J.P. Donleavy Must Die
“If there was any better way don’t you think I would have at least tried it?” I said. She listened. Her reply was blunt, “No, I don’t.” She was correct, also. She knew it before I knew it, though, and I had to give her credit. “Okay,” I said, “but the student loan people won’t stop. They say to me, ‘Oh I need you to start paying us back. Oh could you do that for me, please?’ and they say that all from India, on their phones. So I tell them, ‘Sorry Habish, I’m racist,’ and then I hang up. They call right back. They still want to deal with me, the racist. But I’m pretty good at pretending to be racist to people.” She said, “You are mostly a racist.” “Yeh, that helps.”
J.P Donleavy books aren’t selling at a premium yet. They cost me a reasonable amount of money, but I can’t sell them for nearly enough to help pay back my student loans. That was the plan: buy lots of J.P. Donleavy titles low and sell them off for a huge profit, which I would then parlay into massive wealth via big, lucrative investments. I would get around to paying off my student loans some time thereafter. Donleavy was supposed to have died by now, anyway. The noticeable lack of that happening has caused a small hitch. Donleavy’s books were supposed to be worth a whole lot more than they actually are and ever were, notwithstanding his death’s failure to materialize.
Here is my new plan, which I believe to be my only option left: kill J.P. Donleavy and watch the price of his books skyrocket in the wake of his becoming posthumous. I’ve evaluated other options. There aren’t any, or, rather, there aren’t any nearly as palatable. Consider this: J.P. Donleavy is an elderly old man. He’s had a good go of it. (He’s 84, 85 next April.) Wouldn’t you prefer being murdered to life at 84? “Uh-uh,” she said, showing no hint that she got my meaning, “I’d greatly prefer going my whole life without being murdered, thanks.” “Watch it,” I said and made an “I’m murdering you” gesture at her. She wisely took that for a threat and has since stopped speaking to me. I’m closely monitored by police now. I don’t know why. I doubt her murder would generate much in the way of revenue for me.
***
This wasn’t my first money-making scheme. Before the J.P. Donleavy fiasco, my idea was to actively seek out bike riders who were riding the wrong way, against traffic, on city streets. In the scenario I’d envisioned, I would take my car and veer directly into a rider’s path, essentially trapping this person. They’d argue with me, because I would say to them that they are riding their bike the wrong way as laws in the city and possibly the state mandate. They would say, “No, no, no, I know that you are wrong and I am right.” On the pretense of determining who is right and who is wrong, then, I would offer to drive the bike rider to my place, putting their bike on my bike rack and offering a passenger seat to the bike rider. Once we’d arrived at my residence, I would bet the bike rider a hefty sum about the laws of bike riding within the city limits as they pertain to riding against traffic, prompting them to take the bet. (They would think they were right, see?) While they diligently scanned the Internet to see who exactly was right and who was wrong, I’d bash them over the head with a blunt object and steal whatever money they were carrying and, of course, their bicycle, which I would sell later for scrap. I’d then repeat this process for as often as it took to make me wealthy.
I’m a Utilitarian, though, so I try to do what’s good for the greatest number of people, whenever possible. And I was unable to come to terms with the knowledge that murdering however many bike riders it would take to make me rich was not the greatest possible good for the greatest number. However, J.P. Donleavy is not the greatest number. He is, in fact, only one. And though he’s a widely acclaimed and funny one, he can do the greatest possible good for me and the greatest possible number of those who will benefit from my being made rich, not the least of which are the student loan people, by his passing. That’s Utilitarian.
I expect to find Mr. Donleavy walking sprightly, for his age, on the dew-glazed moors, of which Ireland has many, one morning in the future. The air cool with a slight breeze that would calm one, even when the pit of one’s stomach says everything’s not right. Donleavy would be drinking, possibly gin, but whiskey probably. I like whiskey. J.P. Donleavy likes what I like, I bet.
You could say, “This is a bad plan, yours is.” I disagree. Money-making aside, it’s long been a dream of mine to visit the Irish countryside, which is where I assume all of Ireland’s moorland is. I’ll walk the Irish countryside looking for someone who looks how I imagine J.P. Donleavy to look. Gray bearded and old, wearing a tweed scally cap, that’s what I figure he’ll look like, and I’ll shoot anything that moves with that dress and appearance. And I’ll get to see the moors of Ireland. Three birds with a tiny stone.
