Max Flynn

The day after we buried my mother, I left.

I didn’t even know I was leaving. I just got in my car for a drive and someplace in Nevada I realized I wasn’t going back.

I guess it’d been about 6 months since leaving when I was in a car wreck. The man driving the truck was drunk, he came through the intersection without even so much as making the tires skid. Stopped my heart.

Death calls my dad. He was there just to see me wake up. And then it was another 6 months before I saw him again.

[note. a young teenage max]

My sister walks into the kitchen like she never left. I think I’ve grown a few inches since she’s been gone. I learned early that she’s good at getting gone. I’m thinking she learned that skill early after living with him.

“Where’s dad?” Her eyes scrape across me. I rub her wrong. She rubs me wrong. Nice when things cut both ways.

I shrug.

“Come on Max, I need to talk with him,” she fixes her blue eyes on me. She gets another shrug. “Is he in his office?” Give her a slight nod. “Some things never change.” So true.

In my mail this morning I find a back issue of Scientific American. From my father. He’s the only one that would send such a thing with nothing else in the envelope. Not even a return address.
 
The cover is “Why We Kiss.” Odd from him of course, for in as much as he was affectionate with my mother, he is not exactly a people person. And after years of living with him, I’m pretty certain that for him kissing is simply an antecedent to fucking.
 
My mother liked kissing. She seemed to like kissing him, even when he didn’t want to be kissed.
 
Flipping to the article on kissing, I read that ‘a kiss triggers a cascade of neural messages and chemicals that transmit tactile sensations, sexual excitement, feelings of closeness, motivation and even euphoria.’ I like kissing. And like my mother, I like kissing just for kissing and don’t pound on it as simply a doorway.
 
As I finish reading the article, I notice there is a page that is flagged with a meticulously turned corner. This is a letter to the issue asking about sleep walking.  I realize this is the reason my father sent me this back issue. A frustration for him was what he called this weakness in me. That my mind did not follow a pattern to turn itself off quite like it should when asleep. Still doesn’t. I’m convinced that this annoyed him because when I was small, I did not stay where he would put me, which was safe in my bed and out from under his large feet. 

She’s taking the training wheels off your bike. “Only babies use these,” your sister shakes her head at you. At age six, you know for certain that you are NOT a baby. “I’ll hold onto you until you get the hang.”

Steadying the bike while you get on she lets you sit there for a moment while she holds onto the seat. “Ready?” she says and you can feel her give the bike a push. She completely does not hold onto you.

You have the bike for a few free and wonderfully fast feet. Then you hit a dip and a bump and the pavement. Heels of your hands, elbows and knees skin against the asphalt. Standing up, you feel tears sting hot in your eyes. You will not cry in front of her. Ever. Wipe your nose, pick up the bike, shrug her off, you get back on to try again.

... a young max


“Before you were even you, I knew you’d have brown eyes.” She’s quiet and introspective, sliding her finger down and along the straight line of your nose. “Silly I know, that I should know such a thing. I just imagined it is all, and then when your eyes had taken in enough of the world, they went from blue to muddy to brown. Like his.”

“I don’t want his eyes, I don’t want his anything.” A scowl from you, that is just like his. “I want what’s you.”

She tugs at your earlobes, ever so slightly detached. “These are mine, my Max. You have his height and his hair and his eyes and at times I think you have his mind. But these,” she kisses you there and tickles you there, “these are all mine.”

multiple myeloma


...that's not even two seconds