The Misadventures of Maximum Green

By Stephen Berberich

 

Returning Army veterans Max Green and Melvin Watt, burdened with serious personal issues, turn to horticulture to rebuild their lives. They launch Maximum Green Design Co. with no cash and no prospective clients, but on cheap rental land on a rundown farm once owned by Lord Baltimore. Will they ever get to create outstanding gardens for the rich and pretentious in Annapolis? Despite serious injuries to their crew, crooked developers, property damage, lawsuits and murder threats, Max can foresee prestigious projects within reach from a disgraced literary professor masquerading as a landscape architect. Still their most unlikely client, the beautiful French-American fashion heiress Louisa Fontaine could be the one client to determine the fate of their rag tag venture at her Chesapeake Bay waterfront estate, or they will all die trying.

 

Max applies his master's degree to the landscape designs. The story features color prints, hundreds of gardening tips, humor, team-building business methods. LGBTQ features, Maryland history, authentic venues and environmental protection measures. 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Berberich
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224303885

Stephen Berberich

Mr. Stephen Michael Berberich is a science and environment journalist and author of Fatal Deadline and five other novels fiction. His most recent short stories are, "Meet Mr. Halyo – he's in your house too" in Story House Weekly Reader, "Boy of Steel," published by the Connections literary magazine of the College of Southern Md. and "Loretta's Great Deal" a Writer's Digest award winner. He is a member of the Maryland Writers Association, National Science Writers Association, D.C. Writers Association and Master Gardeners of Maryland.

Book preview

The Misadventures of

Maximum Green

The gardening novel by Stephen Michael Berberich

––––––––

A close-up of a plant Description automatically generated with low confidence

CHAPTER 1: Melvin Watt

Annapolis, Md., February 28, 1974 

But Lenny, I shot the man.

That’s right Melvin; you shot him, said defense attorney Leonard Raymond. Everybody knows you shot the man, even the judge knows now.

Well, so why did he not...?

Hurry up, will you, said Raymond pushing his client, young Army veteran Melvin Watt, out of the courtroom.

But Lenny, there was no doubt I shot the man in the store. The man fell to the floor. He was bleeding. I saw the blood.

Move it, goofball. Let’s get out of here before the judge changes his mind, said Raymond.

They hustled out of the Circuit Courthouse of Anne Arundel County on Church Circle.

Melvin continued, Must have been my uniform. The judge knows and yet he lets me go? No jail time? Nothing at all?

Get in the car, Raymond said as the two finally got in his car. The man you shot lived, more than he just lived; it was an arm wound, treated out-patient. And the judge saw your war record from Vietnam and hey, it’s Annapolis. He’s likely got a sailing gig this afternoon.

My war record sucks, Lenny. You know that. Two days in combat and I screwed up.

Raymond said, I got it magnified. It now says that you saved your entire company during the Easter Offensive. I made it broad so he couldn’t confirm. Smart, huh? The judge was probably reading it when you showed him your missing thumb.

You’re brilliant. And he bought it? Melvin pulled a small Afro pick from his jacket.

You don’t know how I got it changed, okay? And you don’t know I served in Army Intelligence for 16 years and have friends there who owe me.

Gotcha. I guess there’s one thing good about losing a thumb in combat.

What’s that Mel?

Don’t call me Mel. You know that man would be dead now instead of getting patched up after I shot badly. I can’t shoot straight. I’d probably be shackled now headed to the clink.

Raymond replied with a sly grin, No chance with me as your attorney. In that case, the judge would have read that you single-handedly ran Charlie back to North Vietnam with just hand grenades. Bronze Star kinda stuff. Come on; let’s get a beer at a place I know up Ritchie Highway in Severna Park where people are more normal than in this pretentious town.

Melvin adjusted the rearview mirror to work his considerable Afro.

CHAPTER 2: Miriam’s Max

For 25 years free-spirited Miriam Green worried about it. Should she have corrected the mistake on her son Max’s birth certificate? At the time, her euphoria as a new mom crowded her better judgment. She thought the mistake was cute.

Before Miriam’s late husband was killed in the Korean War, he requested in a letter home that he would like their son named Maximus, a strong and catchy name for his unborn son.

But, her baby’s name Maximus Green was misspelled and he became Maximum Green. Free-spirited Miriam loved it. She was, after all, a passionate and skilled gardener and flower arranger from a horticultural family. She intended to get it changed at first, but just never got around to it.

She remained fond of calling him Maximum, Max for short. But in years to come, the name set in motion continual and often cruel teasing and ridicule for little Maximum in school. 

What was done was done, she came to rationalize.

Grown-up Max was recently honorably discharged from active duty in Vietnam as a staff sergeant with the U.S. Army Reserves. It was nothing to celebrate he told his mother. He returned home depressed.

Her Max had always been an upbeat boy. She hardly recognized him, moping and brooding.

After several days at home, he confided in his mother sitting quietly sunning her face on the garden meditation bench made of reclaimed Chesapeake Bay driftwood. She was surrounded by their backyard of dead flower gardens in the dead of winter.

He stood in front of his mom and simply admitted, Mom, I’m not right. His nerves were whacked by the time he got home from the intrusive Army tour. Max was by nature a compassionate human being. The war changed everyone into a cynic, Mom. That it negatively affected everyone around me in that hell hole for two years has made me a bitter and resentful man.

Maximum Green sat down next to his mother and she held him tight for a very long time.

You will snap out of it Max, You are the optimist people always relied upon for cheer and good times. Lots of friends back home here will tell you that," Miriam tried in vain.

I’m not that guy, Mom. I guess I’m more of a complacent pacifist. 

After just one week in his mother’s house, he told her he needed to move out, rather than continue to worry her. In the meantime, he would stay busy with chores and home improvement projects for his mother.

She treasured having him back in the house as a companion, alive and physically unharmed by the conflict in Southeast Asia. What could she do to help make her son whole again emotionally?

Miriam was a single parent of an only child. They had always been very close. Yet, she understood Max’s desire to move on with his life.

He needed space to free his mind of the tension built up by tolerating a military life for which he was completely unsuited. Two years earlier, Max graduated from college, set to start a career teaching in the botanical sciences he loved and shared with his mom. When he had taken a semester off to help with the flower shop, a surprise draft notice forced him to join the Reserves, which allowed him to delay active duty until graduation.

Saving Max from his depression seemed beyond the grasp of the humble flower lady who had lost a husband to war and now lived with a ghost of the son home from another. Perhaps she needed a desperate stroke of luck, she thought, before losing sight of Max forever if he moved away in his morose condition.

Miriam came up with an idea that might fix his despair and keep them close. It was a big risk. She suggested that they check out a piece of near-waterfront property, an overgrown farm really, which a group of businessmen she knew had purchased.

This might help get you out of the doldrums. I mean, it is 60 acres of nature, woods, meadows, abandoned landscaping. Let’s take a look together. It at least gets us out of the house.

Sure Mom, if you want, he replied indifferently. But I’m not in the doldrums, just disgusted with the human race. I’ll get over it. I’m sorry to burden you.

Shut up Max, She snapped. "Now I am worried about my boy."

She knew the businessmen in nearby Glen Burnie from her civic work as the state chairman of Maryland Garden Clubs. Also, the men were frequent customers at Miriam’s little flower shop in Linthicum, a Maryland town where she lived.

She told her son, Mr. Hayes from the hardware store and his partners bought the old Calvert farm property on 56 acres. It is a longshot Max, but if you really want to move out, maybe they will let you stay in a trailer or my RV on the property. 

With the okay from one of the business partners, Henry Hayes, who owned Hayes Hardware Store in Glen Burnie, Miriam rode with Max in his old blue Chevy pickup to the property’s address on 1699 Bayside Road Road in Pasadena, Md., the back side of upscale Severna Park. They hoped to get onto the property after a 5-inch snowfall the previous day.

The only way to pinpoint the address was a spray-painted stenciled ‘1699’ on the road partially revealed by a snowplow. Max cleared the mark and drove into two sets of fresh tire tracks from the road to a rundown house in the far distance across an open, snow-covered field punctuated with tall weed stalks.

Henry said he came here last evening to check on the house, Miriam said.

Max was excited already and added, Maybe he also wanted to mark the driveway for us. We’d never see it otherwise.

Halfway in, Miriam’s mood darkened at her first sight of the abandoned farm property. Her excitement to find a place for Max to live, even temporarily, changed to fear and worry.

––––––––

There was indeed a house or was a house at one time. The saltbox style, two-story structure leaned to the south. Many of the asbestos shingles were damaged and an upstairs room was missing some windowpanes around a smoke-charred frame.

Max loved the place.

Miriam discouraged him, This is a mistake.

He saw possibilities, Oh, I don’t know.

She saw sickness in his future.

He saw freedom.

Miriam stayed by the pickup thinking fast about how to get her son out of there, as Max inspected the house. Is it locked? she shouted as she rested her lean frame against the truck and waited for Max to complete his walk around the house. Both outside doors were locked. At least she had that.

I don’t see any heating oil tank, just a chimney, she shouted.

No response from Max.

Max, there is a well pump out here. Can you see indoor plumbing?

Again, no response.

As Miriam waited, she could not see any signs of vandalism or even wildlife damage to the property, which also had a large barn and several smaller outbuildings. Though not a vain woman and for no reason, she checked her face in the truck’s side mirror twice, nervously fidgeting with her straight dark brown hair.

Still worried, she flashed back to her whimsical decision twenty-five years ago when she regretfully laughed at his birth certificate mistake and let it stand. By showing Max this terrible house surrounded by all the open grounds that he liked, she might have put her son’s life on another dubious path. She regretted the entire idea of her only son living in a rat trap next to a marsh.

CHAPTER 3: Bob Cannellini

10 a.m. later the same week

Hey Bob, are you in the kitchen? That young man is here you wanted to talk to, yelled Schatzi Friendly, the devoted barkeep at the Severn River Inn. 

Fingering the short hairs of his close Army cut, Maximum Green waited apprehensively on a barstool to wait for the Inn’s owner, Bob Cannellini to meet him.

Schatzi’s booming voice in the nearly empty place at 10 a.m. easily found Cannellini tasting the day’s spaghetti sauce in the kitchen. He dropped his big spoon into the pot and responded, Is it Mr. Green. Yeah, be right out. Thanks, Schatzi dear. A pinch more oregano, I think, he said to his brother, the chef.

Bob was a tall, thin man of about 50 with graying black hair in a moderately long cut just over his ears, warm caring eyes, olive skin and clean-shaven.

The restaurant was dimly lit and still warmed with authentic Italian décor that pleased Max Green. He loved Italian food—one good reason the place seemed to fit his desire for a nice job to help him pay the modest rent on the old Calvert property.

He had the help wanted from the window in his left hand while shaking the owner’s hand with the other.

Mr. Cannellini took the barstool next to him with a firm handshake.

Great to meet you, sir, and thanks for taking my call on this job. Part time right? Max said anxiously.

Your name? Maximum? That’s unusual, said Cannellini.

It is a long story. Here is the sign in the window. I hope you don’t mind me taking it.

If it doesn’t work out, we can always put it back. Tell me about yourself, Maximum.

People call me Max. My mom is a gardener; has a flower shop in Linthicum. She gave me the name. Kinda funny, huh?

Miriam Green? Is she your mother?   

You know her, Mr. Cannellini? 

People call me Bob, Max. Yeah, my bartender Schatzi lives in Linthicum and brings our flowers from your mother’s shop. I’ve not met your mother, but Schatzi raves about her shop and calls her the free-spirited flower lady. I always trust Schatzi’s judgment of people. She was our staff sergeant in our outfit in Korea.

Max had done his due diligence as always. He already knew Bob Cannellini was a war hero in Korea and then worked as an IBM consultant with the Department of Defense.  

Max hoped to avoid more military talk. He said, Miss Schatzi is right about my mom being a free spirit. I think I inherited it. If you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Cannellini ...

Bob, please.

If you don’t mind me saying, Bob, the outside storefront here could use some landscaping improvement. If you hire me I can give you some ideas. Being Miriam Green’s kid, it comes naturally.

Sounds good. You can toss some ideas at me later, Cannellini said. Sign the application and you start tomorrow morning."

For the first time since he was discharged weeks ago, Max felt purpose. He was pleased with Bob’s friendly trusting smile and handshake to start a new life as a janitor.

Leaving at the door, he heard, Hey Maximum, lots of luck, honey. Love the cute name. It was the ever-bubbly bartender Schatzi. She was short for a German-American with a stacked bob haircut of real blonde. My name is a doozy too. Means sweetheart, hon.

CHAPTER 4: Zen lost

Max left the restaurant scratching his head, puzzled. He thought why would he need to fill out a two-page application form to be a janitor? Military guy, always a military guy. Rules and regs, he said to himself about the restaurant owner.

Over a coffee and Egg McMuffin at Mickey D’s, he convinced himself that working as a janitor was indeed the right move, a Zen move to gain peace of mind and tranquility after the stress of his military dilemma of being a depressed, inside war dissenter. He was in no shape emotionally to pursue teaching science, which was the career he’d set his heart on before being drafted into the Vietnam War effort.

Conveniently, there was a recession in the mid-1970s and Max hoped that, despite his advanced education, perhaps Mr. Cannellini would understand that he simply needed some income to get back on his feet in civilian life while planning his career.

He filled out the application in full, including his college and army time, and then returned to the Inn fretting possible scrutiny and discussion of those details with Bob Cannellini. Max had a master’s degree in botanical sciences that he finished in the Army by correspondence following his horticulture degree from the University of Maryland.  

He’d also previously worked college summers nearby at William G. Burton Nurseries in Adelphi, Md. In the army, he feigned any mechanical or electrical skills, not to mention faking a fear of guns, thus protesting the war in his own way without contributing to it directly as a quiet enlisted clerk.

Now he worried that Mr. Cannellini would wonder why a man with so much education wants to spend four days a week in the restaurant cleaning up after sloppy diners. He might also be concerned if he knew Max was a war resister. 

Back at the Inn Max headed to the bar hoping to see nice Miss Schatzi again. She was missing.

Instead in the dim light, he saw silhouettes of just two men at the bar with their backs to him. One was a young black in an Army uniform and the other a white guy graying at the temples and wearing a 3-piece suit. Max slid into a bar stool past a corner of the square bar to have a view into the kitchen, maybe to see Bob or Schatzi and get this thing done, he mumbled to himself.

The uniform spoke to him, What’s that you say, soldier? Talk to me. The soldier was Max’s old friend from high school Melvin Watt. He and his attorney Leonard Raymond were unwinding after Melvin’s confounding court appearance.

I’ll be, said Max, if it isn’t the old trouble maker Melvin. How are you doing, buddy? He jumped to his feet, grabbed Melvin, and shook his friend by the shoulders affectionately.

Cannellini glided silently out of the kitchen with a big smile and jumped into the conversation, Having a party here Lenny? he said to the older man. Bit early isn’t it for the hard stuff? How about lunch? Hi Max. Thanks for coming back. That for me?

Max handed him the application without giving Melvin a chance to glance at it. He was getting nervous again about the army and his protests over Vietnam. He said, Mr. Cannellini, this is my old friend Melvin Watt. We were best friends at Chesapeake High School and this gentleman ...

Melvin added, I’m sorry. So glad to see Max I forgot to introduce Lenny to him. Maximum Green, meet the best lawyer in Maryland Leonard Raymond.

Concerned, Max asked, Lawyer? Yours?

Melvin nodded.

I bet you are Melvin’s talent agent, Max said, hoping for another diversion from possible army talk as Bob started reading the resume. Melvin is a great singer and a unique personality. I thought you’d be in Hollywood by now, Melvin.

Schatzi arrived placing two mugs of beer on coasters in front of Lenny and Melvin and took the empties. You drinking Max?

Max shook his head eager to listen to Melvin, whom he’d not seen since high school.

Lenny is helping with a little problem, Melvin said. ‘Nothing to talk about anymore. Right, Lenny?" Melvin said as he chugged half his mug of beer. He swiveled to speak to Max. The beer mug in Melvin’s hand collided with an enormous man in a white apron who then bumped him rudely to avoid the splash of beer.

Beer splashed down the front of Melvin’s uniform, launching him into a rage. Melvin hurled toward the big man before the others knew it. Hey, watch it. Look what you did? Damn, he said as the big man tripped and fell backward.

Bob Cannellini’s brother Johnny the chef was lying semi-conscious on his back with a heavy leg crookedly folded under his other leg and his chef apron bunched around his neck.

Lenny Raymond held Melvin in a bear hug, who said, I never touched the guy.

Cannellini tended to his brother lying on the floor. He soon helped him onto his feet and then guided him to a chair in the restaurant side of the Inn. Schatzi, call an ambulance. I think Johnny is okay but let’s get him checked out. Lenny, you and your friend Melvin better scram before I press charges or pop him in the nose.

Irrationally fearing losing his new job because of his friend, Max waved both hands at Melvin to shoo him away quickly. He then managed to say in a minute to Bob, I never saw him act like that sir. See you tomorrow then, Mr. Cannellini? Max lied. He knew Melvin had a short fuse.

Yeah, yeah, sure. See you tomorrow, Max.

CHAPTER 5: Latter-day Lord Baltimore

Pasadena, Md., March 15, 1974

During the next two weeks, Max worked hard mopping, wiping and sweeping at the Severn River Inn, while never mentioning the incident with Melvin and Johnny Cannellini to anyone. But he worried about what had become of his old buddy Melvin Watt.

Bob Cannellini never brought up the subject either. He was a busy man and likely put it out of his mind as soon as Johnny got on his feet that day. Johnny was back running his kitchen by 3 p.m. After closing, Johnny, who had earlier declined the ambulance ride, rested at Bob’s house before returning to his home and family.

Meanwhile, against Miriam’s initial objections, Max had his mind set on moving into the rundown old farmhouse at 1699 Bayside Road Rd. When he would not be dissuaded, she talked the owners into installing an oil furnace. Max’s rent remained a measly $100 a month in exchange for watching over the group’s investment. She promised the group that Max would value the property, and keep it clean and free of vagrants in honor of Sir George Calvert, whose descendants lived nearby in modern homes. Sir George was the first Lord Baltimore in America, Miriam stated, pleasing Max to no end.

As Max and Miriam left a meeting with the owners, Max asked, Mom, how did you know that? I think that little bit of trivia closed the deal.

She said, Everybody knows that, Max. And besides, that didn’t close the deal. Being my son closed the deal. Remember who you are when you are living down there, be careful, and be responsible, son. Now get me back to the flower shop; your truck needs a good cleaning.

Thanks, Mom. I mean for doing this for me. I don’t think they’d let me live there if I asked without your help. Hey, I suppose now I’m Lord Baltimore?

Don’t flatter yourself. Just be careful down there, okay?

*

Two weeks later, spring arrived with Max busy cleaning and repairing inside his new farmhouse residence. The last days of winter left light snow coverings that brightened his surroundings of drab grays and browns—leaning or crumbling wooden sheds and barns, leafless deciduous forest trees, scrub pines of silver-green and dead brown crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis) covering about an acre around the house and outbuildings. A spattering of ‘golden bell’ flowers broke up the drabness on leggy forsythia (F. intermedia) stems long left unpruned around the lawn.

If the last Calvert owners had flower beds, Max couldn’t see any remnants of them. He was pleased to no end that a single daffodil greeted him by the side door of the house as he came and went. He was at the same time puzzled by a privet hedge (Ligustrum vulgare) about 25 feet out from three sides of the house only. Only the house itself saved Max’s enthusiasm. It was okay for living, just okay. And yes, he knew all the Latin binomials on the former farm.

The old saltbox was two stories of white asbestos shingles unbroken for the most part. Two bedrooms upstairs had windows on three sides, intact except charring along the north wall and a big mahogany wardrobe in the corner closest to the electric pole outside where a huge transformer hung only eight feet from the bedroom corner.

Max figured correctly that lightning had struck sometime and no one wanted to struggle with the heavy wardrobe down the very narrow and steep stairway in the middle of the house. Max planned his living room and dining room for the two rooms downstairs. He would sleep in the unburnt of the two bedrooms upstairs.

Attached wisely to the south sunny side was a one-story addition, perhaps 35 to 40 years old, with a full kitchen, bathroom, and another small room presumably a child’s bedroom, papered with yellowing images of Winnie the Pooh.

Max guessed that 40 to 50 years earlier the Calverts perhaps planted three Balsam fir trees (Abies balsamea) 20 feet off the north side of the house. They towered above the room and the full slouching wide limbs almost to the ground protected the house from the winds of winter, Max figured.

The fragrance of the balsam needles was faint in the very early spring but was pleasingly subtle. He was following some pretty smart folks, frugal and earth-wise just like him.

This was home for the foreseeable future and Max was fully satisfied. He eagerly awaited the warmth of spring and summer. The new furnace was in the living room. He didn’t need air conditioning; hated it anyway.

He was pleased with the long sandy dirt drive through perhaps 20 acres of open field. It curved and nestled into a cluster of trees at the house and barns making Max’s new home invisible from Bayside Road the only public road on the peninsula piercing out into the Chesapeake Bay between the Patapsco River that wound north to Baltimore and a small river shaped like a human body called Bodkin Creek, which ended in a huge marsh just behind Max’s farmhouse. There were no other entrances to his hideaway.

After cleaning his house inside, Max began walking the property looking at buds and barks, fallen nuts and seeds in the woods and dried wildflowers in the fields. Gardens in his imagination were beginning to bloom.

*

The Severn River Inn needed his gardening touch first. When Max applied for the janitor job, he offered his garden skills as a bargaining chip unnecessarily. Bob Cannellini decided to hire Max at first sight. The application was just for his records.

Max soon learned that the Severn River Inn was the place to be, the ‘In Crowd,’ for business lunches as well as family meals at dinner time. Its sociable ambiance was enhanced by gracious and well-mannered employees, always satisfying and delicious cuisine, and perfection in barroom mixology—the best place in town for a drink, Bob always said.

After his daily chores one afternoon, Max sat at the bar showing his boss a drawing he’d created for improving the front with modest landscaping. Bob offered to front the cost of the plants, but Max said no.

Studying Max’s reaction, Bob likely guessed correctly that Miriam was Max’s bankroller.

It would only be until he got paid for the job, Max had promised his mother. She didn’t care. She was delighted with Max’s plan and initiative.

Bob brought Max a beer and one for himself to the bar. Yes, thanks for this. The plan would be a great improvement, but may I make a suggestion?

Max tried not to frown. He had already purchased background plants—nine dense spreading yews (Taxus x media 'Densiformis').

I’m a bit of a gardener myself," Bob began, and I like the background hedge against the building. What I’m thinking is how we can also have a few Italian Cypress.

The idea appealed to Max. He smile and said, "Normally they would be too big. But here is a ‘Tiny Tower’ Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens). You would need big concrete pots dyed with that orange/red look of terra cotta clay. Real clay pots will break up in the winter freezes. And, where?

Bob was delighted. He said Well, we need to take a look. Come on.

He led Max outside to the roadside of the Inn where there was a long narrow grass patch and concrete with the sidewalk from the parking lot to the left.

Max suggested separating the potted cypress trees from the different evergreen-textured yews by placing the pots along the sidewalk from the parking area on the side and back. He showed how a wider area of grass outside of the dining room would be converted to perennials and herbs before customers reached the brick facing of the front entrance backed with the yews. Alternating red and white azaleas (Satzuki hybrids) would go nicely in front of the background yews, he said. Max explained that the arrangement takes the acid soil-loving azaleas away from any leaching limestone from the brick masonry.

Bob asked Max to mark the spots for the potted cypress trees, just two, after Max had to admit he didn’t yet know how he could deliver 50-inch wide concrete pots.

Don’t worry, Bob said. "This town is loaded with construction

contractors and developers and I serve them all lunches. I’ll figure that out. How soon can you start on the foundation plantings and perennial flower garden, Max?"

That afternoon after work, Max paused outside the Inn to ponder a new look—what features might pop with fresh and attractive landscape improvements for Bob’s business. He felt his body involuntarily give way to leaning on a lamppost, head tilted in thought. Damn! he imagined a new path in his future, a revelation, a career perhaps. He’d begin right there to invest the money from the Inn’s landscaping job to contract more such work.  He’d need clients. He’d need a worker or two to start. He already had lots of rented land at 1699 Bayside Road and a house to live in for starters.

And then it hit him like a ton of bricks: As a part-time employee of Bob’s Inn, Max would be in constant reach of realtors and land developers visiting his place of employment, the Inn. Clients! Yes!

Thus began his small enterprise: Maximum Green Designs.

The idea appealed to Max. He smiled and said, Normally too big

I’d say. But there is a ‘Tiny Tower’ Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens). You would need big concrete pots dyed with that orange/red look of terra cotta clay. Real clay pots will break up in the winter freezes. And, where?"

Bob was delighted. He said Well, we need to take a look. Come on. He led Max outside to the roadside of the Inn where there was a long narrow grass patch and concrete with the sidewalk from the parking lot to the left.

Max suggested separating the potted cypress trees from the different

evergreen-textured yews by placing the pots along the sidewalk from the parking area on the side and back. He showed how a wider area of grass outside of the dining room would be converted to perennials and herbs before customers reached the brick facing of the front entrance backed with the yews.

Alternating red and white azaleas (Satzuki hybrids) would go nicely in front of the background yews, he said. Max explained that the arrangement takes the acid soil-loving azaleas away from any leaching limestone from the brick masonry.

Bob asked Max to mark the spots for the potted cypress trees, just two, after Max had to admit he didn’t yet know how he could deliver 50-inch wide concrete pots.

Don’t worry, Bob said. This town is loaded with construction contractors and developers and I serve them all lunches. I’ll figure that out. How soon can you start on the foundation plantings and perennial flower garden, Max?

That afternoon after work, Max paused outside the Inn to ponder a new look—what features might pop with fresh and attractive landscape improvements for Bob’s business. He felt his body involuntarily give way to leaning on a lamppost, head tilted in thought. Damn! he imagined a new path in his future, a revelation, a career perhaps. He’d begin right there to invest the money from the Inn’s landscaping job to contract more such work.  He’d need clients. He’d need a worker or two to start. He already had lots of rented land at 1699 Bayside Road and a house to live in for starters.

And then it hit him like a ton of bricks: As a part-time employee of Bob’s Inn, Max would be in constant reach of realtors and land developers visiting his place of employment, the Inn. Clients! Yes!

Thus began his small enterprise: Maximum Green Designs.

CHAPTER 6: Partners on a handshake

The old farmhouse, May 24

Melvin Watt searched the shorelines for an hour before seeing faded numerals ‘1699’ stenciled on Bayside Road.

Before Max could open his mouth to greet him finally at the old house, Melvin said, Okay, Max. I get it. You are still a snake-bit war protester and have to chill for a while.

Come in Mel, Max reached out and pulled in Melvin. Well, Watcha think? Ain’t this place a pip? No, I’m not hiding from the shock of war.

I hope not, Melvin shook off sleet on his Met’s baseball cap and found the hot spot, Max’s new woodstove in the living room of ancient torn wallpaper and creaking floorboards. Are you sure? This place would make anybody forget the war and all that bitterness. What a dump? Who said that? How’d you get my number anyway?

Bette Davis said that, Max said feigning a one-hand-on-hip Davis pose, And, Lenny gave me your number, that lawyer. I looked him up. In the few minutes at the Inn before you clocked my boss’s brother, you didn’t say why you needed a lawyer. Nice going, by the way.

Melvin played along as the chump. He hesitated to reply as he looked over the dreary interior of the farmhouse. He felt a bit of pity for his old buddy and yielded himself to more ridicule, Max, I didn’t think you’d want to see me again after what happened at that restaurant. I am really sorry.

Forget it. My boss already has. Meanwhile, this is an old farm and I live here now. I wanted you to see the place but could not remember that attorney’s name. I saw Leonard Raymond’s face in an ad in the yellow pages. Hey, I called his office. You’re famous there.