Ken Bruen - The Max

Yeah, Sino knew lots of bandajo s like Max Fisher. He grew up in the South Bronx, by Yankee Stadium. Shit, this was eighties and early nineties, bro, the glory days when crack was king and the Bronx wasn’t burning, the shit was already burned. You were growing up in the Bronx then, you needed some money to get high, the Stadium was the place to go. Scalping tickets, man, Sino didn’t waste his time with that mierda . Serious pesos was in protection. All those suit-and-tie bitches would come up to the games in the summer, be in their Mercedes and BMWs and shit, parking in the cheap lots, like five blocks away from the stadium. Now come on, man, what’s up with that loco shit? Man has millions of dollars, lives in some damn mansion somewhere, down on Fifth Avenue, and he can’t even pay for stadium parking? Puta deserve to get his pesos taken.

Sino and his boy would be hanging out in the lots, going up to the cheap motherfuckers saying, “Want me to watch your car for you during the game? Cost fifty dollars.”

Yeah, see what the stingy bandajo ’s gonna do then. They wanna go to Stadium parking and pay twenty dollars and miss part the game or they wanna pay Sino to not get their car fucked up? Most gringos paid the man, no problema, jefe, but sometimes a man got cheap, wouldn’t pay, or said they were gonna call a cop. Wrong answer, my man. Yeah, if motherfuckers got cheap, they didn’t wanna pay, they were gonna pay anyway. Sino and his boy would fuck up the windshield, pop the tires, shit like that. But if they said they was gonna call a cop, shit, that was when the real fun started. Then they got to fuck the guy up, break some bones, see some blood.

This one time, a rich maricon from Manhattan, kinda looked like Max Fisher, said he wouldn’t pay the money. The puta just walked away, laughing, the maricon was fuckin’ laughing, disrespecting Sino’s whole crew and shit. So Sino and his boy took their bats and played some ball, Bronx style. They fucked up that car so bad the junkyard wouldn’t even take it.

Later that night, Sino and his was boys were doing some reefer, chilling, corner 153rd and Gerard. Somehow the maricon found him out there, was probably going around the neighborhood, looking. He went up to Sino and said, “You’re paying to get my car fixed, motherfucker.”

Motherfucker. Saying that shit through his nose, sounding like the rich Park Avenue motherfucker he was. And the way he was standing, with his hands on his hips, like he was trying to be bad-ass, calling him out and shit in front of his crew. The stupid maricon was in Sino’s face, like didn’t he know who he was messing with.

Sino’s boys, man, they started laughing, tears coming out their eyes. Sino knew they were laughing at the maricon, not him, but he didn’t like it. Then his boy Paco said, still laughing, “Man, you gonna take that shit?”

Sino wasn’t.

First he shot Paco in the head, send a message to the rest of his crew, you laugh at Sino, you gonna get popped. Didn’t matter that he and Paco knew each other eighteen years, their madres came over from Panama together. Had to set the shit straight with somebody and Sino was sending the message, I pop my best friend, I can pop all you, so, chingate, you better watch your laughin’ asses.

Shooting Paco shut up the rest his crew real quick. Then the bandajo that started it all, the white guy, turned, tried to run. Sino put four in the maricon ’s back. He had one shot left, went up to the guy. He was still on the ground, trying to move, but he couldn’t. He was still alive though. He was making noises in his throat and blood was coming out of his mouth. Now that shit was funny.

Sino laughed, said to the maricon, “Say you sorry, papi. Say you sorry and I won’t pop you no more.”

The maricon was trying to talk, making sounds like, “S… sah… sah… sar… sar… sah.”

“Can’t hear you,” Sino said and popped him in the head and walked away.

Yeah, Sino, wished he was on the street right now, had a nine on him. He’d put six in Fisher’s back real quick. Listen to him beg and shit first, then put one in his head. Or, nah, would be more fun to kill Fisher with his manos, squeeze that little-ass neck till he die. He wouldn’t mind fucking Fisher too. Maricon got a big flabby ass, just the kind Sino liked. Maybe he’d fuck him first then kill him, or kill him then fuck him. Depends what kinda mood he was in.

Max was settling in all right. Already he had the rep, a priceless commodity, and he had fresh-pressed denims every day and it looked like the library gig was as good as his. And they’d be stupid not to give it to him – come on, who knew more about books than The… A.X.? He’d taken a little spin around the library the other day, told one of the guys working there he was “unimpressed” with the selection. Lots of Grisham and Danielle Steele, but where was the beef? No Eddie Bunker, no Genet, shit, not even any Tim fucking Willocks. The fuck? They did have the book about the caged bird by that Maya Angelou broad. Max liked the author photo in the back of that one. Maya was a hot-looking older chick all right, but the picture was a head shot, and Max wondered what her body looked like, if she was in shape. He figured an African chick, her hair in braids, wearing some big baggy blousy African thing, she must have a big set in there somewhere.

Max was also learning the pecking order, the food chain of life in the joint. Like there was a sissy on Tier 2 who washed and ironed Max’s demins every damn day, and Max, learning fast, treated him like shit. You’re in the game, you gotta play it, right? He had his sleeves rolled up and a pack of Marlboro Red tucked in there, like Jimmy Dean. Yeah, he even had the white T inside his shirt, shining in its whiteness, that sissy sure could starch.

He managed to pick up the yard swagger, the one that strolled slowly, aggression leaking from every pore. Yep, he was living it up, living in the moment like a true Buddhist monk. Just being in the prison, day in and day out, seeing the respect, no, fear, in all these fuckers’ faces gave him a bigger rush than smoking crack ever had. If anybody even looked at The… A.X. the wrong way, Max would get into the guy’s face, go, “You got a fuckin’ problem, motherfucker?” Glaring like Denzel in Training Day.

Yeah, no doubt about it, The… A.X. was The King of fucking Attica. His favorite thing was just to walk around and soak up all the respect and admiration he was getting from everybody. Sometimes Max would have some extra fun with it, suddenly rushing up to some fuck’s crotch and making a snip-snip motion with his fingers. Man, the assholes looked like they were gonna shit their pants and Max would start laughing his ass off.

In the yard, when The… A.X. came by people stopped whatever they were doing and they’d say, “Yo, Max,” and “What up, Max, man?” It seemed like the whole prison was in awe of him. Well, except for one little hitch.

The population had to be eighty percent black, but there were pockets of other ethnic groups. There were the Crips, Sino’s crew of, what’re you supposed to call them this week, Latinos, Hispanics, Latin Americans? What the fuck ever. There were also some white people, mostly sissies, but also The Aryan Brotherhood, led by a massive cracker with a whole crew of mutants straight out of The Hills Have Eyes, their mouths drooling and always giggling and cussing among themselves.

Jeez, was that English?

He knew these guys didn’t give a shit if he once cut off a man’s dick or not. These freaks probably chopped off dicks on a regular basis.

The cracker’s name was Arma – short for Armageddon. What was up with these deranged assholes shortening their names? Max wondered if she should shorten his name, start calling himself “The Ma.” Maybe that would get him even more respect. Nah, it would probably have the opposite effect. Didn’t Freud say all guys wanted to fuck their mothers?