Mad Diary of Malcolm Malarkey, page 2
Jones ignores the question.
“Listen, Malcolm, you’re a full professor. You’ve been teaching for over thirty years. Maybe you’ve lost interest. Maybe the drive is gone. The challenge.”
“Or maybe the students just feel entitled. You know how many emails I get from students asking me change their grade for arbitrary reasons. ‘But professor, I gave 120%. I read all the books, wrote all the papers, I think I deserve a better grade.’ In other words, they did the minimum.”
There’s a pause in the conversation.
“Have you ever thought about retiring?”
Malarkey ponders the question.
“Oh, right. Retirement. The professorial pasture for all academics who are too old to stud. Have you ever thought about paying me enough to retire on?”
“Yes, well, I understand.”
“What do you understand?”
“Yes, I couldn’t live on a teacher’s salary either, but …”
“But! You gave me a smart two percent rise after three decades of teaching here. Two-percent! Are you guys mired in a financial crisis? I couldn’t buy a year’s supply of condoms for that much money. Provided I could use them.”
“Well, no, but …”
“But what? Listen, I don’t make a half-million dollars a year like you do, and second, my ex took half my pension. The day I’ll retire is the day they cart me out of here in a pine box. Or has the college downsized to cardboard?”
Jones ignores him.
“What about a sabbatical, Malcolm? Aren’t you due for one?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe. Can’t keep track of time. Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now.”
“Then take it.”
“I’ll think about it. Not sure that’s the problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“The problem is I suffer from chronic irascibility. Do you have a remedy for that?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?”
Chancellor Jones’s remedy to follow.
CHAPTER THREE
FLANN O’BRIEN’S PUB WITHOUT FLANN O’BRIEN
Apparently, the Chancellor answers that question, since it’s not long before Malarkey leaves the Chancellor’s office and moseys down to central Citrus City, which is one of the quaintest of quaint towns in Southern California. So quaint, in fact, that it’s at the top of Hollywood’s locations list of “Quaintable Towns” and that’s why Hollywood often comes to Citrus City in order to film the “Midwest.” Like shooting day for night, winter for spring. Hollywood often uses Citrus City to shoot for Bloomington, Indiana or Urbana, Illinois or Iowa City, Iowa or any of a number of Midwestern towns and/or villages in which shooting on site would raise the budget. So, in order to reduce the budget, Citrus City often becomes Bloomington, Indiana or Urbana, Illinois or Iowa City, Iowa or any of a number of Midwestern towns and/or villages.
Citrus City has a lovely roundabout with a small plaza and fountain at its center surrounded by quaint antique stores, quaint restaurants and, of course, a quaint Starbucks on all four corners in case one doesn’t want to cross the street in order to buy a $15 Frappuccino Macchiato Latte Espresso with a dollop. Now imagine, there’s a neon sign that flashes, Flann O’Brien’s Pub, where, inside, you’ll now find Malarkey just walking in after having had his little tête-àtête with Chancellor Jones.
The pub looks exactly like Dublin’s “Mulligan’s,” complete with curved mahogany bar, paneled walls, blah, blah, blah. Malarkey could go into some lengthy description of the place, but that would be a waste of words so just Google Mulligan’s in Dublin and imagine it with the difference being on the walls of this pub are black and white caricatures of Beckett and Joyce, Yeats and Donleavy, as well as Flann himself. It’s somewhat deserted at that hour since most people aren’t drinking at 4:30 as Malarkey walks up to the bar where the thirty-something bartender, Paolo Liliano has his back to him. Malarkey looks puzzled by his presence.
“Where’s Seamus?” Malarkey asks with a typical Malarkian attitude.
Paolo turns as he dries off a glass. Paolo has dark features, a square jaw, chiseled chin, an infectious smile. If one were to cast him in a film, one might suggest Rufus Sewell. His temperament is completely the opposite of Malarkey’s.
“Seamus isn’t here,” answers Paolo.
“I may be old, but I’m not bloody blind,” Malarkey responds. “If he were here he’d be here, wouldn’t he? He’d be standing right where you’re standing, drying off the same fucking glass you’re drying off. But I didn’t ask you that, did I? I asked you where he was.”
“He took another job.”
“Where?”
“Kansas. Topeka.”
“Why the fuck would he go there? Who goes to Kansas? Jayhawks don’t exist. You know what a fucking Jayhawk is?”
“No, not a clue.”
“Jayhawks were guerrilla fighters who battled with pro-slavery groups from Missouri. Why the fuck Kansans would invent a bird to represent guerilla fighters is beyond me.”
“Me too.”
“So, why’d he go to Kansas?”
“Death in the family.”
That statement gives Malarkey pause. Death usually gives one pause, even Malarkey, whether it’s one’s own or someone else’s so he changes the course of the conversation.
“Right. So, who the hell are you?”
“I’m Paolo Liliano. And who the hell are you?” Paolo holds out his hand, but Malarkey doesn’t shake it.
“I’m Malcolm Malarkey and I came in here to get a stinkin’ drink. What’s it to you, polo?”
“Paolo.”
“Whatever. Why’s a fucking Italian bartending in an Irish pub anyway?”
Paolo stops wiping the glass and leans over the bar.
“All the Irish bartenders were too drunk to work. So, what’ll you have, Malcolm?”
“That’s Professor Malarkey to you.”
“Okay, Professor Malarkey what’ll you have?”
“My guess is you don’t know shit about drink making, do you?”
“Try me.”
“Okay, gimme a Black Nail.”
Paolo finishes drying a glass.
“Bushmills and herbal Irish Mist. You want it with or without the orange peel or would you prefer orange bitters?”
Malarkey’s eyes get wide.
“Surprise me,” he snidely answers.
What the Reader will eventually discover is that Paolo is not merely the bartender, but the new owner. Other things about Paolo will also be revealed, but now you’ve got to imagine it’s a few hours later in the day. In fact, there’s a Guinness Bottle Draught Wall Clock that reads, 7:30 so if the Reader is adept at reading and math then s/he knows Malarkey’s been there for three hours. He sits in a booth by himself, nursing yet another Black Nail when a tall, leggy, twenty-something blonde wearing excessively short cut-offs saunters up to his booth. She cocks her head to one side as if trying to think whom Malarkey is and points a finger at him. Malarkey, in his usual Black Nail stupor, doesn’t pay her much attention.
“I know you,” she says. “You’re Doctor Malarkey, aren’t you?”
Malarkey looks up and squints.
“Yes, but only during urgent care hours.”
“My name is Tiffany, Tiffany Tustin. I went to high school with your daughter, Andrea.”
Malarkey smiles and nods politely, but he’s clearly not interested in carrying on any conversation that could, potentially, lead him into a dalliance with one of his daughter’s friends, which could then lead to a possible affair, which could then lead to a possible video, which could then lead to the video going viral, which could then lead to it being viewed on Facebook or YouTube or any other social media outlet in the fucking universe, which could then lead to another meeting with Chancellor Jones, which would invariably lead to his dismissal. After all, he’s not Donald Trump and doesn’t think about shtupping his daughter or her friends.
“Come here often?” Tiffany Tustin asks seductively, leaning across the table, exposing her abundant cleavage and smiling a seductive smile.
“Maybe too often.”
“Could I buy you a drink?” Tiffany Tustin asks seductively.
“Maybe … when you’re older,” he answers with a smile and raised eyebrows.
“Too much for you to handle, eh?” Tiffany Tustin asks seductively.
“Not without outside resources,” Malarkey answers with a smile and raised eyebrows.
“Are you afraid of me?” Tiffany Tustin asks seductively.
“No, I think you’re the most attractive of all my daughter’s friends,” Malarkey again answers with smile and eyebrows raised.
Tiffany Tustin gets a very quizzical look on her face. She obviously doesn’t get Malarkey’s allusion.
“Huh?”
“Mais ou sont les nieges d’autun,” Malarkey answers, smile, eyebrows.
“Sorry?”
“That’s French for ‘have a good night.’”
Tiffany Tustin shrugs her shoulders.
“Nice seeing you again, Doctor Malarkey. Say hi to Andrea for me.” And Tiffany Tustin sashays away, her butt cheeks casually creeping beneath the fringes of her cutoff denims.
“Mon plaisir,” Malarkey answers and raises his glass.
Paolo has been listening to the exchange as have three other men sitting at the bar—who look a lot like Beckett and Joyce and Yeats—all staring at Malarkey wondering what he was thinking.
By now, the Guinness Bottle Draught Wall Clock reads 9:30 and Paolo is sitting with Malarkey in the same booth in which Tiffany Tustin had vainly tried to seduce him. Paolo, of course, is sober; Malarkey not so much and he tends to slur his words as he nurses a Guinness Bitter.
“My cousin moved to Philly from Arona about fifteen years ago. I came soon after,” Paolo says.
“Didn’t W.C. Fields say he’d rather be buried than live in Philly?”
“No, I think he said he preferred Philly to being buried.”
“Same thing. Where’s Aroma? It doesn’t sound Italian.”
“Arona, not aroma.”
“Whatever.”
“Outside Milan. On Lago Maggiore.”
“I don’t know one fucking lake from another over there. Are you mafioso?”
“Not anymore,” Paolo smiles as if there might be some truth to it. “I left that to my father.”
“So, you gave up the mafia life to become a bartender? It’s a bit of a step down, isn’t it?”
“No, I gave it up to be a father.”
“Where’s the mother? Having it off with Berlusconi?”
“No, she died of breast cancer.”
Malarkey is pained by that. Malarkey is often pained by those sorts of things since Malarkey’s mouth often works faster than his brain.
“Oh, fuck. Sorry … I’m …”
“How would you have known?”
“Sometimes my mouth works faster than my brain. It’s a disease. Too many black mails.”
“Nails.”
“That’s what I said.”
Malarkey takes another sip of Guinness.
“Listen, I think you’ve had enough, professor. You need a ride home?”
“No, I have my bike.”
“Does it have a seat belt?”
Malarkey pauses as if pondering the question.
“Uh, no, maybe.”
“Then you need a ride home. I’ll bring your bike inside.”
And so he does. Brings Malarkey’s bike into the bar before escorting him to the parking lot and gently tucking him into the passenger seat before gently securing a seat belt around him.
“So, where do you live?”
“Live?
“Yes. Where do you reside? Lounge? Eat? Sleep? That sort of thing.”
“Around the corner and down the block, over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go; the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, through the white and drifted snow!”
And so Paolo attempts to take Malarkey home.
CHAPTER FOUR
INSIDE MALARKEY’S MAN CAVE WHICH ISN’T ONE
After several futile attempts at finding Malarkey’s house, Paolo finally pulls up to Malarkey’s modest, two-bedroom bungalow in a gentrified area of Citrus City and the professor tipsily spills out. Even at night one can tell the bungalow’s lawn is as brown as brown can be, as are the equally ignored Torrey pines and Bridal Broom bushes—not because of the California drought, but because of Malarkian neglect.
“Night, Malcolm. You okay?”
“Couldn’t be okayier,” Malarkey answers, slurring his words. “Night, Polo. Paolo. Good to meet you and say goodnight to Beckett and Yeats and Joyce. Couldn’t be a groovier trio.”
“Yes, I will.”
Paolo drives off as Malarkey wobbles toward the front door, trips on the uneven wooden porch steps and searches his pockets for his keys.
“Keys, bloody fucking keys! I can never remember where they are.”
He finally finds them on the inside pocket of his fadedgreen corduroy coat then fumbles with them trying to unlock the door. With each successive failure, he gets angrier and angrier until he finally loses it.
“Bloody door! You bastard! Oh my God, I’m warning you!” he screams as he struggles to open the door. Then he steps back and points a finger.
“I’ll count to three and you better open! One, two, three!” He tries again with no success. “That’s it! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing.”
Malarkey stumbles off and returns with a tree branch and in his best Basil Fawlty impersonation begins thrashing the door. For some reason, only known to Malarkey, Malarkey thinks abusing the front door will gain him access. It’s not the first time it has happened. One might think after the first time, Malarkey would have learned, but Malarkey is often reluctant to learn. After all, he’s a professor.
Sometime later, after Malarkey finally secures passage, the Reader sees Malarkey, still dressed in his usual garb, passed out on a couch. His arm hangs limply over the side, a shot class dangling from his fingers. There are dozens of books scattered on the floor. All sorts of books. Books on literature, books on science, books on religion, books on physics, books on books. All sorts of books by all sorts of writers from Aristotle to Lermontov, Molière to Zamyatin. Lots of books since Malarkey is an eclectic reader. A 60s era 33 1/3 record player plays Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5. IV Adagietto.” If you don’t know what Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5. IV Adagietto” sounds like, Google it or rent Visconti’s Death in Venice or Spotify it or just buy a fucking CD and play it while you read this passage. Actually, Malarkey will give the Reader a few minutes to bring up the YouTube video of it. Malarkey prefers the one conducted by Bernstein since at the end it looks as if Lenny’s about to die himself, but it’s up to you. Are you listening to Mahler yet? You really won’t get the flavor of the chapter without it. Malarkey will wait for you, but here are a few of the notes you can listen to in the meantime.
Right. Malarkey doesn’t have time to fuck with you since time is not on Malarkey’s side. With the music of Mahler playing in the background, and from the Reader’s point of view, you can survey his bungalow: a mid-nineteenth-century rolltop desk (which Malarkey states was allegedly owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne), piled with what appear to be typed manuscript pages; scattered pens and pencils; and a pea-green, electric, Olivetti typewriter* with a single page in it that reads,
THE MAD DIARY OF MALCOLM MALARKEY, D. LITT A NOVEL
On his desk are framed photos of Malarkey and his soon-to-be twenty-one-year-old daughter, Andrea, who, from the looks of it, is an olive-skinned Brazilian beauty; behind his desk, two crookedly hanging degrees: a B.Litt. as well as a Doctorate in Letters (DLitt) awarded from Christ Church College, Oxford; an autographed photo of Malarkey standing with Jackie Stewart in Indianapolis and another of a younger Malarkey shaking hands with Samuel Beckett, who is dressed in a gray, greatcoat, baggy pants, and shoes designed by Estragon. Malarkey smiles at the camera. Beckett does not. Then again, maybe Beckett is smiling, smiling as only Beckett can smile which may not be the kind of smile someone smilingly smiles, but which is clearly a Beckettian smile known only as a Beckett smile. Then again, again it could be a Beckett frown that someone may interpret as a Beckett smile when it is a frown pretending to be a smile smiling frownly. Never mind. MALARKEY’S BEING BECKETTIAN HERE
After the Reader has surveyed the room completely, and has deconstructed something about Malarkey’s character not gleaned from surveying the room, the Reader notices the shot glass that falls from Malarkey’s hand and rolls across the floor before banally bouncing against the wainscoting and stops. The Reader notices the shot glass reads, “Angostura Orange Bitters” and as Mahler ends after 12’07” so too does the chapter.
*See Chapter One.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DAY AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE
The next day, that is, the day after the night before, the Reader discovers Malarkey in his office on the second floor of Phigmente Hall named after California entrepreneur and major donor, August Phigmente who earned his billions in the Orange County orange industry manufacturing orange crates for orange growers until the orange growers sold their orange groves to the Irvine Company at which time all orange groves were outlawed and turned into “apartment homes” (which are neither apartments nor homes) or made into shopping malls. Looking manifestly disheveled and not a little bit hung over, Malarkey is resting his head on his desk when there’s a knock on the door. Malarkey shakes his head, sticks a finger in his ear as if that will stop any further knocking from knocking. Realizing that won’t happen, he gets up from his paper-strewn desk, runs his hands through his closely cropped gray hair, staggers to the door, partially opens said door and peeks out as if the last person he wants to see is a student or any reasonable facsimile of a reasonable facsimile of a student.
From his point of view, Malarkey gazes on the woman Malarkey will eventually fall in love with, but, at the time, has no clue that will happen (nor does she), and whose name for the purposes of this novel is Liliana Liliano, and who looks remarkably like Michelle Dockery, although in the present moment, as he opens the door, she’s just a very attractive, mid-thirties woman with a stack of books in her arms. If one were to cast someone to play her in a film, the best actress would be the aforementioned Michelle Dockery. Maybe not. Malarkey’s not actually a casting director, so how the fuck does he know; however, as Malarkey soon discovers she’s not the “normal” graduate student, “normal” meaning some giddy, girly, gadfly of a grad student who’s there because she thinks it will make her something that she’s not; namely, an intellectual. At that point, Malarkey looks at the Reader and raises his Malarkian eyebrows as an indication of his newly aroused interest.
