In Memory of our friend and shipmate
Max Martinez
Max was a Radioman 2nd class during 1964 -1966 at Farfan Naval Receiving Facility in the Panama Canal Zone. Our friend passed away on Nov, 25, 2001. Below are memories of Max's friends from long after he left Farfan. These memories confirm that Max remained true to himself throughout his life.
Max Martinez left a rich legacy of literature and friendship
by Carlos Guerra
12/02/01 Sunday - San Antonio Express News
When I got to the West Side funeral home, I wondered if I hadn't mistaken the particulars since the parking lot was almost empty. But when Max Martinez 's sister Gloria greeted me, I knew there was no error - only confirmation that writing can be a lonely craft. I extended my condolences and thanked her for caring for him.
Seeing Max - author of five novels, countless short stories and a much longer list of tales by and about him - awakened a smile within me. Dressed in coat and tie - and not the jeans and T-shirts he preferred - I wondered what joke he would have cracked.
He was slimmer than when I last saw him, after a stroke set off a series of medical calamities that finally felled him.
Atop the flag-draped coffin was a photo of a young, steely-eyed sailor. Max served in the Navy for a decade after dropping out of the seventh grade. It was there that he got his G.E.D., his passport to a B.A., M.A. and a doctorate program in English literature.
We were discovering our ethnicity when we met in the 1970s. Max was back after four years in New York and I was running a tiny foundation that was about to launch Magazin, one of the first Chicano literary journals. Max came up with a cover story about a turn-of-the-century border Mexican wrongly accused of banditry.
Our friendship would endure decades, alternatively punctuated with sonorous debates of literature and philosophy and hilarious one-upmanship sessions of bad multilingual puns and turns-of-phrase.
And often, there were explorations of film, which Max so loved that he was the first person I knew who owned a videocassette recorder. His very costly machine used Beta, a format that soon became obsolete, but not before Max had a huge collection of classics for his frame-by-frame perusal.
As the time for the rosary approached Tuesday, a few more walked into the chapel, among them Tatcho Mindiola and Lalo Valdez of the University of Houston faculty that once included Max .
After the prayers, there were recollections of the caring brother and loyal friend whose rigid self-discipline made his writings important to early Latino literature. And it was Max 's grant proposals that helped launch the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center into national prominence.
Juan Tejeda closed the services with his accordion and a haunting rendition of "Las Golondrinas," the traditional song of departure. But at a working-class watering hole, the recollections continued. There were stories of Max chain-smoking through cigarette-holders designed to wean smokers, how his rapier tongue brought him repeated grief and the disappointments of his less-than-spectacular book sales, and his frustration with a film industry that wouldn't go beyond optioning his stories.
And the tales kept returning to Max 's love of language and wit.
"Max came up with the ultimate definition for 'Chicano,'" Mindiola said about an issue that dogged the Mexican American intelligentsia for decades. "He said: 'What's the deal? Chicanos are just pre-Hispanic Mexican-Americans.'"
Wednesday morning, volleys were fired and generic religious assurances were read as a bitterly cold wind whistled through markers at Fort Sam Houston Cemetery. Assembled was a small group that defied icy roads to gather one last time around its friend.
Writing is a lonely craft.
A portion of another essay from Chicano mystery writer Manuel Ramos, a long time friend of Max.
....Max’s life was at least as colorful and hard-boiled as that of any of his characters,
yet I remember that he treated my wife and me with utmost respect, and a gentle
graciousness. My wife loved the man, if for nothing more than that they shared a
passion for greasy, sloppy food smothered with chile and Mexican attitude; sly,
underdog humor; and music that makes you want to dance.
When we traveled to San Antonio he showed us his town, and we learned not only
about his writing and his extensive knowledge of Chicano literature, but also about
puffy tacos, his favorite bar, the best place to listen to Chicano music, and his own
brand of chisme.
I will always see San Antonio through his eyes – the eyes of a man who drank and
smoked too much, a man who knew too much, who wanted too much out of life but
who lived it on his own terms, and, so, he suffered a bit. He didn’t achieve the literary
fame that rightfully belongs to him, but he wrote exactly the kind of books and stories
he wanted to write. He wasn’t the center of attention at a party or any other kind of
gathering, but he certainly was among the most interesting people anywhere. At the
end of his life, he lacked what we sometimes use to measure success: power. But at
the end, Max had friends who remembered him with cariño and respect, who wished
they had spent more time with the guy, and who were actually fond of him. He also
left an enduring legacy in his writing – his articles, novels and the stories that only he
could tell. Max, I can only say that your writing nailed it, bro.
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