Max & Walter

“Shmmmenah, hummenah.”

Scribble scribble.

“Blast it, gnast it.”

Scribble scribble.

“For the love of—knock me sideways with a feather and tickle my nose! That’s it.”

Walter was hunched over the small table in his kitchen, scribbling away on his pad of paper.

He had been sitting in that same spot for over an hour—not moving, not eating—trying to find the best words to thank his gardener. Well, he wasn’t his gardener, per se, but rather the young man who came by to take care of his garden every five days or so.

Walter knew it was an odd request when he made it. Most people only had a gardener come once a week, and it was typically on the same day at the same time. People liked order and predictability in that way.

Not Walter. He felt it was unkind and unfair to the garden. What if it wasn’t feeling up for it on that particular Tuesday? What then? He couldn’t very well have someone hacking and snipping if the plants weren’t in the mood.

Every morning Walter would step out into his garden with his cup of tea and take a deep breath in. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. Walter didn’t drink tea every morning—only some. Other mornings, he drank coffee. Just like the plants, he too didn’t know how he would feel on a given day: if he would be up for a strong dram of drip or a lighter splash of oolong with honey. It depended on the air, on his sleep, and most importantly, his mustache. The shape and direction of his mustache when he awoke determined the course of Walter’s day.

On this particular day, a Wednesday—Walter’s favorite day of the week—his mustache was curled up at both ends, a very good sign. A double curl meant rain, and rain was Walter’s favorite state of weather. The fact that it was happening on a Wednesday was the cream on top. The double curl, combined with the weather and the calendar meant it was a day for cocoa—Walter’s favorite plot twist as he called it. You see, Walter hated surprises, but he loved plot twists.

For Walter, surprises were totally unpredictable and completely unknowable. Plot twists, on the other hand, were more thoughtful. They were slight variations of the standard structure, simple and sweet surprises that kept you in love with living and excited to go to sleep and wake up the next day to do it all over again. Plot twists were like biting into your favorite treat—in Walter’s case that was chocolate covered prunes—and finding the taste slightly sweeter that day, the chocolate slightly more cocoa-y, the dried plum slightly tangier. Better yet, it was like trying something new, say a coffee tonic—something Walter had just tried the other day after accidently pouring his tonic water and plum juice into his coffee mug—and realizing that it tasted almost exactly like your favorite treat. That was a plot twist.

Which is why on this drizzly Wednesday morning as Walter stood in his garden and sipped his cocoa with cream, he knew it was a day for his gardener to come. He finished his cup and walked back inside to the telephone hanging on the wall. Hooking his finger into the acetate ring he slowly spun the dial round and back and round and back until he heard the standard dial tone echoing in his ear.

“Hullo?” Walter heard.

“Yes, good morning, Max. It’s Walter. Today’s the day.”

He heard a cough and a slight sigh. “Walter, it’s raining. You know how I feel—”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Walter said, cutting him off. “I have everything you need here. You’ll be as dry as a cinnamon stick. When can you make it over?”

There was a brief pause and then another quick sigh. “I can be there in eleven minutes.”

“Splendid! I’ll have cocoa waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Walter. Be there in a jif.”

Walter hung up the phone and began slowly boiling a fresh mug of milk for Max.

Eleven minutes later on the dot, Max slowly rapped on Walter’s front door.

“Coming!” Walter turned off the burner and poured the steaming milk into the mug he specifically reserved for Max.

He had found it at a yard sale several years ago, before he even knew Max. The day he saw it, though, he had a feeling it would come in handy. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why, but he knew it would. He just didn’t realize it would come in handy that same day.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Walter was going for his usual walk around the arboretum when he noticed a young man attempting to rescue a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. From afar, Walter could tell the young man knew a thing or two about life in the woods. He was wearing heavy gloves pulled up over his long sleeves and his pants were tucked into his long socks.

Watching the young man struggle for a minute, Walter suddenly realized that he could perhaps be of some assistance. He called over to him, “Need a hand?”

It took the young man a moment to decipher which direction the voice was coming from. When he finally did, he saw Walter dangling a small, green paper bag back and forth above his head.

“I have a mug!”

The young man waved him over. Walter kicked up into his signature slow jog, the same one he took when he was crossing the street after a car had offered him safe passage. He knew it was probably a bit much, but he felt it was polite not to waste too much of anyone’s time.

In just a few moments, Walter made it over to the young man. Crouching down beside him, he pulled the mug out of the green paper bag and held it out to him.

“You’d better step back,” the young man said to him. “You’re not wearing any gloves.”

Walter hopped back once like a frog and then stood up and jogged back a few paces.

“Is this far enough?” He called out to the young man.

He nodded his head, and said, “Yes, that’s fine. Thank you.”

Walter stood still with his hands clasped in front of him. As he watched the young man coax the baby bird into the mug, careful not to get any of his human scent on him, Walter was moved. A warm feeling swelled up inside of his chest, and he realized he was seeing two plot twists unfold at once. One, the mug he had picked up at his favorite yard sale was being put to an unexpected, good use. Two, his usual stroll through the arboretum had potentially brought him a new friend.

Once the young man was done setting the baby bird up at the arboretum’s infirmary, Walter learned his name was Max and that he was a gardener by trade, just like Walter had been in his younger years. Walter offered him employment on the spot, and Max immediately accepted.

Walter fondly remembered the day as he brought Max’s mug out to him in the garden—thoroughly sanitized, of course.

Max took a deep inhale and generous sip. “Ah, delicious. Thank you, Walter.”

Walter nodded and smiled.

The pair stood under the partial awning Max had helped Walter install three autumns prior when Walter had his first day of confusion. The confusion had come because Walter had woken up with his mustache in an indecipherable position. It had never made that shape before, and Walter had no idea how to interpret it. He had slid into his slippers and shuffled out to the garden to catch the breeze and hopefully get a sense of what the day would bring. Unfortunately, all that happened when he opened the back door to his garden was a sharp stick to the face and a gust of wind that cut his cheekbones even deeper than his already gaunt face could support.

Looking up, Walter had seen the stick was actually a rather large chunk of a branch that had fallen off the edge of his old plum tree. The following Thursday with his wits about him again and his mustache cooperating, Max came for his visit. Walter filled him in on what had happened, and Max decided it would be good to build a partial awning and a screened-in porch for the days when Walter couldn’t quite decipher the signs.

Today because of the rain, Max was covered head-to-toe in waxed cotton and rubber. Walter was dressed exactly the same.

“You were right,” Max said to Walter. “Today is the day.”

Walter took a satisfied sip of his second mug of cocoa—another plot twist for this portentous day.

“The snow will be coming soon now,” Max continued. “Just as soon as the rain decides to stop.”

Walter looked up through the skylight Max had installed on the porch. “We’ve still got a while yet. I’d say another twelve days, and the rain will start to turn.”

“You know whatever you say will be true.” Max replied, gulping down the last of his cocoa. “Well, better get to it. Thanks for the cocoa, Walter.”

Walter simply nodded in return and shuffled back into the house, shedding his rain gear on the peg by the back door.

The next eleven days passed as usual, well, except for one plot twist. Every morning Walter woke up, his mustache told him to call Max, and so, every morning, Max came.

On the twelfth day, after eleven straight days of hard work and pleasant visits, Walter decided it was time to write Max a thank you card for all that he had done for him over the years.

He had just finished canning the last of his plums, and he could feel the snow itching to fall.

“There isn’t much time left,” Walter said to himself as he sat at his kitchen table. “I need to get this done today.”

It was another drizzly day, the twelfth in a string of eleven, but Max could tell snow was coming soon. He could smell it in the air.

It had always been this way with him, ever since he was a child. An autumn day would come, Max would step outside, and he would smell the faintest whisper of frost. You could say it was some sort of magical intuition, but Max knew it wasn’t anything more than his nose.

Always, Max had been able to smell things before they happened. He’d be reading in his room and catch the sweet scent of raspberry plum muffins. Hours later, he would hear the oven bell ring and his mother call, “Maxwell, honey. Would you like a muffin? I’ve just baked off a batch of your favorites.”

Or he’d be on a camping trip with his boy scout troop and feel the sour stench of a skunk singe the hairs inside his nostrils half an hour before they turned down the wrong trail path.

Or the time it mattered most, when Max had tasted the bittersweetness of burning milk all down his tongue as he lay asleep, three hours before he awoke and four hours before his friend Walter collapsed at the stove.

That day was the last time Max ever received clues from the universe about what was to come.

The earliest memory Max had was small snowflakes gently falling from the sky. He remembers as each snowflake fell on his face, it gently pressed into his skin, melting away like a stranger’s tear. Max could never get over the eeriness of feeling someone else’s sadness like that. It touched him so deeply. It was the first time that he understood what it meant to be a part of humanity—connected on a deep, cosmic level to every other human on the planet—or so he thought, as he stood in the snow puzzling and wuzzling over the meaning of life. Max had always been extraordinarily thoughtful like that—thinking about things in a slightly different way than everyone else. Holding the picture frame in his hands and rotating it ever so slightly.

“A few degrees can make all the difference,” Max recalled telling his new friend Walter the day they met over an injured baby bird. “It’s a good thing you were standing so far away,” Max continued.

“Oh yes, especially since I was standing and you were crouching down,” Walter cut in, finishing Max’s thought.

“Yes, exactly.” Max replied, struck by this gentleman’s seemingly uncanny ability to finish Max’s thought. No one had ever been able to do that before. Max had done it plenty of times for other people, but the favor had never been returned. That is, until he met Walter.

At that moment, Walter took a bright green hanker chief out of his coat pocket and gently wiped down the mug. “I know it isn’t fully sanitized,” he said, extending the mug out to Max, “but I’d like you to have this.”

Max took the mug and returned the gesture with a short smile and a nod. For Max, it was the highest gratitude he could offer. Walter returned the gesture.

Later that same day, Max sat at his kitchen table, puzzling over his notepad.

“There has to be a better way to say it than, ‘Thanks for lending me your mug.’” Max shuddered. “It’s just too awkward.”

Max stood up and paced his small kitchen nook five times before inspiration struck. “That’s it! By golly, that’s it!” In one swift motion he jumped straight up into the air and then straight back down into his chair. Setting his pen to paper, Max began to write.

Dear sir,

Thank you for your guidance earlier. I am extremely appreciative that you had a few degrees of separation in vantage point. As I always say, it really did make all the difference.

As to your offer, I would gladly accept employment as your gardener, but to be completely clear, it wouldn’t be as your gardener per se, more so someone to help you take care of your garden. If I haven’t got that right, please correct me in your reply. Either way, I believe this job will suit me greatly. I’ve always loved plants and flowers, and I look forward to seeing your jewel of the garden, as you mentioned earlier. That is, your plum tree. They’ve always been my favorite fruit tree. I’ve enclosed my telephone number here for your records. I look forward to receiving your next call.

Best,

Walter Maxwell

Walter stood up from the table, setting his pen down as he carefully shuffled back over to the stove to stir the milk he was warming for Max’s cocoa. He’d be here any minute now, and today more than ever, Walter wanted to be ready and waiting for him when he arrived, mug in hand.

As he picked up the wooden spoon to stir, he caught the smell of raspberries wafting through the air. Then, the warmth of cinnamon, the tang of plums, sugar, butter, cornmeal—raspberry plum muffins just the way his mother used to make them. He could feel the crunch of raspberry seeds between his teeth and the crumble of sweet cornmeal between his cheeks. He tasted it all on his tongue. Stirring and stirring he delighted in the pleasure of an early morning muffin and a steaming mug of milk. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, “Walter, are you still there? It’s me, Max.” A rub on his back. “It’s alright. I’m here now.”