Mad diary of malcolm mal.., p.10
Mad Diary of Malcolm Malarkey, page 10
A candle burns. Incense wafts. A Carmel moon casts blue-black light on the Egyptian cotton bedsheets, filling the room with a cascading glow that only accents the love they feel for one another. It’s apparent by the heavy breathing; we have arrived at the dénouement or la petite mort of things depending on your take.
“Did you?”
“Kinda, yes.”
“Was it?”
“Sort of.”
“Did I?”
“I think so.”
“You know, I could get sacked for this.”
“For what?”
“This.”
“But I said I did, kinda, yes.”
“I know. Are we on the same page?”
“Not sure.”
They kiss.
End of chapter.
As the Reader has discovered, many chapters end with “End of chapter.” Even though it’s axiomatic, Malarkey feels the need for closure to each chapter and closes that way. If the Reader doesn’t appreciate this type of closure, then s/he is encouraged to substitute whatever closure s/he wishes. In large measure, it doesn’t make a fucking difference to him. In this particular instance, one detects that even love cannot cure everything.
6 The Reader could, at this point, recall the food scene between Tom and Mrs. Waters, but much more sanguine. If the Reader doesn’t know who these characters are, Malarkey feels for you.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A FORMULA OF A DIFFERENT KIND
Formulas are great. There are formulas for everything. One can speak of a mathematical formula, a rule or principle expressed in algebraic symbols; or a medical prescription; or a detailed statement of ingredients such as in a recipe; or an expression of the constituents of a compound; or the specification of a racing car, which is often expressed in terms of engine capacity. Let’s skip Archimedes’ Method of Exhaustion since that’s, well, exhausting and move on. In Malarkey’s world, there’s a formula for relationships, which he borrowed from Pythagoras and which he calls, Malarkey’s Theorem of Unrequited Angles:
As the Reader must be aware, the Pythagorean Theorem is a trigonometric function defined as the sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c). For Malarkey, (a and b) equal the relative relationship between consenting adults which equals (c). In other words, the longer (a and b) are, for Malarkey, the better the chances of the relationship working out. If, in fact, the relationship does not work out for Malarkey, then he can always blame Pythagoras. This theorem has not worked out well for Malarkey, but he believes in mathematics and contends that it’s the “mystery of the cosmos.” Be that as it may, the formula Malarkey is dealing with now has nothing to do with relationships, but with race cars.
The morning after the night before, Liliana and Malarkey walk out of the hotel, but just as Malarkey starts to climb into the driver’s side of the Jaguar, Liliana stops him.
“Not today.”
“Not today, what?”
“I’m driving.”
“Driving what?”
“You heard me. Get in.”
So, Malarkey climbs into the passenger’s seat as Liliana climbs behind the wheel.
“Look at me,” she says.
“Is that an order or a request?”
“Just look at me.”
Malarkey turns and Liliana takes out a kerchief and blindfolds him. The conversation continues with Malarkey blindfolded.
“Do I get a last request? This isn’t one of those Al-Qaeda surprises, is it? I’d hate that surprise.”
“Shut up. It’s a birthday surprise.”
“I’m not very keen on surprises. Last surprise I got was my ex suing me … again.” The talk about exes isn’t very appealing to Liliana because Malarkey has done that in the past. One thing Malarkey has a hard time learning (as do many divorced men) is that a current paramour does not necessarily want to hear about past relationships, let alone marriages. Not only is it somewhat disrespectful to said paramour, but it is self-defeating. Needless to say, the last thing Liliana wants to hear on Malarkey’s birthday is anything having to do with the former Mrs. Malarkey.
“Can we make an agreement?”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s agree you won’t talk about your ex anymore. Especially this weekend. The trip is for two, not three, and even an allusion to her won’t fit in the car. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Malarkey replies, painfully embarrassed.
“I think you’ll like this surprise.”
They drive out of Carmel proper and take CA-68 East until they approach a sign that reads, LAGUNA SECA, 7 MILES, where Liliana turns into a restricted usage road. Another sign reads, SKIP BARBER RACING SCHOOL. Now if the Reader is a close Reader, then the Reader will recall in an earlier chapter there was a photograph of Malarkey with Jackie Stewart whom Malarkey once met through a good friend of his, the Brazilian Formula 1 racer Quincas Borba. How he met Stewart is irrelevant. Liliana pulls up and stops near the racetrack itself. She climbs out of the car, opens his door and leads him by the hand to the starting point of the racetrack.
“Are you ready?”
“Do I have a choice?”
When she removes the blindfold there’s a fire engine red Formula One racecar awaiting him with Skip Barber standing next to it smiling and holding a racing helmet. Malarkey looks at the Reader and raises his eyebrows.
“Fuck!!!!!”
Malarkey has always had this fantasy of driving an F1 MacLaren and many times he has alluded to that during their brief, but intense, courtship. The fact Liliana remembers means a lot to Malarkey and the mere thought of driving Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca is almost equal to taking an overdose of sildenafil. That’s not to say he had an erection as he begins to drive the course only that it feels as if he has an erection.
To give the Reader an image of what Malarkey is soon to drive, he includes a map:
Alas, a MacLaren was not in offing. He really had no choice. His ride was a Renault R25 Formula 1, a baby F1, which, compared to a MacLaren, is the difference between a novel by Joyce and a short story by Chekhov. Both satisfying, but not the same. After he was instructed on what to do and not do, Malarkey settles into the driver’s seat and adjusts his helmet, the harness and other accoutrements. Malarkey feels his heart rate increase, the palpitations in his pulse, the rapid breathing. There is no substitute for this kind of exhilaration and if the Reader has never climbed into one of these cars there is nothing Malarkey can write that would do justice to the experience.
Malarkey starts to drive the first of three laps around the course. He revs the engine. It gives him chills. And then, he starts. Slowly at first and then he eases into the gas and soon he’s on his way. During the first lap he feels out the course. Down in one turn, up out of the turn, the cornering forces were something he has never anticipated, shifting onto a straightaway, shifting again, and again, the speed goes higher, he approaches another turn, braking, the smell of burning Dunlops, a down shift into the turn, and out and up and shifting again, his hands feel glued to the steering wheel, tighter than any steering wheel he’s held, into another turn, and out, onto a straightaway shifting again, once, twice, three times, four times, at times he can’t think fast enough, the car seems to have a mind of its own, by the time of his third and final lap, Malarkey feels as if he’s one with car. At this point, the Reader has to imagine hearing the last three minutes of Beethoven’s Ninth, Ode to Joy. To make it easy for you, click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_5z0m7cs0A and listen to Lenny Bernstein as you imagine Malarkey taking each and every turn, dipping down, rising up, increasing speed, decreasing speed, downshifting. With each turn, the Reader has to imagine cuts between Malarkey driving the final lap and his face, a face, though squashed in his helmet, showing unfettered enthusiasm. Even beneath the helmet, behind the plastic visor, one can see the thrill of driving, the joy of driving, of knowing that at any moment, at any second, life and death hang in the balance. A wrong move, an incorrect adjustment of the wheel, a thoughtless execution and it’s all over. But that’s not what Malarkey is thinking. His focus is on the track, on the handling of the car, on the music of Beethoven throbbing in his head. At the end of the circuit, as he crosses the finish line, as Malarkey finally stops the car and Beethoven ends, Malarkey removes his helmet and looks at the Reader. It’s a bittersweet moment. The look is one of both joy and sadness.
“Fuck!!!!!!!!!!”
It is, after all, one less item on his bucket list. The wet spot on his pants is a testimony to that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A FORMULA OF YET ANOTHER KIND
This formula is 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-7-oxo-3-propyl-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl) phenylsulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine, better known as sildenafil which is the active ingredient in Viagra, Cialis, Revatio, Levitra, Vardenafil and any other boner building meds. One of the problems with sildenafil, especially for Malarkey, is that it doesn’t work very well. Oh, he can get a semi-permanent erection, but it never seems to last and he always seems to get every other side effect, except the one he pines for: a four-hour hard on. As a way of sublimating, Malarkey has written a short story about sildenafil that the Reader will find at the end of this chapter.
At any rate, the morning after his Formula 1 orgasm, Malarkey slowly opens his eyes. Liliana fetchingly looks at him, her elbow on the bed, chin in hand and smiles a seductive smile.
“Morning, Humbert … wanna make a baby?”
At that hour, Malarkey isn’t fully awake, but awake enough not to be seduced. He puts his finger in his ear as if he’s not heard her correctly.
“Hmmm, not this morning, dear, but …”
“But what? But later?”
“No, but is breakfast included?”
Liliana shakes her head as if she’s heard it all before. The woman is a saint. Who could possibly be with someone so incorrigible except, perhaps, Melania Trump. It is a testimony to her fortitude.
“You know, it’s highly inappropriate for you to be sleeping with one of your advisees so if you don’t want to be reported you should do as I ask.”
“Yes, well, it’s equally inappropriate for you to be abusing the elderly.”
Liliana always sleeps in the nude. It’s one of the many things that endears her to Malarkey since she’s got a very 60s attitude to her body. She pulls back the sheets and straddles his chest. From Malarkey’s point of view, she’s a goddess: the brunette hair cascading across her shoulders and breasts, her Cupid’s bow lips the envy of Venus herself; and he tries to reconcile why a goddess like Liliana would be straddling the geriatric chest of someone with solar lentigines and an occasional skin tag. If one believes in miracles in life then this straddling would be one of them.
“Is this elder abuse?”
“Without meds, yes, yes it is.”
“Always an answer.”
Liliana climbs out of bed and starts to walk toward the bathroom. Malarkey gazes at her from behind, lovely legs, pins of perfection, and a shapely ass meant for Ipanema. She looks over her shoulder and smiles as Malarkey turns to the Reader and raises his eyebrows as he is wont to do. If the Reader is finally realizing there may be a conflict between Liliana wanting a baby and Malarkey having second thoughts about creating one, then the Reader is not prescient, just able to read the obvious. To that end, Malarkey commends you. And now, this …
Osphena & Phil
-A Pre-Medicated Love Story-
Osphena Ospemifene (aka Οσφενα Οσπεμιφενε) and Phil Sildena met through an online dating site for people over fifty. Their exact ages are unimportant. What is important is that based on their profiles they seemed to have had multiple things in common. Lifestyle, background, education, interests, values, all those things that seem to make for an alleged match. Osphena was a seasoned traveler, had lived in France, Brazil and Argentina and was now divorced. She was a tall and slender woman, handsome in some respects, with a chiseled chin and brunette hair, with lips and eyewear not unlike Nana Mouskouri. As Phil was to discover, her name came from the Greek, Orchomenus, where she was born.
Phil was strapping for a man of his age, over six-feet tall and though his hair had receded long ago there were still some wisps of salt and pepper. His surname, “Silenda,” was of Italian origins for those who came from Silendys which was once a part of Sondrio in Lombardy and which meant “to be silent.” Like Osphena, Phil, too, was a seasoned traveler who, for a number of years, lived in both Nerja, in the south of Spain, as well as in Cassis, in the south of France. Like Osphena, he too was now divorced and was trying to begin afresh.
After emailing, texting and chatting for a couple of weeks they decided to meet for dinner. It took place in Manhattan Beach. Il Fornaio, as I recall. The sexual attraction was immediately palpable and the online photos did not belie her beauty, for she did, in fact, look like Nana Mouskouri. In between appetizers and entrées they chatted for hours about things like travel and children, food and film, art and music and everything seemed so right for the two of them. They talked for so long that they actually closed down the restaurant as the last two patrons to leave. Phil apologized profusely to the maître’d who merely replied, “È un piacere” and the two of them strolled out of the building. At some moment, their hands accidentally touched, then clasped until they reached her car and as he opened the door for her they kissed the first of would not be their last kiss.
For the next couple of weeks, they continued to Skype or email or chat on the phone; they dined at fashionable and not-so-fashionable eateries in Los Angeles and Orange County until the time came when Osphena, feeling totally comfortable with Phil, asked him if he would like to come for dinner. Of course, he couldn’t refuse such a gracious offer and so a date was set with all the attendant anxieties and reservations that would have accompanied such an invitation.
As Phil was to discover, Osphena was a marvelous cook who said she had once studied with the maestro himself, Paul Bocuse, when she was living in Lyon with her ex-husband who was a venture capitalist. Needless to say, Paul was astonished to hear that and couldn’t wait to see what kind of a fantasy feast she would prepare for the two of them. Her home was located in Pacific Palisades, perched on a bluff overlooking the sea, and given the warmth of the July night, they dined al fresco adjacent to the pool.
To say the very least, the dinner was magnificent and would have made the maestro proud. For starters, scallop of foie gras, pan-cooked, with a passion fruit sauce followed by filet of beef Rossini and a Périgueux sauce with a side of broccoli mousse. The feast was finished with fromage blanc and double cream and consummately concluded with a Sirio Crème brulée as only the maestro could have made it. The dinner itself was companioned by more than one bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac, 1996 (which Phil brought) and accompanied by selections from Jobim to Veloso, Nascimento to Gilberto all of whom Osphena was enamored based upon her lengthy sojourn in São Paulo.
The combination of dinner and wine and music went delightfully to their heads and, needless to say, ended with the inevitable voyage around her bedroom. As Osphena was showing Phil some of the paintings she had acquired while she lived in South America, she turned her back to him and her tan shoulders and slender legs lasciviously exposed beneath the little black dress was a bit too much for Phil to handle and he brushed aside her shoulder-length hair and kissed the nape of her neck. There was no resistance. She excitedly turned. They kissed each other full on their mouths as they tumbled onto her bed.
Soon, their clothes were tossed, scattered on the hardwood floors, draped on the mid-eighteenth Century Venetian Commode and they began to kiss again, passionately. Hands and fingers and toes intermingled beneath the luxury of Sferra Egyptian cotton sheets and a Swedish comforter made in Malmö. As a super moon espied on them through French doors it seemed as if nothing in the world could undermine that exquisite moment, but when Phil placed his hand on her vagina, she suddenly stopped and bolted upright.
What’s wrong? Phil asked. Did I do something wrong?
No, but I have something to tell you.
What is it?
She hesitated.
My gynecologist recommended that I pre-medicate.
For what?
She hesitated.
A dry vagina.
I see. And so? Is that a problem?
So, there might be some side effects.
Side effects? Like what?
Well, serious ones could include stroke or blood clots or eventually cancer of the lining of the uterus.
I see, but that’s a worst-case scenario and they always have to say that in order to protect themselves legally.
Yes, I guess you’re right.
She lay down again and they began intensely kissing, but no sooner had they started when Osphena stopped again.
But there may be others.
Others? Really? Like what?
I could have unusual vaginal bleeding or there might be changes in my vision or speech.
Yes, but we’ll just see what happens. Let’s not get too alarmed about that right now.
You’re right.
And they began kissing even more intensely than before, but once again Osphena stopped.
But there could be more.
How much more? Such as?
Such as sudden severe headaches or severe chest or leg pains. I might even have shortness of breath or sudden weakness and fatigue.
Certainly those things could be disarming, but we can monitor them. You know, just watch for them.
You’re right.
And they began kissing again, but it wasn’t long before Osphena curtailed their lovemaking.
