Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Good point. This was major fraud. Everyone said it: Martin, you will have to prepare yourself for prison. How do you prepare yourself for such a thing? By locking yourself in the closet with some stale bread and water? But I’d have to do something. The odds against me were stacking up- stupidly, the state was even reopening the file on The Handbook of Crime. It suddenly occurred to them that they had a case after all. I was like a derelict building scheduled for demolition, and everyone was crowding around to watch.

My only hope was to try to pay back some of the money, on the off-chance that would appease the people a little. I would maintain that I had been as duped as they had, that I would do everything in my power to pay back every cent, even if I spent my life doing it. It was a weak ploy, but I gave it a shot. I had to sell my labyrinth. It was heartbreaking to have to part with what I had so meticulously designed and brought to life, not to achieve a dream of happiness but to achieve a dream of deep suspicion and loathing, a dream of hiding, a dream I had realized- it had hidden me loyally for years.

The day of the auction, I was advised by everyone with a mouth not to show up, but I couldn’t resist seeing who would be the new owner. Jasper was there too; after all, his hut would be sold in the bargain, the hut that we had both pretended to build with our bare hands. The prospective buyers numbered a thousand. I don’t know how many were bona fide bidders and how many turned up just to gawk.

I was overcome with queasy shivers as I arrived. Everyone looked at me and murmured. I yelled out that murmur is the devolution of speech. No one said anything after that. I took my place under my favorite tree, but it didn’t soothe my defeat; the enemy was drinking sparkling wine in the middle of the fortress designed to keep him out. People soon got caught in its teeth, though; it was satisfying how many had to be rescued from the maze. That delayed the proceedings. When the auction finally began, the auctioneer made a little speech referring to the house and the labyrinth as “the kingdom of one of Australia ’s most controversial minds,” which gave me an uneasy, anxious feeling as well as a perverse sense of pride. I folded my arms regally, even though I knew they found me laughable and not like some dethroned king. This labyrinth betrayed the extent of my inflated fears, insecurities, and paranoia, so I felt psychologically naked standing there. Did they know they were all gathered in the place that proved my contention that I was the most scared man alive?

In the end, because of its curiosity, insanity, or infamy, my labyrinth and the two properties hidden within went for an astounding $7.5 million, nearly ten times their worth. This predictably convinced both the press and its loyal subjects, the people, that I was a wealthy man, which of course only served to reinforce their hatred of me. The buyers, I learned, ran a chain of overpriced furniture stores, and they intended to open the place as a tourist attraction. Oh well. As indignities go, it’s not the worst.

I moved my books and my junk into storage and myself into an apartment Anouk rented for me and Caroline. I didn’t even get a chance to offer my $7.5 million to the people like a piece of meat to a dog who’d much rather bite off my leg. The government seized all my assets and froze my bank account. Seized and frozen, and just waiting for the authorities to charge me, I couldn’t be more powerless.

So, then- if I was being taken all the way down, I wanted to take someone with me. But who? I didn’t bother hating my countrymen for hating me. I saved every droplet in my vast reservoir of fury for my abhorrence for journalists, those phony, self-righteous moral watchdogs in heat. For what they did to my mother, to my father. For loving Terry. For hating me. Yes, I would have my revenge against them. I obsessed about this revenge. That’s why I didn’t crack. I wasn’t ready to fall apart yet. I conceived one last project. A hate project. A revenge project, despite the fact that I’ve never been good at revenge, even if it is mankind’s oldest pastime. I’ve never been into defending my honor, either. Personally, I don’t know how anyone can even say the word “honor” with a straight face. I ask you- what’s the difference between “stained honor” and “dented ego”? Does anyone really still believe this shit? No, I wanted revenge simply because the media had repeatedly wounded my ego, my id, and my superego, the whole shebang. And I was going to get them good.

I borrowed money from Caroline and told her it was for legal expenses. Then I called on a private detective named Andrew Smith. He worked out of his home with his wife and poodle and looked like an accountant, not a private investigator. In fact, he looked like he did nothing privately. When I sat down in his office and removed the hood and glasses, he asked what he could do for me. I laid it all out for him. And consummate professional that he was, he refrained completely from judging me for my little, mean-spirited, hate-filled plan. He listened quietly, and at the end gave me a thin-lipped smirk where only one side of his lips raised, and he said, “I’ll get right on it.”

Only two weeks later Andrew Smith came to me with that quasi-smile of his. He was as thorough in his mission as I’d hoped- he had broken I don’t know how many privacy laws and presented me with a dossier. While he fed his dog, I went through the files, giggling, gasping, and guffawing. It was an incredible dossier, and if I hadn’t had other plans for it, I could’ve published it as fiction and made the bestseller list. Now all I had left was to memorize it.

Then I set off to do the only really nasty thing I have ever done.

The live press conference was held on the steps of the Opera House, for no good reason. The smell of the harbor and of the media scrum mingled in the cold morning air. Every reporter, current affairs host, shock jock, and media personality in Sydney had shown up, and we all stood dwarfed by the bizarre geometry of that iconic theater. This reunion, it was something. Me and the media, like a divorced husband and wife meeting for the first time in years at the funeral of their only child.

As soon as I swaggered up to the podium, they posed their loaded questions, as if defending a high ideal. I cut them off.

“Hermaphrodites of the press. I have prepared a short statement: you wouldn’t know decency if it came up and shat on your face. That’s it. I told you it was short. But I’m not here to explain to you why you are parodies of your former selves, I’m here to answer your questions. And knowing how you all like to shout your questions at the same time with little or no regard for your comrades who might have small, fragile voices, I will address each of you individually, and you may ask your questions that way, one by one.”

I gestured to the journalist standing closest to me. “Ah, Mr. Hardy, I’m glad to see you here and not at your gambling counselor’s, where you go Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. What is your question? No? No question?”

They looked at each other in confusion.

“OK. What about you, Mr. Hackerman? I hope you’re not too tired- after all, a man with a wife and two mistresses must have a lot of energy. Your first mistress, twenty-four-year-old journalism student Eileen Bailey, and your second mistress, your wife’s sister June, obviously aren’t keeping you as busy as one would think.

“What’s going on? Where are the questions? What about you, Mr. Loader? I hope you’re not going to hit me with a question in the same way you hit your wife- five times, one police intervention. Did your wife drop the charges because she loves you or because she’s afraid of you? Anyway, what do you want to know? Nothing?”