By Bernadette van Joolen co Okay. How bout coffee? Coffee it is.” Ten o'clock? At the Mac? was out on my ass ‘Ten o’clock at the Mac.” It wasn’t my fault. My boss came UP to me and said, “Honey, your clothes are just not appropriate for this workplace.” I looked at her mean old crabapple expression and said,“Neither is your face, mama!” I guess I shouldn’ta oughta said it. She ain’t my mama, but I ain’t her honey either. he guy at the Unemployment Office was starting to know me. I was there often enough. His eyes would sort of light up when I walked in. I knew he’d be there for me. I’m still not sure why. Why he thought I was special. Why he thought I was worth the trouble. Maybe I reminded him of a kid sister or something. “Hey, Max!” I’d call out, and probably get the first smile outta him anybody’d seen all day. His name wasn’t really Max, but I get bored calling people by their real names. I like to make special ones, that fit, you know? Max is my best friend’s mom’s dog’s name. Old sad-eyed Max, the beagle dog. “Hey, Kiddo!” he’d call back. He never called me by my name either. “What’s up? You’re already on executive privileges, eh?” “Naaa. . . .the system’s down.” “Again?” He lifted his eyebrows, leveled his gaze into mine and tried to look stern. “Yeah, again.. . .Got anything else cookin’ I might like?” “Get an appointment.” He winked. G3is name wasn’t really Max, but I get bored calling people by their real names. Max is my best friend’s mom’s doe’s name. Old sad-eyed Max, the Beagle dog. ]he system’s down—my euphemism. You can’t do much when the system’s down. File your nails. Read a magazine. Max always steered me towards data-entry jobs. Boring-assed data entry jobs. Sitting behind a computer. “Just for the money," he’d say. “It’ll get you through school. If you want to go, that is. You can have a soul in your spare time.” Max wanted me to make it. I always let him down. When I look back now, I’m Illustration by The Pander Bros. glad. I’m glad because that’s how we became friends. Whenever the system was down, we’d meet at the Mac. It was our ritual. We’d go to the one ten blocks away from the Unemployment Office so folks at his job wouldn’t know. Not that there was anything going on. But they would’ve thought so. Max told me I think that way too much—like it’s always me against them. That’s why you’ve got so much downtime, he’d say. It tickled me. Having coffee with Max at the Mac. I usually got there first and I’d wait. Hang-out. I have a talent for it. Solo, not in packs like the other punks on the “Ave.” Makes me so mad, people thinking we don’t think about anything. I think about plenty, especially while I’m hangingout, writing in my journal. Max told me to do that. “Free therapy,” he told me, “and you need it, Kiddo.” I wouldn’t have taken that from anybody else. But Max, he always tried to build me up. And sometimes he had to mix in a little truth. I’d watch him walk in—tall and stringy, shoulders slightly stooped, head slightly bowed. I didn’t really do him justice when I compared him to my best friend’s mom’s beagle-dog. He looked like Sam Waterston. When Sam Waterston played Robert Oppenheimer on PBS, I forgot that Oppenheimer was the bad guy. I was in love with Sam Waterston. And I guess I was a little bit in love with Max. He looked humble. Sweet. Sad. I never knew why he was so sad. And I never really noticed him growing skinnier. ay, Max...” I said tentatively as he sat down opposite me with his Egg McMuffin and chocolate shake. “Say, Kiddo,” he said gently. He humored me, Max did. He always played my little games. “Wanna hear a poem I wrote?” “Sure,” he said. He looked pleased, his eyes glowed and never left my face. “Okay,” Suddenly I lost my breath. “You ready?” He kept glowing—at me. “Okay, here goes. . . ” Old Max was my first audience, it was my first poem. I found a breath and pumped it through. “It’s called Flowers in the Mainstream." I didn’t see Max anymore, or the Mac. I saw my old crabapple boss. They don’t like. . . my crazy blouse of blue and red and black with funny faces, They don’t like my punk-sprouts that style themselves while I sleep. They don’t like my language or my questions, my blue nails, my black mini- C an d a ce Bie n e m an Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 27
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