Max Walter learns to fit in, strives to stand out

As Max Walter took things out of drawers and off dressers the night before he left for IU, it was more than just things he was putting into boxes.

It was years spent in elementary school, middle school and Bloomington High School South, years when he’d started a band with his friends and delivered his high school commencement speech. Years where he was Max Walter: the funny guy, the honors kid, the friend, the son. It was the only way he knew to define himself.

Even though his dorm was only miles away from his home in Bloomington, he could no longer be who he had been. Max was just one face in the crowd. He didn’t have a major, didn’t have a close group of college friends yet and didn’t know what to expect
.
Max was about to start a journey to make a new life at IU, to redefine himself and to find his place. It’s a journey every freshman has to make, and it’s hard, lonely and sometimes awkward. Though Max knew the city and the school, he had to start all over.

Here at IU, he was just as lost as everyone else.

***

Max sat in the basement of Woodburn Hall in cargo shorts and a T-shirt. It had been about a month since he had moved in, and he was easing in. He’d made friends with people on his floor, and he had auditioned and joined All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble, a sketch comedy group. Tonight was only his second practice.

Max sat in a chair near the wall quietly looking at the scripts. A woman came in with a teddy bear in a huge plastic bag. A man dove across a desk, pawing at a woman to get coffee. Max sat off to the side picking at his fingernails.

After a few sketches, Max’s moment came. It was a sketch about parents and condoms. Max played the kid.

“I just want to take this time to remind you that your seed is precious,” the woman playing the mom said.

“Mom,” Max said. “Mom,” he said, louder. “FINE,” he screamed, his voice echoing across the small room. Everyone laughed. For a moment, Max was the funny guy again, basking in the light of it. But he couldn’t hold on to it yet.

Sometimes, Max saw buses go by on campus with pictures of Brice Fox and Daniel Weber, two guys who had made up an act and a song about IU. They were known, Max thought. They were just two guys goofing around who got onto something. Now, they were IU legends.

Max had a band with his friends in high school called Rattlesnake and the Church of Fresh Beets. He was Rattlesnake. They made a video for one of their songs, and in it, he rapped, flipped pancakes and sat with work boots on in a tub lined with candles. He could do what those guys did, too. What was stopping him?

In his classes, Max was still trying to find a balance. In high school, he didn’t have to try. Here, standards were different, and Max was starting to feel like he was falling into the shuffle of B’s and C’s. Calculus was the worst.

Max didn’t have to take that math class, but it was a point of pride. He wanted to prove he could do it.

The night before the first exam, he studied with his friends in his room. He swiveled in his chair on top of a rug with a picture of a matador. His desk was lined with Arizona Iced Tea bottles in all colors, and a giant stuffed rhinoceros head looked down on him.
Over the speakers of Max’s laptop, the first chords of a My Morning Jacket song leaked out. It’s Max’s favorite band.

“First you’re up, up, down, down. / One day you’re in, the next day you’re out. / You wanna freak out? Come on.”

Max kneeled on the floor, his belly draped over the chair and his notebook on the ground in front of him.

“No!” Max slapped the notebook. “I got an imaginary number. Why would I get an imaginary number?” He deflated the chair again. “I don’t know. I quit. I hope she doesn’t ask us that.”

He got a C — a 76 out of 100 — after the curve. He thought he’d done worse, but he needed to find a way to do better.

In the middle of the semester, Max was still trying to figure out this new system. He was floating through class, finding his way in a group, but he was still lost somewhere in the middle at a big school. He was fitting in, but he wanted to stand out.

***

Max’s old life was never far away. The person he was — the house he lived in, the high school he went to, his parents — were only about 15 minutes away.

He wanted to separate himself from it, though, to try living on his own. He hadn’t been back until a little before Thanksgiving when he went home for dinner.

He threw his dirty clothes into a gray trash bag from his dorm and carried them downstairs. His mom’s car was waiting for him at the curb.

They drove away, traveling farther and farther from the life Max had made in Teter Quad. Down Jordan Avenue to First Street, out and away.

Inside his house, the familiar greeted him. He went directly to the washing machine and dumped his clothes in.

While his mom made tacos, Max roamed the room, taking in all the things he used to see every day that he hadn’t touched in months. He opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice. A picture of little Max in a Superman costume looked back at him, next to a newspaper clipping of him at graduation.

After dinner, Max walked up to his old room. He hadn’t been there all semester, except to grab a pair of sweatpants. A big picture of him as a little kid dressed as a pirate beamed above the striped bedspread. A warped bike wheel hung on the wall to commemorate one of his rides. On the bed, a dirty pink Carebear sat, forgotten, a reminder of a simpler time.

Benton, Max’s roommate and friend from before college, had gotten it for him when he turned 12. Benton had one too. Max’s was bright pink and named Lovesalot.
Bringing it to the dorm had been a consideration.

“Should we bring our Carebears?” Max had asked.

“No,” Benton said. “Let’s wait till people know us better.”

Lovesalot sat on the bed alone since then. But something about the way he sat there that night made Max remember. He was going to take Lovesalot back with him. He scooped him up by the pink paw and went back downstairs.

His dad popped in a recording of Max giving his speech to his graduating class.

Max had been the class’s elected speaker. He wore his purple robe in front of the red curtain, a white shirt peeking out. Max didn’t know he was supposed to dress up underneath his robe. There, he stood in front of kids he’d gone to school with for years, their parents and his teachers, the cameras taking it down for posterity.

Max quoted Ke$ha. He quoted Justin Bieber. He let out a thunderous Panther roar. Everyone laughed, and Max took in the spotlight, the last rays of high school fame.

While the video played, Max sat at the table. He liked remembering how it used to be, but the present was pulling him back. He had promised his new friends on the floor he’d hang out with them, and he had to go back to Teter.

When they got back, Max and his dad got out of the car. Max grabbed the bear, a funny reminder of the life before Teter, a stuffed animal worn with love.

“Love you, dad,” Max said. They hugged.

“I love you too.” His dad patted his back. “Keep up the good work.”

Max’s dad got back in the car to drive home, across town, and Max walked back into Teter, carrying the bear with him.

***

Near the end of the semester, Max got a break. Someone remembered him from, of all things, his graduation speech. He was invited to do stand up in a show featuring other Bloomington comics.

Max was nervous, but he wanted to do it. He had always dreamed of doing comedic writing, and this was another place to practice. It was one step closer to making a name for himself. He accepted.

The night of the show, he walked quietly to State Room East in the Indiana Memorial Union after a class. He was alone. He didn’t tell anyone because he thought having friends in the audience would make him more nervous. And what if he failed?

He got up in front and faced the crowd of about 25. He hadn’t really practiced at all outside of his head, hadn’t said the jokes out loud. Somehow, he choked out words. He knows he walked around a lot while doing it, but the rest was a blur.

He left out some of his jokes, and some didn’t get many laughs, but he survived. And he was in the spotlight once again.

***

Max’s dad picked him up after his last final. He’d made it through his first semester. He didn’t have the 4.0 grade-point average he wanted, and not many people knew his name, but he had made friends on his floor, learned to handle college standards and found a place, however small.

The car ride home was only minutes, but Max wasn’t the same as when he’d left four months before. The boxes were unpacked, and his things had a new place in a new room.

He couldn’t be the same person he was in high school, but against the backdrop of his old life, he’d made a new one.

He had four years to build on it, and the shine of the spotlight didn’t look quite so far away.