Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

He hit me in the chest with the stack of pages.

“What is this?”

“This, my boy, is my opus. A handbook for criminals! Everything I’ve learned I’ve written down here. It’s going to be a book! A textbook! I’ve written the textbook on crime! The definitive work!”

I took the collection of handwritten pages and picked a page at random.

Kidnapping

If the media catches whiff of the story, you’re in deep trouble if you haven’t picked your victim wisely. Never take someone young and attractive, the last thing a kidnapper needs is a public outcry…

…find a suitable location to stash your victims…avoid the temptation to use motel or hotel rooms in case the victim breaks free long enough to order room service or fresh towels.

“As you can see, Marty, I need these thoughts to be expanded and put into chapters…”

I picked up another page.

Burn, Baby, Burn: Arson and You

Everyone likes to watch a fire, even you. Avoid the temptation! After you’ve set a building alight, don’t peek from around the corner so you can admire the conflagration…It’s a common trap…most arsonists have been caught within meters of the scene of the crime and police are always on the lookout for shady characters standing around saying to bystanders, “Some fire, huh?”

His masterpiece was written on scraps of paper, on the backs of receipts, on napkins, paper towels, newspapers, toilet paper, and hundreds of loose-leaf pages, reams of the stuff. There were instructions, diagrams, flowcharts, thoughts, reflections, maxims, and aphorisms on every possible aspect of the criminal life. Each thought had an underlined title, which was the only hint at how one might make some order of the chaos.

Home Break-in

Don’t enter a home unless you’re sure the resident hasn’t just gone out to pick up a carton of milk…be quick…don’t stop to browse in the bookshelves…

“Of course there’ve been countless books on the subject of crime, but they’re either sociological studies or written to help criminologists and police. Crime-fighting, basically. No one’s written a book by and for the criminals themselves.” He stuffed the papers into a brown satchel and cradled it like a baby. “I’m entrusting this to you.”

I took the satchel. It was heavy, the weight of the meaning of Harry’s life.

“I’m not doing this for the money, so I’ll split the profit with you fifty-fifty, straight down the line.”

“Harry, I don’t know if I want to do this.”

“Who cares what you want? I’ve got a lot of knowledge to impart! I have to get it out there in the world before I die! Otherwise my life will have been for nothing! If it’s money you’re thinking about, then forget the fifty percent. Take it all! I don’t care! I really don’t. Here.”

Harry ran to the bed and grabbed a pillow and shook it until money fell out of the pillowcase, spilling onto the floor. On his one good leg, he squatted and bounced around the room, scooping up the money. “You want cash? You want the shirt off my back? You want the heart from my chest? Name it. It’s yours. Only for God’s sake, help me! Help me! Help me!” He thrust the money in my face. How could I refuse him? I took the money and his opus but thought: There’s always time to change my mind later.

That night, in my father’s shed, I pored over Harry’s scrawls in amazement. Some of his notes were short and appeared to be written with morons in mind.

Car Theft

If you can only drive an automatic, don’t steal manuals.

Others were more in-depth and not only concentrated on how to perform the crime but included psychological insights into the intended victim.

Mugging

Be prepared! Despite what common sense tells us, people will risk their lives to chase after the two dollars in their wallets or handbags…and if the mugging takes place in broad daylight, they are especially incensed…the audacity of a criminal to steal while the sun is high in the sky is so irritating to them, they will run at you like an action hero, even if you are holding a knife or a gun…also, it seems the hassle of canceling a credit card and the thought of applying for a new driver’s license are so unbearable to the majority of the general public, they are more than willing to die to avoid it…in their minds, a slow agonizing death by knife wound is infinitely preferable to dealing with the bureaucracy of the motor registry…that’s why you need to be as fit as a long-distance runner.

This was either rubbish or it was brilliant, and I couldn’t decide which. I stood up from the table, intending to have a break, but I found myself standing hunched over Harry’s notes reading through them feverishly. Something about this insanity got under my skin. There seemed to be a pattern forming: my father built a prison; Terry became a criminal influenced by a prisoner he met in the prison my father built. And me? Maybe this was my role. Maybe this book was finally something I could stake my life on, something to take with me into the cold, abandoned furnace of death. I couldn’t drag myself away. The pages were beckoning me like the glint of light from a coin at the bottom of a swimming pool. I knew I had to dive in to see if the coin was valuable or if it was just some aluminum foil blown in by the wind.

I lit a cigarette and stood at the door of the shed and looked up at the sky. It was a dark night with only three stars visible, and not the famous ones. I put a hand in my pocket and felt the scrunched-up wads of cash. After all the lectures I’d given Terry about crime, how could I do this? Wouldn’t that make me a hypocrite? And so what if it did? Is being a hypocrite such a terrible thing? Doesn’t hypocrisy actually demonstrate flexibility in a person? If you stand by your principles, doesn’t that mean you’re rigid and close-minded? Yes, I have principles, but so what? Does that mean I have to live my life unbendingly by them? I chose the principles unconsciously to guide my behavior, but can’t a person assert his conscious mind to override the unconscious? Who’s the boss here, anyway? And am I to trust my young self to dictate the standards of my behavior throughout my whole life? And might I not be wrong about everything? Why should I bind myself to the musings of my own brain? Am I not now, at this moment, rationalizing because I want the money? And why shouldn’t I rationalize? Isn’t the benefit of evolution that we possess a rational mind? Wouldn’t the chicken be happier if he had one too? Then he could say to mankind, “Would you please stop chopping off my head to see if I will run around without it? How long is that going to amuse you?”

I rubbed my head. I felt an existential migraine coming on, a real blinder.

I went out and walked along the dark road into the town. With his newfound celebrity, Terry had given the criminal world a face. With this book, Harry and I would be giving it a brain. It felt good to be a part of something bigger than myself. The lights from the town were flicking off, one by one. I could see the silhouette of the prison on the hill. It loomed large and grotesque, like an enormous stone head of some long-dead god eroding on a cliff. I spoke out loud: “Why shouldn’t I do what I want? What’s stopping me?”

I felt a lump in my throat the size of a fist. It was the first time I’d ever questioned myself so rigorously, and it seemed as if the questions were being articulated by someone older than myself.

I continued to speak out loud: “People trust too much in themselves. What they take for truth, they let rule their lives, and if I set out to find a way to live so I will be in control of my life, then I actually lose control, because the thing I have decided on, my truth, becomes the ruler and I become its servant. And how can I be free to evolve if I’m submitting myself to a ruler, any ruler, even if that ruler is me?”