TURDLING REDUX: THE YEAR IN REVIEW (PART 2)

The College made a new hire in July in response to parental demands. Mira and Turdling had a chat in Barcelona. Turdling sent a report from the idyll that is summer, complete with an explanation of Vestibule Plowden-Wardlow’s detox  camp in Italy. The school year started with inclusive restrooms and Open Classrooms week, an initiative so confounding it is reviewed here and here. Colm, now tenured, resents having to write student recommendations. And then there is Turdling’s ongoing war with The Poet. It went on and on and on,  and included Colm’s involvement.  Finally, there was the College’s attempt at an exam period without anxiety.

Barcelona (Esta Noche)

Mira: There’s no grey area in this.
Turdling: Well I’m here now so there’s not too much point in debating the details of how it came about.
Mira: Then let’s work through why.
Turdling: You know why.
Mira: What happened to “no amount of money is worth an unending diet of you two.”
Turdling: What are you talking about?
Mira: You said that to me at lunch less than two weeks ago.
Turdling: I’ll say almost anything at lunch, especially with you.
Mira: We’re going to sort this out. Tonight.
Turdling: We just got here, can’t this wait?
Mira: Until when?
Turdling: After we leave.
Mira: How present do you intend on being around here?
Turdling: That’s really up to Colm, if he calls me in I’m prepared to swing in like Harvey Keitel, which is, I think, a reference to a movie, although I can’t remember which one.
Mira: Are you drunk?
Turdling: I don’t see how that’s possible.

Viva Barcelona

I figured I’d give Mira and Colm some time to locate one another and establish whatever rules of engagement would mitigate our Summer of Love. I lingered over my octopus, ordered another beer, and took in the scene at the Comun y Corriente. While posing for a make-believe book jacket photo, beer in hand leaning backward, wry smile directed at the early evening lights, Mira snuck up behind me.

Mira: No-one’s watching.
Turdling: Well apparently you are.
Mira: Only to call you out on your posing darling.
Turdling: How long have you been here?
Mira: Long enough to know what you’re up to. I’ve been at the bar taking in the scene for a while. You play the ex-pat rake quite well, what with your San Miguel and plated octopus.
Turdling: Shouldn’t you be negotiating with Colm?
Mira: Oh no, you’re not getting out of this conversation.
Turdling: Why spoil our first night together.
Mira: Because you need to get called out on this desperate fucking stunt of yours.
Turdling: They needed someone to cover the class. Mathers couldn’t . . . .
Mira: I talked to him, he knew nothing about it.
Turdling: That wasn’t my understanding.

Aloha Barcelona

Our combative trio landed in Barcelona early yesterday on three separate flights. Colm and Mira settled in at The Castle, on separate floors, and I moved into a hastily arranged Craig’s list one bedroom above a mediocre tapas joint in the heart of the city. It should come as no surprise that none of us had been entirely honest about our reasons for this summer get away. The only slightly truthful statement that any of us had made involved our need for the supplemental cash that summer teaching provided, but let’s face it, there are more lavishly remunerative teaching options than heading to Europe to teach a summer course. Our claims that we need the money are bullshit with a truthy glaze, but we’re not ready to admit that to each other just yet.

So as I write this I’m picking at a small, square plate of grilled octopus at the Comun y Corriente downstairs from my new digs and wondering if this will be the only quiet night of the next month.

Lunch Takes a Turn

Mira: That’s how you want to come off, like a fucking hysteric?
Turdling: Goddamnit Mira . . .
Mira: (as Turdling) “I will not, not this time. . . ”
Turdling: I don’t. . . What I want. . . is for you two to find another intermediary.
Mira: Oh come on, you know where all the bodies are buried, think of how tedious it would be to explain us to someone new.
Turdling: Well I’m out for this summer’s installment.
Mira: Out how?
Turdling: As in I refuse to be involved. This is yours, find a retired bartender who doesn’t bore easily.
Mira: How would any of this involve you?
Turdling: It’s not going to, that’s my point.
Mira: Back up, why would you be with us?
Turdling: I won’t be. I’m not. I’m not, you know, going to be there.
Mira: When were you ever going to be there?
Turdling: Never, how do you. . . I was never. . .
Mira: You are the worst fucking liar on the planet. . .
Turdling: I’m not involved in any of this now, the trip, the. . . Spain, your teaching. . .
Mira: Jesus, did Colm know about this?
Turdling: No. (Pause) No. (Pause) He didn’t know anything about it, it was a freelance move on my part.
Mira: You were going to just show up?
Turdling: Mathers bailed on the fiction workshop, they needed someone to jump in, I figured. . . Barcelona, some summer money and, you know. . . .
Mira: You’d be able to keep an eye on us.
Turdling: It factored into my thinking OK, but no amount of money is worth an unending diet of you two.

In an Affront to Good Sense, Colm and Mira are Heading to Barcelona

Turdling: Not exactly a lazy summer getaway
Colm: We’ve sorted out how to coexist.
Turdling: Since when?
Colm: Remember the thing with the Dean?
Turdling: What?. . .Oh, yea, the sit down.
Colm: Right, and since then we have an agreement, things get heated we turn to the arbiter.
Turdling: And how does that work exactly, is he on call?
Colm: She, I insisted on that point.
Turdling: The Dean agreed to this?
Colm: He suggested it.
Turdling: An arbiter on Skype is going talk you two down when you start throwing plates at each another in Barcelona?
Colm: If anyone can center shit, it’s Lakshmi.
Turdling: Who makes the call?
Colm: I’m not really sure on that point.
Turdling: Wouldn’t that be central to the protocol. . .
Colm: We’ll work it out, we have so far.
Turdling: You’re on opposite ends of town on completely different schedules, it’s untested, this is different.
Colm: How’s that exactly.
Turdling: You’re together, It’s Spain, they’ve never experienced the likes of you two.
Colm: The fuck are you talking about, Franco’s goons killed Lorca, they shot Orwell in the fucking neck, Mira and I are a bit of a come down after that don’t you think?
Turdling: Things have cooled a bit since the 1930’s.
Colm: Exactly, so I don’t see the problem.

Mira Barcelona

Instead of sending postcards, Mira and Colm will be savaging one another in real time this summer:

Turdling: But it’s still the two of you, together.
Colm: For a month, it’s not that big a deal.
Turdling: That’s plenty of time to do some significant personal damage. Please tell me you’re living separately.
Colm: Of course not, the college has that castle.
Turdling: It’s not a real castle Colm.
Colm: I’ve seen the pictures.
Turdling: They tore that thing down years ago, they use the pictures to lure kids in for the summer programs.
Colm: What?
Turdling: You didn’t know that?
Colm: No.
Turdling: Jesus Colm. . .
Colm: Everyone calls the place The Castle.
Turdling: The Celtics play at The Garden but there aren’t any fucking tomatoes there. They put up one of those six story hacienda looking things.
Colm: Maybe we’ll be on different floors.

The Boys of Summer

The last few days have been spent in my office disposing of the evidence of another year. I tend toward the deliberate, unlike Colm’s method which involves great sweeping motions and construction grade trash bags. The entire operation takes him a few minutes, so he spends a great deal of time sitting in my office watching me sort through hillocks of academic detritus.

Turdling: (Holding a pile of magazines over the trash) You want any of these?
Colm: What’s that?
Turdling: The free shit they send, sample copies, literary start ups.
Colm: Naw, I’ve got my summer reading all set. I’m sticking to soft core pornography.
Turdling: (looking though the pile as he tosses them) Hedgehog Review? There’s a piece in here about Victorian sexual quirks. Long form too, none of that seventeen reasons to hate humanist poets shit.
Colm: Dump it.
Turdling: (still sorting) When do you leave?
Colm: First week of July.
Turdling: How are you going to make it through a month with Mira?
Colm: She teaches in the morning, I teach in the afternoon, we’ll never see each other. Plus it’s fucking Barcelona isn’t it.