The Maxx

Sara:
Mom called, said to call if you needed anything.

Julie:
Great. Hey, when you talked to your mom, did you happen to mention that there's a slight chance this entire world is all my dream and if I wake up it could end everything.

Sara:
Well I might have left that part out.

Julie:
Just as well, it's not exactly my favorite part.

[Sara's holding a gun to her head]

Sara:
Ok, heres the point in the story where I have this cathartic revelation that suicide's wrong, that life's worth living and everything'll be OK. Yeah, right. And that's why this story doesn't work! [Throws the gun down] 'Cause I just don't buy it.

Julie:
Nobody buys it, but that's not why you go on.

Sara:
Why then?

The Maxx:
Because things'll change. You'll change.

Sara:
What about right now?

Julie:
Right now, you wait.

The Jungle Queen:
I'm that part of you that escapes, Julie. I reflect what's deep inside, the image of strength and independence you felt before you were... violated. But as I absorb more misery and bitterness, I change. I fear what I am becoming, Julie. But now that you have seen this, the world can never be the same size again.

Mr. Gone:
I'm not the one who wears underwear outside her clothes.

Julie:
You, however, have a problem with women.

Mr. Gone:
[scoff] How perceptive... did you figure that one out when I kidnapped you, or tied you up with leather straps? OF COURSE I'VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH WOMEN!

[about her schoolmates]

Sara:
They're all necro-nerds and Sand freaks. They think death is romantic. Death is hard and cold and ugly, not some cute chick.

Sara:
Did my saying that shock you? GOOD! Writers are supposed to shock people.

Sara:
No matter how low you are on the food chain, there's always somebody lower.

Sara:
I was sitting under the Jones Street underpass yesterday. That's because I want to be a writer and writers gotta have experiences, like underpasses.

Sara:
Life is pretty pathetic when even your own hallucinations lie to you.

Sara:
What a cruel world, letting something this profound be conveyed in words this trite!

The Maxx:
Pain lasts, kid. It's how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management.

Mr. Gone:
Most of us inhabit at least two worlds: the real world, where we are at the mercy of circumstance; and the world within, the unconscious, a safe place we where can escape. The Maxx shifts between these worlds against his will. Here, homeless, he lives in a box in an alley. The only one who really cares for him is Julie Winters, a freelance social worker. But in Pangaea, the other world, he rules the Outback and is the protector of Julie, his Jungle Queen. There, he cares for her. But he always ends up back in the real world. And me, old Mr. Gone? [laughs] Only I can see that the secret that unites them could destroy them. I could be helpful... Ah, screw it! I think I'll have some fun with them first.

Mr. Gone:
[diabolical laughter]

The Maxx:
Everybody dies.

Mr. Gone:
The others cry out for you, Julie Winters. Their screams of agony are the kisses I place along your neck

Julie:
At least in his dreams he's some kind of superhero. Boy this city's full of people who are experts at avoiding reality, and with good reason. I'm not sure any of us wants to know what goes on at 3am in some stink ridden ally. God know who doing god know what. Best not to think about it, just push it down and go on

Julie:
This doll is telling me things I don't want to hear and if it doesn't shut up in going brush it's head, I'm going to brush and brush until I brush off it's head.

Mr. Gone:
That's how it ends, Doc. Not with a bang, or a whimper, but with a "thwack."

Julie:
Cartoons are so pretentious.

The Maxx:
Funny, but I keep seeing that doll she made of Mr. Gone... beheaded! That must mean something. The things that could be under my mask... .

Julie:
Look, Maxx, that freak nearly killed us. And just because you imagine you have a rabbit's head in the Outback is certainly no reason to fear you might actually have one here. It's so classic, Maxx. You see yourself as some jungle avenger because in your in real life you're powerless. And I can't blame you. We all need some place to go away to; some place we can be who we should have been instead of who we are; some safe place where we can escape reality. Hide. I know there are things to hide from.

The Maxx:
My mask. I can feel it crawling... .

Julie:
Shush.

The Maxx:
Please! Make it stop!

Julie:
Just rest now. It's okay. It's okay.

Mr. Gone:
You killed my hostage? You killed my hostage! [shouting] You killed my hostage [Mr. Gone shoots The Maxx]

The Maxx:
Ouch?

Mr. Gone:
Never do that again!

The Maxx:
I wish it was time for Cheers, but it's not. It's time for vengeance!

Julie:
I can't believe you want to get involved in that censorship crap.

The Maxx:
To be first in the soil, which erupts in the coil, of trees veins and grasses all brought to a boil. Wait, it's different somehow, cause this land isn't mine, and my brain has been freed, I'm not thinking in... poetry stuff.

Julie:
Maxx thinks I'm an extremist, but come on. Guys are saying that sometimes "No" means "Yes." And, honestly, sometimes it does. But I don't think any guy that's pulled himself off a crying woman has been confused for a second about what she wanted.

Julie:
So, here's the next question: If you were lost in an airport, what's the first thing you'd do?

Old homeless man:
[shyly, hesitatingly] Um, um, uh... I've never been in an airport before.

Julie:
[sarcastically] Oh, goody, I'll just mark that right down.

Old homeless man:
And I've never seen a social worker dressed like you neither. Kinda like a hooker?

Julie:
[shows him the door] Thanks for sharin' that. Keep in mind that I have a job, while you have a blanket with vomit on it.

[door closes]

Old homeless man:
I like my blanket.

The Maxx:
For her, I could be a HERO!

Julie:
Aw, geez, who writes this crap?

[first lines]

[lightning flashs, thunder rolls, rain falls]

The Maxx:
It's wet. Dark and wet. The kind of weather that... penetrates, makes your skin feel itchy and oily... dirty, kind of, but real, too. That's good. It's time for Cheers: Sam and Diane and Norm Peterson, the Coach, and then, after he died, Woody. I don't have a TV now, but that's okay. The shows in my mind are almost always better.

The Maxx:
[observing a mugging in progress] The skinny one's Tito, the big one's Fridge. They beat people up, take their money, kill them sometimes. The cab driver gets a third. One woman got away by running three blocks on a broken foot.

[Fridge grabs the woman. Her purse falls and spills out. A penny rolls away down the alley to the Maxx's box]

The Maxx:
Sometimes it's luck that saves them. Sometimes it's fate.

Tito:
[spots the coin, goes after it] Hey, Fridge, here's another one. You ever seen anybody with so much change in their purse, huh, Fridge? I, I say, you ever seen anyody with...

[the Maxx's claw stabs down on the penny]

Tito:
Wha- who are you?

[the Maxx pulls Tito into the box and, with several blows, punches him out, leaving Tito's scarf trailing out of the box. Fridge, noticing Tito's uncharacteristic silence, sees the scarf, and comes down the alley to investigate]

The Maxx:
Yeah, usually it's fate. But sometimes...

[Maxx's claw comes down hard on the scarf]

The Maxx:
It's *ME*!

Police Officer:
Yes, and sometimes it's us. All right, everybody freeze!

The Maxx:
Damn, I was talking out loud again.

The Maxx:
Great. Where the heck am I now?

The Maxx:
[in Pangaea] So now what?

[white hands on long, slender arms shoot out of the ground, grabbing the Maxx and pull him down]

The Maxx:
These hands - each as strong as a man, hungry as death - they will drag a man down to nothingness. To oblivion! It's starting to fade. It's starting to come back to me now. Back to Australia. Not the Australia they teach you about in the cities - the Outback. No, the *real* Australia: the smoking caves, the gods who eat mountains, the flying dragos, the rivers of gold, the Leopard Queen taunting me, almost an enemy, beautiful and feral as the great beasts she runs with. Still, she inspires me. For her I can be...

The Maxx:
[pulls free with a swipe of his claw]... a *hero*!

[fade to white... ]

Julie:
Aw, geez, who writes this crap?

[... to the real world]

Julie:
[sighs] You know, if it weren't for the graft, corruption, and violence, this city wouldn't be any fun at all.

Sgt. Ocono:
You shouldn't hang around with wacko creeps like that, Miss Julie. They just had a college professor on the radio that's saying how women send out certain signals and that's what attracts these scumballs like that Gone character. Maybe I'm out of line here, but with a flaky get-up like that, aren't you worried about sending out the wrong signals?

[Julie leans on the counter and squeezes rainwater out of her hair onto the form]

Sgt. Ocono:
Signal loud and clear. He's in back.

Julie:
There, that wasn't so hard for a reasonably intelligent mammal, now was it?

The Maxx:
[narrates] There are many interesting species of predator and prey sheltered within the broad grassy spaces and massed granite tarns of the Outback. One of these is the Outback Slug. It can leap nearly a quarter mile straight into the air. But it has never mastered the ability... to land. It has no predators; it is just... stupid. On the other hand, the Great Northern Crabbit can land *and* jump. But it has a natrual enemy: the Isz. The Isz can jump *and* land *and* has no predators. Unless you count... me!

Julie:
Somebody once said, a liberal is a conservative who's never been mugged.

Julie:
[short wry laugh] A few years ago, I wouldn't have laughed. But today, I'm not so sure.

Julie:
Try not to get into any fights, okay, Maxx?

[phone rings]

The Maxx:
Yesterday, that woman I was trying to save was attacked.

[phone rings]

The Maxx:
It said so on the news. I should *do* something about that.

[phone rings]

Julie:
Spoken like a true fanatic. A few women who

[phone rings]

Julie:
can't take care of themselves get messed with and you ride to the rescue.

[phone rings]

Julie:
Who are you to assume responsibility for *their* lives?

The Maxx:
I am the Maxx.

[phone rings]

The Maxx:
Answer your phone.

[last lines]

Mr. Gone:
Greetings, Br'er Lappin.

The Maxx:
[grunts as he jumps to face Mr. Gone] Who the hell are you?

Mr. Gone:
Amazing. You really don't remember any of it - not the girl or the Isz or the blood lust... or me!

The Maxx:
Then it wasn't all a dream. Unless I'm dreaming now.

Mr. Gone:
Too bad. I normally hate killing amnesiacs.

[Isz creature snarls]

The Maxx:
Oh, god... Now I remember. It was all coming back to me. I can feel the hot sun on my back skin and the grasses under my toes. Those little creatures were Isz, but twisted and changed by being moved to this world.

Mr. Gone:
True enough. Too bad you'll be eaten before you'll have the chance to mutter this to anyone.

The Maxx:
Damn, still talking out loud.

[Isz creatures jabbering]

Mr. Gone:
I can feel the machines begin to leak and belch in my presence. I can hear the beating of her heart. She is like a small delicious slug, I have only to close me hand to possess her Hi honey, I'm home."

The Maxx:
She helped people by controlling them, hoping to smother her own pain. And, somewhere in the wild land, in the land of dreams, in Pangaea, her inner-self was imprisoned by her own self-loathing.