12

May 2018

Alex, Maxim

Alex was alone at home. From the moment that they’d entered into the deal and begun prepping a big heist, that had happened rarely. Vickey had finally moved in with him. And at first, he’d been happy about that. Happy in his heart. Even on some sort of physiological level. He was uncomfortable in his own apartment. Even scared. But even more than by a physical fear, he was tortured by a spiritual fear. For the first time in his life he’d experienced loneliness. Not the sort of loneliness that he was proud of, like every misanthrope and nihilist, which is what he’d definitely been. He sensed it with his entire being. With his body, his soul, and sometimes he himself couldn’t even understand it. He needed someone close to him to be around. Not the sort of person that would take care of him and answer his every beck and call. That wasn’t what he found himself needing so suddenly. He needed someone that he, Alex, could take care of. Someone for whom Alex would be prepared to do absolutely anything needed.
Just before Vickey moved in with him, he’d gone through his old university notes. And there he’d found a parable. A short parable about fear. About a person who was very afraid. Physically afraid. Afraid morally. A person who had lived almost all of his life in fear. And then, one day, that person got sick of that life. And he started to ask questions. Or, rather, a single question. How can I go on living?
He asked many people, but he couldn’t find the answer. Many, almost all of them, as it turned out in their conversations, were afraid of something. And then, one day, that person, as is often the way in parables, met a wise man who had lived a long, difficult life. And the wise man said: “You need someone you can take care of. A person who will be dependent on you. Entirely. Like a child who is entirely dependent on his mother … It could be a girl. Or a child. Or your old mother. Or father. But the essence is that by giving yourself in service to that person, you won’t be scared any more. You just won’t have the time for that. Because fear is the essence of an excessive love for yourself. A fear of being left without resources. A fear of being hurt. Psychologically, physically. A fear of being misunderstood. A fear that all those people, the people surrounding you, don’t understand that you’re special. You simply won’t have time for all that chaff. You’ll be busy protecting someone else. And when you’re protecting someone else, every day, every hour, you’ll stop being afraid. The fear will go. And in its place, there will be bravery. A bravery in your heart. Because nothing stays empty. It is always filled.”
Vickey went off to her parents and promised to come back before midnight. The clock said it was about eight in the evening. Alex, slouching about the apartment, lay down on the sofa and started clicking through the channels on the cable television. He came across a handball match between the English and French teams and started watching with interest. He’d played handball when he was a kid for a couple of years and knew this thrilling sport well. Then his parents had moved, and Alex only got back into sport during his first year at university, when he’d got into wrestling.
Alex lazily followed the match. The clock was now saying about half past eight. There was a call on his mobile. Before, in his former life, Alex would have turned off the sound as soon as he landed on the sofa. Now, when, as well as his smartphone, he always had the plotter’s phone close to hand, and Greg only allowed them to talk with one another on separate lines, he’d stopped doing that.
The call was on his usual iPhone. Alex moved the phone closer and was shocked to see the name “Max” flash up.
“Hello,” Alex said into the phone. “Why’re you phoning here?”
“Because I’m phoning my old friend Alex,” Max answered on the other end of the line.
Alex immediately felt like he was back in that old life. Max was phoning him on his normal phone. Even though that hadn’t happened that often in the period just before all this began. They’d seen each other less and less frequently. But it was still a link to that old life. Before the robbery. And before all those attempts to discover himself. And before Alex had put himself through so much, so much that only he knew about. He knew about it, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to remember it all, or forget it. Like a bad dream. Before all those, as he called them, experiments that he carried out on himself.
“Hello hello!” Alex let out joyfully.
“I’m downstairs,” said Max. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Alex quickly replied. “Why do you even ask?!?”
A few minutes later, Max came into Alex’s apartment. They hugged like two old friends and went into the living room.
“Have you got anything to drink?” asked Max.
“Of course,” Alex replied.
At first the conversation wouldn’t get started. It was only after several portions of Red Label that Max really began to talk.
“You know, Al…” Max said. He hadn’t called Alex “Al” in a long time – the name only Alex’s closest friends had used in his childhood.
Max was silent for a while, twisting the beautiful whiskey glass in his hand and examining it, before continuing:
“You know, I haven’t been round at yours in a million years.”
“Yes,” replied Alex. “I’ve been busy doing my stuff. You’ve been busy doing your stuff.”
“Al,” Max said, sadly. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”
Alex looked at Max and said:
“I understand, Max.”
Still looking at Max, Alex added:
“But…”
“No, wait,” Max said, interrupting him. “I haven’t come here for explanations.”
They looked at one another.
“I just came round to see an old childhood friend, Al,” said Max.
Alex nodded several times in silence.
“You know I’m no fool, right, Al?” asked Max.
“What are you talking about, Max?” said Alex.
“Wait,” said Max. “I’m saying that I know that I’m not the brightest kid on the block. But I’m also not the biggest idiot.”
Alex shook his head.
“I don’t have and couldn’t have got the education that you have,” said Max. “Let’s be frank, our forefathers weren’t cut from the same cloth.”
Alex’s stomach turned at the mention of his parents.
“I’ve followed the path that dear fate set out for me,” continued Max.
Alex wanted to say something again, but Max stopped him with a gesture.
“I’m not complaining, bro. I’m just saying.”
Alex was expecting Max to reproach him for the fact that they saw each other so rarely. For the fact that Alex hung out in totally different circles which Max couldn’t get into because of his upbringing and his behavior. But Max didn’t mention that. He didn’t speak about that at all.
“Do you forgive me for having got you and Vickey mixed up in this deal?” Max suddenly asked.
Alex was struck dumb. He hadn’t expected this.
“What are you talking about, Max?” he said. “It was my choice. And hers.”
“Yes,” said Max. “But Greg presented it so craftily. ‘Just drugstores, we’ll see, we’ll give it a try’,” he said, repeating Greg’s words. “Fuck, now we’ve got an armed robbery on our slate.”
“Max,” said Alex, “you’re not guilty of anything here. I took the decision.”
They were silent for a while.
“I don’t know why you agreed, Al. I mean, you’ve got it all. Fucking everything,” said Max. He waved his arm around, indicating Alex’s beautiful apartment. “It’s fucking nuts, bro – just look at how you live,” he said. “Ninety-nine out of a hundred people would sell their fucking souls to the devil to live like you do, for just a couple of years – for half a year! Your own apartment downtown, not just anywhere, but in Shoreditch. An honest job, famous people all around you, people who are on TV, more girls than all the top rap stars put together have. And you go and risk everything.” Max looked at Alex with his eyes wide open. “What the fuck for, Al?”
Alex looked at Max long and hard. He badly wanted to tell his old friend from the same streets as him his whole story. Every last detail.
But he couldn’t. Alex understood that perfectly well. Max would have been shocked by Alex’s stories about his exploits and there was no way of knowing how he would react.
“I got mixed up, Max,” answered Alex. “I burnt out. For years I’ve been doing what I don’t want to do. Hanging out with people I don’t want to hang out with. I stopped understanding what I’m doing or who I am. I hate my work and try and do the bare minimum to get by. You understand? All these meetings with slippery businessmen who rip their partners off, rip their staff off, all those advertising articles full of lies, all that so-called research that’s just been paid for, all those blogger posts that have just been bought. All those revolting celebs. It’s all just beautifully packaged bullshit, Max. There’s just one goal. To get normal people to buy one shampoo rather than another, to buy Adidas instead of Nike. To eat a Mac instead of a Burger King or KFC, even though all that food is shit. That’s the shit I’m swimming in with my LSE degree that I’ve got hanging in my toilet. It’s just a non-stop fuckup, Max.”
Alex took a deep breath.
“And with Vickey…” Alex began, but then broke off.
He fell silent to get his breathe back.
“She loves you,” Max said quietly.
“I know,” said Alex. “I’ve done her wrong.”
They were silent for a while.
“Anyone else who had even a tenth of the love that you get from a girl like Vickey would feel like the happiest man on Planet Earth,” said Max.
“I know, Max. I know,” Alex sighed. “But it’s complicated.”
Alex slumped back in his chair and looked Max straight in the eye.
“So, I’m grateful to you,” Alex said quickly.
“What?” asked Max, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Yes,” said Alex.
Max poured himself another shot of whiskey and downed it in one.
“Really, Max,” said Alex. “I just haven’t got any values left. None at all. I don’t get any joy out of life anymore. I’m just floating. I can’t remember the last time I was thrilled by anything. Get it?”
“No,” answered Max. “I don’t understand.”
“I stopped valuing everything that I had. That’s what it’s about, Max. I even stopped noticing what was going on around me.”
Alex looked Max right in the eye.
“Until this job came along,” he said.
“With everything that you’ve got?” Max asked, genuinely perplexed. “An apartment in the center of London, a fucking amazing job, the best hotties in the city and expensive liquor?”
“Yes, Max,” Alex answered.
“You’ve totally gone out of your mind, bro,” laughed Max.
“I was very unhappy,” said Alex.
“Down and Out in London and Paris, bro,” said Max. “That what it’s called. You remember when they made us read that at school? I can’t remember who wrote it.”
“Orwell,” said Alex.
“That’s right.” Max nodded in agreement. “But fuck Orwell. You’re just fucking out of your mind, bro. That’s the secret.”
They both laughed. They both clearly felt better thanks to this conversation.
“And my relationship with Vickey has changed thanks to this job,” continued Alex. “I’ve understood what she means to me.”
“Well, all right, bro,” said Max. “You’ll get yourself a good wife and we’ll earn some dough into the bargain.”
“So, I knew what I was doing when I got into this,” Alex concluded.
“And Vickey?” Max asked, serious now.
“She made her choice too,” said Alex. “And another thing…” Alex left a short pause. “Right before we do the job, I’ll explain to her that if something goes wrong she has to say that she had no idea what we were planning. She’ll say that I told her we were making a documentary film, and I just asked her to keep an eye on the door for a couple of minutes. I was going to tell you and Leon the same thing. I was sure that you’d both agree, if it’s a disaster, not to drop her in it. So that she could cut a deal if there’s a problem.”
“Of course, Al,” Max said, a certain relief in his voice.
“And that’s enough about all this,” said Alex.
Alex looked at Max.
“We both know that there’s nothing we can change now,” said Alex. “So, let’s just hope we get lucky.”
Max smiled craftily.
“You know, Al, if it gets too risky, then I’ll probably just whack Greg. And that’ll be end of it.”
Alex looked at Max attentively.
“But we all need this money,” said Max. “Even you.”
“Yes,” replied Alex.
“Whatever we do in this life, we’re not getting out of here alive,” laughed Max. “So let’s just get lucky,” Max said, repeating his friend’s words.
Max stuck out his lower lip. It was a clear sign that he was starting to get drunk. Max always got drunk fast, and Alex knew that well. It’d been like that since they were kids, when they first started trying beer and wine. And if Max got drunk, it was impossible to predict what he would do. He’d got into a lot of scrapes through being drunk, including fights with serious consequences, but every time his friends in the police force had got him out of trouble. The unwritten police code, which maintained that they’d never let one of their own take a fall, was always rock solid.
“You’re a good guy,” said Max.
“If only you knew what this good guy was doing a month ago,” thought Alex, but he said nothing.
“I’m not pouring you anymore,” said Alex.
“One more, Al, and we won’t go to school tomorrow,” laughed Max.
“No, no,” said Alex, getting up and taking the bottle off the table. “I know you too well. You get too unpredictable; you turn into angry Hulk. You’ll thank me tomorrow.”
“Can I crash at yours?” asked Max.
“Of course,” Alex answered.
Alex made them a coffee. Max gradually recovered.
“Remember,” asked Max, “when you were doing repairs in this apartment and you left your stuff round at mine?”
“Yes, I remember that,” answered Alex. “Why?”
“You left several boxes of books,” said Max.
“Something like that,” said Alex, trying to remember.
“Well,” said Max, “I dug around in there, I knew you wouldn’t mind, I was looking for something to read.”
Max scratched the back of his head.
“Basically, I found this book in your box,” said Max.
Max grimaced, trying to remember the name of the author or the name of the book.
“The author was Bores, or maybe Rose,” said Max, frowning. “I liked the title; it was perfect for us: ‘Everything or Nothing’.”
“Borges,” said Alex. “An Argentinian writer.”
“He’s famous, right?” asked Max.
“Very,” answered Alex.
“You know I’ve never been much of a reader since we were kids,” smiled Max. “Not like you, smartass.”
“So, what happened in the story?” asked Alex.
Max finished his cup of coffee and sat back in his chair.
“I tried reading all his other stories and never got further than a few lines. I couldn’t understand what he was writing about at all,” Max began. “But that one… ‘Everything or Nothing’ … That bitch really got to me.”
“Tell me about it,” said Alex.
“So, right,” said Max, livening up, “the main character there is called Nobody, right.”
“I read Borges a long time ago, I can’t remember,” said Alex.
“So, anyway,” continued Max, “basically, this guy named Nobody. This guy was different from everyone else. Well, he just wasn’t like the rest. He tried to tell a friend about it, but even his friend couldn’t understand what he was on about. So, he decided to hide the fact that he wasn’t like the rest.”
Max was slowly sobering up. Alex could see how the Borges story had gripped his uneducated friend.
“And that guy named Nobody comes to a big city where no one knows him, a really big city, like London,” continued Max, “and he becomes an actor. In a theater. He’s going to play someone. I mean, he’s going to be someone. Although he’s no one, right?”
“Right, I get it,” said Alex, observing Max with interest.
“He’s playing different people,” continued Max. “Kings, servants, heroes, traitors. You know, a normal actor in a theater. And he’s absolutely loving it when he’s up on the stage. When he’s ‘Someone’, right?”
Alex nodded that he understood.
“But after the performance, he’s really in a bad way,” said Max. “He stops acting, he becomes Nobody, and he’s in a bad way again. Because he’s Nobody, he’s not like everyone else, and he can’t even share that with anyone in the world, because he’s afraid, he doesn’t know how people are going to react to him being so unusual.”
It was almost as if Max had been transformed. He wasn’t the half-drunk Max he had been ten minutes ago. He’d got carried away by the story that he himself was telling. He himself was fascinated by how Alex was going to react to his story.
“Then, after the performances, he starts going to bars and brothels. And there, for a pittance, he starts putting on shows. Like today’s standup comedians, Louis CK, say, or Bill Burr. Just so that he isn’t that Nobody who no one understands.”
Max ruffled up his hair and continued:
“Over years and years in that big city, this Nobody bought a little theater in which he performed, and he made the theater famous. But one fine day, Nobody woke up and realized that he was sick of life in that city. That he was tired of being someone every day. Someone, but not himself. And he was almost sick at the sight of his own reflection in the mirror. He was tired. He was just tired, man.”
Alex hadn’t seen a fire burning in Max’s eyes like this in years.
“He was tired of playing comedies and tragedies every day for somebody, but not for himself, right? And on that wonderful day, this Nobody sold his theater, he got some decent money for it. And he left that big city and went back to the little town he came from, like Bournemouth or Blackpool here in England.”
Max stopped in order to get his breath back and looked at his friend with burning eyes.
“Just like here in England,” noted Alex. “Thousands come here. Some stay and become a part of our city, and some go back.”
“Yes,” continued Max. “And this Nobody went back to his little town. To his old courtyard – it wasn’t as big as he remembered it from his childhood. And there, so as not to annoy anyone, and so that they wouldn’t ask too many questions, he performed only one role. Basically, the role of an old entrepreneur. And he lived there quietly until his death.”
Max looked into Alex’s eyes attentively.
“And this is the most interesting bit, bro,” he said. “Either before his death, or just after, I didn’t quite get that, he stood before God, right, and he says to him…”
Max put on a face of cunning.
“Bro, I learned the ending by heart. Like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction. It’s really interesting, Al,” said Max conspiratorially. “This Nobody said to God: ‘I was so many people in vain, I want to be just one – Myself.’ And the Creator’s eyes answered him from a storm: ‘I’m not me either: I invented this world like you invented your creations, and one sign of my dream is that you are like me, in essence – Everything and Nothing’.”
Max leaned back in his chair looked at Alex victoriously.
“What do you say, bro?”
“It’s a great story, Max,” said Alex, enraptured. “And that’s some text you memorized!”
“Yes,” Max offered, relishing it. He was clearly pleased with himself. He was pleased with their evening. He was pleased that he’d been able to spend it with his old childhood friend, there having been a chasm between them for so long. It was only a series of misfortunes that they’d suffered, a series of events that didn’t appear to be linked, that had led to them sitting at the same table, drinking decent whiskey and shooting the breeze. Chatting just as if, in a few days’ time, the most important job in their whole lives wasn’t waiting for them. A job that in the most literal of senses would be a struggle not for life, but for death.
They were silent for a while, looking each other in the eye and laughing. In that moment, both of them, it seemed, sensed the warmth from their childhood, from back when they were scamps, almost identical, when ahead, in front of him, they had their whole lives. Lives ready to embrace them. Ready to meet two friends, two young Londoners. At the start of their journey through life. That’s what they felt back then. And that’s what, for an instant, they felt now, when the whiskey and Max’s wonderful retelling of a small work by the great Borges slightly intoxicated their minds and feelings.
“So, Al,” said Max, “one more and we won’t go to school tomorrow?”
“Yes,” replied Alex, “one more.”
Alex got up and headed over to the shelf where the alcohol was kept. Going past Max, he gave him a pat on the shoulder.
Max suddenly laughed.
“Do you remember the nickname we had for Patterson in 9^th grade?” he asked, laughing.
“No, I don’t,” replied Alex.
“Two faced anus!” laughed Max.
“That was it!” laughed Alex, clicking his fingers. “Do you remember the legend about him being able to swap his balls round in their sack?”
“Of course, I remember,” laughed Max. “I was the one who came up with that story.”
“No way!” laughed Alex. “I never knew that.”
The friends stopped laughing.
“One more, Max,” said Alex. “Then I’ll make you a bed on the sofa.”
“Thank you,” said Max.
“If you snore, Vickey and I will chuck pillows at you,” laughed Alex.
Later, when Vickey came back, Alex told her about what he’d been discussing with Max. They lay in bed, Vickey’s head resting on his chest. Alex gently caressed her hair.
“He learned a whole chunk of it by heart – can you believe that?” said Alex. “Just imagine – Max quoting Borges.”
“I loved Borges,” said Vickey, deep in thought.
“I haven’t read him in ages,” said Alex. “I remember there was a phrase of his I liked. “Mirrors and copulation are revolting, because they multiply the number of people.”
Vickey turned over and looked at him.
“You don’t want children?” she asked.
“You’re going to be amazed,” said Alex. “For the first time in my life I want a child.” He fell silent, and then added: “In order to protect it.”