Ken Bruen: The Max

Okay, okay, it was time to focus, buckle down, get this damn book written.

She attended the trial of The… A.X. She sat in the back, taking lots of notes. This Max Fisher, he was some character all right. She’d never seen anyone so caught up in his own delusion. He was on trial for major drug charges, and it was like he was gleefully oblivious to it all. Even when the judge sentenced him, Fisher didn’t seem to get the gravity of the situation. As he was led out of the courtroom, he chanted, “Attica, Attica, Attica…”

Paula knew she’d have to dig deep, really make readers understand the psychology of Fisher, but deep wasn’t her strong suit. Her writing was surfacey, superficial. She often told friends that this was purposeful, that she could write with more depth any time she wanted, that she consciously tried to “dumb it down for the masses.” As if the masses had ever seen one of her books. She had a better chance of bedding Laura Lippman than of getting a book into Wal-Mart.

But a superficial take just wouldn’t work for a guy like Fisher, and neither would her usual cozy-to-medium-boiled style. This guy made In Cold Blood seem like chick lit. The things the man had done, the unsavory people he’d been involved with, especially that woman he’d been engaged to, Angela Petrakos – she sounded like she could be the subject of her own true crime book. Paula was already thinking, sequel? But telling the Fisher story properly would require some serious hardboiled, noir writing. She didn’t know if she had the chops to pull it off.

But the telemarketing cubicle loomed large and made her refocus. She Googled like a banshee and by the time she was done she was thinking, Edgar? Just the beginning. Why not a National Book Award? Or, hell, maybe even a Quill…

She had to sit back and try to take it all in. The Fisher story had it all. There were, get this, Irish hit men who even had, whisper, IRA connections. There was also some odd stuff about Down Syndrome and gold pins that she didn’t quite get but hey, if there was a handicapped theme, hello Oprah, right? What would she wear on the show? Would Oprah cry when Paula talked about her long personal journey from unknown cult writer to literary goddess? Yeah, probably.

She snapped herself back into focus, thinking, And, wait, there was even more handicapped stuff, some guy in a wheelchair who photographed women in, let’s say, compromising positions. Hello Playboy serialization. And there was also

A hero cop: Hello Hollywood. At worst, a TV series.

Boyz in the hood: Hello Spike Lee.

Southern crackers: Hello National Enquirer.

And above it all, loomed The… A.X. There was no doubt that was the book’s title: The Max. She’d thought about Hot Blood, Tough City, toyed with Songs of Innocence. But, nope, it had to be The Max.

She was so excited. She went and made herself a dry martini; no one, she knew it, no one, made them drier. It was good, just the right amount of martini, and gave her the boost of confidence she needed as she wrote the following to Mr. Max Fisher, c/o Attica State Penitentiary: Dear Mr. Fisher, I am a mystery writer of high standing in my genre, a friend of Laura Lippman, Tess Gerritsen, etc. I have been commissioned by a very high profile publisher to write a true crime book and I truly feel you are the subject most deserving of my time. I believe you have been the most appalling victim of our Justice System and I would like to set the record straight and I must confess, as a woman, I find you hugely appealing. I enclose a photo. Yours sincerely Paula Segal (MWA, IACW, ITW, PWA)

She had the perfect photo for this schmuck – her, bursting out of a bikini, nearly topless. And her favorite part about the photo, she looked demure. Demure was a word you got to use when you were a writer of her caliber. Recalling the photos of Petrakos from the trial, she knew this asshole loved big busts, and was he ever getting the max with this shot. Her previous lover, an Annie Lebowitz wannabe, had taken it. The girl was a lousy lay but she sure could take good photo.

Delighted with her herself, she practically skipped down to the post office and sent the letter. Attica, just the thought of it made her shudder.

It wasn’t like Max had never been raped before. During a drinking binge in the south he somehow wound up in a motel room in Robertsdale, Alabama with a Chinese guy named Bruce. Maybe it wasn’t technically rape because Max might’ve gone up to the room willingly, but really the saving grace was that he’d been so bombed he couldn’t remember any of it.

Man, what he would have given for some hard liquor right now.

The worst part, it was only around noon, and he had nine hours till Rufus and lights out. First, lunch in the mess hall. Jesus Christ, eighty percent of the prisoners were goddamn black. He felt like it was that time in the city he was so absorbed reading a copy of Screw that he missed his stop on the 6 train and got out at fucking 125th Street. Walking through the mess hall he was thinking, Be Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy. He was even whispering to himself, “That’s right, I’m bad, I’m bad.” But he must’ve been shaking his ass too much because the walk didn’t get him any respect – it had the opposite effect, getting him catcalls from all the guys. They were whistling at him, calling him “sweety” and “honey,” and Max, shaking, thought, Jesus Christ there was gonna be a goddamn gangbang.

He knew he had to do something to get some respect. Maybe he should make a shank and cut somebody. Isn’t that what that Eddie Bunker said you were supposed to do? Yeah, but how the fuck was he supposed to get a shank his first day in the joint. Eddie, couldn’t you’ve given us a goddamn instruction manual?

Later, in the yard, more guys were eye-fucking him, saying things like, “Gimme some a dat” and “I wanna tap that big ol’ ass, gran’pa.”

Gran’pa?

That was the part that stung the most. Yeah, Max was in his fifties, but he’d always seen himself as a hip, happening dude. It hit Max that not only was he a lot whiter than these guys, he was a lot older. It seemed like every guy was a goddamn twenty-two-year-old. What, was he the only guy in the world over fifty who was into drugs and shooting people? He had thirty plus years on all these guys, so how come they weren’t treating him like the wise elder statesman? How come he wasn’t getting respect, like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank? Speaking of Shawshank, Max wasn’t going into the prison laundry room any time soon. Not until he made that shank, anyway.

As much as he feared the inevitable sexual assault, Max had to admit, on some level, all the attention was kind of, well, flattering. He couldn’t get women to look at him the way these guys were unless he was paying them good money, and even then Max never felt liked. Jesus, it was bringing tears to his eyes. The… A.X. crying? At Attica? Jesus, that had to be the absolute wrong thing to do – show your weakness. But he couldn’t help it. Maybe he was channeling his inner sissy, but what could he say? It felt good to be wanted.

A guy in the yard was bench-pressing – he looked Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, something Spanish Harlemy. And the son of a bitch was huge, looked like he could be a linebacker for the fucking Jets.

Benching what looked like at least three hundred pounds he said, “ Hola, jovensita,” and blew Max a kiss.

The… A.X. knew his Spanish, the guy was calling him “young lady.” Jesus H.

Max turned away and the guy said, “Hey, I finish talkin’ to you, mi puta?”

Max tried, “ No hablo espanol.”

“Don’t worry,” the guy said, “you don’t gotta talk espanol. When you got my dick in your mouth all day I ain’t gonna hear nothin’ you sayin’ anyway.”