The Case of the Bomp in the Bomp Bah-Bomp

by Matt Garczynski ’14

It was nights like this.  When I’d tell myself I’m never working this beat again.  But as I’d quickly find out, tonight wasn’t any other night.  Wish I’d have known before I mixed up all those appointments.

“Johnson?  I think you need to see this,” said O’Malley.

“What is it, rook?”  I turned to see O’Malley, looking whiter than his own buttcheeks.

Not that I would know.

“A ram,” he said.

Typical rookie move, I thought.  First time he gets to snooping he starts seeing things.  Had to send my last partner to the loony bin.  This knock-kneed numbskull O’Malley might not be so lucky.

“A ram?” I barked back, admittedly sounding like some sort of man-dog.  “Where?”

“In the…the…”

“Spit it, rook!”

“The rama lama ding dong!”  The words rang through the eerily vacant halls of the Doo Wop Hall of Fame the way bells ring.  In halls.  Except these were words.  In halls.

O’Malley proceeded to vomit on the floor.  He pretended he didn’t, shuffling his feet in the textured slop.  But I saw it.

“A ram in the rama lama ding dong?” I asked, as indicated by the question mark.

“D’ya think–”

“All the time.  Cognito ergo sum, O’Malley.  Right now I cognito there’s a pattern.”  He didn’t seem to follow.  I continued anyway, ’cause fuck him.

“First the dip in the dip da dip down on Bleeker.  Then the bop in the bop shoo bop in the park in broad daylight.  Now a ram in the rama lama ding dong right in the heart of the city.  O’Malley, I think we’re closer to cracking this than we’d ever –”

Just then a finger snapped from down the hall.  Then it snapped again.  And again.  Rhythm, the ancient Romans called it.

“What is that?” whispered O’Malley.

“The ancient Romans called it–”

Just then, a man burst out of the Lymon room looking dapper and dangerous in a shawl collar tuxedo.  He was charging right for me and O’Malley at a swingingly moderate speed.  I had to act fast.

“O’Malley!  I’m leaving!”

But it was too late.

“BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY SHOO!” yelped the man as he ramma-lammed his bomp right in my bomp bah-bomp.

It wasn’t so bad, I thought.