(Before the Editor cleans up the text.)
One evening in mid-April, it was pissing down as I drew my raincoat collar tight and rang the doorbell at 221B Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of the place, didn’t answer, so I shoved the door open and called to my friend, Sherlock Holmes, the world’s leading consulting detective.
“For fuck’s sake, Holmes, let me in!” I started up the stairs.
Holmes, in a silk dressing gown, held his violin against his shoulder as he came out to the landing. “Jesus, Watson, you’re wet AF.”
I tore off my raincoat and tossed it on the floor of his cluttered sitting room. “Where the hell is Mrs. Hudson? I thought she would bring me a cup of scalding tea.”
“We’re sheltering in place, you nitwit.” Holmes lit his filthy pipe. “I am here, contagion-free, upstairs, and she has the virus downstairs. Where is your mask, by the way?”
“You’re the detective. You tell me.” I wasn’t in the mood for his games.
He stretched his long frame out as he sat in the best chair by the fire, hogging its warmth as if I counted for less than an Asian paper moth. Sometimes I truly hated the man I counted as the best of friends.
“You’ve left that wife of yours alone in the midst of a global pandemic.” Holmes waved his pipe at me.
“Surely, Holmes, you needn’t resort to tautologies. Which wife do you mean?” I sat on the settee and withdrew a bottle of pure heroin from my jacket pocket. I uncorked it and took a swig.
“Christ, I can’t keep track of all your wives.” This, from the self-heralded greatest private investigator.
“You’re a nasty son of a bitch, Holmes.”
“I propose your wife has died of the coronavirus, you’ve left her sprawled on the kitchen floor, where she collapsed making you that tea you’re always demanding, and now you’ve dragged your worthless ass here so somebody will take care of you.”
I grow so tired of Holmes’s showing off his powers of deduction. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is we shouldn’t join the crowds at Buckingham Palace to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.”
My friend stood, removed his .450 short-barreled Webley Metropolitan Police revolver from the mantel, and emptied five barrels into my left shoulder. “That should keep you away from the crowd, you prick. For a doctor, you’re about as stupid as a fucking owl.”
Naturally, Holmes had shot me in my left arm, the one that had been wounded in Afghanistan. I was so bloody angry that I pulled my service revolver out of my right pocket and dinged him in the groin.
Leering at me, Holmes stumbled back to the mantel, grabbed his bottle of cocaine and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case, then disappeared into the bedroom. I wouldn’t see him until he had either recovered from his injury or I had checked to see if I’d infected him. I knew by now I was contagious because of my dry cough and high fever.
I sat back down on the settee and drained my bottle of heroin dry. It was going to be a long two weeks of self-isolation.
One evening in mid-April, it was pissing down as I drew my raincoat collar tight and rang the doorbell at 221B Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of the place, didn’t answer, so I shoved the door open and called to my friend, Sherlock Holmes, the world’s leading consulting detective.
“For fuck’s sake, Holmes, let me in!” I started up the stairs.
Holmes, in a silk dressing gown, held his violin against his shoulder as he came out to the landing. “Jesus, Watson, you’re wet AF.”
I tore off my raincoat and tossed it on the floor of his cluttered sitting room. “Where the hell is Mrs. Hudson? I thought she would bring me a cup of scalding tea.”
“We’re sheltering in place, you nitwit.” Holmes lit his filthy pipe. “I am here, contagion-free, upstairs, and she has the virus downstairs. Where is your mask, by the way?”
“You’re the detective. You tell me.” I wasn’t in the mood for his games.
He stretched his long frame out as he sat in the best chair by the fire, hogging its warmth as if I counted for less than an Asian paper moth. Sometimes I truly hated the man I counted as the best of friends.
“You’ve left that wife of yours alone in the midst of a global pandemic.” Holmes waved his pipe at me.
“Surely, Holmes, you needn’t resort to tautologies. Which wife do you mean?” I sat on the settee and withdrew a bottle of pure heroin from my jacket pocket. I uncorked it and took a swig.
“Christ, I can’t keep track of all your wives.” This, from the self-heralded greatest private investigator.
“You’re a nasty son of a bitch, Holmes.”
“I propose your wife has died of the coronavirus, you’ve left her sprawled on the kitchen floor, where she collapsed making you that tea you’re always demanding, and now you’ve dragged your worthless ass here so somebody will take care of you.”
I grow so tired of Holmes’s showing off his powers of deduction. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is we shouldn’t join the crowds at Buckingham Palace to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.”
My friend stood, removed his .450 short-barreled Webley Metropolitan Police revolver from the mantel, and emptied five barrels into my left shoulder. “That should keep you away from the crowd, you prick. For a doctor, you’re about as stupid as a fucking owl.”
Naturally, Holmes had shot me in my left arm, the one that had been wounded in Afghanistan. I was so bloody angry that I pulled my service revolver out of my right pocket and dinged him in the groin.
Leering at me, Holmes stumbled back to the mantel, grabbed his bottle of cocaine and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case, then disappeared into the bedroom. I wouldn’t see him until he had either recovered from his injury or I had checked to see if I’d infected him. I knew by now I was contagious because of my dry cough and high fever.
I sat back down on the settee and drained my bottle of heroin dry. It was going to be a long two weeks of self-isolation.