Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

I wonder if I’m reaching out for Caroline in particular or just for someone who knew me before five minutes ago.

4 June

This morning woke to sound of children laughing- that shit me. Even worse- found decision had taken place in my head overnight- Today Martin Dean will go to Caroline Potts & declare undying love & devotion.I lay in bed stuffing stomach w/butterflies. Thought how all my life-altering decisions are command decisions made from the highest peak of hierarchy of self- when orders boom from commander in chief what can you do? I showered shaved drank stale wine & dressed. In head 2 fragmented Caroline memories 1. her smile, tho not her smiling face, just the smile like a suspended pair of dentures 2. her handstands- plaid skirt hanging down to her armpits- jesus how that innocent childlike act made me want to pounce on her in brutal tho heartfelt manner.

Went into bowels of city then suffocating metro ride out of Paris. Saw four horse-faced people. 14-year-old toughie tried to pick my pocket making me realize I don’t know French word for Hey!

Finally sat on low stone wall opposite small many-windowed building, all shutters closed as if forever. Hard to believe this dirty apartment building housed the woman I love. Commander sensing I was about to linger screeched in my ear so I marched to front door & pounded. Bit my lower lip too tho commander hadn’t ordered it.

Door handle turned slowly & insensitively to prolong immaculate agony. Finally opened to reveal short, stout woman as wide as she was long- in other words, a perfect square.

– Oui?

– Caroline Potts, she is here? I said in perfect English translation of grammatically correct French. The woman blabbered away in her tongue & shook head. Caroline was no longer there.

– And Monsieur Potts? The blind man?

She looked at me blankly.

– Blind. No eyes. No eyes, I repeated idiotically, thinking Well, can I come in & smell her pillow?

– Hello! a voice called out from the upstairs window. An Asian face was hanging there looking for a body to match. Wait there! the face said & ran down breathlessly.

– You are looking for the girl & the blind man?

– Yes!

– I’m Eddie.

– So?

– So nothing. The girl left a month ago, after the blind man died.

– Died? Are you sure?

– Of course I’m sure. I was at the funeral. What’s your name?

– Martin. How did he die?

– I used to watch them from my window. Every day she walked him to the shops so he would know where the holes were in the street, but this one day he went alone. He must have got disoriented because he walked right into the middle of the road and just stood there.

– He was hit by a car?

– No, he had a heart attack. He’s buried up at the local cemetery. You want to see his grave? I could take you. Come on, he said buttoning up his coat, but I hesitated. Something in his manner was unsettling: his hands made delicate gestures & in his voice a conciliatory tone as if we’d argued & he wanted to make it up to me.

– Shall we go and see your dead friend? he asked sweetly & I thought I don’t like this man not that I had any real reason for disliking him but so what? I’ve been disliked by people who couldn’t even pick me out of a police lineup.

Under gray sky we walked up the same color road in dead silence to the top of the hill. The cemetery was only 100 meters away- convenient place to die. The grave had only his name & lifespan & nothing else no little witticisms nothing. I wondered if Lionel died instantly or w/final breath made a banal plan like Must buy milk. Then I thought about all the deaths I knew- how Harry chose his & how Terry was probably shocked by his & how my parents’ deaths must have come to them as a disagreeable surprise like a bill in the mail they thought they’d already paid.

Eddie invited me in for hot wine. His small sparsely furnished room smelled like a combination of burned orange peel & old woman’s cheek you’re forced to kiss at a family reunion. Carpet covered in big oily stains, the room spoke eloquently of spills of the clumsy fuckers who’d once lived there.

We had sandwiches & hot wine. Eddie was one of those people adept at summing up their lives in less than a minute. Born in Thailand. Studied medicine- never practiced. Traveled widely. Now trying Paris.

Nothing to say to that.

Conversation flowed like water down flushed toilet. He stared at me so intensely I felt my eyes were pocket-sized mirrors & he was checking his hair.

Night came quickly- it unnerved me he didn’t put on lights. Glanced at switch on the wall but was afraid to move if this fool preferred the airless joy of shadows then so would I. Finally he reached behind him & put on a lamp. Small light burned & grew huge in my eyes.

– So, you had a disappointment today, he said.

– Yes, I thought she’d be here.

This made him laugh in violent spasms, a laugh like a congenital defect.

– I meant the death of your friend.

– Oh, yes, that too.

– You love this girl?

– She’s an old friend from home.

– Australia, he said blandly making the name of my country sound like an old thing he’d once owned but had since thrown away. I said Uh-huh & he continued w/questions. What was I doing in Paris? How long would I stay? Where did I live? Did I work? Why not? & so on. He offered to help me in any way I needed. Money or a job or a place to stay. I thanked him & said it was getting late.

– Would it bother you very much if I took your photo?

It would.

– Oh, come on. It’s just this little hobby of mine, he said smiling. I looked around the room for proof of this claim- a photograph maybe- but the walls were bare & when he went into the next room to get his “apparatus” as he called his camera that made me shudder because whenever someone says the word apparatus I see enormous gleaming pincers w/single plump drop of blood at its tip.

– I think I should be going, I said.

– Just one little photo. I’ll be quick, he said w/ fixed smile like a window painted shut.

As he set up I felt convinced he was going to ask me to take off my clothes. He was talking all the while saying You really must tell me if there’s anything I can do for you, convincing me not only was he going to ask me to take off my clothes, he was going to pull them off himself. He switched on another light- a single bulb blared a trillion watts & he took my photo sitting in the chair & standing up & putting on my coat & walking out the door.

– Come by for dinner tomorrow night, he said.

– OK, I lied & hurried out & on the way home swung by the cemetery for a final farewell to Lionel where I tried to be solemn & feel REMORSE SADNESS LOSS SOMETHING I took a deep breath didn’t do any good I couldn’t feel ANYTHING other than pure disgust at myself- I procrastinated so long I missed what might have been a turning point in my life when is the next one going to be? I’d pictured our reunion a zillion times Caroline had been the focal point of my being in Europe or to put it plainly of being alive and through fear & indecision I’d missed her.

I kicked the headstone in a fit of impotent rage but then remembered Lionel. Tried to be sad again but had no room in my heart for mourning him. Too busy mourning love.

Unfeeling tribute to my old friend broken by soft footsteps on grass- Eddie at the bottom of cemetery hands in pockets staring. I pretended I didn’t see him & rushed off into night thinking of pincers.

Me Again

Can’t pretend other people’s minor misfortunes aren’t of great amusement to me because they are- not death or sickness but when someone’s money is swallowed by a public telephone which then refuses to make a call it’s fucking funny. I can watch people hitting telephones all day.