Earth vs. Everybody

I can’t afford
both a vacation and a bathing suit. It’s one or the other. So that’s why I was
lying on my back on the beach in my street clothes. Sure, it’s a little
uncomfortable, but a guy in my income bracket can’t afford one of those fancy
bathing suit vacations you read about in the travel magazines. I’m not made of
money. I have to cut corners. And, to save money, I was lying on a blanket with
people I didn’t know. Cheaper that way. Look it up.

I was vacationing
in a place called “Mexifo”, which the ads said was every bit as good as Mexico,
but for a lot less money. It was even better than Mexico in some ways, they
said. Better for you. Because it had no sugar. No toilet paper either. In fact,
there were a lot of things Mexifo didn’t have. It didn’t have its own language
or traditions, for example. It couldn’t afford to—not at the prices they were
charging. And it didn’t seem to be part of any country per se. The travel agent
I talked to was kind of evasive about the geographical details and seemed to
want to change the subject, so we talked about basketball instead. Then crop
rotation in the Midwest. He didn’t know anything about crop rotation in the
Midwest, and neither did I, but he plainly was more comfortable talking about
that subject than about the shadowy details of my trip.

After looking
over the different packages available, I opted for the “No Frills Vacation
Package” which included no food, no fun, just vacation.

I thought I’d
paid for a plane flight, but the machine I boarded definitely wasn’t a plane. I
wasn’t sure what it was. It took us a long time to get to Mexifo, and we sure
cut a lot of grass along the way, but we finally arrived. That’s all that
really matters, I guess.

My package didn’t
include a hotel room as such. That would have been the “Deluxe Package”, which
I’d decided against. For my package I had to sleep standing up in front of the
hotel wearing a doorman’s uniform. Boy, I thought, opening the door for a couple
of newlyweds, this is a cheap room.

Still, I kept
reminding myself, I’ve had worse vacations. That two weeks I spent lying under
those postcards of Hawaii comes to mind. And that month I spent in a drawer at
the County Morgue—that was a bad vacation. I couldn’t get any rest at all.
People kept identifying me.

Anyway, comfort
wasn’t what was important to me on this trip. I just needed to get away from my
job for awhile. I wasn’t physically tired. I was mentally worn out. The daily
grind had been getting to me. I needed to recharge my batteries.

It hadn’t been a
good year so far for Frank Burly Investigations. I hadn’t solved any cases at
all. I was 0 for 59. That’s a .000 batting average, which is bad in any
business. But especially in my business and baseball. And it wasn’t like the
cases I had been asked to solve were particularly hard either. “The Crime That
Solved Itself” shouldn’t have been that tough. But it was for me. And “The
Mystery That Isn’t Such A Mystery After All” should have been a snap. But it
had me baffled for months. My clients couldn’t decide whether I’d lost it, or
never had it. But they all agreed I didn’t have it now. A monkey could do it
better, they felt. Some of my clients even dropped me and went to a monkey.
That hurt. But I guess they meant it to hurt. I can’t think of any other reason
they’d hire a monkey.

I finally decided
I needed a vacation after I struggled unsuccessfully with the case of “The
Amazing Electric Thief”. In that one, a man came to me claiming that the light
socket in his house had been stealing his money. The electrical outlets were in
on it too, he said. He’d lost 800 bucks so far. I said he had come to the right
detective agency. I was 0 for 58 this year. I was due.

When I got to his
place I saw coins, checkbooks, rare stamps, and even a fur coat moving slowly
across the floor and disappearing into an electrical outlet, while my client
hopped from one foot to the other in dismay. I tried to stop one of the
checkbooks with my foot, but it just gave me a shock and kept going.

“What in the hell
is going on?” I asked, scratching my head.

“You tell me,”
said my exasperated client. “I’m not the detective, you are.”

“Not anymore I’m
not,” I said, putting on my hat and heading for the door. “I’m on vacation.”

A week later I
was relaxing on the beach in sunny Mexifo, taking it easy and trying to forget
what a lousy detective I am.

I say it was
sunny, and it was, but there was something a little cheap about the sunlight. I
didn’t know what it was exactly. The sun seemed to be dripping, for one thing.
And it had flies buzzing around it. And if you didn’t keep shoving quarters in
it, it would shut off. And the suntan I got was blue. That seemed like the
wrong color to me, but I’m no expert. At least I was getting a suntan. That’s
what’s important on a vacation. Never mind what color you’re turning.

I might have
enjoyed my vacation, despite all the inconveniences, if it hadn’t been for the
pricey resort right across the bay from mine. That place had everything my
resort didn’t. It was in a real country, for one thing. You could find it on a
map. And it had real scenery, not just a painted board that moved along with
you when you walked, so you felt like you were in a cheap cartoon. And the
clouds they had over there were floating in the sky, not hanging from a crane.
I knew I couldn’t afford a ritzy place like that, so I tried to not let it
bother me. It was obvious that the people over there were having a lot more fun
than I was, but that was okay, because they were obviously better people than
me. They were the elite. I wasn’t. As long as life is fair you won’t get any
squawk from me.

But then I
noticed that I recognized some of the “elite” people vacationing in that
resort. They were well known Central City criminals! I didn’t see how they
rated a better vacation than me. They weren’t better than me. If anything, they
were worse. I decided I had to look into this.

There weren’t any
boats available, but that turned out not to matter. The bay was made out of
blue plywood. So I just walked across.

When I got to the
other side I found that the whole resort was full of criminals, all of them
having a wonderful time. They were eating the finest foods, drinking the most
exotic drinks, and lounging around in front of their 5-star hotel in skimpy and
somewhat revealing masks, soaking up the sun and letting their rat-like minds
drift. They were getting a really top notch vacation. And it was all paid for,
I found out from one of them—a guy named “Shifty” because he never seemed to be
around when you were looking at him—by “The Organization”.

“Last year we
went to Atlantic City,” said Shifty. “I stole ninety dollars.”

“The real
Atlantic City?” I asked, “Or…?” Before I decided on Mexifo, I was considering a
vacation in Ratlantic City.

“Sure the real
one. Right on the Boardwalk. Three weeks, all expenses paid.”

“Gee…”

He asked me why I
was vacationing on the landfill over there. I said it wasn’t a landfill. It was
a very popular resort. And I was having a very nice time there. He shrugged.

As I walked back
across the bay to my landfill, I got to thinking that maybe I was on the wrong
side of the fence, as far as the law went. It certainly was a possibility.
Usually if there’s a fence you’ll find me on the wrong side of it. Maybe there
was something to be said for crime after all. Criminals certainly got better
vacations. It was something to think about anyway.

I went back to my
blanket, climbed up to the top of the pile of people lying on it, and stretched
out to work on my tan a little more.

After a few more
days of this I decided to cut my vacation short and head on back. I figured I
was as relaxed as I was ever going to be. And I could get unusual bowel
disorders at home. I didn’t have to take a lawnmower to Mexifo for that.

When we arrived back
in Central City and they had emptied me out of the grass bag at the terminal, I
headed for my office, refreshed and rejuvenated, I hoped, and ready to get back
to work.

But the moment I
sat back down behind my desk I realized it had all been for nothing. I wasn’t
relaxed. My batteries weren’t recharged. And my suntan was already fading from
blue to a kind of muddy turquoise. I guess I’m not any better at taking
vacations than I am at anything else. My vacation photos were disappointing
too. Just pictures of me trying to get my camera back.

To make matters
worse, my business was in an even bigger mess than it had been in when I left.
More bills, thanks to my expensive vacation. And less money, thanks to that
same vacation. What was I thinking? I guess it just proves the old saying: “He
who is his own boss has a fool for an employer”.

While I was
brooding about this, the sheriff came in to attach some of my possessions and
turn them over to my creditors. This had turned into kind of a monthly ritual.

“Hi, Sheriff,” I
said. “Is it the first of the month already?”

“Get off of that
chair, Frank.”

I got up and he
wheeled my chair out, taking the calendar off the wall and the knob off the
door as he left. I thought I had paid off that knob, but I guess not.

I looked around
to see if there was anything left to sit on in the office. There wasn’t. I
tried to get some work done standing up, but it hurt my back leaning over the
desk like that. Lying on my belly on the desk didn’t work either. Got too many
pushpins in my face. I gave up trying to get any work done. This was turning
into a lousy day.

Of course misery
loves company, so I decided to go outside and see how miserable everybody else
was. Maybe that would cheer me up.

The first person
I ran into was the criminal I had met at the resort—Shifty.

“I guess when you
got back from your vacation your business was quite a mess, eh?” I asked,
chuckling. I knew what the answer would be. Everybody’s business was a mess
when they got back from vacation these days. Not just mine.

“No,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Our business is
doing fine. I don’t see how anybody could be doing bad in an economy like this.
How’s your business doing?”

“Fine.”

I looked at all
the swag he was lugging down the street. “You stole all that in one day?”

“Sure!”

“But it’s not
even lunchtime yet!”

“Our organization
is very efficient. Can you help me get this stuff into my car?”

“I guess.”

We started
loading up his trunk. I noticed it was a more expensive car than I owned.
Shifty said he was thinking of getting rid of it and getting a new one. The
ashtrays were full on this one. And it didn’t have that new car smell anymore.
It smelled like him now. He had better clothes than I did too, I noticed. And
dames? He had dozens of them, he bragged. All he wanted. Okay, most of them
were kind of scraggly, but they were dames. It’s like the poet says, he
reminded me, they all look alike on the census form.

Shifty wanted to
stay and talk, but he had to go pick up that new car while he was thinking
about it. So he headed for the Cadillac dealership and I went back to my office
and laid face down on my desk again. Whoever said honesty is the best policy
and crime doesn’t pay must have just got here, I decided. That’s not the way it
works around here. I don’t know why we listen to guys who say stuff like that.
Let’s wait until they get something right once before we start listening to
them all the time.

That was my
problem, I suddenly realized. My honesty was holding me back. Well, honesty and
incompetence. And my surly attitude. And that unpleasant smell I give off when
someone shakes my hand. A lot of things were holding me back, but honesty was
certainly one of them.

I glumly stared
out of my window. A parade was going by on the street below. I saw criminals on
floats, waving to the people lining the parade route. The Organization was
celebrating the return of the first criminal to sneak across the Atlantic by
himself.

The enthusiastic
cheers of the crowd decided it for me. Criminals get all the money and all the
fame. All us honest guys get are cases we can’t solve and bills we won’t pay.
Screw that.

I started looking
for the business card Shifty had given me that had the Organization’s address
on it. It took awhile to find it. They say it’s always in the last place you
look, but I always look a few other places after I find it. You can never tell.
It might be there too. You might have two of them now. After I had found the
business card I looked for another hour. Sure enough. There was another one. I
had two of them. Always in the last place you look, my ass!

I closed up my
business, put my detective stuff in mothballs, put my few remaining clients up
on blocks, gave my secretary her freedom, and went out to start my new life of
crime.