Memories of Malloy by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

This mild Saturday morning – September 24, 2016 – found Monique (Agent 32) and me (Agent 33) at a front-window table in the Starbucks on East 7th Street (Charlotte, NC, USA). We were drinking some cold bottled coffee and watching the joggers and cyclists pass by. Just another summerish [sic] morning in Elizabeth. When does the fall weather ever get here? I’m so sick of scummer. [sic] / I can’t wait to ride our bikes again in October. It’s still way too warm for me – way too sweaty.

Monique then began to study the bay window our table was inset within. “Was this always a Starbucks, Parkaar?” [my ailing alias]

“No, Agent 32, this building has been many things over the decades. In the late ‘80s it was a bar called Ty’s, which had live music in the window.”

“They had their backs to the street?” Monique asked.

“Yes,” I replied as I started to devour the moist slice of pumpkin loaf. “Correction: It was Crisp next door.”

“Did Mr. Malloy [appears in numerous short stories and the novella Mysterieau of San Francisco] ever come here, Agent 33?” I am sure that he’s recording by now.  

“I’m not sure, Agent 32.” This agent-number stuff has piqued the interest of the table next to us. Most excellent.

“What were Malloy’s religious beliefs, 33?” Wow! Where did that come from? The female brain is like a quantum chip.

“Well, that very issue came up one foggy June afternoon in 1992 at Sidle on N. [in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco, CA, USA] Malloy told me, as he scratched his white beard stubble, how he went from being Lutheran to Pentecostal to atheist. Then he said that he settled at being a blissful agnostic.” Huh? A what?

“A blissful agnostic? He was happy being unsure?”

“He was quite joyful after winning the lottery, as you might expect. He would say things like ‘God wasn’t for or against me, and the omnipresent non-god was equally indifferent’.” What in the world? How ludicrous! What a nalisoan og utok! [lunatic in Cebuano]

“That sounds completely loko, [insane in Cebuano] Parkaar. What were his politics?”

“He never made any overt political-leaning statements to me, Monique. However, there was one evening in mid-October of ’92, when the national news was replaying snippets from the first Bush-Clinton debate on the small Sidle on N above-bar TV. Of course the old TV was muted for Tsula’s [a female bartender at Sidle on N] low-volume, haunting, ambient music. Well, Malloy just looked up and said, “Their body language is too loud.” 

“Oh, my … that’s funny, 33!”

“Yeah, Malloy would spout off some real gems, Monique. Unfortunately, many weren’t recorded or written down.”

“Lost to the fog?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“Where is he now, Agent 33?”

“I have no idea, Agent 32. For all I know he could be hiking the northern section of the Appalachian Trail, heading south, and leaving $100 bills in the shelters. He planned to give away all of his millions before he died, one hundred dollars at a time.”

“Oh, yes, I remember you telling me that he liked giving away C-notes.” [$100 bills]  

“Tsula collected quite a few in her time,” I added.

“Did Malloy have an ongoing sexual relationship with her, Agent 33?” That got some genteel ears up in here.

“He never told me as much, but they seemed to have some kind of agreement.” Agreement?

“Well, I’m sure that they did,” Monique said with sexy raised pinay (Filipina) eyebrows.

Some more neighborhood customers shuffled up to the counter to place their orders. People at the other five occupied tables all seemed to survey the scene at the same time. That was almost Zen-like. The oddness of the collective human mind.

I then looked at Monique’s neatly folded, craft-paper pastry bag. “Are you going to eat your pumpkin cream muffin, Agent 32?”

“No, I will wait until we are at Valhalla.” [Charlotte’s current LFC (Liverpool Football Club) pub in uptown]

“I hope that we continue our good run of play against Hull City, Monique. We have a bad habit of letting our foot off the gas pedal when playing lesser teams. Remember the Burnley game?”

“How could I forget, Parkaar?! That game sucked ass. LFC came out looking hungover.”

“Well, at least we’re at Anfield today. That should be a big boost. The crowd won’t tolerate a lack of effort.”

“Say, Parkaar, did Malloy root for any team other than the San Francisco Giants?”

“I believe that that was it for him, Agent 32. Never heard him mention any other teams or sports. He was just a longtime orange-and-black [the San Francisco Giants colors] baseball supporter.” Huh?

“Did he have any family members in the Bay Area, 33?”

“Not that I was aware of, Monique. He never mentioned any brothers or sisters, nor anything about any parents. I got the feeling that he might have been an orphan, but I was too shy to directly ask him.”

“I see. But, he was once married, right?”

“Yes, remember … he won what he called ‘the treble’, before winning the lottery.”

“Oh, yes! The treble being divorce, foreclosure and bankruptcy. Did I get the order correct, 33?”

“Yes, I think that was it, 32.”

“And, he claimed that this then allowed him to win the lottery. Am I right, Parkaar?”

“You’re correct again, Monique. Those were what Malloy called his propitious prerequisites.”

Monique chuckled. “That is completely bonkers, Parkaar! I think that he is a bit mental myself.”

“Maybe so, 32. But, he was harmless and quite interesting. Idle after-work time could have been spent much worse. The conversations with him always had a few takeaways.” What?

“Takeaways?” Monique questioned while rubbing her pretty face, checking for a nonexistent pimple.

A dark-haired, young, Caucasian barista then came by and gathered up our plates and empty bottles. Before walking away she looked at us. “Did you guys say ‘agent’? Are you in some secret club? Is it a game?”

“It’s called psecret psociety with silent p’s,” I said.

“You could get a two-digit agent number,” Monique told her. “A lot of people have quit.”

“Why did they quit?” the barista asked, looking very intrigued.

“Something about the checks not arriving,” I said solemnly.

“It’s all just surreal-spy silliness,” Monique added.

“Cool!” the barista exclaimed. “I want to join.”

“Certainly,” I said enthusiastically.

“Please do,” Monique followed for encouragement.

“I will send a friend request on my next break,” the barista said. “How often is the page checked?”

“Very rarely on weekends,” I said. “But, on Monday mornings, Ernie, the ringleader, gets everything caught back up. Well, usually, unless he’s in a void.” A void?

“Is there a goal or an object to it?” the barista asked as she strategically rebalanced the trash on the plates. 

“Now, that’s the $64,000 question,” I remarked. Why $64,000? Why not the $100,000 question?

“Well, you’ve spiked my interest. Have a nice day, agents.”

“Oh, by the way, has an older, 70-ish, white guy wearing a SF Giants ball cap, going by the name of Malloy, stopped by here recently?” I asked.

“I don’t recall such a customer,” the barista answered. “But, maybe he came through when I wasn’t working. Well, nice talking with you guys. I can’t wait for my first psecret [sic] assignment.”

We waved and smiled. I wonder what kind of agent she will be. / Will she really join? Will she summon Malloy? Will she be the one who posts the strangest stuff?

I then looked down at the windowsill. An aphid was snagged in a small corner cobweb. Further down the black metal, someone had scrawled a dated phrase with a penknife:

Yep, yep, yep. 8/8/16

Wonder if Malloy is watching us now.