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Chapter Two

When Linda had picked up the phone, she could tell by her mother’s voice that a tsunami of disapproval headed her way. It was a couple months after she moved in with Max.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t make money, Mama. He says he wants to do more important things.

“Why can’t he do both?”

“A lot of people look up to him.”

Her father piped in from an extension.

“That’s even worse! From that tape you sent, his apartment looks like a rathole. I thought he was some kind of university professor. And why does he dress like a bum?”

“He’s an adjunct.”

She was at a loss to explain exactly what it was Max did. He certainly knew a million people, even had a fairy godmother who sent him periodic checks—some wealthy matron in New England who liked what she read in an article he had published in Boston Today. And everybody on the Penn campus knew Max. He was frequently mentioned in Philadelphia Magazine, The Daily News, and once, New York Magazine. Most of the articles were about him being a futurist of sorts, a man able to extrapolate current trends and project them into the eighties, maybe into the next century. He even did consulting work for the CEO of Pennsylvania Bell.

“He works pro bono, Daddy.”

“It’s no excuse to live like a goddamn bum. Your mother and I don’t trust this guy. Neither should you!”

They would get over it. They were excitable but Linda was secure in their love. When she had announced her intention to attend Bryn Mawr instead of the University of Texas, they were apoplectic about her leaving the Lone Star State. Austin was the farthest from Dallas they could tolerate. She soothed them with promises of numerous flights home and constant phone calls and letters to them and her siblings.

They were a tight, warm family, her father a successful Cadillac and Mercedes dealer, her mother on the Board of Directors of the Dallas Library System. Her upbringing was Jewish Texan—an upper middle-class, blond, pony-tailed, high school cheerleader, track star, and senior class valedictorian.

But Linda Record wanted to get out of Texas. Despite its two hundred seventy thousand square miles, big-city amenities, and population of friendly, down-home folks, its conservative atmosphere fed by religiosity suffocated her. She wanted more. She wasn’t sure more what, but more. Maybe New York someday. Philadelphia seemed like a good way station.

Following her graduation from Bryn Mawr, she knocked around with part-time jobs and began graduate school, coaxed by friends. Maybe a masters in English. Two of her pieces had already appeared in American Poetry, and others in lesser anthologies, but she dropped out after two semesters. Academia had become too stifling. She wanted to get out of the suburbs and into the city. It was how she met Max Bek. He was giving a talk at Penn’s International House titled, The Future is Within Reach. Her friends had raved about him and urged her to go. She sat in the center of a group of a hundred or so. He was a fascinating speaker, modulating his voice in places and gesticulating widely when he referenced big notions such as the world and time and the genius of our species, peppered throughout with references from Descartes to Derrida and Camus. During much of his talk, his eyes glommed onto hers as she listened in riveted attention.

She lingered as people gathered around him following the talk. He was gracious to each, answering questions with an erudite air and laughing and joshing with warm affability. As the hangers-on melted away, he ambled to where she sat and plopped into the seat next to her.

“I really like your bangs. There’s a tearoom up on Spruce. Join me, would you?”

The band, called the Mojos, in which Guitar Guy played bass, had taken the stage to warm the crowd. Its front man, evidently wanting to appear serious despite his gold body suit and silly wig shedding sparkle dust, rapped about environmental justice.

“We gotta do this, man,” he exhorted. “Don’t let nobody shit you.”

Max noticed Linda wandering around the area.

He came up behind her, gripped her arm, and spun her around. His smile was forced, as if facial muscles did the work instead of the heart. He shouted above the noise of the speakers as the band began to play.

“So, you finally made it,” he said.

“Of course! You didn’t think I’d miss your big day, did you?”

“I wasn’t sure when I left you this morning. Who’s the guy?”

“What guy?”

“The band guy you were kissing.”

“Oh, him. His band played at Bryn Mawr.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“I thought we didn’t talk about our lives outside our relationship.”

“You fucked him, didn’t you? I could tell by the way you kissed him.”

“You’re being a dope. Don’t get yourself into a state before your speech. You’re the one I love.”

His grip on her arm tightened.

“You’re hurting me.”

“I wanted to tell you about my talk with the mayor, but you were too busy messing around. Did you fuck the whole band?”

She touched his face and smiled.

“Did you hear me? I said I love you. Please stop drilling me. I want you to make a wonderful speech. I want you knock ’em dead like you always do. I want everyone to know that I’m with you. So please stop.”

He loosened his grip. The tension in his face dissipated.

“I don’t ever want to lose you,” he said.

She took both his hands in hers.

“Silly, you’ll never lose me. Now go get ready. The crowd is waiting for you.”

“Stand right here. In front of the stage. I want to see you during my speech.”

“Yes, Max. I’ll stand right here. You want me to throw my panties at you?”

“You can keep them on until later,” he winked. “I’m going out with some people after the event. We can discuss it again after I get home. Wish me luck.”

By now, organizers were lining up chairs on the stage. Max would introduce the mayor who would introduce the head of the State Department of Environmental Protection. After their brief speeches, Max would take the mic. He guessed the crowd at one hundred-fifty thousand. He decided to give the event a name. He branded it The First Annual Save the Planet Day.

Before ascending the stage, he sought out the chief organizer of the event, the commissioner of Parks and Recreation.

“Hey, Bill, that band is really great. Maybe you can persuade them to stay on and play for the crowd after the speeches.”

Viewed from the stage, the enormous crowd surrounding the Belmont Plateau roiled with excitement. Painted faces, signs and placards, spontaneous dancing, girls swaying on boyfriends’ shoulders—all were electricity for Max. This was his moment. None of his life before this—not cheering crowds when as a tight-end he scored against Boys Latin for the city championship; not the gasping adulation of family and guests at his bar mitzvah when he quoted Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism; and not the standing applause he routinely received from students at the end of the semester. Nothing came close. Given the size of the crowd and his measure of the zeitgeist, Max fully expected saturation news coverage for Save the Planet Day.

Sitting on the stage, he decided to abandon the finer points of his original speech and instead lead cheers and play to the crowd. He didn’t need to convince anyone of anything. His mere presence as featured speaker would garner the press he craved and solidify his name.

After he was introduced, he began...

“Hey everybody, I’m tossing my stuffy speech!”

With that, he ceremoniously tore up his notes and tossed them to the wind. The crowd roared approval.

He lowered his voice and put his lips onto the mic…

“Let’s all room together next semester!”

Uproarious laughter from the crowd for the next two minutes.

“Okay, well, maybe not that,” he said, now loudly. “Instead, let’s do this every year! From now on! Until they get it! How about that?”

Again, the crowd roared.

“And here’s what else, I hereby christen this the first, annual Save the Planet Day!”

Cheering approval.

“This planet is a Faberge Egg, but nobody realizes it except young people! So it’s up to us!”

The speech, by now totally extemporaneous, evolved into a call-and-response pandering sermon. Max’s acute sense of mission-accomplished dictated he keep it brief. He would already have gained enough press to leverage well into the future. He would leave the stage and circulate among the throng, seek out important people, schmooze them up, make contacts, drop names.

As important, the parks commissioner had persuaded Guitar Guy’s group to take the stage again. Max was free to do his thing and not worry about Linda off someplace sucking their dicks.

He didn’t get home until 4:00 a.m. Linda was asleep. When she awoke at 9:30, he was sitting naked at the table, writing in a pad.

“Where were you last night. I waited for you,” she said.

“I didn’t want to wake you. I was with some people.”

“Max, you can’t keep controlling how I see my friends then not be around.”

He put his pen down and motioned for her to sit.

“You need to understand this,” he said. “You’re free...