-toed flap-lipped sand-bagging triple-fractured three-eyed bastard son of a nine-legged flaming dipped-in-owl-manure goddam giraffe!
I said from New Caledonia.
I said how was he?
Brandy said well let’s see.
She tried to stop laughing.
She couldn’t.
She said he was above average.
She said for a two-hundred-year-old man that is.
I didn’t say anything.
Brandy took the ashtray from her navel.
She rolled onto me.
She hadn’t been laughing after all.
Her tears dropped to my face.
They were very salty.
She said Purdue you’re jealous.
She said praise God you’re jealous!
I shrugged.
Brandy said don’t be jealous.
She said it was all in the line of duty.
She said I had to fix him so he couldn’t trail me to the scoreboard.
I said well that explains why the sonofabitch was singing tenor.
I said you screwed the bass out of him.
Brandy put her face close to mine.
She said strictly business.
She ran her fingers through my crew cut.
She said there’s a tremendous difference between business and pleasure.
She said Purdue I am about to show you the tremendous difference.
Brandy showed me the tremendous difference.
The difference was tremendous.