Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

I gulped, despite myself. The blind spot. The fucking blind spot. Everyone has one. Even the geniuses. Even Freud and Nietzsche had mile-wide blind spots that wound up corrupting some element of their work. So was this mine? That I was sickeningly similar to my father, that I was turning into him, that I was going to inherit not just his antisocial behavior but his diseased thought processes as well? I was already worried that my depression back in Australia had had echoes of his depression.

Eddie sat on his examination table and kicked his legs in the air.

“It’s so refreshing to be speaking my mind. Keeping secrets is exhausting. I would like to tell you the truth, not just about you, but about me and what you and your father and your uncle have done to my life. So you know. It’s important that you know. Because when I finish telling you, you’ll understand why you must convince everyone to leave this house at once. I don’t care how you do it, but you have to make everyone leave. Before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Just listen. When Terry offered me the job of looking after your dad, I took it as a way to escape a future I was uncertain of. ‘Help them out when they need help, make sure they keep out of trouble, and take photos of them, as many photographs as you can,’ Terry said. That was my mission. Didn’t sound too tough. How was I supposed to know it was going to ruin my life? It’s my own fault, though, I’ll admit. I accepted a devil’s bargain. Have you noticed that in books and movies the Devil is always depicted with a sense of humor while God is deadly serious? I think in reality it would be the other way around, don’t you?”

“Probably.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit. But watching your lives was like watching an accident in slow motion. It was compelling. When I was away from Australia, away from your dad and you, I felt I was missing episodes of my favorite TV show. It was maddening. I’d be making love to my wife and thinking, ‘What are they up to now? What trouble are they in? I’m missing it, dammit!’ And I found I made excuses to return earlier and earlier. And I’d go back to listen to your father’s insipid, unending diatribes, but I couldn’t drag myself away. I was hooked. I was a junkie, plain and simple. I was hopelessly addicted to you.”

Eddie was kicking wildly now and bouncing up and down. I couldn’t stop him if I wanted to. I just had to weather this outburst.

“For twenty years I tried to get away, to wean myself off this drug of your family. But I couldn’t. When I wasn’t with you, I didn’t know who I was. I was not a person, I was a nothing. When I went back to Australia and saw you both embroiled in some ridiculous episode, I felt alive. I felt such brightness it practically came out my eyes. My wife wanted a child, but how could I when I already had two children? Yes, I love you both as much as I hate you both, more than you will ever know. I can tell you, after I deposited you two in Terry’s lap, I was devastated. Mission accomplished. I knew as soon as I moved home that I could no longer stand to be with my wife. And I was right. She couldn’t understand why I was irritable, why I was empty. I couldn’t share the emptiness with her and I didn’t love her enough for her to fill it with love, so I left her and came up here. You see? I am completely empty, and I’ve come here in order to try to fill myself. Now do you understand why you must leave? I’ve come here to find myself again, to find out who I am. I’m building myself from the ground up. Your father is always talking about projects. You were my project. And now I need another one. That’s why I need patients. I’m continuing my life where I was interrupted, and obviously I can’t do it with you two here. That’s why you have to talk your uncle into taking you all out of here.”

“Why don’t you just throw us out?”

“Well, Mr. Smug, Mr. Condescension, I can’t. You might think your uncle’s all fun and games, but I’ve seen the violence he’s capable of.”

“Terry’s pretty stubborn. I don’t think I’d have much luck convincing him of anything.”

“Please, Jasper. Please. Your father’s dying. And he is going to do one more crazy thing, and it’s going to be a big one. You must know that too. You can feel it coming, can’t you? It’s like an approaching storm. It’s going to be something wild and unexpected and dangerous and stupid. I stay up nights thinking about it. What is he going to do? Do you know? What is it? I must know. But I can’t. You see? You must leave!”

“I’ll try to speak to Terry.”

“You don’t try, you do. What do you think will happen when your father dies? It’s you that will take up his heritage of doing crazy, unbelievable things. And you will turn out to be an even bigger spectacle than your dad. And that’s why I promise you, if you don’t leave now, I will follow you doggedly for your whole life until you have a son, and then I will have a son just so my son can follow your son. Don’t you see? This is an addiction that can go on for generations! For centuries! We’re at a crucial point here, Jasper. If I don’t get off you now, I will be attached to you forever.”

That was an unpleasant thought.

“Anyway. That’s it. Go speak to your uncle. If you stay, I don’t know what I’ll do. Slit your throats in your sleep, probably.” With that thought he let out a laugh, the kind where you don’t see any teeth. “Leave me alone now. I must pray to my parents.”

Eddie laid some brightly colored flowers on the floor and knelt in front of them and started muttering. He prayed daily for success, which was bad news- when a doctor in your neighborhood prays for business, you’d better hope his gods aren’t listening.

I poked my head into Terry’s room on the way to bed. Even though I’d knocked and he’d said come in, he hadn’t bothered to throw clothes on. He was standing naked in the center of the room.

“Hey, Jasper! What’s going on?”

“Never mind. Goodnight.”

I closed the door. I wasn’t in the mood for chatting to a fat naked man at the moment. Then again, I wasn’t in the mood for having my throat slit in my sleep either. I reopened the door. Terry hadn’t moved.

“Jesus, can’t you knock?”

“Eddie’s gone crazy. He’s threatening to slit our throats in our sleep.”

“That’s not especially hospitable, is it?”

“I don’t think he wants to kill us, I just think that by being here, Dad and I are likely to push him over the edge.”

“So?”

“So shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Probably.”

“Good.”

“But we’re not going to.”

“Why not?”

His eyebrows were all bunched up, and his mouth was open as if any second he were going to speak. Any second now.

“Terry. Are you all right?”

“Of course I am. I’m a little agitated, that’s all. I’m not used to being agitated. You know, I’ve been away from my family for so long, it’s having a funny effect on me having you two here. I don’t feel quite myself. I don’t feel quite as…free. I’ve started fretting about you two, if you want to know the truth. And I haven’t fretted about anything or anyone in a long time.”

“And Caroline? Are you fretting about her too?”

Terry’s face turned purple in a split second. Then his eyes went all funny. I felt I was standing outside a house watching someone flick the lights on and off.

“You’re a pretty intuitive guy, Jasper. What is your intuition telling you? Mine is telling me that something is going to happen in this house. I’m not sure what. It could be a good thing, though I doubt it. It’ll probably be a bad thing. It could even be a very bad thing. And maybe we should get out of here, but I’m insanely curious. Aren’t you? Curiosity is one of my favorite things. Intense curiosity is like one of those tantric orgasms, a long, maddening, delayed pleasure. That’s what it is.”