Mad Diary of Malcolm Malarkey, page 4
“I notice you have a tattoo.”
“Very perceptive of you seeing how visible it is from where you’re sitting,” she replies.
“Right, but I can’t tell what it is.”
“It’s Eos. The beautiful goddess of the dawn who brings the hope of a brand new day,” she says.
“And why did you choose her?” Malarkey asks.
“Because my calf wasn’t big enough for a six pack of Guinness,” she replies.
Malarkey smiles, sheepishly as he picks up one of two cans of Guinness Bitters sitting on a coffee table between them.
“And is there a Mister Liliano?” he asks.
“Used to be,” she answers.
“Did he find a younger woman?” he asks.
“No, he died in an auto accident,” she answers.
Malarkey is pained by that, but since Malarkey is addicted to notions of dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes, and satire and other sorts of rhetorical gambols that mean absolutely nothing to anyone other than Malarkey or, possibly, Michael Palin, Malarkey is pained by that.
“Oh, fuck, Malarkey. Sorry. I …” he begins to say as an apology.
“How would you have known?” she asks in a manner not unlike her cousin, Paolo.
“Sometimes my mouth works faster …”
“… Than your brain. That’s what Paolo said.”
Malarkey raises his eyebrows. Perhaps, Malarkey is much more transparent to others than he thinks he is.
“Children?” he asks attempting to diffuse the previous gaffe, which, of course, only leads him down the path of future gaffes.
“Not yet. Someday, I hope,” she replies as if lost in thought.
“Too much time enjoying the sex of it, eh?” he asks.
“No, I had a miscarriage.”
“I’m …
“No need.”
After two major gaffes in quick succession, Malarkey ponders what he can say that would somehow make him appear less of an asshole than he seemingly appears at the moment, so he relies on his only default position: fatherhood.
“I often miss being a father. I mean a daily father.” Malarkey pauses as if in thought. “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild. With a faery, hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”
He ponders that for a second.
“Yeats,” she replies.
“How’d you know?” he asks.
“As I told you, I like to read and write, remember?”
One might think this would lead into a discussion of parenting, but that’s delayed for another chapter since why would Malarkey extol the virtues of parenthood when Liliana just told him she’s childless? Even Malarkey isn’t that stupid. At this point, Malarkey needs to continue the obligatory backstory.
“So, how’d you get from Oxford to Citrus City?” she asks.
“An eternity of darkness is one thing, but a lifetime of gray skies is quite another. Job came and I took it. And you? Long way from Aroma,” he asks.
“Arona. My mother urged me to study in the states. I graduated from Wharton, worked for a while in finance and got fed up with the corporate life,” she replies.
“Too many assholes, no doubt,” he answers.
“Exactly,” she says.
“So, you decided to change the kind of assholes you deal with?” he asks.
“Perhaps, but there is a difference,” she says.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I don’t have to work for them,” she replies.
“And Paolo?” he asks.
“Paolo came to the states a few years after I did. Same reasons, although he studied literature at Stanford, but he won’t admit it,” she says.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because it wasn’t what his mother wanted, him to do,”
she replies. “And quitting my job wasn’t what my mother wanted me to do either.”
“And do you always listen to your mother?” he asks.
“My mother comes from an old Boston family,” she says.
“Privileged, no doubt,” he suggests.
“Yes,” she answers. “And very rigid in her thoughts.”
“A mossback.”
“Precisely.”
“And your father?” he asks.
“From Genoa. A self-made man. Started with nothing, became very wealthy. You know those very small labels on fruits?” she asks.
“Yes. Bloody annoying things,” he answers. “Every time I try to peel them off, I puncture the fruit and I refuse to eat punctured fruit,” he replies.
“He makes them. Or did,” she answers.
“Did he quit?” he asks.
“No, he’s now making laser-etched fruit labels,” she replies.
“Oh my,” Malarkey says, feigning sadness, “that will make those stickers obsolete.”
“Yes,” she answers.
“Not sure I’ll ever be able to eat fruit the same way again. Will that put a dent in your allowance?”
“No, why would it?”
“So, mom and dad didn’t give all this to you?” he asks the most inappropriate question in the most inappropriate way.
“No, I bought it myself,” she replies somewhat offended by the question.
Malarkey picks up his glass as if to toast that comment.
“Cheers then. To independent women,” he says.
She sits up, grabs her glass and does the same.
“Cheers to intellectual men who invariably know how to say the wrong thing at absolutely the wrong time,” she replies.
“And to women who are sapiophiles.”
Malarkey smiles sheepishly, as does Liliana. It’s getting late and Malarkey feels it best that he leaves, since he has reached his quota of gaffes for one day. Major gaffes at that. Standing on her porch, Malarkey is somewhat caught between wanting to stay and feeling the need to leave even though Malarkey rarely stands on ceremony or on wooden porches for that matter.
“This was enjoyable,” he says as if he were a sophomore concluding his first date.
“I agree,” she replies sensing his comment seems to be stated as if he were a sophomore concluding his first date.
“Uh, perhaps, we can do it again,” he says, in keeping with the tenor as if he were a sophomore concluding his first date.
“Perhaps,” she says with a smile.
“Well, then, good night,” he says as he turns and starts to leave.
“Didn’t you forget something?” she asks.
Malarkey quickly turns as if the comment were an invitation to kiss her and as he hastily approaches her, she holds up the remainder of the Guinness Bitters between them.
“Don’t leave home without them,” she says.
“Right. Buona sera,” he replies as if he were a sophomore concluding his first date.
As Malarkey discovers later, Liliana Googles him. She finds his Wikipedia page with all his information and scrolls down glancing at the sections, honing in on a section titled, “Novels” of which there are two parts: “Published” of which there are only two titles and “Unpublished” of which there are over a dozen. She leans back in her chair with her hand over her mouth and ponders the Wikipedia page of Malcolm Malarkey, D. Litt.
And so, this concludes the Obligatory Backstory chapter. Malarkey hopes that it satisfies the Reader’s interest in reading a chapter that reads like a traditional chapter with traditional details and traditional dialogue tags and all sorts of traditional persiflage. Malarkey promises he’ll try to avoid writing that in subsequent chapters; however, there’s no guarantee.
2 See previous chapter for Malarkian definition of “normal graduate student.”
3 Malarkey really doesn’t care if they’re Nella Vetrina or Roche Bobois items, but he’s paying allegiance to what his readership might want to read in a narrative. Without details, it can’t be a novel.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED, GO BACK TO COURT
Later the same night, Malarkey returns feeling more ebullient than ever. How often does a sexagenarian (no pun intended) get to date a beautiful woman almost half his age? It’s a rhetorical question Malarkey asks himself when, as he sorts through his mail, he comes upon an envelope with the embossed return address:
SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE COUNTY
Lamoreaux Justice Center
341 Citrus City Drive South, Citrus City, CA 92868-3205
“Fuck! Not again!”
This is not a rhetorical exclamation since it’s another in a long list of court battles Malarkey has had to endure with his ex-wife, Luciana, and the following morning he once again finds himself at the Lamoreaux Justice Center impatiently waiting for his turn to enter the courtroom and, as with the others, play the role of either plaintiff or defendant or counsel for such. As Malarkey impatiently sits outside a courtroom waiting to defend himself, he’s wearing the clothes he usually wears, but the fading blue work shirt is now garnished with the same Christ Church necktie he wore as an undergraduate. As people mill about, a woman, blondish, tall, attractive in her lawyerishly way, approaches him.
“Mister Malarkey?”
“No, Doctor Malarkey. Mister Malarkey died years ago. Who are you?”
“My name is Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz. I represent your ex-wife, Luciana Pessoa.”
“What do they call you for short? La Cruz?”
She ignores him and hands him some documents.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a court order. You can read it yourself. I presume you speak English.”
“Claro.”
“Que bueno. Have a good day.”
Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz walks away as Malarkey scans the pages and shakes his head as if he can’t believe what he’s reading. He gets up and walks across the hallway, where he passes his ex-wife, Luciana, an attractive fiftyish Brazilian, who says nothing, but smiles at him waving a tiny Brazilian flag. Malarkey is beyond retaliating with a smile, but even though they say nothing to each other, Malarkey flashes back on an incident in which he and Luciana are arguing violently in front of Andrea who’s ten-years old, huddling in a corner, crying. (See Chapter 9) The flashback ends when Malarkey approaches Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz.
“May I have a few words with you?”
“Of course.”
They walk out of earshot of Luciana.
“With all due respect counselor, uh, what the fuck is this?”
“It’s a court order, Mister, er, Doctor Malarkey.”
“It’s a joke, right?” Malarkey flips through the pages. “Spousal support, overdue car payments, towing charges, child support. Really? My daughter is about to turn twentyone and she lived with me since the divorce.”
“No, it’s not a joke, Doctor Malarkey. We’re here because you’re suing my client for attorney fees related to a deed transfer.”
“Which she refused to sign and that forced me to hire an expensive Beverly Hills attorney named Bernie Brillstein because all Jewish Beverly Hills attorneys are named Bernie and all Jewish Beverly Hills attorneys named Bernie are fucking expensive! You are aware the court awarded me the bungalow on Center Street, right?”
“I understand that, Doctor Malarkey, but unless you waive the attorney fees we’ll countersue for everything listed. See you inside. Tenga un buen dia.”
And so Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz walks away with Malarkey still holding the documents and fanning himself as if that’s going to cool him off. It doesn’t. Momentarily, they are called into the courtroom, and they sit as several other cases are heard before theirs. For some reason, Luciana remains outside the courtroom and eventually Malarkey finds himself standing next to Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz as Judge Norma Wingate, a black-robed, sixty-something judge, who looks so much like Judge Judy she could be Judge Judy so think of her as Judge Judy, peruses some documents, then looks up.
“Just why are you here, Ms. De la Cruz?”
“We’re here to settle some issues that weren’t settled at the time of the divorce.”
“You do know that this court has no jurisdiction on this case, right?” she says, more than a bit miffed. “It was adjudicated …” she looks at the paperwork “… over a decade ago so why are you bringing it to me now?”
“I know, your honor, but my client was married to Mister Malarkey for almost twenty years and as such, is entitled to some things that were never divided.”
“But he’s suing your client for attorney fees associated with a deed transfer that your client refused to sign.”
“I’m aware of that, your honor, but we feel there are other issues that were not resolved anticipatory to today’s hearing which need to be resolved.”
“Do you not have representation, Mister Malarkey?”
“No, my attorney didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“Well, you know the adage.”
“A man who’s his own lawyer saves a shit load of money especially if his attorney is named Bernie.”
Malarkey smiles and turns to those in the audience who are stifling chuckles.
“I’ll overlook that comment, Mister Malarkey, but do you have anything of relevance to say, and I emphasize the word relevance?”
“Nothing that I couldn’t be held in contempt for.”
“Pardon me?”
“No, nothing, your honor, well, yes. The reason I’m here is because Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz’s client refused to sign the deed to my house, which the court awarded me at the time of the divorce.”
“Mister Malarkey, I’m not an idiot so don’t explain the obvious to me. As a matter of fact, as I read the settlement, I think you got the better of the deal here.”
“Well …”
“Well what?”
Malarkey points at the documents the judge has in her hand.
“Do you see those documents you have?”
“Yes.”
“Does it indicate in the document that she was fornicating with foreigners?”
There’s a collective gasp from the sitting litigants.
“Mister Malarkey, do you really want to be held in contempt?”
“Uh, no, preferably not, your honor.”
“Your honor, I don’t want to take up the court’s time. Could I ask for a continuance on this issue?” Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz asks.
“I’ll grant you a continuance, but my opinion is you should settle this nonsense out of court and not bother me again. Is that clear? Continuance requested until April.”
They both nod.
Malarkey can’t wait to get out of court, rushes home to call Bernie Brillstein, who dresses the part of a highly successful Jewish Beverly Hills attorney since he is a highly successful Jewish Beverly Hills attorney and, because of that, charges an enormous hourly rate. All the way home, Malarkey repeats to himself, “When will this be over, when will this be over” as if merely repeating the phrase and tapping his heels three times will make it happen. Once home, Malarkey looks over the documents as he talks to Bernie.
“Did you get my email?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What the bloody hell is this all about?”
“Simple, Malcolm. She’s going to sue you for all those things she’s listed if you don’t drop suing her for the attorney fees.”
What Malcolm doesn’t see, but which the Reader does, is that Bernie’s attention is drawn by a beautiful, twentyish Latina assistant who’s wearing a very tight, very short, mini skirt. She smiles at him and leaves a document on his desk. As she walks away, Bernie slaps her on the ass.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That sound.”
“What sound?”
“I’ve heard that sound before when I’m talking to you. Did you just slap your assistant on the ass again?”
“You’re wasting my time.”
“Listen, we’ve been divorced for a fucking decade! She forced me to hire you!”
“Doesn’t matter. I thought you knew about hot Brazilians before you married one. You know, that schoolboy fetish you had for Sonia Braga.”
“Oh, Doctor Phil, what would I do without you?”
“If you want me to handle it, Malcolm, it’ll cost you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Work it out with the Sonia Maria Sorjuana Allende Castillo Ejevarilla de la Cruz chick. Is she hot? Would you do her?”
“Bernie, you’d do anything in a miniskirt and I’m not excluding anyone in kilts.”
“Just make a fucking deal, Malcolm.”
“What kind of deal?”
“She already signed the deed, so waive the attorney fees in exchange for dismissing everything else.”
“But she’s a bloody psychologist and doesn’t need spousal support. Thanks to California, she got half my fucking pension! I don’t have a pot to piss in.”
“I’ll send you a pot. Listen, I thought you were a professor.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You’re a lousy listener. Eat the attorney fees and be done with it. It’s simple. You want to go back to court or go forward with your life? Last free call, Malcolm, next time the meter starts—bye.”
Bernie hangs up. Malcolm looks at the documents, then turns to the Reader and shakes his head.
“Fuck.”
CHAPTER NINE
AFTER MANY A SUMMER DIES THE SWAN: PART II
What many people don’t realize is that parenting does not come with a manual. What a parent does have is a set of guidelines mostly gleaned from how he or she was raised. These are not necessarily good guidelines and parents remain responsible for those parenting errors long after the child has ceased to be a child. In this case, Malarkey realizes all the patently stupid things he did as a parent while his child, in this case, Andrea, was growing up and he further realizes that he can never alter that. What results long after the child ceases to be a child is an unfettered case of guilt that Malarkey takes with him everywhere he goes and which happens on a daily basis since, like Proust’s madeleine, there are occasions, unsuspected occasions, that memories appear and those memories elicit joy or sorrow or, in Malarkey’s case, guilt. Unlike Proust’s madeleine, Malarkey can’t eat them. The memories. Malarkey carries a lot of guilt about his daughter’s childhood since he recalls those days when in the heat of an argument over one thing or another—arguments over one thing or another, often money—he can’t remember over what exactly, but he does remember the devastating effect it had on his daughter. The circumstances surrounding those arguments have disappeared, have been long forgotten, exist only as fragmented memories if they exist at all, but the effects of those arguments still remain, linger, like etchings engraved in the stones of history and Andrea often reminds him of that.
