Later the next night, the Reader finds Malarkey in his bathroom staring at the age spots on his hands. In the background, the Reader hears Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. IV Adagietto, which, as the Reader remembers, Malarkey invariably plays when there’s some agitation going on in his life, which seems to happen on a weekly, if not a daily, basis. The fact it’s the same piece played in Visconti’s Death in Venice is purely coincidental and Malarkey has no intention of contracting and succumbing to cholera whether it’s in Venice or Citrus City; however, he does think about tuberculosis and how romantic a nineteenth century disease it was and how he would choose tuberculosis over any other debilitating disease if given the choice. Especially since it goes well with his black, Baudelaire suit. But back to the bathroom.
Malarkey turns his attention from his hands to his face and scrutinizes it: turning one cheek, then another, running his hand through his cropped white hair, looking at his neck, checking the age spots wondering how to get rid of them.
“God damn you’re an old fuck, Malarkey. You’re on earth, there’s no cure for that, is there?”
There’s a knock on the door.
“Gotta pee, hurry up.”
Malarkey walks out and Liliana rushes in and drops her pants.
Malarkey returns to the living room and sits at his typewriter with his back to the Reader. After a few moments he stands up and walks off. The Reader lingers on a page in the typewriter which reveals the sentence: “Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”
At the same time, Liliana sits on the toilet peeing. She looks again at the medicine cabinet now with a bottle of Vicodin in front of the plastic container meant for the semen analysis that was due several months earlier because of the fuck up in the urology lab. Liliana slowly leans over and opens the cabinet doors. She pushes away the Vicodin bottle that’s in front of the plastic container and merely stares at it. Then, overtaken by what its emptiness means, begins to weep silently. The Reader should realize by now that the empty container is not the same container that Malarkey used to collect his semen initially, but a new container for him to come into. Also, Liliana does not know the secret between Malarkey and the Reader; namely, that Malarkey made a second trip to the urology lab for an additional test on the same day he had his hand stitched. Just why Malarkey doesn’t tell her is a mystery even to Malarkey, but, as has been stated repeatedly, Malarkey is often delusional.
In his living room, Malarkey sits in a chair, legs propped on an ottoman, when he hears Liliana slam the bathroom door; rushes into the living room and hurls the container meant for his semen sample at him. He ducks as it whizzes by.
“What is that!”
“I’m hoping whatever it is it’s plastic.”
“Don’t give me that shit! Why have you done nothing with it!”
“No time.”
“No time! It’s been in that cabinet for months. You told me you were going to do it months ago. Why didn’t you do it!”
“Shit happens?”
“How could you do that to me! We talked about this! I trusted you to do it!”
“I know, but I went …”
“No buts, Malarkey! Don’t I mean anything to you! Don’t you love me enough! I would have done anything for you, Malcolm! Anything! I have done everything for you. I asked for a simple gesture on your part! Something that would show me you love me. But you failed even that.”
“You do mean everything to me.”
“So, why not this? You know how much it means to me. Why not this!”
“Because I fear being a new father is gone for me.”
“Great. Now you tell me. After months and months. Do I have to admit that my mother was right! God forbid!”
“No, I’ve told you before. In so many words.”
“You’re so good with words on a page, Malcolm, but not from your heart! You’re a dick, Malcolm. Testa di cazzo!”
“Perhaps. But it’s hard to see myself as a hero by leaving a young widow and a fatherless child on this godforsaken planet.”
“Now he waxes existential! I trusted you to do that for me!”
“Expectations …”
“Stop with the fucking quotes, Malcolm! You hide everything beneath that intellectual veneer!”
“It’s the only veneer I have.”
“God damn you, Malcolm!”
She picks up the plastic bottle and throws it at him again.
“It’s just like you!”
“I don’t disagree.”
Liliana rushes him and starts hitting him in the shoulder. Malarkey does nothing.
“Brutto figlio di puttana bastardo!”
Crying, she puts her arms around him the way she did in his dream. He embraces her though it seems to be too little too late as he half expects her to disintegrate into a pile of wetted ashes. Distraught, she lets him go.
“I can’t stay here. I can’t. I have to leave. It’s too much for me.”
She grabs her purse and heads for the door.
“Goodbye, Malcolm.”
“I love you,” Malarkey says as she slams the door. There is no response to his words of affection as Malarkey stares at the plastic container now resting ruefully in a corner of the room. Her last words resonate throughout the house. Hell hath no fury like a woman ignored.