The Family of Max Desir

by Robert Ferro

  You’re joking, Max said.

  Why no, the Voice continued. To share a meal with someone is the greatest intimacy. Ialans procreate by ingesting a particular part of each other’s anatomy, which then is quickly regenerated, sometimes twice in one night. Consequently, your fetish for cooking and eating is equated with foreplay.

  The transmissions were always short, lasting perhaps a minute or two; and they began and ended abruptly. Max asked why.

  This is caused by a time differential—the Voice was pleasant—which interrupts transmission in an apparently random warp perceived by each side in a different time scale. As, for instance, the hummingbird sips the flower, while the flower cannot see the bird. As a matter of fact, Ialans themselves are birdlike; they can fly.

  In his mind Max saw a tall, honey-colored man, with huge green eyes and long curly lashes, a green band around his neck, otherwise naked, with two enormous wings of leaflike ebony feathers folded across his back.

  The eyes are not always green, the Voice corrected, or the feathers black, but you get the picture.

  He saw then a gorgeous birdlady, her wings a miracle of delicacy, piling quantities of light on a green baize gaming table in front of her.

  The Queen of Iala, the Voice declared, wagers that Earth will boil. Further, she bets that Mars will have enough time and heat before Helios dies to bring itself to the point of sensate life, at the least. For each additional era after that the Queen receives one credit. She retains as well certain salvage rights to Earth’s debris …

  The transmission faded out.

  THE TELEPHONE RANG. HE SAID HELLO.

  What’s the number today, baby, a man’s voice said on the other end.

  The number? Max repeated.

  Come on, baby, the man insisted. Gimme today’s number.

  After a moment Max said, 279, because those three digits popped into his head.

  Hot number, the man said with real satisfaction in his voice, and hung up.

  A moment later the phone rang again. Is Massimo there? a man inquired.

  Nobody ever called him Massimo except his brother Jack when cute. Who’s calling? he asked.

  This is Clive, the voice replied.

  I’m sorry, Max said after a moment. Do I know you?

  Isn’t this 2222?

  No, it’s 2223.

  After a silence, Clive said, Sorry to bother you, and hung up. But the next day he called back. He said, This is Clive. I called you yesterday by mistake and I just wanted to apologize for disturbing you.

  Max didn’t say anything.

  Do you mind me calling you back? Clive asked.

  No, I don’t. But why did you?

  I don’t know, Clive said. Another pause. I guess I liked your voice … You have a nice voice.

  Later Clive had two stories for why and how he had called Max. In one, a simple random mistake in dialing had been followed by an inclination to call back: pure chance. In the other, slightly more devious version, Clive had seen Max downtown a number of times, had got his name and looked it up in the book. In differing moods, Clive swore and forswore this story, dangling before Max the possibility of unseen admirers and their schemes. He was inclined to think of the phone call as accidental, and it seemed at first that the fragility of the connection was reason enough to preserve it. For twenty-four hours the whole affair had hung like a spider from the last digit of his telephone number.

  Clive called again the following week, and the question became, why did he bother? Did his tenacity signify richness or emptiness in his life? Was he perhaps a gargoyle?

  The usual affability accrued. Conversation ranged to other things but was never far from sex. Max told him about Nick. It was not that this didn’t matter; rather, it was not supposed to seem to. Clive continually asked to meet him and Max’s inclination was to refuse. Why? Clive asked. What are you afraid of? This went on for weeks before Max agreed to a meeting.

  He began to rethink his telephone impression the moment he walked through Clive’s door. A thick, woody incense filled the air; coming into it was like putting his head under water, into a sudden change of atmosphere— foreign, warm and sexual. Three rooms, all painted white, were lit with candles and amber lamps. A small jazz orchestra played quietly in another room. On a small table in a comer he spied clutter. Clustered around a votive candle were a pile of sweets, dried flower petals, a thimble of liquor, a stack of coins and a picture of a black woman in robes. Max asked who it was and Clive replied that this was Santa Barbara Africanna, the Black Madonna.

  On the other side of the room a second table was laid out in a similar way, with sweets, colored beads, liquor and money. But here the attraction was the picture of a Russian icon, a Virgin encrusted with metal and jewels, holding up two heavily ringed fingers in benediction.

  And this one? Max said, walking over. Who’s she?

  That’s Freida. She must have everything Santa Barbara has. They’re very jealous.

  He looked at Clive. Isn’t that voodoo? he said. Do these girls help you?

  It’s not voodoo, Clive said, and abruptly offered him something to drink. He went into the kitchen. Max opened a glass door that gave onto a small balcony. The view was of midtown, twelve flights up looking north, with black shapes picked out in bright, boxy constellations. A twelve-foot digital clock in the Fifties gave him time, gave him weather. He stepped outside. By leaning out over the railing he could see a big moon—the hunter’s moon—rising at the end of Forty-eighth Street as if over the notches of Stonehenge. Clive came out and handed him a glass.

  Max, he said. To you.

  Clive appeared to have decided, as a result of who knew what personal disappointments, that the disposition of his own ego toward another, either in place of love or as a start to it, was enough. He seemed only to want to please Max. He presented small but considered gifts nearly every time they met, things he had come by in the store where he worked. And in drugs, whatever was wished. Beyond that, his manner in everything but lovemaking was submissive. Returning up some conversational lane he would approach like a pup and lay a compliment at Max’s feet—about his looks, or his clothes, his way—with a transparency that seemed only to reflect some true need to idealize and praise. And Max would say, What does all that mean? You lay it on so thick, who could believe it?

  Clive functioned totally at guileless levels. He seemed unable to dissemble anything, blurting it out instead in a fit of imagined guilt, all subtlety dropped in a rush toward simple affirmations or denials. When Max had been reminded, by certain aspects of their conversations, of the attitudes and responses of his young nephews and nieces, he asked Clive about his family.

  I had five brothers, Clive said. I was the youngest. My daddy died when I was eleven. I didn’t think he was really gone for a long time.

  They lay together on the bed beside a big window with the view uptown. A line of buildings along the Hudson puffed out tall plumes of white smoke like ships steaming up the river. He tried to think back to anything Clive had said that could not have been the remark of an eleven-year-old from Charleston. He asked about the voodoo. Were the little altars in the living room serious or not?

  I like doing it, Clive said. I had this cat and never got so much company out of it as I do from them. And that’s all I’m going to say about it now.

  What’s it got to do with me? he asked.

  Well, not a thing, Clive replied indignantly. You think I put some sort of a spell on you or something? Well, I didn’t. They don’t do anything bad, Max.

  What about the liquor and the money? What’s that for?

  They’re like people, Clive said. They want things. You’ll see. In a while the drink will be gone.

  And the money?

  The money, Clive said, is there if they want it.

  BUT ALL THIS DID NOT OBSCURE THEM to each other. It seemed to reveal in each a few carefully delineated qualities that the other could see and define. Clive was simple, affectionate, generous, supersti
tious and devoted. Max was moody, frank, independent, volatile and appreciative. These two personality grids seemed to fit over each other easily. It took months for Max to figure out why, and by then he was addicted to the sex, the habit, the convenience, the safety, and ease of it all.

  It seemed to fit also that Clive was in love and Max wasn’t. He would have been glad to return some sentiment, or, considering his love for Nick, at least willing; but it never came to him except lightly, in waves of tenderness and affection. These feelings he tried to swell into something more buoyant, something that might lift them both off the ground, if only momentarily. But it never happened. When Clive said, I love you, Max, I want you for my own, Max said, I don’t love you, I already have a lover, you know that. And it would anger him that anything more than sex and simple affection should be expected.

  This inequity had a profound effect on them sexually. Max felt as if he had found a wonderful machine of lust, which did not or could not judge, which was constant and would adjust to the moment, the mood and the whim. Clive was in a less comfortable position, the unrequited lover; but access to Max made him feel all the more favored and passionate. He was shy. He had reduced his talk to a set of basic barometric indicators that made conversation circular. This narrowness, which could at times be maddening to Max, was more usually aphrodisiac. There seemed little else to do but make love. He would turn to Clive, filled with demands, needs, quirks, favorite moments to be repeated, and Clive would say, Yes, Max. I’m here for you.

  Was there some reason why he should say no to all this? Should he cancel the situation simply because his mind did not go naturally to Clive before he fell asleep at night, lying beside Nick, or because he was not inclined to merge their lives further?

  His mother was dying. Two or three times a week he visited her in Hillcrest, arriving in the late afternoon and staying until after dinner when she went to sleep. Her cheeks were swollen, her eyes small and glittery, the glitter of drugs. Each time she had a seizure it lasted longer—a minute, two minutes of repeated explosions in her head.

  Max would return to the city and sometimes go directly to Clive’s. He would step into the amber-lit rooms and find the votive candles lighted before the saints and smell the airless perfume, and they would fall on each other and rifle each other’s body like thieves. In the morning Nick was waiting.

  Are you all right? he asked. And Max crawled in beside him to be held, thinking of these three separate parts of his life—his dying mother, Nick and Clive. I am now in the Nick part, he thought, and fell asleep.

  After a while Nick complained that Max was seeing too much of this Clive person. A fine line was drawn between what constituted sexual freedom and abuse of the privilege. This line might be drawn between twice a month and once a week. Max made an adjustment, with, every now and then, a certain vagueness in his plans for the evening. Nick understood. He had also had friends over the years. It did not seem reasonable to be jealous of each other. These relationships, modest and diversionary, came and went, and were, to both of them, preferable to sex with total strangers.

  RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS CLIVE ASKED if he could take some photographs and Max agreed.

  I know what you want them for, he said. They’re for your saints, aren’t they? One each, and maybe one for you. Clive denied it but not convincingly.

  You know, Max said accusingly, I feel them in me when we fuck. Just at the end when it gets real good.

  Who? Clive said.

  Your girls. They arrive just before the end and get off with us. I can almost hear everyone moaning.

  Clive said, I don’t know, Max. You have this way of making it sound so strange … It’s not like that.

  The pictures came out well and Clive had one of them mounted on wood in the carpenter shop at the store. It went up on the wall in the bedroom.

  I got this man on my wall, Clive said. I can lie in my bed and look at it, Max … There’s something, I don’t know. I feel like you’re here. It’s company when I’m alone.

  Later he asked if he could have some of Max’s hair.

  No, you can’t have any of my hair. Max was angry and startled. What for? For them?—meaning the saints. What the hell is this?

  I just want part of you here, Clive said. It’s not bad, Max, it’s good. They like you. They like you just like I do.

  What do you mean, they like me? I got enough trouble without having voodoo saints for girl friends.

  Sometime later, without a word, Clive snipped off a lock about two inches long from the back. Max had been drifting in and out of sleep. Now suddenly he came awake. He jumped up on the other side of the bed, came around to Clive and slapped him hard on the side of his head.

  You son of a bitch! he shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders and throwing him against the wall. Who the fuck do you think you are, coming at me with a pair of scissors?

  Clive pressed back against the wall, the lock of hair in one hand, the scissors in the other. He let the scissors drop to the floor. He held out the hair to Max.

  Please, Max, I’m sorry … I didn’t mean it.

  You did! Max screamed. You just took it. I said no and you did it anyway!

  Max, please. I’ll give it back.

  Give it back? You complete asshole. Max slapped him again.

  Please, Max, I’m sorry. Don’t. It was wrong … I’m sorry. He came up to Max and leaned against him. Please, he said, and started to cry.

  Get rid of them, Max said.

  What do you mean?

  The saints. Get rid of them or I’m not coming back.

  Tears running down his cheeks, Clive said, Please, Max, don’t … I can’t.

  Abruptly, Max started to put on his clothes. Clive sat on the edge of the bed, still holding the lock of hair between two fingers, afraid to put it down lest it scatter and go for nothing.

  Oh God, why did I have to do that? he said. Why did I have to do that?

  Max pulled on his pants, socks and one boot. He sat on the bed, his head down for a moment, before putting on the other one.

  Max, don’t go … You’re scaring me. Clive took hold of the boot. Look, you have to forgive me, he said in a fresh tone. I just made this awful mistake.

  I know, Max said. I was here.

  Well, sometimes I make these bad mistakes. I don’t know. People tell me sometimes I say something or do something bad, and I know what they mean. It just happens … like before I think about stopping it, I just do it. And then I say, how could you do that … you must be crazy!

  It’s the saints I’m talking about, Max said. You play house with these two spirits and I don’t want to be dragged into it. He snatched the boot away and threw it down. And supposing, he continued, suppposing I suddenly turned around, or jumped up when you were chopping my hair, you jerk.

  Clive held out the lock of hair, offering it back. I’m sorry, he said. I’ll never do anything like that again. And you can keep the hair … if you like.

  They sat there for a moment, neither of them speaking. Clive put the lock of hair on the table by the bed.

  You’ve got to back off, Max said. I can’t stand all this devotion.

  It seemed the room was calm again. The orchestra played inconspicuously in the comer. He fell back on the bed. Clive lay down and touched him, and Max thought, Here I am in the part about Clive.

  VII.

  THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT THAT CHRISTMAS, 1978, was a trapunto tapestry, about two feet by four feet, made by Robin’s sixteen-year-old daughter Andrea, and presented to Marie and John. It was a family tree, depicted in quilted outline, with intricate roots and branches, the roots lettered with the names of the four grandparents, on the trunk John and Marie, and on each of the four branches Jack and Mary Kay, Robin and Pat, Penny and Tom, and Max and Nick. At the top smaller branches and twigs bore the names of the nine grandchildren. Everyone including Marie exclaimed over it and Max and Nick beamed at each other across the room. Later Jack said he knew there would be trouble as soon as he
saw Nick’s name with Max’s. But at the time John didn’t seem to care and Marie obviously couldn’t see the lettering. She saw it was a quilted tree and thought that was perfect.

  When everyone had presented gifts to her, Marie, with Penny’s help, presented hers—the result of two months of shopping by wheelchair with Greta. To Max she gave an electric typewriter and a fleece-lined coat. To Jack a watch. To Robin, Penny and Mary Kay she gave her three most valuable pieces of jewelry. To the men, Pat, Tom and Nick, went an array of shirts, ties, sweaters, jackets, luggage, a statue. It was difficult to see what she gave to her grandchildren because they all opened their gifts at once. Some of it, her needlepoint, which had been finished before the seizures, had been made into small hangings and pillows of flowers and birds. A tall doll’s house was so realistic, complete and still that Max got dizzy looking into the back of it; also an electric car for young John III, sports equipment, clothes, watches, games, dolls, savings bonds, a pearl necklace. Marie had been given an extra dose of Decadron and seemed composed and focused throughout, wavering only when she presented her gift to John, a gold ring, monogrammed with the initials JD; she shrugged as she watched him open it, with an expression of bewilderment and disappointment on her face, as if after so many years of gifts, this last could never be enough. John gave her a gold bracelet with a heart dangling from it that read, Always My Mara.

  The difference about her now was that she didn’t seem to notice them unless she was called, out of a distant, empty daydream. A new inertia caused her to sit quietly and passively in her chair and to sleep a great deal. On good days she was both placid and focused, without the anxiety that awareness usually brought. At such times they would speak to her, a direct communication across the usual miles of separation. In these moments she seemed like an emissary from her self, suddenly present or not when she awoke, as if she was able to step out of what she had become, to peer from the ruined door for a moment; or at least, through a series of threats and bribes to herself, could contrive to get a message to the outside. As with earlier stages this one had two qualities to it, two values that were apparent on a good day or a bad day, when she was either closer, to them or further away. When she did speak or sign to them they acted immediately on whatever it meant. One day, in an effort to appease her anxiety over a misunderstood gesture, they changed her housedress three times and altered the left strap of her brassiere. She had meant only to tell them she wanted to be patted with her perfume, White Shoulders.