The Max

Twelve

Dyke City

If there was a dyke scene in Attica, New York, Paula Segal sure as hell was going to find it. She did a couple of lines of coke on the dashboard, made sure her pushup bra was doing its necessary pushing up, and was ready to roll.

She drove to downtown Attica and a good thing she didn’t blink too long or she would’ve missed it. It was the typical small upstate New York town that had been thriving during the time they filmed It’s a Wonderful Life but now it looked like a ghost town, probably the casualty of a nearby Wal-Mart. But the lesbians had to hang out somewhere, right? She drove by a few dilapidated blocks, past the mostly abandoned shops. There were a few bars, but only one getting any business. As she entered, Kiss’ “Rock And Roll All Night” was blasting. She had a feeling this wasn’t a good sign.

The place was crowded, that was the good news. The bad news was the ratio was bad, i.e. there were practically all men. Standing in the doorway, Paula felt the sets of male eyes leering at her desperately, as if she was the first woman they’d seen in years. Jeez, was the whole town of Attica a freaking prison? Did they release them right into the goddamn bars?

One guy grabbed her arm – he looked frighteningly like Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking – and said, “Hey, how about a little dance, honey?”

Like you could dance to Kiss.

She yanked her arm free, hissed, “Fuck you, townie.”

God, men were so fucking gross. Did she actually used to like them or had she gone through the eighteen years of her sexually active life faking it? Eh, whatever, she was just so glad she was through with all of that crap.

The woman working the bar – she wasn’t bad looking. Blond, a little heavy but, hey, Paula liked big girls. The woman looked briefly in Paula’s direction and half-smiled, but Paula couldn’t tell if there was more to it, if it was a come-on or not. As a newbie lesbian, Paula’s gaydar wasn’t fully developed yet. Since she’d, well, turned, she’d accidentally hit on several straight women and she was sure she’d let some hardcore dykes, easy lays, slip through her fingers. She hoped it all averaged out in the end.

Paula sat at the bar and decided to go native, ordered a bottle of Schlitz.

Watching the woman get the drink, Paula eyeballed her ass. Nice. She liked her shoulders, too – they were big and meaty. She had at least a few tattoos, wasn’t wearing makeup, and her hair was cut short, boyish. Looked like a dyke all right.

“Hey, I’m Paula.”

“Bonny,” the woman said.

Paula smiled, said, “Shake your bon-bon, shake your bon-bon.”

Bonny was deadpan. Maybe she didn’t like Ricky Martin?

Trying to loosen her up, Paula said, “It’s kinda guy-heavy here tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bonny said, “but this is the clientele. What’re you gonna do, you know?”

“I know what I’m gonna do,” Paula said.

She smiled, letting the implication linger, as if there was any doubt what she had in mind.

“Excuse me, are you hitting on me?” Bonny asked.

She seemed if not disgusted, seriously annoyed.

Before Paula could respond a fat guy with a scraggly red beard appeared.

He said, “What’s the problem, honey?

“This lady’s hitting on me,” Bonny said.

Paula said, “Um, I think there’s a, um, misunder-”

“You tryin’ to pick up my wife?” Bearded Guy asked.

Somebody in the bar yelled, “She’s a fuckin’ dyke!” and then everybody started yelling.

Paula hightailed it out of there, back to her car. As she was getting in, Bearded Guy came running over, saying, “Hey, if you’re lookin’ to have one of ’em threesomes, maybe I can talk Bonny into it!”

Back in her motel room, Paula got undressed and into bed, thinking, So much for hooking up in this hick town. She read a few chapters of Lippman’s What the Dead Know, then on pay-per-view she found a good all-girl porno movie – Horny College Chicks Get Dirty. As the girls went at it, wrestling and clawing at each other in the mud, she moved her hand over her crotch, whispering, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

In the morning, Paula left bright and early for her first session with Max.

The warden had come through, and she found herself sitting face-to-face next to Fisher, a guard near the door. Fisher was, naturally, staring at her bust.

After last night the last thing she was in the mood for was a predatory man. But she reminded herself that her career was at stake and she had to put on her game face.

Fisher asked, “So you wanna set a date?

She stared at him. She didn’t know what he was talking about, said, “What’re you talking about?”

“Tomorrow my morning’s full,” he said, “but how about the afternoon?”

Talk about gaydar malfunctioning, what was wrong with this guy?

“I’m sorry, a date for what?”

“Our fucking wedding,” he said. “The… A.X. needs to get his pipes cleaned. I already got permission from my counselor and last night I wrote out a pre-nup. It basically says, You don’t get shit. Sorry to be so blunt about it but, hey, I learned from the Donald. I know it’s probably not legally binding, but it’ll give me something to fall back on when our marriage goes to pieces and, let’s face it, I know it’s gonna feel like a honeymoon now, but it’s only a matter of time before it all goes to shit. Trust me, when it comes to shit relationships I’ve been there, done that.”

Trying not to laugh, she said, “This is all so sudden. I need some more time to think about it.”

Fisher wouldn’t crack. He said, “I need an answer pronto. No marry, no talkie. You have ten seconds to decide.”

He started the countdown and she was thinking how she couldn’t lose this book deal. But marry Fisher? God, he made Ron Jeremy look like a catch. But if she had to do it, she had to do it. This was her last shot and she wasn’t giving it up for anything.

He was at “two” when she blurted, “Yes, yes, I’ll marry you, I’ll marry you.”

Fisher leaned over and, Jesus Christ, he kissed her. Cringing, she was thinking of that line from Planet of the Apes when Dr. Zira kisses Charlton Heston: You’re so damn ugly.

She couldn’t wait to get out of there, to take a shower, but she reminded herself of her ultimate goal, to write the best damn true crime book ever, and she tried to keep her disgust from showing.

Max was talking about the marriage license and setting a date for sometime next week. Hopefully she’d have all the material she needed by then and wouldn’t have to go through with it.

Speaking of which. She said, “Tell more about this hit man you and Angela Petrakos allegedly hired to kill your wife. Did he really call himself Popeye?”

It spread like wildfire that The… A.X. had had a hot visitor.

One guy asked, “That, like, your wife?”

Max gave him a withering look, sneered, “Ain’t you heard, peckerhead? My first bitch wife got chopped to pieces.” Let the other cons hear this as he paused. Added a wink, then said, “By person or persons unknown.”

They could check this out and see indeed it was true. It should further enhance his violent rep.

The guy took off, muttering, “No offense, bro.”

Man, Max was having the time of his freaking life. Did he own this joint or what? Even the guards were looking at him with fresh respect. And the writer babe, the bust on that chick! He was hard just replaying the scene and the way he’d laid down the rules to her. He could see she was panting for him, he knew all about how those crazy dames married guys in the joint. Soon he’d have a stack of letters from women wanting to be his penpal. The… A.X. might allow one of the queens to do his letter writing, they were good at all that romance shit.

Another con stopped, asked, “Mr. Max, you need me to run any errands, stuff like that?’

Max gave him his imperial look, said, “I seem to be running low on decent booze.”

Let it hover.

The guy, some variety of spic, licked his lips, said, “There’s the prison hooch, I can get you a bottle of that.” Trailed off as The… A.X. gave him the silent treatment then said, “There’s a bottle of Chivas going for like five cartons.”

Max gave him a tiny pat on the shoulder, said, “Now you’re talking, hermano, deliver it to my cell in say, ten minutes?”

When Max finally got back to the cell, Rufus was standing there, gazing in wonder at a bottle of Chivas, said, “You the man, yo, how the hell you get this shit? How much it gonna cost?”

Rufus, who knew how the system worked, had never even seen real booze in all his years in lockup. Max smiled, took the bottle, said, “I let him live.”

Max clinked his prison-issue tin cup again Rufus’s. Chivas in a tin cup. Thought to himself, Hmmmm, maybe a good title for the book of poetry he’d been thinking he might write someday. He was just so on fire. Then he laughed to himself and said out loud, “I’m a fucking riot.” Later, he’d remember saying this, after he’d become the cause of one of the bloodiest fucking riots to come down the pike. Wouldn’t seem so funny then, but for now he couldn’t stop chuckling.

He had another shot of the Chivas, man, that was good shit, he didn’t know if the big guy appreciated the finer things in life but hey, hang in there, The… A.X. would bring him right along. He reminded Max of the giant in The Green Mile, and he made a metal note, tell the writer babe to put ol’ Rufus in there.

Then he realized the big guy was… sobbing? The fuck was that? How good was this booze?

Max, allowing his sensitive side to show, asked, “Hey, amigo mio, whassup?”

Then to keep his Spanish in trim, added, “Que pasa, compadre?”

Rufus, massive tears rolling down those cheeks, said, “Yo, Max, man, I just been feeling so bad and shit, know what I’m sayin’? When you came in here, me wantin’ to ram a rod up yo’ pretty ass and shit? That shit was wrong, know what I’m sayin’? That shit wasn’t me talkin’, man, you gotta know that shit’s true.” He sobbed some more, then said, “Outside, man, I never even been lookin’ at another man’s ass, know what I’m sayin’? But inside here, shit, it fucks with a man’s mind and shit. You see the sissies walkin’ ‘round shakin’ they pretty asses and you start wantin’ some of that shit yourself, know what I’m sayin’? You start sayin’, ‘Gimme some a dat shit,’ ‘I want some a dat shit.’ ‘I wanna fuck that shit.’ Know what I’m sayin’?” He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “And, Max, yo, if I been knowin’ you was some hot shit gangsta an’ shit, I wouda been cleanin’ yo’ ass fer you every day ‘stead a wantin’ to fuck it, know what I’m sayin’? Why would I would I wanna fuck some big time gangsta’s ass for? That’s shit’s crazy, man, shit makes no sense and shit. And some a the shit I been sayin’ to you, man, like how I been hatin’ Moslems and shit, I didn’t mean none of that shit. I don’t know why I said that ’cept I was crazy cause I been in this jail too long and I been gettin’ too much sissy ass. It fucks with a man’s brain and shit, know what I’m sayin’? And now, every night, I been afraid. Yeah, I been afraid that I wake up my dick won’ be on my body no more. Every night, ’fore I go to sleep I pray to Jesus you won’t take off my dick. And every mornin’ when I wake up, first thing I do is I check to make sure my dick’s still there. So that’s what I’m sayin’ to you is thank you, man. Thank you for not takin’ my dick off, and I hope you forgive me for disrespectin’ you and shit. I didn’t mean none of that shit. That was just bullshit talkin’, that wasn’t me.”

Man, Max was soaking all this up, he didn’t want it to stop. He knew moments like this, they didn’t come along too often in life and he had to milk it for all it was worth. He had this huge terrifying black cellmate, a serious gangsta who could crush him with one hand, and not only was the man living his life in total fear of Max, he was also begging for his forgiveness. He glared at Rufus hard for a long time, as if he were weighing all his options.

Then, expansive and like the Mahatma, forgiving like Gandhi but with a shitload of Chivas on board, Max finally said, “ De nada, senor. Ain’t no big thang.”

Whoops, how did he go Texan? Eh, what the fuck ever. He was forgiving the mutherfucka, not forgetting, or as Dr. Phil might say, Moving on and moving up.

But Rufus kept talking and truth to tell, it was grating just a tiny tad on Max’s nerves. He was about to snap when Rufus blurted out, “I got a secret, man.”

Max, in his most humble, quiet voice, said, “Pray tell?”

Which reminded him, he better get that preacher validation on the web, 100 bucks and you were like, An ordained preacher of the church of outreach saints. Two fags on the upper tier wanted to get hitched and he’d told them for four hundred bucks he would perform the ceremony. Was there truly no end to his talents? Prison was ripe, fucking abundant in business opportunities. Ask that Watergate guy, Colson.

He had to refocus. Rufus was spilling, “We got a break comin’.”

Max, muddled by the Chivas and his myriad schemes and languages, thought first he meant someone was, like, going to cut them a bit of slack, then he realized, prison break. Sweet Jesus, like the TV series. This would put the book up there with Dan Brown. Wait till Paula heard about this. It would have to at least get him a great blowjob, right?

Rufus was saying, “Yo, I only trustin you cause you a gangsta and I got respect for you an’ shit. I ain’t even tol’ the rest of my crew, but you the man, Max Fisher, know what I’m sayin’? We been plannin’ this shit for three years. And we ain’t stupid and shit neither. We’re gonna do this shit up right, know what I’m sayin’? Now we got a gangsta like you on our side, shit, we’re gonna be all set up. So you wanna be in, you just say the word and you in, know what I’m sayin’?”

Max waited, trying his hardest to stay stone-faced, to put the fear of God in his cellmate, then asked, “When y’all gonna make your move?”

“When them riots come down,” Rufus said, “know what I’m sayin’? Everybody be fightin’ and shit and we be sneakin’ our asses outta this jail. Damn, I can’t wait to get outside an jam my dick into some real pussy, know what I’m sayin’? Man, I been fuckin’ so many sissies’ asses I don’t even ’member what real pussy feel like.”

Max was thinking: Riots, a prison break, Hollywood, fame. Was he the luckiest guy on the planet or what?

“Count me in, baby,” he nearly shouted.