Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

“I don’t want to be alone anymore. My clothes smell.”

“I want to accomplish something.”

“I’ve gotten so lazy. I haven’t learned anything since I was at school.”

“I’m going to plant a lemon tree, not for me but for my children’s children. Lemons are the future.”

It was thrilling to hear. The incessant universe had made them look at themselves, if not from the perspective of eternity, then at least with a bit more clarity. For a few minutes they were stirred to the depths, and I suddenly felt rewarded and compensated for all the damage my suggestion box had done.

It made me think too.

One night after I had come down from the observatory, I found myself frozen in the garden at midnight fretting on the future of my family, trying to come up with ideas of how to save them all. Unfortunately, the idea bank was empty. I had made too many withdrawals. Besides, how do you save a dying mother, an alcoholic father, and a criminally insane little brother? Anxiety threatened to damage my stomach lining and also my urethra.

I carried a bucket of water from the house and poured it in a shallow ditch at the end of the garden. I thought: I might not be able to make a better life for my loved ones, but I can still make mud. The dirt met the water and thickened appropriately. I plunged my feet in it. It was cold and gooey. The back of my neck tingled. I thanked my mother aloud for instructing me in the glories of mud. It’s so rare that people give you real, practical advice. Normally they say things like “Don’t worry,” and “Everything will be OK,” which is not only impractical, it’s exasperating, and you have to wait until they’re diagnosed with a terminal disease before you can say it back to them with any pleasure.

I sank deeper into the mud, using all my force, all the way to the tops of my ankles. I wanted to go farther into the cold sludge. A lot farther. I thought about getting more water. A lot more. Just then I heard footsteps running through the bush and I saw branches shuddering as if repulsed. A face popped out and said, “Marty?”

Harry stepped into the moonlight. He was wearing his prison denims and was badly cut and bleeding.

“I escaped! What are you doing? Cooling your feet in mud? Hang on.” Harry came over and sank his bare feet in the ditch next to mine. “That’s better. Well, there I was. Lying in my cell, contemplating how the best years of my life were behind me and how they weren’t that good. Then I contemplated how all I had to look forward to was decaying and dying in jail. You’ve seen the prison- it’s no sort of place at all. I thought: If I don’t at least try to make a break for it, I’ll never forgive myself. Fine. But how? In movies, prisoners always escape by smuggling themselves inside a laundry truck. Could it work? No. You know why? Because maybe in the old days prisons sent out their laundry, but we did ours in-house! So that was out. Second option, digging a tunnel. Now, I’ve dug enough graves in my time to know it’s tedious, backbreaking work, and besides, all my experience is in the first six feet, enough to hide a body. Who really knows what lies deeper? Molten lava? An unbreakable shelf of iron ore?”

Harry looked down at his feet. “I think the mud’s setting. Help me out of here,” he said, holding out his arm as if it were for sale. I helped him out and he collapsed on a small mound of grass.

“Get me something to wear, and a beer if you’ve got it. Hurry up,” he said.

I went inside and sneaked into my father’s closet; he was sleeping facedown on the bed, a deep drunken sleep with such a shattering snore I almost stopped to check his nose for an amplifier and lead. I picked out an old suit, then went to the fridge for beers. When I returned, Harry was ankle deep in mud again.

“First thing I did was fake an illness: stabbing abdominal pains. What else was I going to use? Back pain? Middle-ear infection? Was I going to complain that I saw a drop of blood in my urine? No, they needed to think it was a matter of life and death. So I did it and found myself sent to the infirmary, at three in the morning, when only one man was on duty. So I’m in the infirmary, doubled up in pretend pain. At about five the guard on duty goes out for a piss. At once I leap out of bed and break the lock of the medicine cabinet and steal all the liquid tranquilizers I can. I jab the guard when he comes back and then go around looking for another guard to help me get out of there. I knew I’d never get out without a guard’s help, but these bastards were unbribable, for the most part. Not that they weren’t corrupt, they just didn’t like me. But a couple of weeks before, I called in all my old favors and got one of my cronies to supply me with information about a certain guard’s family. I chose one of the newer guys- Kevin Hastings is his name, he’s been with us only two months, so he was less likely to know his arse from his elbow. It’s hilarious how these bastards think they’re anonymous in prison. You can really freak them out when you tell them you know precisely what positions they use with their wives, duration, et cetera. Anyway, Hastings turned out to be perfect. The man has a daughter. I wouldn’t have done anything, but I had to scare the life out of the bugger. And even if he didn’t bite, what did I have to lose? Would they really bother giving me another life sentence? I already have six!” Harry paused here a moment, reflecting, and said quietly, “I’ll tell you something, Marty, there’s freedom in forever.”

I nodded. It sounded true.

“So anyway, I go right up to Hastings and whisper in his ear, ‘Get me out of here now or else your lovely little daughter Rachael will enjoy the pleasure of a very diseased man I know.’ His face went white and he slipped me the keys, let me bang him on the noggin so he wouldn’t be under suspicion, and that’s all there was to it. I don’t feel proud of myself, but it was just a threat. When I’m safely hidden away, I’ll call him and ease his mind that his daughter is safe.”

I said, “Good one.”

“So what’s next for you, Marty? I don’t suppose you want to come with me? Be an accessory. What do you say?”

I told Harry about the bond I’d made with my mother that prevented me from leaving town at present.

“Wait, what kind of bond?”

“Well, it was more like an oath.”

“You made an oath with your mother?”

“Well, what’s so strange about that?” I asked, annoyed. What was the big deal? It’s not like I had confessed to sleeping with my mother, I merely pledged allegiance not to leave her side.

Harry didn’t say anything. His mouth was half open and I could feel his eyes tunneling deep into my cranium. He slapped his hand on my shoulder. “Well, can’t talk you out of an oath, can I?”

I agreed that he couldn’t.

“Well, good luck, old boy,” he said before turning and disappearing into the dark bush. “See you next time,” his disembodied voice called out. He left without even asking after Terry.

A week later my mother came into my room with big news. “Your brother’s coming home today. Your father’s gone to collect him,” she said, as if he were a long-awaited parcel. Terry had become a sort of fictitious character to us in the year he’d been gone, and the psychiatrist, by reducing him to a catalogue of psychological symptoms, had robbed my brother of his individuality. True, the complexity of his psychosis impressed us- he was collateral damage in a war waged between his deeper instincts- but it posed a question that plagued us: which Terry would be coming home? My brother, my mother’s son, or the impotent destroyer desperate for transcendence of the self?