Maxwell H. Brock is a major character in A Bucket of Blood.
Biography[]
Maxwell was a poet, naturalist and social rebel. He was frequently seen performing readings at the beatnik club known as The Yellow Door. He wrote all of his poems with heat of passion and he only ever recited them once, insisting that "repetition is dead" and that he was constantly in need of new intellectual stimuli. He was something of a favored celebrity at The Yellow Door and the club's clientele frequently flocked to him, though Brock only had tolerance for those who were "aware".
One day, Maxwell took an interest into a local waiter named Walter Paisley who presented a "sculpture" that he called "Dead Cat". Maxwell was fascinated by this sculpture and he felt that Paisley was a natural talent with a refreshing flavor to an otherwise "sterile century". Due to Brock's endorsement, Paisley became something of a celebrity himself and as his popularity grew, so did the complexity of his sculptures. However, nobody knew that "Dead Cat" was actually the body of Walter's landlady's cat and that Walter was never an artist to begin with.
After Walter presented his three other "sculptures" of a man with his head cracked open, a woman sitting down and grasping at her throat, and the bust of a man's head, Brock used his influence at the club to hold a special gallery showcasing Walter's work. During the exhibition however, some chipped bits of clay fell away from one of his statues, exposing the flesh that lied beneath it. Accusing Paisley of murder, Brock joined the rest of the club regulars in decrying Walter's actions and chasing him through the city streets in the hopes of capturing him. They chased him back to his apartment where they find Walter, having committed suicide by hanging himself.