by Alex Kovacs
Pretending to work for a variety of organisations, Maximilian made use of public telephones, requesting that many units of product be transferred from the premises of one company to another. He was soon to discover that as long as the shipments were not too large, they would frequently be authorised without any questions being asked. Often he liked to order many such shipments on behalf of a single office during the course of a single day, so that in one afternoon a given company might find itself under siege from lorries bearing many thousands of harmonicas, snooker chalks, zips, balloons, nail clippers, and all sorts of other examples of the wonders attainable by simply speaking into the mouthpiece of a telephone. Whenever he engaged in this sort of behaviour Maximilian was always sure to round things off by sending boxes filled with copies of the sort of socialist literature generally published by small presses barely able to pay their bills. With great amusement he wondered if he might be causing various accountants to experience a certain amount of sleeplessness. He saw frenzied nights of paranoid tossing back and forth within clammy crumpled sets of bed sheets. He believed that worse crimes had been committed.
Late at night, when the streets were deserted, Maximilian would drive around in his car, often drifting with no particular destination in mind, searching for advertisement hoardings to vandalize, and armed accordingly. Squiggly moustaches would appear on faces that had hitherto been barren of hair. Unusual colours were added to make jarring conjunctions. Slogans written in highly critical, politicized language were daubed across photographs of refrigerators and automobiles. Whenever his imagination failed him, or Maximilian found himself harbouring a particular anger towards a piece, he would simply destroy it.
He objected to the fantasies of idyll and purity found in the many pristine, inescapable images presiding over so many street corners. As well as detesting the fact that they taunted the populace with dreams of inexcusable consumption, he felt that they contributed to the glaring physical ugliness of contemporary life, polluting the places in which they were erected, their presence alone retarding the likelihood of a better society emerging. Nothing could validate their placement amongst a population evidently incapable of comprehending the power that such stark, unsubtle monuments possessed. If the people would not tear them down of their accord, Maximilian would give them a little push.
From the early ’70s onwards, Maximilian began to haunt trade union meetings on a sporadic basis. He paid particular attention to those unions whose activities were being actively discouraged. Sidling into the back of busy meeting halls, he would lurk alone, listening diligently to the proceedings, and then take care to leave before the discussion had come to an end, so that he didn’t risk detection. After having obtained a suitable number of employees’ addresses from burgling a given company, he would send them leaflets promoting these union meetings, as well as a variety of socialist causes. Of course, this resulted in considerable bewilderment amongst certain union leaders, who wondered who it was in their organizations frittering away their already insufficient postage budgets. Maximilian thought he could see attendance increasing at the meetings, and, as such, wondered if he might take credit not only for improving membership but also instigating a variety of important reforms as a consequence.
He also got into the habit of championing small businesses that he admired. When a business didn’t make any effort to expand, but instead operated on a local level, engaging in a minimum of exploitative working practices, as far as he could tell, it seemed to Maximilian that a moderate contribution had been made towards the progress of civilization. Frequently he felt that he could detect glimmers of genuine humanity resident within the eyes of the proprietors of such businesses, and it was to these individuals that he turned his attentions. He would pay to have advertisements printed and then deliver them by hand in the residential areas that the different businesses served. Negotiating terms with distributors over the telephone, he would sign deals on behalf of whoever he happened to be supporting that particular week, in some cases managing to reduce their costs considerably. On a few occasions, when a shop or business was working from premises that seemed to have fallen into disrepair, he paid for refurbishments. Workmen would appear, announcing that a secret benefactor had underwritten repairs and redecoration. A few proprietors were offended and sent the workmen on their way, but the vast majority were more than happy to accept their unexpected gifts.
In 1975 Maximilian opened a “free shop” in which clothes, bedding, furnishings, and electrical appliances could all be obtained for no cost, although a number of cardboard boxes were placed by the entrance, politely requesting that those who could do without leave behind other such items whenever convenient. By locating the shop on Old Cavendish Street, immediately adjacent to the roar of commerce on Oxford Street, he told himself that he was making an obvious statement to the flourishing business community by showing how blatantly ludicrous and exploitative their behaviour actually was.
Maximilian rarely made an appearance at the shop, after the initial work was done and it was open for “business.” Almost immediately, then, a gang of squatters moved into the premises with their sleeping bags and a not inconsiderable amount of marijuana recently smuggled into the country from the foothills of the Himalayas. On the few occasions that Maximilian did visit, he wouldn’t utter a single word. Walking through the door, to all appearances a short middle-aged businessman from the suburbs, Maximilian cut a curious figure in his suit and spectacles as he pretended to browse through the ragged commodities now presided over by the squatters. When he arrived, no one thought for even a moment that this could be the person responsible for the shop’s existence. They eyed Maximilian warily, as if he might be capable of destroying the secret kingdom that they had discovered. Between them the squatters ran the place successfully for a number of months, and it was extraordinary how infrequently any of their number questioned the origins of the enterprise. However, it did not take long for them to be forcibly ejected by various members of the police force, who had heard about their activities, and did not take kindly to the ways in which they were behaving. After their intervention the premises were to lie empty for some time.
Window, Bicycle, Lamp Post
(1975)
Maximilian gazed out upon the street, noticing a bicycle that was chained to a lamp post.
• This was the street upon which Maximilian had lived for many years now. At one end it commenced with a garage with a roof ringed with barbed wire and shards of broken glass. Beyond this the rows of housing consisted of semi-detached pebbledash houses and bungalows.
• The bicycle had a blue-and-yellow fluorescent aluminium frame, with five-speed derailleur gears, a black plastic saddle, dynamo lights, and translucent yellow handlebar grips. Drops of moisture had settled onto its cold, hard surface. A few pedestrians passing it had felt envious of the owner.
• Seeing the bicycle, Maximilian was reminded of his youth, when he would ride for hours to distant locations, a practice he had given up in favour of driving. These memories made him wish to pedal around London once more.
• The owner of the bicycle was a man who was fond of both arm wrestling and playing darts. Jogging was his principle form of exercise, an activity he engaged in about five times a week. Habits directly related to his mouth included cheery whistling, the prolonged savouring of sticks of chewing gum, and the tendency to forcibly spit on the ground in public venues.
• The lamp post was a tall, steel, contemporary one. It rose towards the sky, and once reaching an apex, moved abruptly outwards, in the direction of the road, forming a right angle. Emitting a sodium-orange light, it stood, imperious, its light beyond the reach of human arms. Placed in the street by Hackney Borough Council in 1973, a number of local residents had failed to notice its presence.
• In recent times this lamp post had witnessed a poster being attached to its exterior, a piece of paper advertising a competitive quiz that would shortly take place in some community centre. A week ago
a child had attempted to wrap its arms around the lamp post and encircle it completely, but without success. Two days ago a dog had urinated against it.
• The dog who had been responsible for said micturition was a diabetic Yorkshire Terrier, who answered to the name of “Petey.” He was twelve years old, had an uneasy gait and a coat of black and tan fur. Around his neck was a light brown leather collar and a circular bronze nametag engraved with his name. He was fond of attempting to steal chips from his owner’s dinner plate. Despite his advanced age and modest size, he would bark incessantly at any other dog he encountered.
• The dog’s owner was an elderly woman who was fond of eating chocolate truffles and drinking glasses of brandy. She was a member of a local group that met regularly to play poker. None of the group could persuade her that it was a bad idea for her to continue riding her motorcycle every day.
• As it happened, this scene of Maximilian’s gazing through the window took place on a morning in autumn. Dead brown leaves like flakes of parchment had settled into heaps on and about the pavements. Perpetually overcast skies glowered onto nothing but grey, pallid objects. But these things were not at the forefront of observer’s mind at the time.
• Maximilian was standing at the window at this precise moment because he had realised, in the midst of one of his lapses in activity, that he had not taken the trouble to gaze out of his living room window for some years, and that when he looked upon the street he was no longer seeing its reality, was no longer seeing with any curiosity or scrutiny.
• Only rarely did he stand, observable, framed within his window. He spent many hours gazing at other London streets, but this was the one from which he kept aloof as much as was possible, a tendency that extended to his relationship with his living-room windows.
• On the other side of the road, in the direction of Maximilian’s gaze, lived a family with whom he had no contact whatsoever. The father worked as a mechanic in the garage at the end of the street, and in his spare time constructed model railway sets. His daughter was in the process of training to become a hairdresser’s assistant.
• In his position beside the window, Maximilian was a dimly lit figure, semi-concealed by a thin white lattice of net curtains, a barrier that removed him from the scene to an extent which he almost found acceptable.
• A figure intruded upon his state of quiet reverie. A young woman, with short blonde hair, a white leather handbag dangling from her shoulder, was at that moment walking from one end of the street to the other, appearing first on the right-hand side of Maximilian’s window frame.
• In all, Maximilian had stood in front of the window for approximately eight seconds before seeing the form of the young woman approaching, which led him to retreat and walk into the kitchen, where he drank a glass of milk.
• A few minutes after Maximilian left the vicinity of his window, a car sped by, hurrying a middle-aged man to a meeting of the British Association of Synthetic Rubber Manufacturers, an event to which the man was looking forward with great and sincere anticipation.
Habitual Practices that Cannot be Ignored
(1976–1998)
The longer that Maximilian spent in isolation, the more his personal habits became erratic and strange. Eventually he found it difficult to conform to any of society’s preferences in even the slightest way. As far as he was concerned, he was surrounded on all sides by a society continually engaged in the practice of utterly irrational activities he did not have the slightest hope of understanding.
The truth was that he could hardly even bear to brush his own teeth in any sort of ordinary way. Once he had discovered the existence of the electrical toothbrush, he became one of its most eager advocates. The sensations that this strange device gave rise to often seemed so spectacular that he felt as if he were truly engaging with space-age possibilities, the hopes of technological transformations that might in time genuinely alter the course of history. Then, somehow or other, he came upon the information that a small company in Japan had begun manufacturing pistachio-flavoured toothpaste. He began to order regular shipments of what he already regarded as a very precious substance. With the inimitable taste of this paste in his mouth at the beginning of each day (an experience, he knew, that must differ radically from that of his fellow citizens), it felt to Maximilian as if he was declaring his opposition to society from the very beginning of his day, to the extent that it no doubt affected his subsequent outlook in subtle and mysterious ways, sometimes having a profound influence over his entire day.
Every Friday morning he would get his hair cut at a barber’s shop in Surbiton. Whilst it was not strictly possible for his hair to grow to any great extent over the space of a week, he still persisted in making these regular visits. They helped him to feel confident in assuming his customary posture of anonymity. Even if there was no new hair to be cut, it was extraordinary how Harry (for that was the name of the barber) would always manage to do something or other behind Maximilian for several minutes, often humming a little tune as he did so. Cutting only tiny strands of hair away, applying an electric razor with great care to the back of his customer’s head, he would make a great performance out of the act of barbering, all in all making what amounted to no discernible difference. All that mattered, to both men, was that an appearance of genuine labour be created, maintained, and executed with dignity.
A tacit understanding had sprung up between the two men soon after the beginning of their relationship. After various primitive attempts at conversation, it was instinctively understood by each party that beyond the usual minimal greetings and good-byes, no communication of any depth or significance should ever pass between them and interfere in the matter at hand. Once this had been definitively established, they took up their respective positions each Friday morning for the following twenty-four years, until one day Maximilian did not return, and his chair sat empty and forlorn.
The only form of exercise that Maximilian took during these years was to ride a unicycle through the streets of Bermondsey, a ritual that he began to perform every Saturday at the beginning of the 1980s. Years of practice were necessary before he felt comfortable riding through the streets and braving any obstructions that might come his way, or vice versa. In general he could practice this art form in relative safety, but there were still the odd occasions on which gangs of delinquent adolescents ridiculed him and taunted him and threatened to visit upon his person various recherché acts of violence.
As soon as they caught sight of him, small children would smile and wave as he cycled, sometimes asking him why he was behaving in this manner, to which he responded differently on almost every occasion, until most of the children resident in the area had their own idea of who the mysterious figure on the unicycle was, and where he was going to. Many of them would think about this at night whilst they were lying in bed and trying to fall asleep. Locals got to know the sight of the unicyclist very well, as he circled the streets over the years—sweating, his heart racing, experiencing the strange exhilaration that can be brought on by exercise. Stories about Maximilian would often circulate amongst the men sitting in the public houses in the vicinity of his rides, and over time this talk became so refined and intricate in its references to references that considerable insider knowledge was needed to unravel the many aspects of what was being spoken of on such occasions.
As soon as Maximilian began exercising regularly, he also became extremely fastidious in all culinary matters. Every day he would estimate the precise number of grams of all the substances that he ingested, noting down the quantities of vitamins, salts, and acids contained in each known ingredient. With regard to foodstuffs, he favoured the metric system to the imperial and used it exclusively. He took to doing his food shopping every week in Wembley, the place that inspired him the most, thanks to the South Asian population who were increasingly resident there. When preparing his meals, Maximilian always felt as though he were entering some exotic domain, embarking on rarefied states of
a sensual nature, experiences that he found were capable of satisfying him as much as any artistic project. Improvising with every herb and spice available, he was determined to enjoy the full range of the palate that nature had provided him, seeking out flavours that were rare in the country at this time, glutting himself with jasmine, caraway, sassafras, tamarind, cardamom, saffron, turmeric, and aniseed.
Complimenting these other habits was an even greater fixation on cleanliness. Each evening, before retiring, Maximilian would attend to every object and surface in the bungalow, making certain that not a single mote of dust had settled upon any given inch of his abode. Eventually Maximilian took to donning a blindfold, a length of black cloth that he would bind around his forehead, winding it slowly around his eyes until his field of vision had been obliterated and he could comfortably scour each surface by touch for traces of pollutants. Doing this so frequently, he came to be intimately acquainted with all of the rooms and objects that lay within his jurisdiction, adding a further layer of complexity to his apprehension of everyday existence. Within this meditative exercise he discovered something of the sense of balance and calm that he had long been seeking, but had never quite attained successfully.