“You should come to the party, Max!” says Kata as she rushes out of the gallery and down Main Street past the Cobblestone Theatre, Sizemore Market, BAKED in Amador and disappears around the corner of Consolation Street to Barbara’s place.
Barbara is moving. Joel (the one from the play, not Ethan’s dad or 1981 Joel) just bought her little house across the street from the house with the little red door where Will lives and kitty corner from the Volcano Pioneer Methodist Cemetery, founded in 1850.
Max stands there and looks at me. I’m taking care of the galleries while Kata says goodbye to her friend Barbara.
“Why aren’t you going?” I ask.
“I don’t like parties. And I don’t want to be around that right now.” he says.
Max is tall and slender. His long grey hair has this little Dutch boy vibe and his fluffy mustache has that tinge that says he must have been a ginger when he was younger. He escaped East Germany as a young man, back when that was a thing, and spent time in prison before escaping to the US where he eventually met Kata, a West German, in the Bay Area.
He shows up regularly on these gallery weekends and I’ve come to love watching him drive up on his motorcycle in his tight jeans, some snarky t-shirt, and a leather jacket. Watching him pull his helmet off and shake out that hair is a kind of bliss.
He calls me his “imaginary girlfriend” and I remind him that I am not imaginary. Kata says he means that he imagines me as his girlfriend. They have been together for 32 years and are monogamous, so this is just imaginary talk, but it is fun!
Max sits down at the picnic table with me in front of my gallery and picks up an old magazine. He flips through it. I’m cutting out interesting letters to add to the collage materials for folx that join me in the Love Lab later today.
“These are treasures.” he says holding up an article about the moon landing in Life.
“Yes,” I say, “and still I cut them up so people can make other treasures out of them!”
Our casual conversation continues and somewhere in the middle of it, and I don’t remember why, Max offers a simple philosophy, “I am the result of all of the people that have touched me in one way or another.”
I had to pause and write it down. It was so spot on. ALL of the people. The people that imprisoned and tortured him for a year, something he never talks about in specifics. The people all around in this tiny town that call him by name and invite him for a beer or join him on a motorcycle ride or enlist him to build a deck. The person who has loved and supported him for more than a quarter of a century. And even me, sitting at this little table shooting the shit on a Saturday morning. This is why he’s not going to the party.
Max gets up, gives me a huge heart-centered hug, puts on his helmet, jumps on his bike, and heads out on Volcano/Pine Grove Road for who knows how long. I’ll let Kata know when she gets back from the party. Though my guess is she already knows—she feels it in the tether between them. He’ll be home when he’s ready. She’ll probably have lentil soup on the stove.
Mel, I love the story telling quality of this piece.