Dave Eggers - The Wild Things

When Max’s mom pulled in, Perry waved and walked to his own car. “Good night, Max.”

Max didn’t run to his mom’s car and didn’t walk slowly, either. In this way the walk seemed to last weeks.

Max got into the car and closed the door. He sat in the front seat because he got the front once a week.

“Hey Maxie,” his mom said, rubbing his knee.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi Mr. Perry,” she said, waving. “That’s gonna cost me twenty dollars,” she said to Max as she pulled away. Every minute late cost a dollar. That was the rule.

Claire was in the back, her feet propped up on the back of Max’s seat. She didn’t even look Max’s way, so he said nothing to her. It was obvious that neither of them would back down and apologize, and Max guessed it would be like a hundred other fights they’d had: it would be placed, precariously, in the crowded closet of all they’d done to each other, safe behind the door until someone turned the knob again.

Now that they were moving again, she picked up a conversation begun before Max’s arrival.

“You’re really not coming?” Claire said, seeming astonished. They were talking about some kind of talent show that she was going to be in.

“I can’t, Claire,” Max’s mom said, “I can’t take the after noon off. Not right now. You know that. Put your seatbelt on.”

Claire ignored this directive. “Why don’t you just quit? Tell Holloway to F off?”

They were talking about Mom’s boss. They were often talking about Mom’s boss. Claire knew everything about Mom’s job and advised her on how to handle it.

“I thought we decided I’d stick this out for at least a year and then—”

“But he’s not taking you seriously,” Claire interrupted. “You said he’s supposed to give you a raise if you finished the course. At the review he said—”

“I know, but don’t you think—”

“I talked to Dad and he said you should—”

“Don’t!” Mom barked. “ Don’t … ” she repeated, taking a deep breath and clenching her fists. “ Don’t talk to your father about my job. He has too many opinions about me. I know you and he think this house is a failure, Claire, but he’s one voice I don’t need right now …”

Max was so tired of this kind of argument that he didn’t know what to say or think. He had tried to stop these discussions before but all that had happened was that the two of them turned on him at once, and he didn’t want that. Better to wait it out. Something grabbed his mother’s attention.

“Huh,” she said, looking out the window. “See that? You know what that is, Max? Hold your breath.” The traffic was stopped on three sides of the intersection as a line of black cars drove by. Max held his breath.

After the cars were gone, it occurred to Max to tell his mother about what he’d learned in Mr. Wisner’s class.

“We did planets today.”

His mom said nothing. Claire said nothing. It was as if Max hadn’t actually spoken. But he was sure he had spoken.

“Did you hear?” Max said.

His mom was squinting into the distance, as if still arguing, in her mind, with Claire, or her boss, or with Max’s father. She did this every day, usually while driving.

“Mr. Wisner said the sun’s gonna die,” Max said. “After you and me and everyone’s gone.” He looked to his mother for some response, but the profundity of what he said seemed to have no effect at all. “Did you know that?” he asked.

Still no response. He turned around to Claire, but her eyes were closed. Tinny music escaped from her white headphones.

Max turned back to his mom. “Can we stop it?”

Now his mom turned to him, finally focusing all her attention.

“You know, Max,” she said, “I really hope you treat women decently. I hope you never have a relationship with a woman you don’t respect.”

This didn’t seem to have anything to do with planets or the sun, but Max thought about it for a second and answered, more quietly than he intended, “Okay.”

The black cars now gone, she pulled into the intersection.

“Really,” she said. “I mean it.”

“I won’t,” Max said. “Or I will.” He couldn’t remember which way he was supposed to answer.

They drove in silence for a while. Max began deciphering the message his mom had given him. She did this periodically, tossing similar sorts of advice to him. He had starting writing it down, hoping it would make sense at some future date.

“Just try and be a decent person,” she added, finishing the matter. He nodded and looked out the window, spotting the city far beyond, the city where his father lived, looking like a tiny pile of grey rocks in the sea.

Max decided to go for a quick bike ride before dinner. He was going to tell his mom he was leaving, but then didn’t, oh well. She was busy with Gary anyway. He was lounging on the couch, drinking red wine and watching one of their musicals. Every night was some musical.

Max burst out into the cold night and sped down the driveway. He had to think and he could only think while biking or building things, and he wanted to be biking, to think with the blood loudly filling his head.

He rode one-handed, then no-handed, then with his head slung back, squinting at the emerging stars. He whistled quietly to himself, then louder, then hummed, then sang out loud. It was a quiet night and he wanted to slash it open with his own voice.

“Aw, shut up, you,” a voice said.

Max recognized the voice. It was Mr. Beckmann. Max had just passed him and his dog, Achilles.

Max circled his bike around.

“ You shut up, old bones,” Max said.

Mr. Beckmann laughed out loud. He was an older man, maybe eighty or a hundred, who lived down the road and was often seen walking, slowly and steadily, for hours at a time, through the streets and paths and forests, always with Achilles, a dog easily as big as Max and with an aristocratic bearing. The animal was so perfectly bred and well cared for it looked like a dictionary etching of a German shepard. Achilles knew Max well and was already laying on his side, urging Max to scratch his stomach.

Max dropped his bike and did so.

“So Maximilian,” Mr. Beckmann said. “How the hell are you?”

“Okay I guess,” Max answered. “I got in trouble again.”

“Oh yeah? What’d you do this time?”

Mr. Beckmann’s eyes were dangerously alive, punctuated by brows so thick and mischievously arched that he seemed at all times to be plotting a great and dastardly plan.

Max told him about soaking Claire’s room with the water.

“What’d you use?” Mr. Beckmann asked. “A bucket?”

Max nodded.

“Yeah, I would have used a bucket, too.”

This is why Max loved Mr. Beckmann: he was an equal. He seemed to have navigated his way through seven or so decades of adulthood without forgetting one moment of his childhood — what he loved and hated, feared and coveted.

Max and Mr. Beckmann stood for a long moment, breathing their loud grey breaths into the still night.

Max had visited Mr. Beckmann’s house a few times, and had walked carefully through, fascinated by his collection of strange old toys and posters. Mr. Beckmann had a thing for King Kong, and had collected various souvenirs and models from the movie’s first incarnation. There were also delicate tin toys, Mickey Mouse and Little Nemo, in glass displays. There were huge books full of paintings and all throughout the house, most of the time, was music, something classical, stringy, and bright.

The last time Max had been there, Mr. Beckmann had answered the phone and Max had overheard a colorful argument between the old man and one of the street’s new neighbors. This new neighbor apparently was objecting to the run-down barn in Mr. Beckmann’s backyard. It was a barn Max often played in, and where he had stored his wristrocket and M-80s. The man on the phone saw it as an eyesore and was apparently offering to remove it for Mr. Beckmann. Mr. Beckmann did not like the idea so much. “If I hear from you again,” he yelled at the phone, “I’ll hire a crane, pick that barn up, come over to your house, and drop that barn on your head.”