My friend Max

Is a fascinating chap. If ever there was an advert for the old ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ aphorism its my pal Max. He is a gentle brut of a man probably around forty years of age, maybe a touch younger. He wields two enormous mutton chops for hands covered in cuts and tipped with nails misshapen and bent after years of coming loose in the course of a day’s hard work on the building site.

Max takes enormous pride in wearing what he calls “pre 9/11” tee shirts. Hidden beneath his uniform of dungarees and plaid shirts they proudly proclaim slogans like “America: Nation of sheep, owned by pigs, and run by wolves” or simpler still “Free Palestine!” Max isn’t particularly political but he holds dear his right to protest, something he feels is now more or less outlawed under the Bush administration.

Max builds the ‘drywall’ walls of enormous new build houses the likes of which he’ll never be able to afford despite having lived and worked very hard in Boulder his entire life. Max has watched with quiet stoicism the town change beyond all recognition; he’s seen locals like in so many other towns around the world be slowly pushed further and further out to make way for a growing student populous and affluent out-of-towners. He’s seen prices rise, communities dwindle and friends leave. Yet Max keeps building and he keeps reading.

Max wasn’t able to go to college, in fact he left school when he was 14, but Max has read more books on subjects more varied than I am ever likely to in the course of my life. He is perhaps the most learned, culturally observant and erudite man you could ever hope to meet.

Of an evening Max will often come and find me on the porch or at a bar and we’ll chat about whatever Max has been thinking about that day. Past topics have ranged from Dostoevsky’s failings to Bruce Springsteen’s jeans. Max doesn’t touch alcohol but he’s quite partial to smoking industrial quantities of cannabis. It’s particularly impressive to watch Max’s mallet like fingers nimbly skin up joints in the way that only decades of practice affords. As far as I can tell the only observable effect that smoking has upon Max is his tendency to remember terrible old jokes.

The funny thing is that I can’t remember how I met Max, one day he was just around. Particularly surprising given his 7ft bus-wide frame. Whatever the case I’m glad we met, I relish the time we spend chatting and I hope we continue to surprise one another.

Courtesy of Max:
Q: What do you call a midget psychic on the lamb?
A: A small medium at large

I couldn't resist including this classic clip