My best friend Dean had an uncle one time called Max. Max McCaffricky. A nice, big, burly man who, on weekends, would take us out by himself for a real long day of fun. Bowling and hotdogs. This guy Max, whatever it was about him and the way he moved through the world, you always felt safe in his company. Whenever Max was around, there would always be a lot of laughs, adventure, and more often than not you’d go back home to your own family with that nice tingling sensation in the pit of your stomach and a big smile stretched across your face.
He did voices too.
Real good ones.
Like Optimus Prime, he spoke in that really low, really threatening register where you could hear the gravel at the back of his throat like he had just eaten a mouthful of rocks. And if he cupped his hands a certain way over his mouth, and if he made the right sounds at the right time, I swear he would do the best impersonation of a lion’s roar you’ve ever heard in your life.
Real Hollywood stuff.
And if we asked him could he imitate something else, a different character maybe or cheekily one of our parents – he usually would, and be happy about it. A real bright man, he’d know all their individual quirks and mannerisms.
I remember one afternoon, we stumped him real good when asking for an impression of God knows what – a giraffe or something. And poor Max, once he found it difficult, the moment he realised he couldn’t do it, he got real frustrated with himself and – with us.
The shoulders went up, like a cat, the head went down, and I remember noticing that that was the first time ever in my life I had heard him say the word cunt. He must have said it a few times. After a few more attempts, failed, the poor man would be so full of shame, and so embarrassed, that he’d end up having to remove himself entirely.
“I’ll be back in a minute or two lads” he’d say to us, scratching the back of his head. “I just need to use the toilet.” And away he’d go, just like that, leaving us standing there, alone, with our cold tray of chips and spastically coloured bowling shoes.
That was sadly the start of a big change.
The whole thing grew into a sort of problem after that when it became a little less charming and much more – regular. At outings now, I’d find myself just watching Max and everything he did. I’d be sitting back, usually away from all the fun, studying him and his increasingly odd behaviour – just searching for the old machine that made him tick, and asking myself if this new course was the result of our own doing?
After a while of doing this (a couple of weeks or so), and after everything I had seen, I quickly came to the realisation that Max, our good friend, had more than a few real demons just boiling around inside of him. What shocked me even more was that it seemed like he knew what he was at and who he was trying to talk to. I didn’t hear any names or even associations in this matter, nothing I can record, but I could indeed gather that they were driving him utterly mental. The man was going around now like a demented zoo animal trying to swat away these imaginary things from around his head with movements so big and elaborate you’d almost swear you could see them yourself.
“He was like a drunk person whatever was going on.”
I tried to speak to Dean about it a few times too, knowing not to ever approach the boy whenever he was hungry or tired. Spotting my moments, I’d usually sidle up beside when he was at his most settled, and almost shyly I’d say things like ‘How about Max, eh?’ or ‘Just something I noticed’ and how the whole thing wasn’t ever ‘Really a big problem’. That’s usually when I’d conclude the whole thing by saying, as heartfelt as I could – “You know I’m here for you.”
I called these things softeners, or cushions; systems I’d created over the years for conversational purposes like this and they always seemed to go right over Dean’s clueless wee brain. Little did he know that I myself had been manipulating him for years this way – perfecting the good art of getting all the right things I could ever want out of him.
Only this time, I guess it was all for the good.
I saw him one afternoon – Dean. He was by himself walking through the park as I made my way back from the dry-cleaners. Be real careful with how you approach this now, I said to myself. Go easy with your words. All you can do is frame the thing as an honest, real concern for a bloke you are all very fond of – Max.
“Sure thing.”
Anything else and he might give me another black eye just for the sake of it. Just to express that little bit of dominance over me which, of course, I was more than happy to let him have seeing as I’d been creaming him for years.
“Hey.” I said.
“Yo.” he said back.
I walk up beside him, fluff his hair up a little and get straight to the point.
“Does erm….”
“Does what?”
“Does Max look ok to you?”
Dean quickly pulled one of those unsettling faces at me like he were looking directly into sunlight without a pair of protective glasses. His brow went down, he cocked his head to the side and would take one small step closer to me like he had wanted to square up or something. But, that was just Dean.
“Does Max look ok to me?” he asked back. “Yeah he does. He looks fine, why?”
“He just, I dunno, seems a bit off with us lately.”
“Off?”
“That’s just what I’ve observed. No offence.”
“What have you observed? Tell me.”
When Dean said this to me, I realised then I wasn’t speaking to a friend anymore. Over the years I had of course seen various shades of this side of his personality. Deano was rough, ready, spitting and always capable of knocking someone out in the blink of an eye – including me. But I knew his lovely softer side too. It did actually exist somewhere in the ether and it was always a lovely place to be. There was a measure of safety about him when he was in good form.
But that was about to change.
I could feel my body tense up. It shook a little the closer he got to me. This boy is certainly going to put hands on me, I thought, and probably for the greater good. At this point I might just have to go ahead and let him fucking do it. Bollox anyway. What were you thinking saying anything at all? Big mouth. You went and challenged the condition of one of his most cherished family members – his only uncle, Max. Yeah, great job Einstein, of course that’s going to sting.
“Listen man.” I said. “I’m not saying anything is wrong. I just hope that…”
“What do you hope for?”
The boy was almost on top of me now and as mad as I’d ever seen him. But I didn’t back away. Actually, I didn’t move at all. Why would I? I had known him for years at that point in fairness. He wasn’t the devil and he wasn’t God. He was just another scared wee boy, like myself, who just so happened to live that little bit closer to the town and by all the nicer looking sweet-shops. I wasn’t going to run away from this. No way. I was gonna face it head on, like a champ. In pursuit of truth.
“I’m just wondering if he’s ok is all.” I said. “We are all wondering the same thing. I’m just the one with balls enough to ask you face to face. And that’s all I’m doing right now. I’m only asking. Coz if he’s not good, guess what my friend, you won’t be good either. And I don’t want you getting hurt by nothing. Not while you’re my best friend. No way.”
In that moment, I’m not sure where I got the strength from to talk like that but get this, it came from somewhere, in its droves. All of a sudden I knew how to speak and assert myself. I could feel the energy rise up in me, rushing through my veins; issuing confidence, certainty, bravado, clarity and boy how good it fucking felt. I wasn’t even fifteen years old but in the space of only a few seconds I had somehow felt the whole universe pass through my body. To such a degree that I almost felt close to invincible – like Superman.
Seeing that I wasn’t moving or indeed intimidated, Dean slowed down his pace, un-scrunched his little freckled face and started talking to me again like I was one of his friends.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with him?” he asked. “Is that what you’re saying to me?”
That’s when I went on my little explicit tirade. The lad had asked me a question about something that concerned us all, and under the gentle warmth of that day, I sat him down on the nearest bench and told him everything because isn’t that what friends do.
“So the last day at the arcade.” I said. “During our group time-out session, when all you guys went for cigarettes, because I had hung back, I saw uncle Max approach a small gathering of old women at the slot machines. These were old-timer women, very harmless, vulnerable, out on a little day out for themselves from the nursing home. Hanging about in the shadows, keeping close watch, were a few nurses – male and female. I only knew that because of how shifty and official they seemed with their hands twined at the waist and their name-tags and what have you. Anyways, I see Max walk up to these old folks and just like that I see them recoil once he said something. In a half second, every one of these little women looked pretty fucking horrified with their smiles gone and jowls now trembling. I couldn’t make out exactly what was going on because of the music. It was real loud in there at the time as you well know. And because it was real loud in there at the time, just so he could drive his point home, Max got really super animated with his movements.”
“What was he doing with his movements?”
“Well, he was making a lot of strange looking shapes with his hands and that. I was watching this happen from behind Max now and could tell right away it wasn’t ever a friendly exchange. And the more Max spoke, the more these sweet old ladies seemed to recoil into themselves and distort up their faces like they had just sucked on a few lemons. The chat got so brutal at one point, whatever he must have said, that they started shielding their tits and their fannys with tight clenched fists, like they were trying to paw themselves, and when that happened I was like yeah, that’s not good. If only I was a lip reader man.” I then said. “If I was a lip reader or a body language expert, I’d be able to stand here now and tell you exactly what they were looking at and shouting back to him. But Dean, no more than yourself.” I said. “I am not one of those experts. These old women.” I said. “In the space of only a few minutes, from my judgement anyway, found our buddy Max, your dearest uncle, to be the most revolting and appalling individual they had ever laid eyes on. To such a degree they would have to abandon their games entirely and leave, like celebrities, out through the nearest emergency exit. The nurses and other staff didn’t seem to cop the situation as much as I did. It’s like they thought the girls were just being old and dothery and exhibiting typical behaviour they were already used to in the home. Next minute they were gone, nowhere to be seen, the lot of them – and my little heart broke for Max. The way he just stood there for a while, all by himself, silent and daydreaming into the floorboards. The whole thing just hit me. I just erm…I just feel like I needed to tell you this Dean because I know how fond of him you are. At the end of the day, we all are I suppose.”
Dean paused then in front of me and thought about something for a minute. I knew he was thinking something with the way his eyes went. They went up into the sky, like that, in the exact direction all eyes usually go when in deep thought about something. The boy was thinking hard, but get this – I knew I had him sussed. Just like a detective. This here was the real beginning of his initial downfall, I could see it happening, and as a best friend isn’t it rotten that I rejoiced so much in that horror?
“Well, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
I knew then in that moment, just by the sheer cut of him, the way he was diminishing, that a chance of a slap had decreased dramatically, and yay, I thought, yay, yay, fucking yay, because a little win like that can go a long way for a boy like me who wouldn’t be as street-wise as all the rest of them. Then, shaking his head like a fed up parent, Dean said:
“He might have been trying to get his cock out for them. You’ve never seen it but the guy’s hog is like a bloody can of Fanta. He does want to whip it out sometimes the fucker – particularly around older women and grannies. Like a kink. I don’t think he even realises he’s doing it.”
“Maybe he does.” I said. “Maybe he doesn’t.”
“Where were you during all this?” he then asked.
“Me? I was loitering around the corner of the men’s toilets. I watched it all unfold, just hoping you wouldn’t come in and see it for yourself.”
“Thank God for nicotine, eh?”
I sighed under my breath and said to him “Yeah. Thank God for the devil.”
Deano dropped his head then like a child half his age and put his hands into the two waist pockets of his jeans.
“And eh..” he said. “What else did he do?”
“That all depends.” I said. “Do you want to listen? Or will you kill me if I tell you?”
“I want to listen.” he said. “Honestly. If he’s getting worse, I need to know. Something has to be done about it.”
For me, as soon as he said that, I felt like he meant it. Dean then motioned a signal at me with his hand and dropped his little head into his little scrawny chest. A thing I hadn’t seen out of him in years. After that, he’d say nothing more to me and I understood his silence. Thankfully.
Over a bullshit game of soccer with a burst ball, for the next forty minutes or so, I’d tell him everything that went on, everything I had observed, or at least as much as I could, how concerned we all were, right up until his mother came driving up looking for him. She was shouting her head off, calling him every name under the sun, saying words I had never even heard, and I saw how it had affected him.
I knew then where he had got his temper from.
And as he slunk off towards her, Paula was her name, he looked back at me and shouted something. The wind had picked up a bit then, I couldn’t really hear him, but from looking at his face, and how sad he seemed, I think he was saying something like “Finish this tomorrow, yeah?” and mouthing back, giving him two thumbs up I said “Sure thing buddy. Only if you think of it.”
But he never did.
