cmaxwell

REWIND


Flowers flank an open casket. Clumps of mourners gossip in hushed tones of feigned reverence. Max, wearing a suit a size too small, is off to one side, talking with his sister. Alice is shrouded in a long, flowery dress that was in fashion when their father was still playing first base and mourning their mother.
"Theres something I need to ask him," she blurts.
"You couldnt ask him when he was here?"
"Hes still here. Just not in his body."
"Yeah, I noticed."
Alice gives Max a bone-crushing hug.
"I'm glad you're here, little brother."
In the background is the drone of relatives, his father's business associates, and old family friends whose names Max strains to recall.
"Remember me telling you I was into regression analysis?"
Max ponders.
"Was that before or after Rolfing?"
The New Age was old hat to Alice long before it was christened. She's got a lot of therapeutic miles on her.
"Just in the last year. Im trying to go back to my origins." She beams proudly, as if announcing the birth of a bouncy baby. "All the way back to sperm and egg."
Max scowls at the language, but it's ineffectual. Trying to shame Alice is like putting a feather pillow on railroad tracks to stop a speeding train.
"Max, do you realize that you owe your existence to that guy in that casket fucking Mother?"
The buzz from the mourners suddenly stops. Heads turn. Alice doesn't notice.
"They fucked one time and made me. They fucked again and made you. Aren't you curious about how they did it?"
Max grabs her arm and tries to lead her away.
"Keep your voice down."
But Alice is oblivious.
"How they did it determines a lot about us."
Max feels his back burning under the blazing glares of dozens of astonished eyes.
"So if they conceived you in the missionary position," he whispers, his voice betraying his annoyance, "then that explains why you want to save the world?
"Cant you be serious just for once?"
Max glances at the casket.
"Even if he could talk to you, I doubt hed remember the specifics."
"I just need more clues," Alice begs. "Im so close."
"Not me. Im a long ways away. I remember my twelfth birthday when Susie Van Fleck showed up in a two-piece bathing suit. I cant remember a thing before that."
"If you cant remember the past, how do you expect to remember the future?"
"I dont. And why the hell should I?"
Alice heaves an exasperated my-hopeless-brother sigh.
"The woman who guides me on my memory trail is really cool."
"I could use a woman to guide me."
"Molly wouldnt guide you in that way."
"What way?"
"Dont play innocent with me. I know you. By the way, I talked on the phone with both your exes and told them about Daddy. They wanted to know how you were doing. I told them I had no idea, because you never speak to me."
"Because you dont have a computer."
"What's wrong with a phone?"
"You mean those annoying ringing things people used to chat on before the Internet?"

Wearing a diaper, booties and a bib, Max is sitting on a dock, holding a candy-cane fishing pole. A multicolored line of yarn hangs down into pink water the consistency of cotton candy. Suddenly the line bends, and Max yanks back on it. He struggles, but he's pulled off the dock.
Under the water he sees a creature with a face like his fathers in the coffin -- made-up, peaceful, fake -- a corpses tricked-up countenance on a coelacanth. The fish swims off, dragging the pole and Max behind. They come to an underwater grotto, filled with hundreds of multicolored eggs, varied in color and pattern like Easter eggs. Max understands that he must choose one. He tentatively pokes a few. One starts to crack, and Maxs middle finger penetrates it.
Molly Cantor is perching in a straight-backed chair, pulled up next to Maxs lounge chair.
"You went a long ways back."
"I did?"
Max looks down and notices Molly's hand wrapped around his middle finger.
"Almost back to the beginning. I was right there with you all the way."
Max likes the idea of this mesmerizing woman being with him all the way. His fleeting thought sends a current through his body. Feeling it, Molly lets go of his hands and works hard to resume a more professional demeanor. It's betrayed by how her green cardigan's sleeves are bunched on her arm and by how unruly bright strands of her rusty hair fall playfully on her bare neck.
"For most people, this takes weeks or months. For you it took minutes."
"I dreamed about a big old fish."
"That was how you made your journey. You covered a great distance."
"It felt effortless."
"When your sister described you, I knew you were very special. Thats why I wanted to do you."
Max looks in Molly's green eyes for confirmation that she consciously employed a double entendre but finds none. She holds his glance like a thief hoarding a treasure.
"Its you whos special," he risks. "Im just along for the ride."
Molly laughs, and Max notices her front tooth has a speck of red lipstick clinging to it.
"The ride is just beginning."

In a 1950s-style bedroom with a mahogany dresser topped by a circular mirror, a prematurely balding man in his thirties is standing in his pajamas, smoking a cigarette. A woman, wearing a modest flannel nightgown and sporting an angry mole on her upper lip, is lounging in bed. The man approaches her, but the woman pulls her knees up to her chest.
"The doctor said no."
"One time wont hurt."
"You have to wait three more days."
"I cant wait that long. You're my wife. Should I go elsewhere?"
"Another pregnancy might kill me."
"Dont worry. Ill pull out."
The man grabs the womans hair. She fights back, then gives up.
"Get it over with then."
The woman turns onto her hands and knees, and the man mounts her with the gentleness of a rutting bull.
"Make sure you pull out."
"Dont worry."
Max sits bolt upright and sees an apparition in a chair near his bed.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was on my way to the NARAL rally," chirps Molly. "The door was open. I let myself in. I hope you dont mind."
"Anyone else I might mind. Not you."
"You were having a nightmare."
"It seemed so real."
"It was probably part of your pre-memories. From before you were born."
"How is that possible?"
"Max, your mind is so malleable that anything is possible."
"Say that again."
"Anything is possible."
Max gets out of bed. He is wearing a white T-shirt and green plaid pajama bottoms. He stands in front of Molly, who is wearing a careless smile and a sensible outfit suitable for a pro-choice demonstration. Her eyes lock onto his.
"Anything?"
"Yes. Anything."
Her hand reaches up to his face and slides whimsically along his cheek.
"Ill take care of everything. All you have to do is trust me."
Max shivers.
"Trust is not my forte."
"We'll take it slow then."

The woman with the mole is in the waiting room of a doctor's office. She looks despondent. Like her, the other patients are all carefully made up, wearing long dresses and heels. Sitting in the next chair is a no-nonsense gal who notices her fidgeting with her purse.
"First-timer?"
"Yes."
She is so embarrassed she can hardly speak.
"Don't worry. Doctor Denning will take care of everything."
"I--- I hope so."
"I've seen him twice. He makes it as painless as possible."
"All these women I had no idea."
"Kiddo, you've got plenty of company."

Max is waiting for Molly at Dempsey's. In a movie, when a gorgeous starlet enters a scene like this, she is breathless and fetching in her mild disarray, even more attractive for her ingenue run through a downpour. But this is not a movie, this is Max's life, and when Molly comes rushing to the table, she is gasping and looking half-drowned. Max feels a twinge of repulsion at seeing a Molly who is not the powerful, alluring woman she portrayed in previous scenes, but a disheveled, discombobulated wreck. Clearly, she's very high-maintenance too, thinks Max, as he restrains an urge to bolt for the door.
"Sorry I'm late."
"No problem. I already ordered. I passed the time practicing my algorithms."
Molly doesn't understand but pretends to. It's her customary recourse in a pinch.
"I usually practice mine at home."
As Max mentally tallies a small victory, a waitress appears. Molly says:
"I'll have the usual."
The waitress nods and turns away.
"You're a regular here?"
"First time."
"Then how does she know?"
"A little game I like to play. Usually I get exactly what I want."
"You're used to getting what you want, aren't you?"
"You bet I am."
Max totes up a major score for Molly and tries to believe in her again. It helps that her tangled sodden hair has stopped dripping onto her plain tan jacket.
"My pre-memories are getting stranger and stranger," he offers up as a sacrifice.
"That's to be expected."
"I'm starting to feel some memories are best left undisturbed."
"Max, nothing in the past is dangerous to you now. The past is just a story you tell yourself. Once you've brought your buried memories to consciousness, you can make revisions. If you don't like the way your life story is written, make up a new plot, new characters."
"So I can have a brand new me?"
"Not till after I'm done with you."
The waitress brings Molly a veggie wrap that looks pre-owned.
"Perfect," Molly smiles, and takes a bite. At the site of her hastily reapplied lipstick bloodying a bean sprout, Max feels suddenly nauseous.

Young Max is back on the dock, but now he's four years old. His father is in the boat, fiddling with something near the steering wheel, back turned. He starts the engine, and the roar drowns out Max's cry of "Daddy!"
Max tries to step onto the boat, but a wave rocks it, and the boy slips between the pier and the cabin cruiser into the black murk, into the silent fullness. He screams and water floods his lungs. Then he sees the fish with his father's corpse face. He grabs onto its tail, hoping for another adventure, but it pulls him down, down, down, deeper into the water.
Max takes a last gasp. His throat is overflowing.
The phone is ringing, and his sheets are splotched with vomit. It's Alice.
"Did I wake you?"
"It's not a good time."
Alice is oblivious as usual.
"I talked to Aunt Kate. I had to pry it out of her, but she finally admitted that after I was born, the doctors told Mother that having any more kids was risky. So your pregnancy was forbidden. But she wouldn't say any more."
"Why are you telling me this now, after all these years?"
"I thought it would help you in your search for your origins."
Max tells Alice it's not a good time, mumbles a goodbye, throws the sheets off the bed, and stumbles to the couch. Through the window he sees an orange smudge that might be dawn but more likely is a belching factory. Max collapses.

The bedroom scene rewinds. The balding man in the pajamas, fucking the woman doggie-style, suddenly pulls out. The dream is going backwards. The woman rolls over. The man backs up to a standing position. The camera in Max's brain zooms in on the man's face, and the rough countenance dissolves into a gossamer vision of Molly. And then the scene goes forward again, with new characters. Molly, in a red leather bustier and obviously meaning business, approaches the bed.
The doorbell rings. Max groggily turns over. Now someone's knocking loudly.
"Open up! Police!"
It's Molly's voice.
"Max, did you forget we have a session?"
"Oh shit. One sec."
Groaning, Max pulls himself together and opens the door, remembering too late that he'd chucked his vomit-soaked pajama bottoms.
Molly breezes in, then pulls up and stares.
"I guess you didn't forget."
Max clutches a blanket from the couch to cover himself.
"What about the session?"
Molly yanks the blanket away and discovers Max's big secret.
"Let's just say it'spro bono."
Max walks backwards.
"I have to get something first."
Molly pushes him onto the couch. She is a woman possessed.
"Skip it. Let's take a chance."
Max throws up his hands.
"No way."
Molly takes the scarf from around her neck. Max is pinned between bewilderment and his own rapidly awakening desire. Standing over Max, Molly grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him to a sideways seated position on the couch, yanks his arms, and expertly ties his wrists behind his back with her scarf. Then she roughly swings him around to face her.
"Way."
Molly rubs a finger across Max's face, then reaches down to hike up her skirt.
"Jesus."
She returns the glistening finger to Max's mouth. He sucks on it as eagerly as a starved infant devours a nipple.
Molly straddles him.
"Let's make a baby."
"You've got to be kidding."
She laughs in a banshee screech.
"Don't worry, buster. I've got it all taken care of. Just trust me."
Resistance becomes futile--and seems stupid. Molly presses Max down with her heaving body. His pelvis feels crushed. Her fingers jab into his mouth and go down his throat. She opens her lips and moans.
Then Max sees lipstick on her teeth, starts to gag, and hears her raspy command: "Make sure you pull out."