A Man like Max

Max Fenig should have been an ordinary, decent person. All he wanted was to be left alone. But Max is no Greta Garbo and his wish was not to be granted.

As anyone who has seen the two-parter, 'Tempus Fugit'/'Max' knows, Max Fenig died, along with one-hundred-thirty-three others when Flight 549 crashed with, apparently, only one survivor. What set Max apart from those others, what prevented Max’s being just an ordinary, decent person, is the role imposed upon him; that of alien abductee – a part in a drama the playing out of which led to the fate of 549.

Mulder has an affinity for Max. As much as Max hated his abduction experiences, Mulder is almost overjoyed when he discovers nine minutes missing, implying alien activity, and suggesting, to Mulder at least, that Max wasn’t aboard Flight 549 when it hit the ground. Even though it might mean another abduction scenario for poor Max, it would at least hold out hope of his still being alive. It seems to be important to Mulder that Max not be dead.

A kindred spirit, maybe. Someone who truly understood the struggle, as even Scully can’t, for all her involvement. Max is an abductee who seeks the truth, Mulder’s sister was abducted and he seeks the truth of that. Scully was abducted and may only just be starting the process of coming to terms with that experience as something that actually happened.

Mulder and Scully are not ordinary people – and sometimes they’re not even decent! Both are highly qualified, highly skilled and hugely experienced agents of the Federal Government. They are anything but ordinary. Max, by contrast, is. Or should have been.

We don’t know an awful lot about Max. We know about his abduction experiences and his dedication to a mission not unlike Mulder’s. He does seem to be quite intelligent, certainly no dummy. His ability to use the Wolf Ear 2000, the electronic equipment he has in his trailer, on which he recorded the Mobile Unit Broadcast from Townsend Sheriff Department in ‘Fallen Angel’, would seem proof enough of this. So too does the fact that he was able to gain employment at Rocky Flats Environment Energy Site in Colorada. Though we don’t know what position he filled there, it’s unlikely he was a tea boy or floor sweeper.

Intelligent, then, and not without means – how else does he afford the Wolf Ear 2000? Fully committed to his crusade, as much from necessity as obsession. But not so savvy at the cloak and dagger routine. Max is clueless as to how the military picked him up a hundred yards past the roadblock in ‘Fallen Angel’. Max is no Agent Mulder.

Max was a man who had his ordinariness stolen.

Maybe there is a correlation between ordinariness and decency. Ordinary people are more likely to be decent people.

An ordinary Max Fenig would never have taken plutonium onto a packed airliner. An ordinary Max Fenig would have thought about the lives put in danger. But the extraordinary Max Fenig has a mission and nothing must stand between him and its completion. The affinity between Max and Mulder becomes clearer, does it not?

Ordinary, decent people don’t have to raise their heads above the parapet and suffer the slings and arrows of ridicule as Mulder does. Ordinary, decent people don’t normally put the lives of others at risk as does Max by getting on that plane.

The sane thing would be to wish for more ordinary, decent people.

But we’re always going to need a Max and a Mulder – as they so spectacularly crash and burn so they lighten up our world.