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.