Malone

By Reed Harp

This is a literary short-story cycle that reads as a novel—about a character called Malone, his encounters, escapes, celebrations . . . . It’s of the culture and history of some of the late 20th century, and some convolutions of that time, some attitudes, feelings, opinions, beliefs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reed Harp
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781886678033

Book preview

MALONE

Reed Harp

Copyright © 2012 Reed Harp

all rights reserved

Published on Smashwords

N.P. books

* * *

All rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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some other books

* * *

He just wanted

to make art.

fiction—short-story cycle

ebook ISBN 1-886678-03-0

paperback ISBN 1-886678-02-2

some other books

by Reed Harp

WINTER GARDENS

fiction—short-story cycle

RENEGADE CREEK

fiction—of a modern

post-novel biographic journal

MODES

verse

DESTINOS

vignettes

ORIGINS

philosophy

VISAGES

journalism—of the feuilleton

CRIBS

reference—across disciplines

query for availability, ebook and paperback,

at [e-mail]

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MALONE

Reed Harp

Harp, Reed Delon, 1943—

MALONE

ISBN 1-886678-03-0 ebook

ISBN 1-886678-02-2 paperback

fiction—short-story cycle

ebook and

archival

perfect-bound

4 ½ x 6 ½ paperback

renamed and revised here

since its original publication

as Boots, 1996

(and with limited galley-proof bound

review copies printed in 2008)

N.P. Books

sine loco, sine nomine

reedharp.com

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Contents

Boots

Antone's

The Gulf

Doing Tim

The Brick

Offerings

Hotel, Mexico

Directions

If it Please the Court

Unities

A Walk in the Park

No Help

Diagnoses

A Medal

Julie, Passing

An Empty Seat

Jack's Business

If Folks Knew

Saving Grace

The Last Stop

Epilogue

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1

Boots

The first time I saw Malone was in Austin.

I asked him about his boots, and he said the boots he had on were no boots, but that he had a pair of boots he didn't wear, a real pair of boots, and so forth.

We could have been hippies, I suppose, but Malone always claimed his hair wouldn't grow any longer than about two inches which, he said, disqualified him as a hippie. Mine came on out well below the collar in those days, so now maybe I can pas as an aging hippie.

I'll just lean back here, get comfortable, and tell you a little bit about Malone, and one thing and another, mainly about Malone, or about his boots. I'm not sure. And there is more, but maybe some other time.

I might be wrong but I figure everyone knows Malone. I mean, Malone is not exactly

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benign. His story is an old one, and not all that sad either, and one he'd tell if he could, or perhaps if he wanted to. It's mostly about joy that comes along with a little faith in every heart, especially in this one, close to Malone's,

or in anyone's close enough to know him as

the friend he is. He spread some attitude alright, and some language, art, style.

They named him Quintilian Xavier Malone, mostly known as just Malone. Signed his name Q. X. Malone, circled the X if he wanted to be left alone, and figured folks ought to know what that meant . . . hotel rooms, final versions of anything.Guess the plan was to call him Quin, but that sounded too much like Gwyn, good fight training. So, it was just Malone, and Papa, and later, Pops. But I hear he didn't like that, didn't like anything but Malone.

There came a point early when he didn't do Miami, Houston, L. A., or any of the other big ones, especially never New York, ever. Just too much trouble in those places, he said, if he even

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rated them as places. Yes, I believe he called them situations, or was it propositions.

And no, he couldn't hear the 'phone from out on the back porch, where he often worked naked except for the safety goggles and headphones, pounding on a rock sculpture his size, listening to the Ink Spots. Oh, if I didn't care, more than words can say . . . . He sipped from a jug on the floor, something red, through

about four feet of surgical tubing, and hung the little radio on a coat hanger, suspended in mid air for good reception. At night, too, especially when he worked late, he observed no formalities about peeing off the back porch balcony.

Lord only knows why he ever did such things, or why he might ever have to come up with any ribald excuses for just being who he was over the years, and where he was, what and where he had to do. He meant well, he often said, but just didn't want to think about ever explaining any of it, and refused to believe

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he'd ever have to. Hell of a note when he claimed his chief goal was staying alive and out of jail, and keeping his people alive and out of jail, and the bad guys alive and out of jail, so he wouldn't have to testify or stand trial. He had to work at it just as hard as he had to work at art, he said, wanted to make art, be invisible, humble, prolific.

He found a living in art . . . shapes, sounds, words. But he always said it took time, good time, too often taken by friends, relatives, neighbors, bums or hoodlums along the trail. Malone took great pride in managing to stay

out of the way more than anyone he knew, stay alone, busy, happy.

Misery aplenty pervaded Malone's world,

or at least he thought it did, since, there for a while he was given to the concluding remark, what miseryyyyy. The natives, he said, need solitude and art. Malone saw himself as out to help build a national reserve of both solitude and art, but sure enough found some

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resistance. He found the work ethic in that land focused too frequently on what he called simple greed, or was it lust for power . . . something along those lines. He claimed evangelically that ignorance came from what he called random want, which left too little good work time, not enough recreation. He claimed a lot of confusion came from what he called stupid attempts at legislating morality. Social fragility, he said, came from vanity and fashion that could not identify values. A spiritual void got eagerly filled by what he called the church of lesser spirituality. On the rare occasions he got evangelical, he could make little sense, and be ever so pedantic and bombastic, and raise hell so he'd seem like an idiot. Maybe he was. But that was when I first

knew him.

Back then, he would come on with this stuff about how the form chased its function, the shape didn't find content. Now there's a thing, he'd say, content without shape. It threw a lot

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of people. Intent got confused with style, that was it, that kind of fun, he called it. But a lot

of that was the tequila, probably. If pressed, though, he probably would deny all of this . . . deny, deny, deny. He wouldn't want to begin to tell about any abuse of freedom or liberty he was involved with or any breaches of civil decency, or any ignorance of human dignity that accompanied selfish pursuits of child-like egoism. Now I'm preaching. No, that's elevated language that draws more attention to words than to what they say, and should be, of course, avoided. Malone knew that, about all of that. He always tried to be a suitable sort of fellow, sure enough.

And then there was the matter of the boots, his grandfather's boots. And these were no

the boots I asked Malone about. They were

the boots he told me about. It went like this. When his grandfather died that summer before, Malone went down to the home place

for a sorting and the burial. The family

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gathered in a three-bay garage, and divvied his grandfather's things. What they didn't take they sold. Amid all that Malone found a claim check for a pair of boots, his grandfather's boots. He put it in his wallet.

By the next summer Malone wanted those boots, but didn't know enough from the ticket to find even the city. Shop's name wasn't on it either, just Malone . . . boots ready Thursday,

4-26. ~Al.

Malone told me that every time he cleaned out his wallet . . . he wondered about those boots. Eventually, finding them became an obsession. Actually, it was after a long summer-afternoon nap, he said he had to find them.

Malone's mother, he said, thought he was talented. Most of his friends thought he was weird. He was. But he wasn't crazy.

It rained when he arrived, rained when he left. Ten years in between all too dry. He was flush when he arrived, flush when he left. Ten

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years in between damned near destitute. An honest man he was when he arrived, an honest man when he left. Ten years of perjury and

damned-near perjury and all the rest.

About half-way through the tour, year five or so, at one of those times when the truck plates needed renewal, it was at the courthouse we ran into Grover Jackman, retired criminal lawyer, in what