by Steve Toltz
One day during this chaos, Caroline came back into town, dragging a suitcase. I was sitting on the town hall steps counting the lines on my index finger when I spotted her coming down the street. She saw me, dragged that suitcase in a run, and threw her arms around me, plastering my cheeks with platonic kisses. I knew then and there that we would never discuss that night in her bedroom. I took a good look at her. She had really blossomed into a woman, but there were strange changes too: her hair was a lighter color, almost blond, and though her face was fuller and her lower lip more mature, there seemed to be something that had left her, a light or a glow. I thought maybe on her travels she had seen something that had scared it away.
“You heard about Terry?” I asked.
“It’s incredible.”
“Is that why you came home?”
“No, I only heard when I saw a newspaper at the airport, and the bus driver filled me in on the rest. You don’t hear about Australia in Europe, Marty. It’s strange. No one knows anything about us.”
That’s when I first discovered that living in Australia is like having a faraway bedroom in a very big house. All the better for us, I thought.
“I only came to pick up Dad. I’m taking him back overseas.”
“Where?”
“Paris.”
I drew my name on the ground with a stick. Martin Dean. Little clumps of earth lay in brown piles around it.
“Have you heard from him?” she asked.
“No.”
“He’s going to get himself killed.”
“That seems likely.”
Next to my name I wrote her name in the dirt. Our names were lying side by side.
“He’s doing something important,” she said.
“He’s a murderer.”
“But he believes.”
“So?”
“So nothing. He believes in something, that’s all.”
“Rapists and pedophiles believe in something too. Hitler believed in something. Every time Henry the Eighth cut off another wife’s head, he believed in something. It’s not hard to believe in something. Everyone believes in something.”
“You don’t.”
“No, I don’t.”
The words had left my mouth before I realized what I’d said. On reflection, I could see that this was absolutely true. I couldn’t name a single thing I believed in. For me, 1 percent of doubt has the same effect as 100 percent. So then, how could I believe in anything when what might not be true might as well not be true?
I drew a heart around our names in the dirt.
“If you’d heard from Terry, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
I quickly covered our names with dirt. I was being foolish. She didn’t love me. She loved him. I suddenly flushed with embarrassment.
“You’ve heard from him.”
She grabbed my wrist, but I jerked it away from her.
“I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have!”
“I haven’t, I tell you!”
She pulled me toward her and grabbed my face with both hands and gave me a long, long kiss on the lips. She pulled away, leaving me stunned and speechless. I couldn’t open my eyes.
“If you see Terry, give him that for me.”
That opened my eyes. I smiled to stop myself foaming at the mouth. I hated her. I wanted to throw her in the dirt. I said something like “I hate you and will hate you for all remembered time” and walked away, toward home, even though home was the last place I wanted to go. It had transformed into a place of minor historical importance, like the restaurant toilet Hitler used before the Reichstag fire, and thus the reporters were back with their bad manners and zero empathy, shouting their inane questions through the front windows.
When I got home, it became clear that my father had had enough. He was standing at the door, swaying on his feet, drunk. His face was stiff, as if he had lockjaw.
“You want to come in, you cunts? Well, come in!” he shouted.
The reporters looked at each other before stepping tentatively into the house. They thought it was a trap. It wasn’t. It was merely a man teetering off the precipice of his sanity.
“Here. Take a shot of this,” my father said, opening the kitchen cupboards. He ripped up the floorboards. He led them into our bedroom. He shoved a pair of Terry’s underpants under their noses. “Sniff it! Sniff it!” He turned everything inside out. “You need to see where he originated from.” My father unbuttoned his fly, pulled out his penis, and waved it around. “Here, you maggots! He was a delinquent sperm! Beat the other sperms to the egg! He came out of here! Film it! Film it, you grubby parasites!” The reporters laughed while my mother chased them around the house. But they didn’t want to leave. They were having a high old time doubled over in laughter. This man’s drunken maudlin despair was the best thing they’d seen in ages. Couldn’t they see my mother crying? Oh yes, they could see it all right; they could see it through the zoom lens.
Once we got them back out onto the front lawn, I tried talking reasonably with them.
“Please go home,” I pleaded.
“Where’s your brother?” they asked.
“There he is!” I shouted, pointing behind them. They spun their heads around like fools. When they turned back to me I said, “Made you look.”
A petty victory.
I hadn’t lied to Caroline. All this time I’d had no word from Terry or Harry and I still hadn’t managed to get myself over to the suburban hideout. I felt cut off, and my natural curiosity was burning steadily inside me. I was sick of relying on unreliable newspaper reports and talk-back gossip. I wanted the inside scoop. I suppose there was also a part of me that wanted to join in somehow, if not in the actual killing, then at least as a witness. Everything that happened in Terry’s life up to this point had included me in one way or another. I wanted back in. I knew that the moment I stepped into his world, my life would be altered forever.
And I was right.
It was time to try again. I couldn’t assume the police had tired of watching me. I spent the afternoon threading a labyrinthine trail through the bush, then I made my way on foot across a wide, empty clearing, spinning around to check behind me every few minutes. Nothing. Nobody there. Just to be safe, I walked the five miles to the next town and caught the bus from there.
I was surprised to see that the front lawn of the suburban hideout was no longer immaculately groomed. The station wagon in the driveway was gone. The blinds were drawn. It looked as if the nice normal family they’d been emulating had fallen on hard times.
The door opened as soon as I turned up the driveway. Harry must have been watching from the window.
“Quick! In! In!”
I hurried inside, and Harry dead-bolted the door behind me.
“Is he here?” I asked.
“No, he’s fucking not, and he’d better not set foot within my periphery if he doesn’t want a bullet in the head!”
I followed Harry into the living room, where he flopped down on the sofa. I flopped too. “Marty, your brother is an attention-grabber. I can’t stop him. The cooperative is in ruins! It’s a shambles! My dream! The whole thing’s a downright failure. Terry’s fucked it. He wants to be famous, doesn’t he? He’s turned his back on all my advice. I thought he was like a son to me. But no son of mine would piss in my face like that. I mean, I don’t have children, but when you have kids you don’t expect a golden shower! The first couple of years, sure, but after that you let down your guard. And look at what he’s blown it all for! He’s attacking sportsmen, football players, bookies! He’s not even robbing them, he’s just ripping them apart for no reason! Where the hell’s the money in that? And you know what else? Have you seen the papers? The world thinks it’s his gang! Not mine, his. Well, it’s not his. It’s mine! Mine, dammit! OK, sure I wanted us to be anonymous, but we all have to be anonymous, and if we can’t, then I want the credit I deserve! Now it’s too late. He’s casting a shadow over me. And crims I’ve known
for fifty years think I’m working for him! How’s that for a slap in the face? It’s humiliating! But I’ve got a plan. I need your help. Come in here, I want to show you something.”
Harry got to his feet and limped off in the direction of his bedroom. I followed him in. This was the first time I’d been in Harry’s bedroom. Other than his bed, there was nothing in it. Nothing at all. He was anonymous even in his own room.
He reached under his mattress and pulled out a thick wad of paper.
“I thought just maybe the anonymous democratic cooperative of crime might be a unique gift to give to the world. But now I see it was doomed from the start. It was never going to work. You can’t help human nature. People think they need limelight to grow. No one can stand anonymity. So here’s Plan B, a backup I’ve been working on for ten years. It’s something that’s never been done. No one’s ever thought of it. This is going to be my legacy. This is it, Marty. But I need help. I can’t do it on my own. That’s where you come in.”
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 Breakin
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 m
e?”
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?”
I was scared by my own words, because their implications were beginning to sink in. “Lawlessness, aimlessness, chaos, confusion, contusion,” I said to no one, to the night. I was talking myself in circles. My head throbbed. I was thinking the kind of thoughts that caused throbbing.
All of a sudden, with blinding clarity, I knew that Harry was a genius. A prophet, maybe even a martyr—that would be decided later, depending on the nature of his death. He was innovating. That’s why Harry chose me to bring his asinine tablets down from the mountain. He was showing me the way. By example, he was showing me that it doesn’t take a god to innovate, create, invert, destroy, crush, and inspire; a man can do the job just as well, and in his own good time. Not in six days, like You-Know-Who. It needn’t be a rush job. And even if, at the end of my toils, I wound up inspiring only hatred or indifference, I knew then and there it was my duty to try, because this was my awakening, and that’s what an awakening is all about: getting up. There’s no use having an awakening and then hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep.
These were big thoughts, really obese. I found a half-smoked cigarette on the ground. I picked it up. It felt strong in my hand, like an Olympic torch. I lit it and walked around town. It was cold. I stamped my feet and held my hands under my armpits to keep warm. This book of Harry’s was the first small step in a nameless revolution that was taking place, and I had been chosen because of the excellence of my mind. I wanted to praise myself without guilt. I wanted to kiss my own brain. I felt thousands of years old. I felt older than soil. I was overcome with the strength and power of words and ideas. I thought about my first father, father number one, back in Poland, and I thought about his insanity: dying for a god. What a stupid reason to die: for a god, a lousy god! I shouted loudly to a tree, “I want to die because I am a creature with a sell-by date! I want to die because I am a man and that’s what men do; they crumble, decay, disappear!” I walked on, cursing my father’s blind stupidity. I screamed, “To die for an idea! To take a bullet for a deity! What an idiot!”
