Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

“You and your brother are unique. You are not, either of you, influenced in any significant way by those around you. You don’t try to imitate them. You stand apart, even from each other. That kind of fierce individualistic streak is rare. You are both born leaders, you know.”

“Terry might be.”

“You too, Marty! Problem is, mate, you’re in the fucking sticks! The type of followers you might have had just don’t grow here. Tell me something- you don’t like people very much, do you?”

“They’re OK.”

“Do you think you’re superior to them?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you like them?”

I wondered if I should open up to this lunatic. It occurred to me that nobody had ever taken an interest in what I thought or felt before. Nobody had ever taken an interest in me.

“Well, for one,” I said, “I’m jealous of their happiness. And second, it infuriates me that they seem to have made up their minds without thinking first.”

“Go on.”

“It seems that they’re just keeping themselves busy at any and every task that distracts them from the impulse of thinking about their own existence. Why else would they smash the heads of their neighbors together over different football teams, if it didn’t serve the purpose of helping them avoid the thought of their own impending deaths?”

“You know what you’re doing?”

“No.”

“You’re philosophizing.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are. You’re a philosopher.”

“No I’m not!” I shouted. I didn’t want to be a philosopher. All they do is sit around and think. They grow fat. They don’t know how to do anything practical like weed their own gardens.

“Yes, Martin, you are. I’m not saying you’re a good one, just that you’re a natural one. It’s not an insult, Marty. Listen. I’ve been labeled many times a criminal- an anarchist, a rebel, sometimes human garbage, but never a philosopher, which is a pity because that’s what I am. I chose a life apart from the common flow, not only because the common flow makes me sick but because I question the logic of the flow, and not only that- I don’t even know if the flow exists! Why should I chain myself to the wheel when the wheel itself might be a construct, an invention, a common dream to enslave us?” Harry leaned forward and I could smell his stale cigarette breath. “You’ve felt it too, Marty. As you say, you don’t know why people act without thinking. You ask why. That’s an important question for you. Now I ask you- why the why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. It’s all right, Martin. Tell me- why the why?”

“Well, as long as I can remember, in the afternoons, my mother served me up cold glasses of milk. Why not warm? Why milk? Why not coconut juice or mango lassis? I asked her once. She said that this was what children at my age drank. And another time, during dinner, she chastised me for placing my elbows on the table while eating. I asked why. She said, ‘It’s rude.’ I said, ‘Rude to who? To you? In what way?’ Again she was stumped, and as I went to bed ‘because seven p.m. is bedtime for children under seven,’ I realized that I was blindly following the orders of a woman who herself was blindly following rumors. I thought: Maybe things don’t have to be this way. They could be done another way. Any other way.”

“So you feel people have accepted things that may not be true?”

“But they have to accept things, otherwise they can’t live their daily lives. They have to feed their family, and put a roof over their heads. They don’t have the luxury of sitting around thinking and asking why.”

Harry clapped his hands in delight. “And now you take the opposite view in order to hear the counterargument! You’re arguing with yourself! That also is the sign of a philosopher!”

“I’m not a fucking philosopher!”

Harry came and sat down beside me, his frighteningly pummeled face close to mine.

“Look, Marty, let me tell you something. Your life isn’t going to get any better. In fact, think of your worst moment. Are you thinking of it? Well, let me tell you. It’s all downhill from there.”

“Maybe.”

“You know you haven’t a chance in hell of happiness.”

That was upsetting news to hear, and I took it badly, maybe because I had the uncomfortable feeling that Harry understood me. Tears came to my eyes, but I fought them. Then I started thinking about tears. What was evolution up to when it rendered the human body incapable of concealing sadness? Is it somehow crucial to the survival of the species that we can’t hide our melancholy? Why? What’s the evolutionary benefit of crying? To elicit sympathy? Does evolution have a Machiavellian streak? After a big cry, you always feel drained and exhausted and sometimes embarrassed, especially if the tears come after watching a television commercial for tea bags. Is it evolution’s design to humble us? To humiliate us?

Fuck.

“You know what I think you should do?” Harry asked.

“What?”

“Kill yourself.”

“Time!” the guard called.

“Two more minutes!” Harry shouted back.

We sat glaring at each other.

“Yep, I advise you to commit suicide. It’s the best thing for you. There is no doubt a cliff or something you can jump from around here.”

My head moved slightly, though it wasn’t a nod or a shake. It was a slight reverberation.

“Go alone. When no one is with you. Don’t write a note. Many potential suiciders spend so much time composing their final words they wind up dying of old age! Don’t let this be your mistake. When it comes to taking your own life, preparation is procrastination. Don’t say goodbye. Don’t pack a bag. Just walk to the cliff alone one late afternoon- afternoon is best because it sits solidly at the end of a day when nothing in your life has changed for the better, so you aren’t suffering the tender illusion of potential and possibility that morning often brings. So then, you’re at the edge of the cliff now, and you’re alone, and you don’t count down from ten or a hundred, and you don’t make a big thing of it, you just go, don’t jump, this isn’t the Olympics, this is a suicide, so just step off the edge of the cliff like you’re climbing the steps of a bus. Have you ever been on a bus? Fine. Then you know what I’m talking about.”

“I said time’s up!” the guard shouted, this time from the door.

Harry gave me a look that set off an intestinal chain reaction. “Well,” he said, “I suppose this is goodbye, then.”

There’s no shortage of potential suicide jump points when you live in a valley. Our town was surrounded by cliff walls. I made my way up the steepest I could find, an exhausting, almost vertical climb to a ridge flanked by tall trees. After leaving the prison, I had conceded that Harry was right: I probably was a philosopher, or at least some kind of perennial outsider, and life wasn’t going to get any easier for me. I’d separated myself from the flow, ejected my pod from the mother ship. Now I was hurtling through space that loomed endlessly ahead.

The mood of the brightening morning was incongruous to suicide, but maybe that’s just what it wanted me to think. I took a last look around. I saw, in the hazy distance, the jagged ridge of the surrounding hills, and above, the sky, which seemed to be a high, unattainable plate-glass window. A light breeze carried the warm fragrance of flowers in waves, and I thought: Flowers really are lovely but not lovely enough to excuse the suffocating volume of paintings and poems inspired by them while there are still next to no paintings and poems of children throwing themselves off cliffs.

I took a step closer to the edge. High in the trees I could hear the sounds of birds. They weren’t chirping, they were just moving around making everything rustle. Down near the earth brown beetles were rummaging in the dirt, not thinking of death. It didn’t seem to me I’d be missing out on much. Existence is humiliating anyway. If Someone was watching us build, decay, create, degenerate, believe, and wither as we do, he’d never stop laughing. So why not? What do I know about suicide? Only that it is a melodramatic act, as well as an admission that the heat is too hot so I’m getting out of this crazy kitchen. And why shouldn’t a fourteen-year-old commit suicide? Sixteen-year-olds do it all the time. Maybe I’m just ahead of my time. Why shouldn’t I end it all?