No Such Creature

TWENTY-FIVE

After that, there was no question of continuing their trip, not even for Max. Aside from having just watched a man die, they had already missed the scheduled dates for two of their jobs, and the third, in Savannah, Georgia, was far too complicated for two actors. So they drove back to Dallas, climbed inside the Rocket, and limped home to New York.

In the weeks that followed, Max rattled around their two-bedroom making a nuisance of himself. In an attempt to improve the apartment’s two air conditioners, he rendered both of them inoperable, and the New York humidity was suffocating. Owen was going to as many movies as he could-partly to keep cool, partly for “research” on his favourite actors, and partly just to get away from Max, whose episodes of confusion became more frequent. Even worse, he was losing his temper in a way that was quite new.

One August afternoon Mrs. Carlson, their neighbour from across the hall, rapped on the door and told Owen that she had just seen Max at the Pioneer grocery store. He was standing inside the doorway when she went in, and he was still there forty-five minutes later when she went out.

“I spoke to him both times,” she said, “but I’m not sure he recognized me. He just said he was waiting for someone. I said, ‘Owen?’ But he just snapped at me and told me to go away.”

Owen apologized on Max’s behalf and dashed over to the grocery store. He found Max standing outside the place, unable to account for his afternoon and not at all certain who Owen might be. Owen managed to persuade him to come home, and when Max woke up after a two-hour nap he was his old self again, irritated that Owen was so frantic.

They lived in an area of Manhattan that was full of clinics and hospitals. That turned out to be lucky on another day, toward the end of summer, when Owen received a call from Bellevue. A kindly phlebotomist, an enormous Jamaican woman, had noticed Max on the corner of First Avenue and Twenty-ninth, repeatedly starting out across the street and then turning around and heading back. She had brought him to work, and the ID in his wallet had enabled her to call.

“He needs to have a full examination, child. They’ll be wanting to do exams and scans and all kine a ting.”

Max had done a perfect impression of her accent all the way home, this myna bird part of his character apparently undamaged.

“What if you hadn’t had your wallet on you, Max? You could still be wandering around Manhattan like a homeless person.”

“But I did have my wallet,” Max said, suddenly red in the face. “I did have my wallet and I don’t need you nagging at me like a harpy.”

Owen tried not to be hurt by these sudden tempers. When Max refused yet again to be tested, Owen went to a pharmacy and had an ID bracelet made. To his surprise, Max didn’t put up any protest about wearing it. But how could Owen go into residence at Juilliard next month if Max was wandering around Manhattan in a fog?

His episodes had seemed to be entirely random, but he developed another behaviour that occurred only in the evening. Just before suppertime, he would be sitting in his La-Z-Boy with a book in his lap or watching the news. Suddenly he would announce, “I want to go home.”

The first time he said this, Owen felt a deep chill run through him.

“What are you talking about, Max? England?”

Max was staring in indignation at the room, as if someone had tried to pull a fast one.

“This isn’t my home. I want to go home.”

“Max, you are home.”

“This is not where I live.”

“It is, Max. This is your home. I’m Owen, your nephew, remember? We live together here in this apartment.”

“That’s fine for you to say, but I want to go home.”

“Max, let’s just watch the rest of the news, okay?”

After an hour or so Max would calm down, and when he had had his supper you would never know he had suffered a moment’s confusion. Owen talked to his own doctor, who said it could be Alzheimer’s, it could be a lot of things, but there was nothing that could be done unless his uncle came in for an exam.

It was Labor Day weekend when Owen came home one afternoon to find Max his old self again, whistling as he spread wigs and costumes over the dining table.

“Sit you down, nephew,” Max said. “I would acquaint thee with a show of pure genius.”

“No more shows, Max. Season’s over.” Owen went to the fridge in search of a snack.

“Bollocks,” Max called after him. “That impudent wench robbed us blind, cost us at least three performances, and an untold price in peace of mind and security in my old age-should old age ever become a concern. I plan to make good my losses.”

Owen selected a can of iced tea from the fridge and pulled out half a peach pie Max had made the previous weekend.

“Sometimes things don’t go the way you planned,” Owen said. “That’s what you’ve always told me.”

“Yes, and on such doleful occasions one must improvise. Which is why you need to look at this.”

“You want a piece of pie?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I want a piece of pie.”

Owen cut two slices and brought them to the dining table.

Max was holding up a photograph of the Upper East Side-Madison Avenue, it looked like, but it could have been any one of a dozen corners in Manhattan, with its bank, its New York Sports Club, its Gap and Banana Republic.

“A bank,” Max said, tapping a finger on the Chase sign. “A very handsome little bank, well framed for larceny and but lightly defended.”

“Uh-huh,” Owen said around a mouthful of pie. “You’re going to rob a bank now?”

“A most excellent plan if you would but let me speak into the fearful hollow of thine ear.”

“Max, it’s a bank, and we don’t rob banks. This is New York, and we never work in our hometown. Pookie is dead. Roscoe is laying low. It’s time to retire while we’re still alive. Let’s not push it.”

“Look at these.” Max put on a green surgical cap and mask. “Dr. Abe Pfeffernan, oncologist,” he said, tapping the name-plate on his chest. “Pfeffernan-you have to love the name. I have a set for you too. Unless-would you prefer to be a nurse? You’re young enough. Elizabethan lads played women all the time. Test of a real actor if you can play a member of the opposite sex.”

“Listen, Dr. Pfeffernan, you and I are specialists. Dinners only. Republicans only. Summers only. Even that was dangerous enough. Now you want to rob banks?”

“No, no, just this one. Look at these.” He held two wigs aloft, one on each fist. “I’ve always wanted to play a New York Jew. Nothing obvious. Not the Hasidim, too easy. No, no. I want to do the classic New York Jewish professional. The sort of doctor, lawyer, dentist we all like to have-should we be in the dolorous circumstances that require such services. You could be a nurse, and I could do Ben.”

Ben Levine was their neighbour down the hall, an English professor to whom Max had long ago taken a shine when he had referred to Macbeth as the first film noir.

“A little putty on the nose, some curls. The accent’s easy, the manner …” He went into a series of shrugs and a mild New York accent. “What am I, a common thief? Of course not. I swear to you, Murray, I’m only thinking of your education, hand to God.”

He held up a vast T-shirt decorated with the Nike swoosh. “Dr. Abe Pfeffernan, marathon man. See, this is where the genius comes in. The bank, you notice, is next door to a health club. I have cased the joint, as the saying goes. There is an exit from the health club, sans camera, that I will prepare ahead of time. We wear running gear under the scrubs. In one split second we change from medical professionals into sports fanatics. Central Park is a mere block away. You run there. Within sixty seconds you’ll look like a hundred other people circling the reservoir like something out of Dante. I, meanwhile, will have stashed props, wigs and swag in a locker at the health club, where I shall proceed to hoist weights with the ease of a Titan.”

“Max, it’s the Upper East Side in broad daylight. Hundreds of people are going to see us.”

“Thought of, dealt with.” Max scooped up his pie and demolished it in three swift bites. He drank down most of Owen’s iced tea. “Men’s room downstairs,” he said, brushing crumbs from his belly. “We exit the bank, head to the lav. There we dispose of the scrubs and exit severally, I to the health club, you to Central Park. They’ll be looking for two doctors who don’t exist.”

“Max, it’ll be broad daylight. The makeup and wigs are going to be totally obvious.”

“We’re talking about a microperformance, lad. A cameo of mere minutes.”

“Please, Max. Let me take you to the doctor. You have no sense of reality anymore. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and there’s probably some medication out there that could help straighten you out.”

“My last doctor died of a heart attack at age forty-six. Shows how much they know.”

“Max, I can’t let you do this.”

“Since when do you let or not let, you puppy? Look here …”

Max spread out more photographs on the table-pictures of the street intersection, the health club entrance, a nearby construction site, the chaos of cars. Max put his finger on the construction site. “The traffic is so bad on that block, owing to a convenient condominium tower currently heading skyward, that even when the constabulary is called, it is going to take them days-positive days, my boy-to make their entrance.”

“I’m not going to discuss it,” Owen said, taking the plates back into the kitchen. “You’re being a lunatic.”

“It’s ambition, not lunacy. Unless he rob a bank or two, a thief is not a proper thief. Banks are where they keep the money. Willie Sutton said that.”

“And if you had paid any attention to our criminal history tour,” Owen said, coming back, “you would know that he was in prison when he said it. Max, you made me promise to keep you out of prison. I’m trying to do just that. Please forget about this.”

“No. The show must go on whether you are in it or not. Your Uncle Max waits for no man.”

“Jesus Christ, Max, I can’t believe I’m even related to you.”

“Fine, then, you ungrateful whelp,” Max yelled. “You are not related to me.”

Until the past few weeks, Owen had not seen Max lose his temper more than two or three times. But now the old man’s face darkened and he brought his fist down hard on the dining table. Owen’s can of iced tea hit the floor.

“Miserable stripling! You imagine any flesh and blood of mine would turn down an opportunity to make a quick quarter-million? Or quiver in fear before a security camera and some ill-paid minion in a blue uniform?”

An uneasiness crept into Owen’s belly. “Max, what do you mean?”

“In brief? Thou art a chicken.”

“About not being related to you. What did you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Spoke recklessly.” Max was huffing still, but his colour was changing back to normal. “Heat of the moment.”

“Max, answer me. What do you mean, I’m not related to you?”

“Nothing, boy. Nothing! Are you in or out?”

“Max, what did you mean?”

“Oh, fine, then, fine!” Max clamped his hands over his ears and let out a roar. “Hammer on my skull with your questions. Half drown me with repetition, repetition, repetition. If you will be told, you will be told: I am not your uncle. I am no blood relation to you whatsoever. Never was, never will be. There. Are you satisfied now?”

Owen was unable to speak for a few moments. When he finally did, he found himself stammering. “What are you saying? You’re my grandfather’s brother, right? My great-uncle. From Warwick. That’s what you’ve always said.”

Max unclamped his ears and sat back down, his roar having apparently deflated him. “I may have somewhat exaggerated.”

“Oh.”

“I–I hope you won’t take this in the worst light.”

“Max, just tell me the truth, will you?”

“Believe me, lad, with all my heart I wish I could say to you, with accuracy, that we are of one blood, but we are not. I am not your uncle, aunt or cousin thrice removed. I am not related to you in any way.”

Owen sat down hard. He felt as if his insides had been scooped out.

“Max, I don’t think you should say something like that just because you’re mad at me. Just because I don’t want you to risk your life over another goddamn show …”

“No, boy, it’s the truth.” Max cleared a space and put his elbow on the table, leaning head to hand, shading his eyes. His voice was quieter than Owen had ever heard it. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time,” he said. “A long, long time. But I could never-I could never come up with a satisfactory way to do it. It always seemed too soon, or not the right moment. But I knew you would have to be told.”

“I don’t get this at all,” Owen said. He was staring at the floor as if the parquet squares would resolve themselves into an explanation. “If we’re not related, why am I living with you, Max? Why did the courts give you custody? Why would you even ask to look after me? I just don’t understand what the hell is going on here.”

Max elaborately cleared his throat. “A ticklish question-no, no, I see the thing clearly now-a ticklish question indeed. Why indeed am I looking after you, a boy to whom I am no relation whatsoever-aside from loving caretaker, doting mentor, affectionate partner in crime?”

Now it was Owen’s turn to yell. “Max, tell me what is going on! If you’re not my uncle, who the fuck are you?”

“Calm yourself, lad. No good will come of yelling. I am-how to put this … I am. Well, to begin at the beginning …”

“Max, please.”

“You remember the circumstances of your parents’ untimely quitting of this world?”

“The car crash? They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police were chasing this guy, and-”

Owen gripped the table with both hands. The blood seemed to have drained from his head, and for the first time in his life he felt that he might actually faint.

“You’re a bit pale, boy. Perhaps you’d better-”

“Oh my God.” Owen clutched his forehead as if he could protect himself from the thought. “You’re not my uncle.”

“Easy, lad. Bound to be a bit of a shock at first.”

“You’re not related to me.”

“Well, no.” Max gripped Owen’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “Still your friend, though. Still your pal.”

Owen took a deep breath. “You were the guy they were chasing? You were the-back when my parents were killed? You were the guy the cops were chasing?”

“Well, um, yes. I suppose I would have to say yes to that particular question.”

“You were the guy they were chasing. I’m just-I can’t-God, I can’t deal with this. You’re telling me you killed my mom and dad.”

“No, no, no. Nothing of the sort. I was being pursued at high speed. A corporate banquet show gone awry. Bad timing. Bad casting. Doomed from the start, really, and the hounds were on my tail. Under the circumstances, I may have gone over the speed limit.”

“‘Speeds of up to a hundred and twenty miles an hour,’ Max. I have the clippings.”

“Don’t belabour the point, boy. I’ve already admitted it, I was driving too fast. I made a sudden swoop to the right, and unfortunately the nearest driver thought it prudent to swerve to the left. Your parents, coming the other way, left the road and, well … the rest you know.”

“They plowed into a utility pole.”

“Gross misfortune.”

“Misfortune!”

“Catastrophe, no question.”

“You still don’t think you did anything, do you. You still don’t think it’s your fault.”

“It was thoughtless, reckless, hasty-”

“How about stupid, Max? How about criminal? How about murderous?”

“Stupid, I grant you. Criminal, yes. But murderous-no, my boy, not murderous. I didn’t pull in front of your parents, some other car swerved into their lane. I was devastated by it. Racked with guilt. And yet I couldn’t see that turning myself in would do any good. It would not resurrect them. It would not unbreak your heart.”

“How did you even know about me?”

“I followed it in the papers. I read everything I could. Naturally, I was terrified of being caught and going to prison. But also, I was struck dumb by the profound coincidence of our having the same last name-as if we shared a ghastly destiny cooked up by some long-dead Greek. I decided to do everything in my power to make that destiny … less ghastly.”

“Jesus, Max. Tell me you’re making this up. Just because we have the same last name, you decide it’s all right to come into my life and …”

“Not just that. My heart went out to you. I was appalled by your situation. I made inquiries at the social agencies and tracked you down. I had no plan, no chart, no map of the future. I just felt compelled to insert myself-discreetly, at this point, distantly-into your life. To make sure you were okay.”

“Okay? You killed my fucking parents, Max. I was not okay.”

“And when I heard that you would be made a ward of the state, that’s when I decided to play the part of your long-lost uncle.”

“You had pictures! Family photographs …”

“Lifted ’em from your house and made copies. That was no problem. Creating the paper trail, now, that was a challenge. The favours I had to call in! The arms I had to twist! Expensive, too. The signatures! But in the end the authorities bought it. I was your long-lost uncle Max, and as your nearest living relative I was granted temporary custody. Under supervision of the state. Eventually they were satisfied that I was looking after you properly, and-”

Owen leapt up from his chair. “You stole me!”

“No, lad. No. Sit down. I wanted to look after you. I wanted to do something to make up for what I’d done. Please, sit down.”

“You stole me. Just like you steal everything else in your life.”

“It was partly selfish, I grant you. I was a man of a certain age, I was alone, and I needed someone to love. And there you were. Love is, after all, a selfish sort of giving, don’t you think?”

“You stole me. Just like you steal your identities, your jewels, your cars, your money. But I’m not an object, Max. I’m not a thing. Oh, God, I don’t believe this.”

Max got heavily to his feet, made a tentative move toward him, but Owen stepped back.

“I’m sorry, boy. I’m sorry for what I did long ago, and for what it did to your parents and to you. If I could undo it, I would. I would, so help me God. But I can’t, and I couldn’t, and so I did what seemed like the next best thing.”

Owen started toward the kitchen, stopped. He started toward his bedroom, and stopped again. His mind wasn’t working. He wanted to get away but didn’t even seem to know how. His limbs lacked the skill.

Max came toward him-big, lumbering Max, clumsy as a bear.

“It doesn’t change anything else, boy. To me, you could not be closer if you were fashioned from my own right arm. You are my boy, my lad, my prince, and I-”

Owen finally got his feet to work. He fled the apartment and punched the elevator button. Unable to stand still for even a minute, he ran down four flights of stairs and burst out of a side exit into the blinding grit of First A venue.