Gretchen pressed her lips together and felt her cheeks burn. She lowered the hand which seemed too small for the wad of bills it held. Why was she always forgetting this? The repressed disaster, always rising up to confront her like a deep sea creature, ready for battle. The disaster which kept her captive was like the title of a poem, her very own, in her mind: The Tooth and The Loan. The loan, months after they had been going out, that Maxims had given Gretchen and that she still hadn't been able to afford to pay back. Because she was supporting him. The money, he had said time and time again before pressing it into her palm, the money put aside, saved up over the years, for his Vespa. The Italian scooter he still wasn't riding because she had taken the money from him. And put it into her mouth.
One wintry morning, Maximus had insisted on a stroll through the park He'd been wearing a top hat and had given her a faux-fox muffler and matching earmuffs and coerced her into putting them on. He then suggested they get roasted chestnuts and feed them to each other in the frost-spangled gazebo next to the fountain. Gretchen'd been giggling like a school girl when he fed her the fifth chestnut, nibbling at it like one of the squirrels that shivered around them. And she'd bitten down and screamed as she felt bits of her tooth mingle with the chestnut meat. It hadn't been properly shelled. They had rushed to the dentist. Nickel and Dime's insurance didn't cover dental. Of course.
Gretchen owed him for that dentist bill. And he rarely let her forget it. The $2193 was the bane of Gretchen's existence, the reason, she suspected, she still put up with him. Yes, he'd wanted the stroll, yes, he'd wanted the chestnuts, yes, he'd placed it in her mouth, he had often told her. But it was her teeth which had bitten down. Her teeth were responsible. Liable. Every time she looked in the mirror, slashed lipstick on her lips, she saw that damnable debt.
Many other people would have split. But Gretchen had been raised correctly. Sometimes she cursed her mother Ursula for this, but other times she was proud of it.
Now as she stood before her smelly layabout boyfriend, Gretchen was cursing her mother and her Catholic upbringing, the feeling of responsibility, the guilt that never left her.
“I—”
“Am I loosh enough?” Maximus suddenly demanded to know. He asked the question as if the answer were of great importance, as if he were asking if he was good in bed, if his penis was big enough for her (though she'd seen quite enough of it in an unexpected location the week before). He had moved on in his brain, jumping from mundane things such as disconnection notices to something much more important to him.
“Loosh?” she asked, irritated. “What the hell's that?”
Gretchen didn't have time for this. She lived in the real world, and had real concerns.
“A poet's got to be loosh. I try, oh, how I try, but I don't know if I've got it quite right. The balance, I mean.” He was staring in the mirror, larger than his massive computer screen, that was propped on the desk against the wall and which he always stared into, arranging and rearranging both his hair and beard into different styles, the angle of a hair of which was enough to be poetish, or perhaps this surprising new 'loosh' he was now suddenly so concerned with.
“Your hair is fine. Your beard, though—”
“No, but am I loosh enough?” He seemed agonized, as if it were an existential question of such importance that, if the answer were wrong, he might just slit his wrists. She was surprised that a little part of her, an increasingly shrinking part, could still be thrilled that her opinion mattered to him.
“I'm sorry, but I don't understand what that is.”
He rolled his eyes, and she stiffened. She knew she was intelligent, except for staying together with him, but why was he trying lately to make her feel like she was so stupid?
“L. O. U. C. H. E.” He spelled it as if to a spastic child. “It means,” he waved his hand airily, trying to get the words right, “sophisticated in a sleazy sort of way.”
Gretchen fumed. “Of all the indulgent, self-centered...! I've never heard such crap! Here I stand, wondering, terrified of, where the next meal is going to come from, our meal is going to come from, and you wile away the hours wondering if you are louche? Agonizing over which strand of hair placed where on your head makes you more profound? Which word, which exact phrase makes you most authentic?”
“Somebody has to. Without art, there's no sense to life.”
“Arrghhh!” The bills were crumpled, useless trash in her fist by this stage.
“I can tell you aren't interested in this,” Maximus said. “You're annoyed. As usual. You didn't used to be like this, you know. You used to be fantastic. Loving, carefree, exciting. But I know what the problem is. I know why the Gretchen I fell in love with is slowly disappearing, losing her joy, her faith and hope in life.”
“Because you quit your job and now I have to pay all the bills?”
It was as if she hadn't spoken.
“Why don't you quit that horrid job?” He said it as if he had a British accent, and she felt her skin crawl. “I don't understand why you continually keep at it. It's demoralizing. It's always been getting you down. It's not as if,” he smirked, “you're jetsetting off to the splendors of the world. We both know that you aren't. Life is for living, and you're just, I don't know, you're just...existing.”
“I probably don't quit because I need to eat. Unlike you. All you need to do is drink. Gets me down? I think it's worse than that. Yes, I know you're a poet, a dreamer, and so you have the right to be. But there comes a time, when the collection agencies are about to break down the door, when you have to give all that up and...and grow up! Don't get me wrong. I think painters, sculptors, actors, authors, directors, whatever, I think they are all needed and need to exist. Even mimes. And it would all be fine and dandy for you to join their ranks...if there were some results! But I see nothing! Ever! You never let me read anything you've created!” She snarled the last word.
To her surprise, Maximus lit up with glee.
“Ah, fear not, dear Gretchen! I've been keeping this a secret from you. Perhaps this might startle you, shock you, even, but you'll no doubt be delighted when I reveal to you...” he grappled his notebook, reverently, proudly, and waved it like a scepter before her refurbished tooth. “I’ve finished it!”
She was startled. Shocked and delighted. Maybe he knew all about the human condition after all. Barring a surprise call from Oceanic, it was the best thing she could have heard.
“But that, that's fantastic!”
He pointed at his cheek, his feral cheek. “A little kiss? A hug? To congratulate me?”
“Oh, Maximus! Of course!”
And as she bent down and wrapped her arms around him (difficult as he was sitting in the chair) and covered him with kisses, she felt a weight lifting from her shoulders, didn't even care about the bushy, crumb-coated beard scratching her tender flesh, or the stench of old beer and sperm that had become his aftershave. She could have wept tears of joy! She felt them welling in her eyes. He laughed and hugged her back and kissed her all over her face. She almost gagged. She pulled away.
“Yes!” he said triumphantly. “The first volume done. When I get all the volumes done, when the set is complete, then I can send the entire thing off. And then the world is ours.”
Her lungs felt stabbed by a screwdriver. Her vision blurred.
“Volumes?!” she shrieked at him in despair. “How many volumes are there going to be?!”
“Five.”
THE PLANE WAS ENDLESS, rows of steats stretching over the horizon, jammed with faceless passengers as far as the eye could see, only the tops of their bobbing heads visible over the headrests, their taloned hands reaching out, snatching at her skirt, clawing at her pantyhose, rattling empty cups and banging meal trays, heads bent, vomiting into the aisle she was trying to push the refreshment cart through, the wheels squelching through the slimy river of puke and poop, “Change my Depends!” “Smile!” “I'm about to give birth!” “I paid $25 for this shit?”
“Am I stupid?” she asked the masses. “Am I an idiot?” They chorused back, the answer unanimous and crystal clear, “Yes!” Then some of the passengers suddenly had faces, and they were her aunt Fionnuala and her uncle Paddy and her cousins Moira and Dymphna. “Aye, ye're a clueless eejit!” they chorused. The wheels of Gretchen's cart wouldn't turn and she had to get to the back rows. Had to feed the passengers there. They were starving. But she couldn't push the cart. It was mired in the muck. She was trapped. Her aunt and uncle and cousins were laughing. The claw-like hands around her ripped off her cap, tore at her jacket, nickels and dimes pinged into the—
Gretchen leaped from her pillow, wondering if she had screamed. She was bathed in sweat. She peered through the gloom to her right. No. Maximus was still snoring at her side, his spiked hair a shambles, bristles from his beard sticking into her ear. Though, with the amount of alcohol he had put away, she could've been yelling bloody murder and he wouldn't have woken up.
She shoved his bearded face away and looked at the time. 3:40 AM. There was another hour or so before she had to get ready for the day's flight to Maryland and Tennessee and Oklahoma. She was shivering with cold. She dragged her trembling body out of the covers and stood up, feeling for her robe in the dinge. It was freezing in the bedroom. She winced as her feet touched the frigid floor. She hadn't dared turn on the heat. It cost too much.
The living room was colder. She wrapped her robe around her tight, waiting for the kettle to boil. She needed her tea. She couldn't afford honey anymore, but she had the rind of an old lemon from the week before she could squeeze into it. After five minutes of shivering before the stove, the tea was ready.
Gretchen sat on the sofa in the cold, hating poetry.
How long did it take to write a poem? A month? A year? It was now almost a year since she had met Maximus, and she was still waiting to read his his first one. And even if, hallelujah, his five volumes surfaced, who was there to read them? Who was the audience? How many people in the 21st Century read poetry? How were poems advertised? Movies were never made about poems. They were about as relevant as cuneiform. At least with dating a musician there was the music, however bad, to tap your foot to. To be a poet, all you needed was charm, a pencil, and a notebook you carried everywhere and never let anybody open. What did a poet do? Laze slobbishly around apartments in clothes that had been slept in, in various stages of drunkenness, jerking off and playing video games and wondering if they were louche.
Gretchen had always wondered how it was possible for Maximus to be so happy and energetic, soaking up, luxuriating in, every detail of life. She didn't know what his schedule had been at BytesTech, but she understood how he could be like that now: he had no responsibilities, no financial worries, he slept 14 hours a day and 'was a poet' for the remaining ten.
She took a sip of tea, happy to feel it warm her throat. She longed for the days of Mags and Shirl. Yes, there had been the occasional silly have-you-been-at-my-conditioner-again spats, but that paled to the daily torment she went through within these walls now.
She suddenly wondered if, feared, that she had been targeted. She longed to ask him if he knew about her parents' lotto win. But she was too scared. Of what the answer might be.
She wanted to find that nameless voice on the other end of the line, the woman at BytesTech, who had said to her, “Oh, you mean...,” when Gretchen had told her she wanted information about Maximus Voo. What had she meant by “Oh, you mean...?” Gretchen had thought about it a lot. It hadn't registered at the time, but when she thought about it later, it seemed telling. But what did it say?
When she thought back to a few weeks ago, Gretchen still burned with shame, but also felt frustration. She had called BytesTech a second time, wanting an explanation for just that. She hadn't cared anymore about sounding paranoid, a woman trapped in a dishonest relationship. But a man had answered. When she'd asked him if she could speak to 'the woman' who usually answered the phone, he said she'd been fired for giving out confidential information about former employees. Gretchen had hung up, knowing she couldn't ask him, and said goodbye forever to the faceless voice who had been so kind, and who would have been able to answer her questions.
Now, sitting there on the sofa, Gretchen had to know. She had to know more about this Maximus Voo. Stripped of all the hip hair and odd clothes, the real him. He said his poetry looked deep into his soul. That was where she could find out who he was. In his poems. And now, he had completed the first volume. An entire volume, poem after poem, revealing the true person that lurked within his increasingly flabby body.
She knew she shouldn't, knew she'd regret it. She felt God staring sternly down at her, demanding she relent, promising her her penance would be harsh. It was a sin. It was immoral. She didn't care. The butter knife was in her hand, cold and hard, before she knew she had even stepped over to the drawer in the kitchenette to get it. No, not to murder him. That would hardly give her the answers she wanted. But something terrible all the same. Not as terrible, certainly, and it was this relativity of sin that gave her strength. She could go to the confessional at the church three blocks down and get a clean slate, after all. Still, she felt guilty. She looked up at where she thought the Lord might be and grit her teeth.
“Pardon me, God. Sorry for what I'm about to do.” Ursula had raised her right.
She tiptoed down the long hall that led to the bathroom and Maximus's Room of Dreams. Her hand wrapped around the handle, and she held her breath as she slowly turned it. The door creaked open. It sounded like a siren.
He's passed out! Don't worry! But still she feared he might hear. She closed the door behind her and crept through the stale air towards his desk. She lowered herself onto the chair. He now kept his notebook in the locked box in the top drawer. She was grateful the drawer wasn't locked. She inched it open, heart pounding, breath held. She slid out the box, pushed aside some semen-caked tissues that were on the desk, and set the metal box on the stained wood.
She bit her lower lip as she slid the butter knife between the top of the box and its base. She peered through the slit and located the little metal thing of the lock. She shoved the tip of the knife to the side. Click!
Her head swam as she pried open the lid. She reached inside and pulled out the precious notebook. She sat a moment with it in her hands, heaving gasps, eyes clamped shut. It was heavy, maybe about four hundred pages. Four hundred pages of poetry. She ran her fingers over the now-tattered black leather. She opened her eyes. Now she would finally meet the real Maximus Voo. What outpourings of the soul, what dark secrets, would be revealed? She opened the book.
POEMS BY MAXIMUS VOO.
She turned to the next page.
=I, ToastEr, bodies, yeS#
Gretchen read it again. And again. She struggled to comprehend what this might mean to the casual reader. It didn't 'speak' to her, certainly. But you're not the audience, Gretchen, she chided herself. Give the guy a break! Give him a chance! Perhaps it would made sense to someone else. An academic scholar in the poetry department of an Ivy league school? It was rather short, though. Was this only the title page for the first poem, perhaps?
She turned the page. It was blank. She turned another page. Also blank. Confused, she continued on. Page after page. Blank. Nothing. At all. Except for a doodle on the bottom of the twelfth page, which looked like a vagina surrounded by daisies. She leafed furiously through the remainder of the notebook.
The screaming of her brain drowned out the silence in the room.
Gretchen turned desperately, pleadingly, back to the only page his pen had touched. Brow furrowed, she read the 'verse' again, trying to comprehend. This was what he had spent a year on? This piece of shit half-sentence? She looked scornfully at the line again. No, it wasn't even a half-sentence. It was a...well, she didn't know what it was. On second thoughts, yes. Yes, she did. It was a few stupid letters and symbols thrown together.
She did some quick calculations, her rage rising. That was almo
st a character a month, or one every 36.5 days, and that was only if she was generous and included the equal sign, the two commas and the pound sign. She flipped through the pages again, hoping she had missed something. With each blank page that met her eyes, she had the sense of both time and money draining away.
The sticky keyboard jumped as she banged her head time and time on the desk. The notebook fell to the floor.
She realized now, to be a poet, you didn't even need the charm or the pencil. All you needed was the mouth to say you were one. Maximus wasn't a poet. Far from it—he was a poseur!
She looked in the box again. There were some typewritten papers, documents, printed emails. No poems. But there was a passport. His. She wrenched it out of the box and flipped it open.
At first her brain refused to register what her eyes saw. But there it was before her startled eyes, easy for them to read and for the mouths of the rest of the world to pronounce: Michael Brown.
Anger and shock coursed through Gretchen's limbs. She had felt like such a fool every time she said that stupid name in public. He demanded he call her it. This...this...alternate personality he had built for himself, the outlandish Maximus , had been born from the mundane Mike Brown. Gretchen was all for people reinventing themselves, but why did he have to make her complicit, drag her along in his delusions? She bemoaned now all the time wasted spelling his name for all those cups of coffee at Starbucks. No, 'Maximus' had never wanted coffee. Just Frappuccinos.
But a further surprise awaited poor Gretchen on that passport page. She whimpered as she took in his date of birth, panicked, barely able to do the math.
What?! He was...34?!! Four years older than he told her? Four years older than her? Not 30! 34! What 34 year old man...
Her image of him was transforming in her mind, as if he had just revealed he were one of those aliens put here on Earth to repopulate the planet. She didn't know him at all. It was as if she had been dating, sleeping with, building a life with one of a pair of twins. One was a missionary, the other a murderer. She was dating the missionary. And after a year of this, her partner woke her up one day and revealed he was the murderer. That's how Gretchen felt. What else had this Mike Brown lied to her about?
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 12