Max's earliest memory is of a fan.
It's an old one, with three big white curved blades, like leaves, trapped in a wire cage; the kind that rotates on its base in lazy circles. It creaks when it spins, and doesn't even go all the way around, only going as far as Max can turn her head.
Max is four, maybe even five, and the windows are open in the room as well, letting in air thick with sea salt. There are big white filmy curtains, and the furniture is sparse and wicker.
Max's hands are sticky, maybe with chocolate or some other sickly sweet filling. She can't remember. But her fingers are gripping the edge of the cage, where the blades can't reach, and her mouth is open, her nose centimeters away from the cage.
"Ahh," she says, then louder, "Ahh!"
The words echo back at her, and she's pleased, so she tries a new one. "Ooh!"
"Max!" she feels hands gripping her waist, fake nails pressing, but not hurting. She's pulled away.
"Don't do that," her mother scolds, her red hair loose and wavy, wisps framing her face. "You could cut off your tongue!"
Her mother takes her hand, and doesn't flinch at its stickiness. "Now come along. Your father has set up a board game for us to play."
Max toddles after her, obedient.
She is six when she demands a new name.
"Not Maxine," she says, on her first day of the first grade. "Max."
Her teacher gives pause for a moment, her wire-frame glasses sliding off of her nose, slicked with sweat. It is unusually hot for September, but reasonable for California. The school doesn't have air conditioning.
"The roster," she finally says. "It says Maxine."
"Max," she affirms, her left foot grounding down in impetuousness. "My mommy and daddy call me Max."
"Max," her teacher says slowly, "is a boy's name. And you, Maxine, are a beautiful young lady."
Max doesn't yield, and she adjusts the bands of her overalls, shifts in her shorts, daring her teacher. A rebel, she thinks, I'm a rebel. She doesn't say another word.
Her teacher is silent, before she slowly draws her pen up to the roster, making marks hidden by her clipboard.
"Alright," she says. "Max."
Max wears her victory on her face for the rest of the day.
"Come on, Max, hop on in," her father says, water up to his ankles. The river is a murky blue-green, and it's shallow enough that she can see the smooth stones that litter the river bed. Max picks up a bespeckled one, red like clay, and tosses it back in.
"Max," her father says, again, "come in! You won't ruin your pretty dress, promise."
Max is seven, and she is wearing a new dress, white with tiny blue flowers and small pockets for her to stuff her hands in. Her mother had bought it for this day, when they would travel upstate for a baby shower for her pregnant cousin Janet. Janet's first child, Hannah, is the closest to Max's age, being five. When Max had seen her, sitting in the sun room with a hairless Barbie in her mouth, she had refused to play with her.
She's reluctant to get in to waters, for her mother had commanded her specifically to keep her new dress clean. Her mother isn't here, rather, in the dining room, talking about taxes and sewing patterns.
"Come on, Maxie," her father says, smile bright on his face. "I've got something to show you." He's wearing a dress shirt, magenta with eight tiny white buttons, but he's also got jeans on, rolled up to the knee.
Max takes off her white mary janes, placing them on the grass a few feet away from the river bed, before rolling up her leggings to the knee, just like her father. She takes her skirt in her hands, lifting it up, before she stumbles into the water.
"That's my Max," says her father. "Now, do you feel anything different?"
"There's water," she says, and looks down at it, meandering past and dampening her skin. The river's current isn't a fast one.
"No," her father laughs, "beside that."
Max furrows her brow, tries to separate the muddy water from the new sensations. Suddenly, she feels it, something small and soft brushing past her leg.
"I feel it Daddy!" she calls. "It's near my leg!"
"Then you can see it too!" her father responds. "Look down!"
She looks down, and sees them. Dozens of tiny green things, with little squirming tails, pumping past her.
"Daddy!" she screeches. "What are they?"
"Tadpoles, honey," he says. "Baby frogs."
He dips his hand into the river, cupping them before drawing up. In his hands is a dwindling pool of water, as well as a tadpole.
Max stares into its black dot eyes, and goes, "It's looking at me!"
"It's because you're my Maxie," says her father, and he drops his hands back into the river, just as the last of the water dripped out of his hand.
"I want to catch one!" she says, then, "I'm going to catch one."
"Okay, honey," says her father. "Let me show you how."
Max is nine when she goes to her first therapy session.
"Now, Max," says the therapist, a stick with a wig called Ms. Simon. "I've heard you've been having behavioral issues recently."
Max nods, and grunts out, "That's what they say."
"Not doing your homework, cheating on tests-" Mrs. Simon looks up from her file, pencil poised delicately. "- Fights."
Max rubs her knuckles, decorated with scrapes. She grunts again.
"I've also heard," says Mrs. Simon, the whites of her eyes big, pupils tiny and dancing, "that you're acting out because of your father's recent passing."
When Max doesn't respond, Mrs. Simon continues. "That this behavior started in December, after your father's car crash."
Max still doesn't respond.
Mrs. Simon sighs. "Please, Max, to help you, I need to understand what's happening. And to do that, you need to talk."
"About what?" Max says. "My father's dead. I'm sad. That's it."
Mrs. Simon sighs again. "A start," she says and scribbles something down on her file.
"Now, Max, let's talk about the last fight you had. Wednesday, you hit Tony Jenkins. Why?"
Max thinks back to standing in the lunch line, to Samantha P., not Sam, like Samantha H. or that urchin Max Mayfield, just Samantha, thank you very much, whispering, "I don't think Max washed her hair. Again. It's all greasy and clumpy. Ew."
Then Tony Jenkins, four people behind her and right next to Samantha, saying back, "I know why."
"Why?" giggled Samantha, blonde hair wavy, lips glossed and sparkly.
"Because," said Tony, "the guilt's getting at her."
Samantha was hushed, expectant. "What guilt?"
"Over the death of her dad," said Tony. "My dad said she and her mom set up, to get the life insurance, since they're so poor."
And that was when Max whirled around punched him, making his nose stream with blood.
"I don't know," she says to Mrs. Simon, and doesn't look up.
Mrs. Simon sighs, and Max expects this to become her trademark. "Okay."
Max is ten when she sees her mother cry for the first time.
It's late, dusk already long past, and Max has a super ball in her hand. She's thumping it against the wall, watching the shock of blue bounce back and forth, when she hears the distinctive sound of the rusted back door creaking open, before shuddering to a sudden close.
She waits for her mother to greet her, to pull a sweet out of her pocket like she always does, but it doesn't happen. Max continues waiting, as the hand on the clock ticks, and the door to her mother's room makes a sad sound as it scrapes against the door frame.
It was a date night, Max knows, and a lot of those don't end too well. There was the man with the indent of a wedding ring still on his finger, the one who hid his work I.D. in his glove box and fudged his bank account total, and the one who asked too many times for pictures of Max, yet after each one, there her mother would be, treat in hand, smile forced, but there. But not this time.
Max waits for a few moments, ball still bouncing.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Her mother doesn't come down.
After the fourth thump, Max catches the ball and puts it on the coffee table. She slips her socks off, knowing the house was old and gave way to slippery surfaces easily, and creeps up the stairs, going slowly, step by step.
She finally makes it up to the landing, and goes to the first door on her right. It's open, just by a few inches. The hinges on her mother's door were rusty, just like the rest in their house, and the lock sticky to boot, meaning that it would always take a few hard tugs to close it properly. Her mother wasn't in the mood for it, Max guesses.
She sneaks closer, and then she hears it.
A sob.
She stays where she is.
Another one.
Then a name.
"John. Jack. I miss you."
Her father's name.
Another outburst of words.
"It's so hard without you. I wish you were still here. Maxine is heartbroken. I don't know how to make her feel better."
Then quieter, but still loud enough for Max to hear.
"I don't think I'm a good mother."
Max leaves at that, goes down the stairs, picks out an apple from the kitchen, then eats it, bruises, mushy bits and all.
She is eleven when her mother walks into the parlor, and man grasping her hand, and tells her to sit.
"This," her mother says, bouncing on the balls of her feet, unnoticeable to anyone who hasn't known her for a long time. Unnoticeable to anyone but Max. "Is Neil. Neil Hargrove."
Neil is tall, slightly burly. He has mustache. Like a big fat caterpillar on his upper lip, thinks Max. He has pale blue eyes, and a close cropping of blond hair. He's wearing a hunting jacket in 60 degree weather. He kneels down, looks Max right in the eyes.
"Nice to meet you, little lady." He sticks out his hand for her. His fingers are fat too. His knuckles are worn. She shakes it.
"You too," she says, and lets her voice drop a pitch.
In the background, her mother motions for Max to continue.
"I'm Max," she says. "Max Mayfield."
Neil's eyebrows furrow, fat caterpillars themselves, and he lets out a chuckle.
"Max," he says. "Don't cut your hair short, kid, or in a couple years somebody might mistake you for a faggot."
Her mother, smile white and toothy, then says, "Neil and I have been dating for two months."
"Is he where you've been going on Tuesday nights," Max says, unable or not wanting to stop herself, "instead of bowling with Marge and Abby?"
Her mother nods, smile still pasted on. "You've caught me!"
Neil reaches out to ruffle her hair, and Max holds in a gag. "Well, we won't be sneakin' around anymore."
"Yes," says her mother, "good riddance!"
Two months later, they announce their engagement.
"Max," says her mother, an engagement ring gleaming on her finger, "meet Billy."
Billy is tall, muscled and has his hair styled like a porn star, right down to the sprinkling of hairs on his upper lip. She sees him stamp out a cigarette on their front porch before he comes in. Where he walks, his boot smudges ashes on the carpet. He doesn't acknowledge her existence, doesn't shake her hand.
Max doesn't say a word, either, only sticks her lower lip out defiantly.
"Billy," mutters Neil, low and tinged with something she doesn't know. "Say hi to your new step-sister."
Billy waits for a moment, before sticking out his hand.
Her mother jerks her head, and Max follows.
Before she can even start to move her hand, Billy pulls her in, hugging her close, his mouth near her ear.
"Listen, shithead," he whispers. "Stay out of my way, I'll stay out of yours, got it?"
Max nods, chin scraping against his stupid leather jacket.
He lets her go, and her mother coos, "I knew you kids would get along!"
It's their first family dinner, and her mother is in a rush.
"Please, Max," she says, her hair curled and pinned, her dress pressed and paisley, "take the turkey out of the oven."
Max pushes past a still-wrapped waffle iron, and moves a set of fine china. Gifts from cousins and friends who couldn't come. She feels numb.
"I don't get what the big deal is," she says, but she still pulls the oven mitts on, leans down to grab the tray. "You're married. He's moving in next week. We'll be eating together every day." If her mother notices how strained her last few words are, she doesn't comment.
"It'll be our first dinner as a family, Max," she says, and Max hates how she says family. "Billy is always so busy, this will be his first time eating with Neil and I." Her mother takes out a bottle of wine. Her wedding ring glints, just like it did at the ceremony. It still makes Max want to barf. "And you, Max," she adds, as an afterthought.
"You never dressed up like this for dad," Mas hisses under her breath, and, once again, her mother doesn't notice.
"Max," she says, "can you please get the potatoes?"
Neil and Billy arrive a half an hour late.
"Sorry," says Neil, and he has a cigarette in his mouth, smoke puffing up to the ceiling. He takes Billy's cigarette out of his hand and puts it out in a new ash tray. "Traffic was a bitch."
Her mother nods, robotic. "Always around this hour."
"I know," grunts Neil, and takes his jacket off, handing it to Billy. "Put this in the coatroom, son."
"It's her house, dad," Billy says, and he juts his chin out towards Max.
Max glares at him, and Neil doesn't even glance at her. "Put it in the coatroom, Billy."
"The potatoes' good," says Neil, and he stuffs his fork into his mouth, chewing.
"Thank you," says her mother, and she doesn't eat. "It's an old family recipe."
It isn't, Max knows. Her mother had gotten the recipe out of a magazine printed this week. And the potatoes were runny; Max hadn't stirred them enough. Max didn't care, but she had hoped Neil would. Hoped he would spit them out and her mother would slap him for it. He didn't. He eats like a pig.
"Pass the turkey, Billy," Neil says next.
"It's closer to Max, dad," says Billy.
"Pass me the turkey," Neil says, and Billy does.
"Neil," starts Max.
"Please, call me dad," says Neil.
She ignores him. "What happened to your previous wife?"
Silence.
"Max-" says her mother, but Neil interrupts her.
"Lisa," he says, "was always disagreeable."
Billy snorts into his food. "I don't remember her sleeping with some two dollar whore, only to replace 'em with another after the divorce."
Neil's fork hits the china of the plate. It will leave marks, Max thinks. Her mother is pale, her lips clammy like a fish's. "Now, you know that's not true, son."
"It is," Billy says, and shoves green beans in through his cracked lips with his fingers.
"He's lying," Neil says, and her mother nods.
"Funny joke, Billy," she says.
Billy doesn't say anything.
Max isn't as easily fooled as her mother. Then again, she was never so desperate to believe lies as her mother.
They finish their dinner quick enough. Neil and Billy go to the coatroom to get their stuff, and her mother goes upstairs to "rest". Max is left to clean the dishes. She washes her cup and plate in the sink, and doesn't do anyone else's.
It's a few minutes of sitting on the couch and staring at the ceiling fan before she registers the yelling. Something hushed but, at the same time, not. At first, she thinks it's from the radio in her mother's room, some old soap opera about characters with inordinate long Italian names, before she realizes where it's actually coming from. The coatroom.
Max doesn't care for Neil or Billy; the only emotions she holds in regard to them is a dull thrum of hatred and disgust. But she does care about her mother. And if one of them decides to yell at her mother, then they've got hell to pay, so Max decides to go see what the deal is before her mother is on the receiving end.
So she sits up, tests her feet on carpet of the living room, and creeps to the end of the hall, where the coatroom is located. The door is closed, but Max just drops down to the floor and looks through the crack of the door. She spots two sets of shoes: Neil's polished dress shoes and Billy's stupid leather boots.
She hears Neil first, throaty and mad. "Don't you ever talk like that to Susan again, Billy."
Billy responds, his words clipped. He probably has another cigarette in. "Like what?"
"Don't be some smartass, Billy," says Neil. "Don't be actin' like you've got brains. You know exactly what I'm talking about."
"It's the truth, though, ain't it?" Billy says, bored. Max can see the cigarette dangling at the tips of his fingers before he takes another drag.
Suddenly, Billy's shoes move. Thrown, really. They smack against the wall, and the sickening crunch of bones follow.
"Don't become a liar, Billy," Neil huffs. "We both know I didn't raise no liar."
Billy swallows, audible enough that even Max can hear it. "You didn't."
Another thunk. "Don't sass me, Billy. Don't you dare. Now, next time we come here, you apologize to Susan – properly – and tell her how much of damn liar you are. That clear?"
"Yes sir."
Billy's shoes hit the floor again.
Neil says, "Good," and then the doorknob turns.
Max reacts instantaneously. She hops up to her feet, then scurries back a couple of feet and schools her expression, adopts the doe-eyed eyes that she'd flash when being interrogated about broken noses or missing homework assignments.
"Mom wanted to know if you guys would like to take the leftovers," she says, sickeningly sweet, when they emerge from the room.
Neil stares at her. "You can box up the rest of the pumpkin pie, and scoop some ice cream with."
She nods and goes to the kitchen, but by the time she's in the doorway, she stopped by a hand on her shirt collar. She turns around, expects Neil, but he's nowhere in sight. It's Billy. His cigarette is hanging from his lips, coated with dirt and ash.
"I know you heard," he breathes, heavy and thick. Like a wolf. "I know you saw. You tell anyone, and you're dead. Anybody stupid enough to be your friend is dead. I'll make sure you all rot in your graves, you'll be so dead." He draws his cigarette from his mouth, pushes it against the skin of her collarbone. It's a dying flame, an uncomfortable warmth, but it doesn't burn. Just stings. "That clear?"
She nods, doesn't say a word. Won't give him the satisfaction.
He lets her go then, and he stands in the kitchen doorway as she boxes up the leftover pie.
"Don't forget the ice cream," he says, cigarette already back in his mouth. She puts a half scoop on top, and pushes it down with her dirty fingernail.
Max walks over and shoves the box into his hands. He leaves, and Max stares at the spot where he once occupied.
Max and Billy are crowded onto the living room sofa. It's for "something big". Max is sitting on a spring, peeking out from a hole filled with cotton. It's from when she was six and brought a stray cat into the house, she remembers, a scraggly old thing with only a few patches of orange fur that clawed at about every piece of furniture and snatch of fabric. Her father loved it, and would set out bowls of water and pieces of tuna. Her mother worried about wasting so much tuna. They let it go after a week. Max supposes it's dead now.
Billy leans over, pinches the tag of her shirt and pulls it up so her collar scratches her neck.
"This better not be about anything you did, shithead," he breathes. She can still small last night's beer on his breath.
She doesn't respond.
Her mother is at the front of the room suddenly, heels tall, feet arched. Neil is next to her, his arm swung around her shoulders. She clears her throat.
"We've decided to move," her mother says, breathless. "To Hawkins, Indiana."
"Where I grew up," adds Neil.
"It's got cheap housing," her mother continues, ignorant. So ignorant. "The economy's up."
"The fishing's good," says Neil. "And they got forests for miles, full of deer and rabbits."
"Well, kids," her mother says, "what do you think?"
Silence. A beat of it, then two.
"No," Max says, under her breath, then louder, "No."
Billy is more defiant.
"You can't do that shit!" Billy yells, springing up from the couch. "You can't do that!"
"This is my house, young man," Neil growls, low and threatening. "I'll have no input from you."
"Like bullshit!" Billy stomps his boot against the carpet, leaves a black smudge of dirt and ash. "I live here too!"
Neil reaches out, and grabs Billy's ear, then pulls him down and yanks his face forward. He'll leave thumbprints, Max knows. He always does.
"You are a child," Neil says, then barks, yells, "You will listen to your father!"
"Neil, please," whispers her mother.
Neil ignores her.
"Say it," Neil says, to Billy. "Your opinion is shit."
"Your opinion is shit," says Billy.
Neil tightens his grip, swings his left palm. A crack and then an imprint of red. "You know that's not what I mean. Say it."
Billy mutters, so quiet Max can hardly hear, "My opinion is shit."
"Louder," Neil demands.
"My opinion is shit," Billy says.
Neil lets him go and Billy runs upstairs.
Then Max runs outside, through the rusted back door.
"Max!" her mother calls, but Max ignores her.
She needs fresh air.
She runs across the gravel and pebbles of the road. She feels their jagged edges scraping against her bare feet, knows they'll leaves cuts and bruises. Her mother will get out the med kit when she gets home, press a cloth with rubbing alcohol against them, have them sting and burn, and then wrap it all up in white cloth as though that will fix everything. She keeps running.
She runs pass the neglected houses on her block, to the pristine shingles and flowered curtains of the next. She can feel the stares on her as she pants.
The housewives, shaking their heads. Poor little Maxine, with her whore mother and douche of a stepfather and brother. Good thing my little Suzy isn't like her.
The business men, returning home from work, checking their watches. Thinking about the next ball game, glad my boy Timmy doesn't hang out with girls like Maxine Mayfield.
Samantha P, peeking through pink curtains, giggling as she leaves matching pink lip gloss stains on a porcelain tea cup, the tips of her blonde locks getting caught in Earl Grey.
Tony Jenkins, laughing from his bedroom window, banging his grimy fingers on his window as he jeers.
Max continues running until her feet are so torn and bruised that she can't feel them anymore, then she grabs a skateboard from a random driveway – doesn't feel sorry – and pushes her foot against the ground and flies.
It's her first time riding a skateboard. She's a natural.
She continues, continues flying, soaring, until she's passing the neon sign of the arcade and pushing through the door, hearing the bell ring. She drops the skateboard on the neon patterned carpet, and then kicks it behind an old bench. She goes over to the fern in the corner – fake, everything's a fake – and digs out her secret stash of quarters, where her mother can't see how much she's wasting on video games and get sad – not mad, sad, just sad, always just sad – and runs up to the Dig Dug machine.
She stands there, then, just staring at the screen, coaxing her to insert a quarter. She feels the venom inside of her, curling and threatening to bite like the snake they were taught about in history class. Don't tread on me. But that snake had guns and cannons and generals and tens of thousands of soldiers, and all Max has is – just her. Max.
She inserts a quarter into the slot and the game starts up.
She can't move to Hawkins, Indiana.
Or can she?
Who would she miss, really? The only person she could think of is her mother, and she'd be right there with her. There's nobody else worth staying for. There's people worth leaving for, though, and they'll be right with her – till' death do us part.
But then she thinks of the ocean. The smell of salt and sand mixing together under the moonlight. The trees in the forest. The rock where she'd pretend to picnic, with made-up pies where she'd lick the filing off her thumb. The pebbles in the creek behind Cousin Janet's house. The empty space under the bleachers where she would hide during assemblies. The creaky door knobs in the house. The worn welcome mat where her mother would greet her with sweets. The old fan rotating on its stand and the billowing white curtains.
But – Max presses four times on the red action button, and watches as another monster pops – those are just things. Places. They'll be replaced. Everything is replaced, eventually. Even when you don't want them to be.
Hawkins, Indiana will be a new start. One where no one knows who Max is. What her past was. She can reinvent herself.
She'll be different. Mysterious. Untouchable. Unstoppable. She'll be her own hero. She'll be –
The game beeps. She's set the new high score. She stares at the screen, at the blinking letters.
INPUT YOUR USERNAME.
She looks at her previous high score, her name spelled out in white block letters.
MAX M.
Slowly, she types her new username. A new start. A new beginning. A new her.
MADMAX.