Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

I didn’t let up. I let loose. I let all the cats out of all the bags. I asked in turn about their marriage counselors, penile implants, hair transplants, cosmetic surgery, about one who had cheated his brother out of his inheritance, about seven who had cocaine addictions and one who’d left his wife just after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. By humiliating them one by one, I turned the assembled crowd into individuals again. They were unprepared, squirming and sweating under the glare of their own spotlight.

“Didn’t you tell your psychologist just last week that you’ve always wanted to rape a woman? I have the recording right here,” I said, tapping my briefcase. What were a few defamation and invasion-of-privacy charges when I was going down for fraud? “And you, Clarence Jennings from 2CI. I heard from a certain hairdresser that you only like to sleep with your wife when she’s menstruating. Why is that? Come on! Out with it! The public has a right to know!”

They were swinging their cameras and microphones on each other. They wanted to shut them off, but they couldn’t miss the scoop when the competition was right there beside them. They didn’t know what to do or how to act. It was chaos! You can’t erase a live broadcast; their secret lives were dripping through television sets and radio speakers everywhere, and they knew it. They condemned each other out of habit, but then it was their turn in the sick limelight. They stared at me, at each other, disbelieving, ridiculed, like gnawed bones positioned upright. One removed his jacket and tie. Another sobbed. The majority wore terrified smiles. They appeared reluctant to move an inch. Caught with their pants down! Finally! These people had for too long taken on the importance of the subjects they reported on, strutting around as if they were celebrities themselves, yet laboring under the misapprehension that their lives were exclusively their own. Well, not anymore. They were caught in the morality traps they themselves had set. Branded by their own cruel irons.

I gave them a leering wink so they could be certain I had thoroughly enjoyed invading the sanctuary of their lives. Fear was in their throats- they were petrified. It was magnificent to watch the falling of great masses of pride.

“Now go home,” I said, and they did. They went off to drown their sorrows in beer and shadows. I stayed alone, with the silence saying everything it always says.

That night I celebrated by myself in Caroline’s apartment. She was there but wouldn’t inhale so much as a champagne bubble in the name of victory.

“Well, that was childish,” she said, standing at the fridge eating ice cream from the carton. Of course she was right. Nevertheless, I felt sublime. As it turned out, hateful revenge was the only pure aspiration from my youth that had survived intact, and its satisfaction, however puerile, deserved at least one glass of Moët et Chandon. But the awful inevitability of the situation had dawned on me: they’d be coming for me soon with redoubled strength. I must right now choose between the reality of prison and the reality of suicide. I thought I really would have to kill myself this time. I couldn’t do prison. I have a horror of all forms of uniform and most forms of sodomy. So suicide it was. According to the conventions of this society, I’d seen my son reach adulthood, so my death would be sad but not tragic. Dying parents are allowed to moan about not seeing their children grow up, but not about not seeing them grow old. Well, fuck- maybe I wanted to see my son graying and shrinking, even if I had to witness it through the foggy frosted glass of a cryogenic deep freeze.

What’s that? I hear a car. Shit. I hear footsteps. The haunting percussive beat of footsteps! They stop. Now I hear knocking! Someone’s knocking at the door! Suicide? Prison?

Well, what do you know: a third option!

I have to finish this off quick. There isn’t much time.

I came out of the bedroom to see Caroline curled up on the couch like a long skinny dog. “Don’t answer it,” she said, not speaking these words out loud but mouthing them noiselessly. I took off my shoes and crept up to the door. The floorboards complained under me. I gritted my teeth, took a few more creaky steps, and peeped through the peephole.

Anouk, Oscar Hobbs, and Eddie were standing there with big convex heads. I opened the door. They all hurried inside.

“OK. I’ve spoken to a friend in the federal police,” Oscar said. “I had a tip-off. They’re coming to arrest you tomorrow.”

“Morning or afternoon?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe a little. I can get a lot done in five or six hours.” That was just bravado. The truth was, I’ve never been able to get anything done in five or six hours. I need eight.

“And what’s he doing here?” I asked, pointing at Eddie.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Eddie said.

“You mean- run?”

Eddie nodded with such energy he lifted up onto his toes.

“Well, if I decide to run, what makes you think I’d run with you? And where could we go anyway? The whole of Australia knows my face now, and it’s not something they cherish.”

“ Thailand,” Eddie said. “Tim Lung has offered to hide you.”

“That crook! What makes you think-”

“You’ll die here in jail, Marty.”

That settled things. Not even I would go to jail simply to be able to tell Eddie to fuck off. “But we’ll get stopped at the airport. They’ll never let me leave the country.”

“Here,” Eddie said, handing me a brown envelope. I looked inside and pulled out the contents. Australian passports. Four of them. One for me, one for him, one for Caroline, and one for Jasper. Our photos were there but the names were different. Jasper and I were Kasper and Horace Flint, Caroline was Lydia Walsh, and Eddie was Aroon Jaidee.

“How did you get these?” I asked.

“Courtesy of Tim Lung.”

Yielding to an impulse, I picked up an ashtray and hurled it against the wall. It didn’t change anything substantial.

“But it’s still my face on the passport!” I shouted.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Eddie said. “I have it all worked out.”

Caroline put her arms around me and we assaulted each other with whispered questions, each terrified to acknowledge the desires of the other lest they contradict.

“Would you like me to come with you?” Caroline asked.

“What do you want to do?”

“Will I make life hard for you on the run? Will I be in the way?”

“Do you want to stay?” I asked wearily.

“Dammit, Martin, just tell me one way or the other. Do you want me to work on your case from here?” Caroline offered, the idea having arrived at her lips at the same time it struck her brain. I understood that her questions were thinly veiled answers.

“Caroline,” Anouk said, “if Martin goes missing, the police are going to give you a pretty hard time.”

“So will the public,” Oscar added.

Caroline was suffering. The shape of her face seemed to lengthen like a shadow. I watched conflicting thoughts play out in her eyes.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“So am I.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t want to be left.”

“I do love you.”

“I was beginning to think…”

She put her finger on my lips. Normally I hate it when people shut me up, but I love it when women put their fingers on my lips.

“We’ll go together,” she said breathlessly.

“OK, we’re coming,” I said to Eddie “But why did you get a passport for Jasper? He doesn’t need to go on the run.”

“I think he should,” Eddie said.