Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

He was gone.

I was alone.

My presence weighed as heavily on me as my concrete smile.

So! He’s left me in my dark crevice, in my solitary whirlwind. Children are a complete failure, aren’t they? I don’t know how people can derive any lasting satisfaction out of them.

I couldn’t believe he was gone.

My son!

The sperm that got away!

My failed abortion!

I stepped outside and looked at the stars tattooed on the night sky. It was one of those magnetic nights when you feel everything is either drawn to your body or is repelled by it. All this time I had thought my son was striving to be my mirror opposite, but he wasn’t- he had become my polar opposite instead, and that had sent him careering away.

A week later I felt lost in a dark and heavy cloud. Anouk hadn’t turned up for a couple of days and I sat in her studio, surrounded by plaster genitalia, feeling deeply ashamed because I was bored. What right does a dying man have to be bored? Time was killing me and I retaliated by killing time. Jasper was gone; Anouk had abandoned me. The only person I had left was Eddie, but I really could stand him only for short bursts. It’s a shame you can’t go out and see people for just ten minutes. That’s all the human contact I need to carry me through life for three days- then I need ten minutes more. But you can’t invite someone over for ten minutes. They stay and stay and never leave, and I always have to say something jarring like “You go now.” For many years I tried the favorite, “I won’t keep you any longer,” or “I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” but that never worked. There are far too many people who don’t have anything to do and have nowhere to go and who would like nothing better than to squander their whole lives chatting. I’ve never understood it.

When I heard Anouk’s voice calling my name, a gust of pure joy blew through my heart and I shouted, “I’m here! In the studio!” and I felt the pulse of sexual desire fire up. At once I had the imprudent notion that I should take off my clothes. I hardly even remember peeling them off, I was in such a fervor for union, and by the time she came to the doorway I was fully naked, beaming at her. At first I didn’t understand the frown on her face; then I thought about how I’d been lurking in ambush among the world’s largest collection of genitals, and my own, by comparison, didn’t compare. In my defense, the genitals around me were not to scale.

Then she said, “Um, I’m not alone.” And who should stick his impeccable head through the doorway but Oscar Hobbs.

In a testament to his unshakable coolness, he launched right into it. “I have some news for you,” he said. “I’d like to help you realize one of your ideas.”

I felt about to either shatter or freeze into a solid block. “For God’s sake, why?” I said briskly, then, “Which one?”

“I thought we’d discuss it. Which one would you most like to see realized?”

Good question. I had no clue. I closed my eyes, took a long breath, and dove into my brain. I swam down deep, and in the space of a minute I must have picked up and discarded over a hundred silly schemes. Then I found the one I wanted- an idea with handles. My eyelids sprang open.

“I’d like to start making everyone in Australia a millionaire,” I announced.

“Smart choice,” he said, and I understood immediately that we understood each other. “How do you intend to do that?”

“Trust me. I’ve got it all worked out.”

“Trust you?”

“Obviously, since you’re a major player in a multinational conglomerate, I can’t trust you. So you’ll have to trust me. When it’s time, I’ll tell you the details.”

Oscar gave Anouk the briefest of looks before his eyes returned to me.

“OK,” he said.

“OK? Wait a minute- are you serious about this?”

“Yes.”

In the awkward silence that followed this improbable turn of events, I noticed how the customarily expressionless Oscar was looking at Anouk as if he were struggling against something in his nature. What did it mean? Had Anouk promised him sexual favors? Had she made some strange, unpleasant pact for my benefit? The niggling suspicion compromised my sudden success. That’s how it always is- you never get a complete victory; there are always strings attached. Still, I didn’t hesitate to accept his offer. That was followed by another unexpected slug in the guts, the crushing look of disillusionment on Anouk’s face, as if by accepting Oscar’s offer I had proved myself to be less than she imagined. That I couldn’t understand. This was her idea, wasn’t it?

Anyway, I had to accept it. What choice did I have?

I was time-poor.

We went straight into battle mode. First there was the publicity; we had to whet the public’s appetite. Oscar was smart; he didn’t mess around. The very next day, before we’d even properly discussed how this ludicrous scheme was going to function, he put my picture on the front page of the daily tabloid with the headline “This Man Wants to Make You Rich.” A little clunky, not very elegant, but effective. And that was it for me. The official end to my life as the invisible man.

There was the briefest outline of my idea, without specifics, but most infuriatingly, I was introduced to the Australian public as “Brother of Iconic Outlaw Terry Dean.”

I tore the newspaper into ribbons. Then the telephone started ringing and the lowest forms of human life were on the other end- journalists. What had I gotten myself into? Becoming a public figure is like befriending a rottweiler with meat in your pockets. They all wanted details on how I planned to do it. The first to pick up on the story was a TV producer for a current affairs show, wanting to know if I would be interviewed for a segment. “Of course not,” I said, and hung up. This was just reflex.

“You have to publicize your scheme,” Anouk said.

“Fuck that,” I said weakly. I knew she was right. But how could I speak to these journalists when all I could hear in my head, drowning out their questions, was noisy echoes of an old rage? It turned out I was the kind of person who could hold a grudge for a lifetime. I was still fuming over how the media had relentlessly harassed my family during Terry’s rampage. What was I going to do? They called and called and called. They asked me about myself, my scheme, my brother. Different voices, same questions. When I walked outside, I heard them calling from somewhere within the labyrinth. Helicopters circled overhead. I went inside and locked the door and climbed into bed and turned off the lights. I felt my whole world was on fire. I’d done this to myself, I knew, but that didn’t make it any easier. It made it worse.

The current affairs show ran the story anyway. Oscar Hobbs gave an interview. Apparently he wasn’t going to let my misanthropy ruin everything. To my horror, they dug up footage of me from the time of Terry’s rampage; because I wasn’t watching television then, I’d never seen it. There it was: our town that no longer exists, that I’d burned down with my observatory, and right there on television everyone was alive- my mother, my father, Terry, and even me! Even seventeen-year-old me! It’s impossible to believe I was ever that young. And that skinny. And that ugly. On the television I’m all skin and bones and walking away from the camera with the steady steps of someone moving toward a future he doesn’t know will hurt him. I instantly formed a love-hate relationship with my former self. I loved me for moving so optimistically toward the future, and hated me for getting there and fucking it up.

The following morning I made my way to the Hobbs building, a hushed, seasonless fortress in the city center, seventy-seven floors of soundproof, smell-proof, and poor-proof offices. As soon as I stepped into the lobby, I knew I had grown old inside my nanosecond of eternity. The people racing past me were so young and healthy, I had a coughing fit just looking at them. This was a new type of working man and woman, wholly different from the breed of worker who waits in a fever of impatience for five o’clock to release him from bondage. These were pathologically stressed-out consumers who worked all the time, in industries called new media, digital media, and information technologies. In this place, old methods and technologies were not even remembered, and if they were, they were talked about fondly, as if discussing the death of embarrassing relatives. One thing was certain: this new culture of workers would have baffled the hell out of Marx.