Marvin Finds a Home by Patrick Sean Lee (ebook offline .txt) 📕

“Yes,” Richard added, “when did you get interested in science? A professor? At Denver University?”

It was not unheard of for a perverted university professor to bedazzle a beautiful female student with twenty letter-long words of praise, and then charm her into bed. Not that many years ago Richard had been a student too, but with a keen future politician’s eye. Men never change, essentially, he knew. His premature assessment of Marvin’s M.O. was, however, at least one beautiful girl off the mark. Marvin was deeply indebted to Maribeth, but interested in her body he was not. Further, though the governor had no way of knowing anything at all about this, it was never Marvin’s intention to wow the woman of his dreams with heady words. His intention was simply to win her with his youth.

“Oh Daddy, please. You know very well I’ve always watched The Science Channel. But to answer your question, I met Mist…Professor Fus-fahlgrafstad a few semesters ago on campus in Biology. His area of research astounded me. He…well, maybe he could explain it better than I could.” Maribeth looked imploringly at Marvin the scholar to rescue her. Marvin thought hard on his coming dissertation for a second or two.

“Certainly, my dear. Sir,” he said looking up at the governor, “I intend to unravel the mysteries of the human gene and then reverse my age. Quite simply.”

Richard stumbled backward in shock—or anger—and glowered at his nit-wit daughter. He regained his composure and replied to Marvin with a scowl.

“Get out, you idiot.”

“Daddy!”

“Be quiet, Maribeth. You must be insane.” Richard turned to the cop.

“Get this nincompoop out of here.”

The cop came alive, the look of recognition rising like a star bursting in his eyes. “I KNEW I’d seen you somewhere! You’re the drunken bum that flipped me off this morning. Get up!”

“Oh dear…”

“Mama! It’s true. Mister Fuster is a genius, I swear it. I saw him read an entire book on the way home from Araby’s.”

“Fuster! I remember you,” the Major exploded.

“Get up,” the cop ordered again. Marvin sat quietly, disobeying the law for the thousandth time in his adult life.

“I thought he said his name was Fahlgrafstine,” Trish said, the look on her face betraying her growing confusion.

“Get him out!” Richard ordered the cop once more with force.

“Mama, he can’t leave! He’s been hurt…through no fault of his own. In our home! If you let Daddy throw an injured genius out, I’ll simply die! If I don’t keel over dead, I swear, I’ll starve myself to death instead. He’s done nothing wrong…” And on Maribeth went as the cop disregarded her pleading threats. He grabbed Marvin by the collar—the collar of one of Richard’s cashmere sweaters—and yanked his frail body to its feet as though the wasted carcass encasing Marvin was a plastic trash bag filled with crumpled paper. Marvin coughed as the collar cut off his air supply.

“You beast! Leave this poor old man alone,” Maribeth screamed. She launched herself at the cop, pounding on his back. The cop diplomatically paid no attention to her pummeling and began to read Marvin his Mirandas. Marvin coughed more.

“He’s nothing more than a God-forsaken alcoholic derelict,” the Major advised anyone who might care to listen. “I can attest to that first hand, with God as my witness.”

Maribeth continued to engage the cop’s back with both fists as she turned her head and snapped at the Major. “Oh shut up you old fart. Why are you here anyway? Begging for money? Get out!”

“All right, all right! Stop,” Richard said, wading into the fray.

  Marvin’s face was contorted and turning purplish in the death grip of the v-neck. The officer released him from his grip, at which Marvin collapsed onto the floor for the second time. Maribeth and her mother, hands of mercy extended, came quickly to his aid.

“’… And, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of Heaven so fine that…’ What…what was it he said?” Marvin sputtered. “I have seen eternity staring at me this evening.” He sat slumped and staring forward, mumbling at his hands that lay palms-up on his knees. Maribeth and Trish fussed over him, but it was as though he had left the hallway and the mayhem slowly fading around him.

Richard motioned the officer to move back, but paid no attention to the Major, who had only come, uninvited, to ask the governor to attend a gala dinner at the Mission, which was to be prepared in its entirety by the residents, none of whom could he possibly know had ever cooked anything more complex than a hard boiled egg. The Major had complete confidence in the hand of God in the matter at any rate. His God who had urged the saintly man in a cathartic vision to personally visit the state’s dignitary and request his and his family’s presence week after next. In the long run (the Major failed to admit to himself) the attendance would draw the interest of hundreds, perhaps, of the wealthy, along with their well-oiled pocketbooks. For his part, six foot-five Officer Daniel O’Reilly had simply been walking by when he spotted the Major, an old acquaintance. In the short course of their congenial conversation he found himself rambling up the Mansion steps beside the major, unaware that within the hour he would have personally met the beloved governor, his Florence Nightingale-like wife, and the sodden bum he had rousted earlier that day. He would later recall, mostly, having met Maribeth with her viper’s tongue and John L. Sullivan fists.

The governor looked down on the now blue-tinted gentleman wearing his sweater, trousers, argyle socks and comfortable loafers, being mothered by Saints Nit Wit and Trish of Avila. He set aside his urge to throttle Maribeth for the moment and turned to the Major and Officer O’Reilly. Over the Major’s shoulder he spied Consuela and Robert peeking round the corner at the kitchen. Richard spoke to the Major and O’Reilly.

“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us.

“Robert,” he said raising his eyes, “please escort our visitors to the door. Major,” he said dropping his gaze, “we will check our calendar to see if the night of your dinner is open. Thank you.” To O’Reilly, “I think the situation is under control. Thank you for your help. We’ll see to the professor, or whatever he is. Goodnight.”

Robert had stepped forward, halfway down the hall, and waited quietly until both men offered their valedictions to the family, and then retreated toward the exit behind them. At the corner he glanced back over his shoulder quickly at the bum who had weaseled his way into the sanctity of the home. He could not help but notice Maribeth sitting on her haunches caressing the indigent’s face as though by doing so she could somehow erase what the interloper truly was in his heart.

Marvin found his voice as the tempest subsided.

“’It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.’”

“Is he speaking to the Major?” Trish asked her daughter.

Maribeth turned to her mother. “I think about himself. Mamma, we simply have to help him,” she whispered.

                                                     *

“Have they gone?” Marvin asked, the color in his face returning to its normal sallow hue.

“Oh my goodness, he’s going to live,” said Trish.

Maribeth smiled and answered her guest-pet. “Yes, Marvin. Daddy threw them out.”

“I did no such a thing.” He stood close to the trio and looked down on Marvin and his daughter. The handful of books still lay strewn about on the hardwood floor like so many cards tossed by a naughty child. Marvin blinked as his heart pumped precious blood back into his brain.

“Now, who are you and what are you doing in my home?” Richard demanded.

“Daddy, please. We’ll explain every…”

“Quiet, Maribeth. I’m asking him.” Richard waited. Marvin considered what fabrication he could devise that would make at least some sense to a man who was no doubt used to hearing bullshit from men dressed in thousand-dollar suits, and agendas that ranged from purely public-minded to insane schemes involving millions of taxpayer dollars.

Marvin began to rise shakily to his feet. Maribeth and Trish took one of his arms each. When between them they'd gotten him up and steadied, he looked at the governor. The hall lights washed across Richard Harris’ face, devoid of the desperate wrinkles that marked his own. His brown, expertly-trimmed hair shined, with the salt and pepper relish dappling his temples. The governor’s blue eyes were penetrating and steady.

The governor waited.

“Sir, it will do me little good to lie to you, and so I will tell you the truth, I swear by all that’s holy. It will take a moment or two, though. Is there someplace we can retire to where I can sit and relate a story that will positively astound you? I only half-believe what has happened myself.”

“Yes there is,” Richard answered. “Out on the curb while we wait for a van from the asylum to take you away.”

“Oh Richard! For the love of Jesus, don’t be so cruel. Mister Fahlgrafstine has been hurt. He can sit in the study while we listen to whatever it is he has to say,” Trish corrected her husband. She took Marvin’s arm and gently urged him to accompany her, ignoring the sour upturning of Richard’s nose. Richard sighed in exasperation.

“This way, professor,” Trish said.

“Just Marvin, Mama,” Maribeth said, following at Marvin’s side. “Come, Daddy. You won’t believe what you’re about to hear.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” he said.

A moment later, the governor, Trish, Maribeth and indigent Marvin entered the comfortable study. Richard took a seat at his desk, in a black leather chair worthy of her majesty, the Queen of England. Trish stood at his side. Maribeth ushered her charge into another comfortable chair facing her father, and then seated herself beside him. A second or two of silence ticked by, and then Marvin began his oratory.

“My history is probably unimportant, sir, up until the events of nearly a week ago, that is. I am not a madman or a demon, though, and public records will confirm the same. I invite you to scrutinize them at your convenience. While I am not among the city’s more glorious lights, I’ve…”

“Get to the point. I don’t have all night,” Richard cut in.

“Yes. Yes.

“I suppose it all began—let me see—sixty years or so ago, in Globeville, a small community north of the city…”

“I know where Globeville is.”

“Of course. Forgive me. Since this strange transformation I’ve been given to Dickensian narration. I will cut to the chase. Five days ago I had just retrieved my dinner from a filthy dumpster behind…”

And so Marvin laid down the canvas of events, painting it with words that would have silenced the organ at a High Mass. His audience sat and stood in rapt near-disbelief the entire three hours it took him to adequately describe who he really was and what had happened.

The governor sat lock jawed, unaccustomedly lost for words.

Trish spoke up, clutching Richard’s shoulder.

“Dear me. An angel?”

“Sir, Madam, I only ask for lodging for the evening. I have much more reading to do before the morning, and the sturdy desk in the bedroom below us, with its perfect lighting, will enable me to accomplish the task. Tomorrow at daybreak I can and will gather my books and clean clothing, and then retire back to my humble home not far away—beneath the dock.”

Maribeth sat quietly, a smile the size of Gibraltar stretching across her delightful face. The fact that her father had not picked up the phone to call O’Reilly back in, or a white van with a padded interior, gave her hope concerning the brilliant derelict and his heaven-inspired mission.

“You shall have the bedroom,” Trish said. “Tomorrow after you’ve awakened you will sit with us at breakfast and tell us what you’ve