Finally Max had had just forty-eight hours left to, like, get his shit together, put his affairs in order and, fuck, get ready to spend the next half of his life behind bars. Behind bars. The… A.X. caged? Another book Max had read: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. He got halfway through that one before he realized it wasn’t a fucking prison novel.
Max had been renting his penthouse – and he was behind on the rent – no problem there – when you go away, go away owing. He had the phone cut off and all the utilities, but arranged that they be shut down the day he went to the slammer, so he could have his last forty-eight hours in comfort. He was drinking, not like he used to, but putting it away, Grey Goose, a decent brand, Max still had his taste and sensibility. He was also doing some rock, to keep the party balanced. Probably in the nick, as the Brits called it, he’d have a hard time scoring coke or even crack and he’d have to make do with that homemade hooch they brewed from potatoes. Or, get this, he might attend A.A. in the joint, run those meetings on a proper business footing, give them a little of the Max Fisher class. He tried to imagine himself in the actual joint, saw himself sitting on the floor like some suffering monk. Hell, maybe they’d start calling him The… O.N.K. Yeah, spending his days in quiet meditation, giving out little pearls of Zen, nuggets of compassionate wisdom to the other inmates. Maybe he’d shave his head, look more spiritual. Fuck, why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? Thanks, rock.
On the morning of his last full day of freedom, while taking a morning dump, he stared at his mono-grammed towels. He hated to leave them behind but maybe the new tenants, they’d realize they were literally being given a slice of infamy. His reflection, drug induced, showed the eyes of a real caring man, sad but, like, knowing. His face had changed, even he could see that. It was an almost Thomas Merton look, if he could remember who the fuck Merton was. He remembered reading something about Merton living in a sparse cell, writing his seven-story some-shit-or-other. Wasn’t he a monk who’d been, like, hotwired in Bangkok? The fuck was he doing there and messing round with electric fires, wasn’t it, like, hot enough there?
Max took out the electric razor, raised it, the buzz of it making him jump. Fuck, how loud was the freaking thing? But, nope, couldn’t do it. He looked at that gorgeous hair – actually just some thin gray strands surrounding a widening bald spot, but the rock was now seriously lying to him.
With resignation, he said, “It would be a desecration.”
He was getting some good wood going and figured he better get that taken care of; wasn’t likely to be much, um, nookie in the joint, definitely not of the female kind. A tear trickled down Max’s cheek. Fuck, The… A.X. had been hurt enough, thank you very much. He was going to have a ball during these forty-eight hours and not let them negative waves come at him.
He called an escort service, arranged for two black ladies to come round. He still had about two thousand bucks in bills that not even his shyster lawyer knew about.
So he drank off the Goose, said, “Let’s go for bust, baby. Bring it on.”
To prepare for the hookers, Max had popped five Viagras and used a pump to enlarge his dick to its maximum three and a half inches.
Then his doorman buzzed, said, “A lady’s here to see you.”
Lady, in a knowing way, like he was suddenly Mr. Noble. Once Max had asked him for a movie recommendation and the bollix had suggested Big Wet Asses 2.
Max knew how to deal with the help, and he said, no ordered, “Send the fucking lady up and now, and you better watch your attitude ’cause there are, like, you know how many spics crossing the border right now who’d kill for your job? So you know, fella, get with the game.”
Slammed the receiver, let him know, you fuck with The… A.X. you better be packing, and it sent him into a flashback of the wild ride of his drug baron days, and him shooting off a whole round at this big black dude who was shooting at him, you believe it? The guy had gone down, The… A.X. had taken him out, taken him down, he’d iced that muthafucka, sent him to the big hood in the sky, and the rush! He remembered the kid, Kyle, looking at him, stunned. God, he was so ready now, his wood solid, he’d shoot if the babe didn’t get up there in like – what was it that mad mick used to say? – yeah, jig time.
The bell rang and he checked his reflection. The Goose lied large, why you drank the shite, and he saw a suave, ok, debonair, laid-back guy, handsome in the Sean Penn way. You know, dangerous but sensitive too. Splashed on some Paco Rabanne, rapped:
“Dude smellin’ good
Dude smellin’ score.”
Opened the door, but the fuck was this? He’d ordered two, right? And didn’t booze like, make you see double? Nope, there was one, count ’em, one babe standing there. And one not so hot-looking babe. Let’s be up front up, one middle-aged babe. Had he been watching too much Nick at Night or did she look just like the housekeeper from The Jeffersons?
He stammered, “The fuck is this?”
She brushed past him, yeah, you believe it, walked right in, brash as she liked, looked around, what, checking out the pad and if it wasn’t up to expectations? Like she would what, leave?
She turned, said, “Y’all Marc Fisher right?”
Marc?
And before he could throw her old ass right out she said the magic words:
“Y’all wanna do some candy first? Yo’ down baby, get high with momma, then let momma take care of yo’ major action, you really carrying a pistol there, lover.”
For a moment Max was tempted to call the escort service, complain, but fuck, he’d maxed out his credit card; it was either fuck the old broad or not get any for maybe ever.
So they did a couple lines, then got to it. Jesus, couldn’t she even have a rack? He’d even take an old saggy rack like his ex-wife’s, but this chick didn’t even have A cups. It was like they were freakin’ A minuses.
Max, lost in the coke high, was trying to blow into one of the hooker’s nipples, like it was a balloon.
She looked down at him, went, “The fuck you doin’?”
“Er, um, nothing,” Max grumbled, realizing he had bigger problems, major major fucking problems. Where was his goddamn hard-on? He’d taken how many Viagras and the sons of bitches wore off already?
“Ah, c’mon, you gotta be kiddin’ me, Jesus H.”
He popped a few more blues, then hopped back on. Still no liftoff and, shit, his heart was racing. Wasn’t there a warning about Viagra for heart patients? Was this how he was gonna check out, on top of a flat-chested hooker who looked like The Jeffersons’ maid on his last night before heading to Attica? Would that be fucking humiliating or what? What would people think of him? He had a reputation, shit, a legacy to protect.
After about forty minutes, Max was covered in sweat and the hooker said, “Time’s up, suga,” and less than a minute later she left, and Max’s last chance for straight sex had left with her.
Now, in the cell, the giant was saying, “You deaf, white bread?”
Max tried to focus, said, “I’m sorry, I missed that?”
The big dude roared with merriment, like he loved this fat, white, balding, middle-aged white man already, repeated, “I got me the top bunk, you got the bottom. You hip to that, my man?”
Max was hip to it, nodded miserably, and Rufus said, “And y’all being sorry, y’all be even sorrier in the morning after I ream yer fat ass, and don’t y’all be getting on my case about them condoms and shit. Y’all get the meat raw, know what I’m sayin’? Y’all ain’t Jewish or nuttin.”
Actually, Max was Jewish, but he worried it was a trick question. If he said he was a Jew maybe that would, like, turn Rufus on.