On Tour with Max

Abstract

WE'RE HEADING WEST, somewhere near the Texas/New Mexico line, driving from Canyon to Socorro. Max is in the back seat drinking Shiner Beer and hiccuping. He has been complaining about his rough handling in the question-and-answer session after last night's reading. The girl didn't look like the sort who would mix it up in public, although you really can't tell anymore, but she knew Max's early poetry lot better than he did and was grimly partisan about its bald misogyny. When Max tried to jolly her out of scrap, she creamed him, and the local faculty host had to step in, flapping it all away and inviting everybody to the reception. Max drank and sulked his way through the party, but I got him back to the motel before any serious damage was done. We're on our way to New Mexico Tech because Max's last live-in was grant writer, and twenty-five years ago Maximilian Pfluger was big item in American poetry. John Ciardi called him a pivotal countermotion in American letters. Max's friend parlayed this history into National En dowment grant for reading tour. Why I'm here is that the grant has gimmick designed to give younger poet some exposure while the col leges take an old gray reputation to the bank. Happily for Max, most faculty members apparently don't read once they leave graduate school, so reputations on the circuit lag generation or so. Unofficially, I'm expected to keep Max mostly in line: colorful, but on time for the next reading. Before I signed on, an NEA staffer sized me up over lunch, pointing out that NEA didn't need any bad press in this political climate and that the organization would certainly want to review my own grant needs following successful tour. The staffer urged me to think of her as my personal grantsperson. As it turns out, keeping Max in line hasn't really been much of chore. He is generally no worse than cranky, and when he drinks too much he tends to get sullen or sleepy instead of outrageously memorable. Still, I've had to behave more responsibly than suits me. So instead of one-trick pony, we give the schools dog and pony show. Most nights, though, Max is the dog. Max fancies himself good reader, but he is mainly loud. His gestures are all choreographed and his inter-poem patter was scripted in about 1958 and hasn't changed since as