Conversations and Malcolm
written by: Chris Gee
Soldiers fired their machine guns into the largest house in the village. Screams of terror filled the night. Each killer, with muzzle flashes lighting their numb “following orders” expression, swayed side to side, moving their rifles like scythes, harvesting death.
A government-sanctioned death squad sent to clear Tamil Tigers (LTTE) had mistakenly liquidated a Christian Blind Mission’s (CBM) camp. Moments before, in that same house, Christians new to the faith sang praise and worship to God Almighty in their native Sinhala. Angela stood deep within them, singing the few words she knew as her face suddenly reflected a joy blossoming inside her. Unable to conceal it, she turned to share as bullets rained through the assembly, cutting down loved ones and friends. Their murdered bodies fell over her, forming a blood-soaked blanket of protection.
The year was 1995.
Angela woke screaming as her hands pushed away at something still in her dreams. Adrenaline forced her groggy eyes to open and scan the perimeter. From the same tree that gave her and her black 2001 Honda Accord shade hung a white poster board sign framed by sagging balloons and torn streamers. It read: “Saturday’s Big Band Outreach Picnic, This Way!” in hand-written letters of red and blue marker ink.
Resting the full weight of her head against the steering column, Angela growled until she was breathless. Her hands fumbled around to lower her car windows, letting a warm Texas breeze blow through. In a few minutes, it dried a nightmare’s worth of sweat.
She sat up and pulled her Baylor Bear sweatshirt over her head, revealing a Cannon Trading’s ‘1990 Family Picnic’ t-shirt so faded that the contours of her black bra shone through. She turned the sweatshirt inside out before hanging it over the center vents. After setting the car heater to full blast, the sweatshirt billowed like a strange green sail. However, it was her empty front passenger seat that held her attention.
Yesterday evening, Angela and Mike parked outside his apartment complex. Their dinner date marked six months of dating. Both were visibly exhausted. Angela had landed that afternoon after four back-to-back business trips. Mike, with his stoic profile of “five o’clock” stubble and steely blue eyes, had that rattled look that comes from one-more-thing burnout—the result of his recent promotion to associate pastor.
Lately, Mike has not let up on where their relationship was going. Angela would have been in the right to expect more of the same and gave one-word answers to all his questions until the topic of church leadership came up. Her flippant answer—that elders seemed more interested in stocking colas and corn chips—brought out a surprise rage in Mike. Out came this spittle-laden, pre-mediated list of her failings as a Christian woman.
Angela kept quiet until Mike exhausted himself. When he spoke again, his words had an undercurrent of rehearsal. “Everyone’s prayin’ for you since you’ve lost yer way. If I were you, I’d help out with the thing tomorrow, ev’n as a worker bee.”
Then, he left her car, disappearing into his apartment. There wasn’t even a goodnight kiss.
The moment she got back to her apartment, Angela called her Auntie Vee on the speakerphone in the kitchen. She told her Auntie—as always—everything before asking, “What do you think his last words meant?”
“Forget all that. Are y’all still a couple?”
Angela’s hands started shaking. She could only continue after balling them into fists. “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s a dozen women easy from church that’d love t’see him single again. And the most important thing I hadn’t told you. My nightmares are back. Affecting my sleep and everything. Him having whatever self-discovery now is the last thing I need.”
Their talk dried up into an uncomfortably long pause before Auntie Vee said her piece. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m pleased as punch yer dating after all you’ve been through. But, at the risk of wearing you out, I’ll say it again: ‘Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away.’ Between the ladies that hiss and the clueless men, the whole lot of them are dead branches. You need to get yer hands dirty with a good ol’ fashioned church plant. I’m thinking somewhere past the Tollway, like Celina. Anyway, my flight’s boarding. Lord willing, we’ll catch up in Vancouver later in the week as planned. Let’s pray each other through.”
The call ended. Angela, alone in a kitchen with more dust than grease, had only the reverberations of Auntie Vee’s what-for to keep her company. She picked up her cell phone and checked its logs until reaching Mike’s last call. Her hands started shaking again, to the point of uselessness. Angela tossed the cell phone onto the kitchen bench, saying out loud, “Lord, help me beat this!” before starting up her nighttime routine.
But, sadly, the routine of late had Angela tossing and turning against sleep for hours. She gave up around four o’clock in the morning and got busy—lots of laundry, shadow kickboxing, and a five-mile jog. After a shower, hair wash, and hair dry, she checked both phones—no missed calls. Angela then dressed for the worker bee, including skinny jeans and indoor soccer shoes, before heading out the door. She left her cell phone charging on the kitchen bench.
By ten thirty in the morning, Angela was working through her first headache of the day. In her best Spanglish, she tried explaining to her local car wash dryers that she wanted the interior detailed three separate times and nothing else. They had no problem understanding her when she added, “Two hundred dollar tip.” Next, the standard headache of guy customers ogling at her. One even tried his luck with the line ‘Do I know you from church’ as she walked through. The worst of her headaches came from gal customers. With her getting all the male attention, their eyes cut into her with anger and competition. Angela, understandably, sat alone, crossing her legs and arms, and waited. Her signature cat-eyed sunglasses concealed any attention or expression as an uneaten muesli bar dangled from her fingertips.
Back in the car park, Angela glanced at her weathered SandY 590 watch with the matching military green wristband and saw it approaching four in the afternoon. She was now very late to “the thing.” Leaving it inside out, she pulled her sweatshirt back on and used her rearview mirror to freshen up—travel wipes, the ritual flip of her ash-blonde hairstyle, and such—before exiting.
The scene on arrival had the spirit of a colony of ants clearing roadkill. Easily, three hundred souls worked at pulling apart temporary structures, keeping children safe with play, or having whatever private conversation.
Angela found Mike a few paces away from the remains of the main stage. Around him were a semi-circle of equally dressed guys—old-man blue jeans, Leatherman in belt clips, and worn-thin t-shirts. Mike was an angry mess, calling his subordinates all kinds of nasty names, infrequently pointing to a solitary soul in a relaxed tuxedo ensemble.
One in his crew held fast to a defense. “You can’t blame us, Mike, for the way that car was pumping out scary black smoke?”
“But now we’ve got some blind nigga’ player without a ride!”
Mike’s words had visibly disturbed Angela. A crimson hue filled the whiteness in her face. Just as one of Mike’s boys pointed her out, she turned and walked away.
The player in question stood about a frisbee’s throw from that argument. With dark skin the same color as good, fertile earth, he held his head high like a prince in waiting. A drawstring knapsack colored in regal reds, golds, and greens sat before his feet. And, upon his head, a crown of natty dreadlocks.
Angela, as she approached him, slid her sunglasses up, tucking them high into her hair. The hardness in her brown eyes softened with familiarity. And, once near enough, she asked, “What’s all the drama, jazzman?”
A pair of wayfarer sunglasses concealed his attention. And without turning his head, his six-foot frame of street muscle answered after a delay. “Guessing some Sieg Heil security nut dismissed my ride. Now, they’re in a flap.”
“Maybe I could help? Where do you need t’go?”
“Doll, only if you have the time? My man Reggie’s waiting near St Edward in Deep Ellum.”
Angela’s five-foot-two frame took his hand to her elbow, supporting his sight impairment with discretion. “Promise t’not call me ‘Doll,’ and I’ll make the time. It’s a drive downtown, so make sure you have all yer bits.”
“Just me and my blackwood. I’m Malcolm, by the way. What should I call you?”
Her countenance lit up, eyeing his clarinet case poking out of his knapsack, and she rejoined simply with, “Claire.”
The ride started in small talk territory after Malcolm bent himself in half to sit in the front seat. He shared his gratitude for riding in such a clean-smelling car. ‘Claire’ shared a warning against her glove box that a jack-in-the-box worth of junk awaited him. Then, she asked how he wound up at the venue. As a contract player for hire through BMG, they have him all over the map. Tomorrow, for instance, was an early flight to Tokyo, pending a ride to the airport. On the first conversational low, she hit a radio preset for KNTU, where the DJ introduced Sidney Bechet’s “Si tu vois ma mère.”
Malcolm heard something in the background that caught his attention.
“I’m hearing a jingle. Not from the radio, though. Crucifix?”
“Yes. Grand Mama’s Rosary. God rest her soul.”
“It’s getting caught up on something?”
“Yes, again. Keychain miniatures. Soccer ball and album cover. All hanging from my rearview. Take a guess which one?”
“Which soccer ball?”
She chuckled while accelerating to merge onto the highway.
He pressed by asking, “How about a clue?”
“Platinum Blonde.”
“I wanna say…Madonna’s debut.”
“Winner rings the dinner bell!”
The awkward way in which Claire responded cooled their banter. It could have been intentional. Either way, she drove on for a bit, expressionless. Or, more accurately, the same expression she had at the car wash. Then, without warning, Claire spoke. “Hey. Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“If someone you know showed a toxic side of themselves you’ve never seen before, do you dismiss it, seeing how they were frustrated at the time? Or do you count it against their character?”
Malcolm took his time, then said, “Something tells me you already know the answer.”
“Yeah.”
The radio next played Lester Young’s version of “There Will Never Be Another You.” Barely two bars in, Claire yelled out, “Such a man-child!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry. I was…caught in a memory. Not for you.”
Malcolm, almost raising his voice, called her out. “Claire…I’m a spiritual cat. You’re sporting a crucifix, Madonna locks, and whatever Baptist offshoot back there. All this screams crossroad to me. So…I’m moved to say–”
“Whoa, hold up!” She aggressively merged over a lane without signaling. “If yer fixin’ t’preach some pious yawn based on your prejudice—”
“Maybe a lady like you needs to take a break from her head…and listen?”
Frustrated with the traffic, she merged back. “In my head…six years and countin’…is the nightmare that never ends of machine gun fire, cuttin’ down everyone I loved—my parents, blind children, their families. Except it really happened—even the part with death squads torchin’ the village and me havin’ t’crawl away t’survive. It’s only through the Grace of God that I’m here now.”
Her roller-coaster of forwardness would have bled a thinner nose. But, with Malcolm, it had the opposite effect. Cleared the air as if an interview had just turned for the best.
“Since I look normal, first-world folks keep dumpin’ expectations on me—the Army, college, my Auntie in her own way, even this here church. They can’t see or don’t care that I’m still back there, crawlin’ through jungle filth, just wantin’ these nightmares t’end. So, Malcolm … if yer gonna preach, preach against that!”
At twilight, a light rain fell a few minutes before—not enough for puddles, but enough to cool down the day. Malcolm led the way beyond St Edward as his well-shined loafers cracked into the wet sidewalk, tempered only by Claire’s ‘Step over a crack now’ or ‘Doggie do in two.’ Of course, they copped some racist sneers from passersby, but the two didn’t notice or didn’t care. Next were some familiar food trucks she had not seen in years on the fringes of her old college stomping grounds. Finally, they walked into a well-lit, industrial shed bubbling with dueling piano and bass, which Malcolm must have heard from blocks away.
“Heavens! That’s a sound BEGGIN’ for a bandleader.”
The men already in the shed spoke over each other. “Hey!” “Malcolm!” “My cousin’s car got turned away… whoa, Reg! Check out—”
“Claire, that’s Fats on piano, Reggie on bass, and Drake on skins,” Malcolm spoke loud enough so everyone could hear their introductions. “—making us ‘The Coffee Four’ until we come up with a better name.”
Drake and his caramel-colored baldhead saluted her from behind the drums, with his body-building muscles moving snugly under a tan-brown sweater. Fats, nearest to Claire, blew out a puff of smoke before standing to shake her hand. Even though slightly obese, he presented well with round-thin-metal glasses, an afro-fade haircut, and a ‘kinda blue’ button-down shirt.
Last was Reg, who had the most similarities to Malcolm except for longer dreadlocks and a malnourished frame. He did not budge from his standing bass, saying, “This gig’s gettin’ rent by the minute. Now, Malcolm’s bringin’ in white—”
Malcolm cut him off. “Watch your tongue, Reggie. Claire’s a lady.”
“Am guessin’ the Lady of the Marching Baton?”
Fats fumbled to change the subject, “Hey, Malcolm? What’s our cut tonight?”
“Wasn’t that settled? When we left Kansas City?”
That kicked off a rage between them, like feral cats. Claire let it go for a bit. Then, she interrupted with, “Look, I know y’all will work this out eventually—” as her corporate negotiating skills kicked in. Like an elite athlete taking a morning swim, she had command of the situation within three proverbial laps, getting them past the ick of money and any prejudice against her.
Except for one awkward moment when Malcolm needed help to get to his station—solved by Drake—the quartet moved on to practicing. Claire took a casual lean against a building support beam and could have been there for hours, at the wings of their creativity, enjoying a free concert. On reaching one piece, they made three attempts, stopping each time on a Malcolm “Not ready” quip.
On the final stop, Reg yelled at Malcolm. “Nigga! What’s wrong with you?”
Malcolm replied, full of confidence and without a quiver, “I’m just not feelin’ it. You lead tonight, Reggie. Like Mingus.”
“Alhamdulillah!” proclaimed Reg. He parked his bass against its stand so he could squat down and search through its carrier. “I’ve got the perfect setlist for tonight. Now, where is it—”
Claire’s demeanor reflected someone deep in character study. She even witnessed the desperate exchange of looks between Fats and Drake with the leader change. Her only mistake was moving off the beam, perhaps looking for a seat, which jostled Reg.
“Hey, ain’t this yo’ town, Claire? What do Y’ALL do for food?”
She blurted out, “Heavens!” before dashing out the door. Twenty minutes later, Claire returned, carrying two pizza-shaped boxes and a six-pack of soft drinks. She placed all sensibly on the folding table nearest the door.
“Here’s the finest nachos twenty bucks can buy courtesy of Yesenia’s College Eats.”
The men needed no other prodding and gathered around the table in seconds. Praises of “Thank the Good Lord!” and “Negotiation! Food! Malcolm, she’s hired!” overlapped.
“This got me through ‘Macro-and-Microeconomics 3.’ I had them hold the jalapenos and beans. That way, I can’t be blamed if any of y’all keel over.”
Malcolm found his way to the table by holding onto Drake again. When near enough, Claire helped him down into the only seat at the head of the table she had pre-served with food and drink. Malcolm whispered to her, “Appreciate it,” before Claire left to dish herself.
There was only the sound of grateful crunching and such for a while. Everyone, excluding Malcolm, had the same standing posture—Jarritos soft drink opened and waiting on the table, one hand holding a loaded napkin of food, the other hand using a tortilla scoop dripping with nacho delight. Fats was the first to show some dinner manners.
“So, Claire, you travel much?”
“Much more than I should. Big D’s my home, and I’m not here enough.”
“Yeah?” interrupted Reg. “How do you make your money?”
Drake mockingly cough-spoked, “Personal.”
“So, when y’all were arguing? Corporates hire me in the same way t’arbitrate through whatever mess, without the courts.”
Fats questioned, “With what? Threats?”
Claire responded, “With listening.”
All the players nodded with learning, except Reg. “Na. Not buying it.”
Drake asked Reg with a wry smile framed in salsa, “Not buying what?”
“White gals like her? Chargin’ in on their horse named Chestnut, wavin’ the Liberal flag! Squeezin’ onto their latest doll from ‘da Cripple Store!” His pinky pointed at Malcolm while his hand held a drippy scoop of food.
Another rage of jazz cats, overtalking each other. “Faa—” “Cripple Store? She’s feeding us!”
Reg held his ground. “Hey… if I’m lying, I’m dying!”
“Claire—”
“Hold up, Malcolm! She’s all corporate. Let her defend herself.”
Claire kept Reg square in her sight as she finished the last bit of her food. The moment had all the intensity from the old West, using her chew to distract folks as a proverbial free hand might have moved slowly for a holstered Colt pistol.
“First off, Reg, I was raised Republican Blue. And, bein’ a lady, I’ll let you re-think where t’stick that Liberal flag.”
Overlapping zeal of “Oh! He asked for it!” and “Preach, Claire, Preach!” burst out.
“Second, I’ve spent more time evadin’ LTTE skirmishes than thinkin’ about dolls durin’ two tours with CBM. So, Reg, I’m curious. How many children without sight have you served?”
Drake and Fats laugh-hugged each other, watching Reg get reset.
“Third, so you know… I’m smolderin’ on matters of the heart. If you really want an overflowin’ dollop of white gal TMI, just keep pressin’ my buttons.”
Crumpled napkins rained down on Reg. He had nothing else to say.
Having left the shed, the troupe made their way through the back alleys of Deep Ellum. Drake set the pace, speaking stream of consciousness and keeping topics fresh. Fats tried to keep up, both with witty one-liners and infrequent jogs for his shorter legs. Behind them was Reg, pushing his bass, filling the lows with personal, hurtful digs.
Following Ray were Malcolm and Claire. He talked about the modern-day derivative of the Chitlin Circuit. That great pressure awaited Drake and Fats, whose hands and feet were about to share the same kit played by the greats like Howard Grimes or Ray Charles. He also explained that the digs Reg took were to keep them sharp, to keep them from getting comfortable. Malcolm said some other things, but only had half of Claire’s attention.
There was no pattern to it, but Angela would catch up with Auntie Vee as often as their schedules allowed. There was this one time they had booked an adorable holiday cottage off-peak in Gulfport, Mississippi. It was her aunt who suggested Jazz to combat Angela’s complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). And that weekend’s study was 1960s Mingus At Antibes.
With fresh reds poured, Auntie Vee shared—out of the blue, without prompting—this proverbial week in college where, by Thursday, folks had mastered where to go or how to study. Then came that once-in-a-lifetime weekend, filled with cheap eats and sleepless nights. People were free to say their piece, with egos checked by agenda-less arguments and laughs. A person and their voice mattered. But by Monday, the gathering had scattered. Everyone was off and running the race again. After a long silence, her aunt shared that her deepest college regret was not appreciating the moment.
Back on the Deep Ellum walk, Claire encouraged Malcolm to loop his arm inside her own. Then, with kindness, she clamped her free hand down on his forearm, shutting him up immediately.
When this troupe of five reached their destination down some alleyway, a pair of stereotypical bouncers blocked the only open door. Reg approached these walls of muscle first, greeting them in Arabic. “Assalamu Alaikum.”
“Wa Alaykum as-salam,” responded the senior in this deep, velvety voice before sharing a jive handshake with Reg. The two men exchanged a broken mix of English and Arabic. Anyone listening could half make out they were comparing Abu Dhabi stories. The younger of the two bouncers interrupted, nodding toward Claire in her worker bee whiteness.
“First Grip,” voiced Malcolm without prompting, then physically cut through their conversation. Claire tempered his charge, helping him down a short step and through a cellar door.
After shaking too many hands, the troupe exited onto the main stage and started arranging their stations. Reg was the first to chirp up. “Hey, Grip, where’s our water?”
“Brah… don’t take it too far,” cooled Fats. “Don’t want her spitting in our drinks.”
Claire responded, “A lady never spits. But they do poison,” ending with a wink to Reg. The other players tried to squash laughter, sounding instead like a choir of throaty chuckles.
After settling the musicians, Claire took a patron seat nearest Malcolm—far left of the first row if looking at the stage. Then, she ran through an old high-school trick of torso stretching. This action allowed her to look around without being obvious. These were the days when celebrities like Cuban or Nowitzki could pop up anywhere.
Except for spotlights on the main stage and the bar, the venue had dismal lighting. The scene itself was small and intimate, full but not packed. Patrons, dressed hip for the night and certainly younger than herself, were all waiting, giving an air of aficionado sharks in the know.
And so began the longest forty-five minutes experienced in recent human history as the band rolled out play-it-safe, tired jazz standards. Claire had to conceal her shock by fully covering her mouth with both hands. One by one, patrons left. Last to leave were some loud-mouth, out-of-towners, one yelling out, ‘—whose idea was it to come here tonight?’ At the end, Reg called into the microphone the name of the band and each player’s name, but no one was listening.
After closing with ceiling lights on, stagehands turned up chairs without pattern as they swept. Each player was in a mood, avoiding each other by looking busy with their respective instruments. Claire had joined them on stage, probably half expecting to be helpful in a First Grip capacity, but even she stood there with a certain deer-hit-by-a-jumbo-jet look in her eyes.
Out of nowhere, the venue got an earful of Malcolm shouting from the bar, “—that won’t even cover our dry cleaning! The streets need to hear about your cheapness!”
A new voice, more on the country thug side of life, hit back. “Cheapness? You scared off my patrons! Yer lucky I’m not chargin’ y’all for my losses!”
Claire dropped off the stage and ran over to the argument. She didn’t even wait for an introduction. “Sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Claire.”
A man named “Tony,” situated high behind the bar, changed his tone when seeing her, giving Claire looks full of hunger and suggestion.
Claire pushed through. “Grand setup. That’s a mixing board, yeah? Can it record?”
“Oh yeah. Yamaha somethin’ or other. That light says when it’s recordin’.”
“Anyone still around t’run it?”
“My nephew Phil. He’s around here someplace. Why?”
She whispered in Malcolm’s ear, “Whatever you’re ‘feeling,’ this is your ‘Coffee Four,’ and you need to lead them. What better way to get their skin in the game than a recording pressure?”
Malcolm smiled. More like bloomed, even if it were brief. He motioned for Tony to come close enough so he could whisper in his ear. After relaying some instructions, Tony stepped back with a similar smile before shouting, “Phil! Where ya at?”
“Claire, this is all you—” from Malcolm, as he held up his hand for guidance.
Claire latched his hand to her elbow and brisk-walked him back onto the stage. Once she settled him, she fired her first volley. “So, who’s gonna apologize first?”
The backing players shared a lost look. “Apologize? For—” from Drake.
“For starters, that dog’s breakfast y’all called a session.”
Excluding Malcolm, her words set the players off, each blaming the other until all anger landed with Reg. He quickly redirected it as hate towards Claire, calling her all kinds of nasty slurs, holding nothing back. The first to eventually speak without swearing was Fats. “Whoa! Hold up. Twenty years in the bid’ness, there’s gonna be an off—”
“Don’t give me ANY of that off-night nonsense! Patrons came for the revolution, and y’all gave them the glitter ‘n’ glue hour at Shady Oaks retirement.” Claire, moving like she had heard worse name-calling in her life, looked around for something to sit on. She settled on returning one chair from the nearest table to the ground. “—like wind-ups bashin’ away at toy instruments. God knows y’all played with more soul at practice.”
The backing players, forced to stand with their conscience, mumbled incoherently.
Claire continued. “Forcin’ yer’self into a box, t’make others happy by playin’ them standards? Trust me, from years of tryin’, that don’t work. All that ever comes of it is a room full of haters, hatin’ not even the real you. Gets t’where the part of you that’s kept you goin’ in this ‘world of cants’ can’t breathe.”
As she sat down, crossing her legs and arms, the backing players shared affirming, sideways glances, knowing half of Claire’s words were not for them.
Fats responded with a wobble in his voice. “So, what can we do about it?”
“All depends on you, huh? If it were me, and I had y’all’s talent and let myself down in such a train wreck sort of way, I’d be bustin’ t’prove my chops.” On her silent cue, the bright red RECORDING sign on its rectangular white background lit up over the bar.
Reg was the first to laugh, sharing a jive handshake with Malcolm, before saying, “She’s a natural born playa, cous,” before re-saddling his bass. The other players did the same, taking his unspoken direction.
Phil cawed over the speakers. “So we’re spinning. What’s this called?”
Malcolm shot back, “Calling it ‘Angela.’ The one from practice, boys. Blake, count us in.”
That they used her real name justified a new, unhinged anger inside Angela. She looked like a pinball machine going full tilt with all her visible freckles blazing. Lucky for them, she only had the tabled chairs to throw. A part of her would have done so, except she cooled quickly, realizing they had genuinely listened to her.
Even Tony chimed loudly from the bar, “Much, much better!”
The quartet started strong, up-tempo, tight, even with fresh ‘we care’ sweat breaking from their brows. Then, the jam bottomed out into a hush, with only Malcolm and Reg dueling. They took their time, building back up again—like a roller-coaster taking its time up the next hill. At the top was only Malcolm, lifting his song to God Almighty. He had something to say, using his clarinet to say it, and wasn’t holding back.
As Malcolm shared his soul through that most magnificent invocation, the last of Angela’s A-game melted away. Tears streamed down her face. She hunted around for something to wipe herself with and noticed her hands were steady and strong. Angela simply smiled and pressed them hard against her lap. This song wasn’t another jazz standard. It was release.
“This is the final boarding call for passengers flying flight 2501 this morning to Tokyo.”
“Claire…”
“You know it’s not Claire.”
“You’ll always be Claire to me. Look me up at BMG… when you’re ready.”
“I will.”
A freshly minted CD waited in her car. Written on it in permanent black magic marker were “Angela,” the date, and each player’s signature.
Malcolm made his way through furniture and folks, tapping out his walking stick like a metronome. A kind, red-headed stewardess met him at the end, placing his hand on her elbow, and led him down the gangway. There was a last glimpse of Malcolm’s regal knapsack, and then he was gone.
- Conversations and Malcolm - May 13, 2025
