by Steve Toltz
Our town had streetlamps only on the main street—the roads leading into and out of it were left to the mercy of the moon and the stars, and when there were neither it was black through and through. The trees rattled in the wind that blew from the west. I walked to a house and sat on the veranda and waited. For what? Not what: who. I was at Caroline’s house. I realized suddenly that romantics are dickheads. There’s nothing wonderful or interesting about unrequited love. I think it’s shitty, just plain shitty. To love someone who doesn’t return your affections might be exciting in books, but in life it’s unbearably boring. I’ll tell you what’s exciting: sweaty, passionate nights. But sitting on the veranda outside the home of a sleeping woman who isn’t dreaming about you is slow moving and just plain sad.
I waited for Caroline to awaken and come out onto the veranda and wrap her arms around me. I thought the power of my mind was so strong I could will her from her slumber and draw her to the window. I would tell her my ideas and she would finally know who I was. I thought I was as good as my mind and she would be bowled over by both; I forgot entirely about my body and my face, which were not so hot. I stepped up to the front window and saw my reflection and changed my mind. I stepped away and walked back home. This was my awakening, Jasper! Harry, poor Harry, he was enormously important for me: an unfettered mind. Up until I met him, all the minds I knew were fettered, shockingly fettered. The freedom of Harry’s mind was exhilarating. It was a mind absolutely true to itself, that ran on its own steam. I’d never before encountered a timeless mind, impervious to the influence of its surroundings.
I went home and sifted through Harry’s notes some more. They were impossibly silly! This book, his handbook for criminals, it was an aberration. It shouldn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. That’s why I had to help him bring it to life. I had to! I divided the book into two major sections: Crime and Punishment. Then within these sections I made chapters, an index, and added footnotes, just like in a real textbook. I was completely faithful to Harry’s notes. Every now and then as I typed I’d come across a passage and I’d laugh out loud, a huge belly laugh. It was wonderful! His words were stupendous! They bored right into my brain.
On Home Breakins
Once inside, be fast and methodical. Wear gloves and keep them on. Never take them off under any circumstances. You’d be surprised at how many burglars remove their gloves in order to pick their nose. I cannot stress this strongly enough: Don’t leave fingerprints anywhere! Not even in your nose!
I typed it all up, word for word. I didn’t leave anything out. I did the whole thing without sleep. There was electricity running through me. I couldn’t turn it off. Here’s another one I remember:
On Bribery
When bribing officers of the law, a common technique is to drop the money on the floor in front of the officer in question and say in a casual voice, “Did you drop that?” This is risky because of the possibility of the officer saying, “Yes I did. Cheers,” and arresting you after he’s pocketed the money. While no bribery ploy is guaranteed, I recommend just coming out and saying, “So. You take bribes or what?” This way, if he doesn’t, and charges you with attempting to bribe an officer, you can defend yourself by explaining that you never actually offered a bribe, which you didn’t; you were inquiring about the honesty of the person arresting you and were simply on the lookout for hypocrisy.
His logic was infallible. Even the chapter headings made me whirl with joy:
Motiveless Crimes: Why?
Armed Robbery: Laughing All the Way from the Bank
Crime and Fashion: Balaclavas Are Always In
The Police and You: How to Spot a Crooked Cop by His Shoes
The chapter titled “Pickpocketing: An Intimate Crime” had a line in it that said, “If you have to unzip it, it’s not a pocket. Remove your hand immediately!” Can you argue with that? No, you can’t. I can remember some of the other chapter headings. There was
Assault: Bruising Your Enemies
Blame: Framing Your Friends
Manslaughter: Oops!
Escaping Custody: Walk, Don’t Run
Love: The Real Informer
Crimes of Passion: Hot-Headed Murder
Crimes of Perversion: For Lovers Only
It was an exhaustive tome. He’d left nothing out. No crime was too small, as was covered in Chapter 13: “Misdemeanors and Other Nonprofit Crimes: Jaywalking, Loitering, Graffiti, Littering, Joyriding, and Public Nudity.” When Harry said this was to be the definitive work, he wasn’t kidding!
I left the house at dawn, buzzing with speculation. Would Harry ever get this crazy book published? Who would publish it? How would the public react?
When I stepped outside, I noticed a campfire smoking in the cold morning and, beside it, four sleeping reporters camped out under the trees. When did they get there? A shiver ran through me. Their presence meant one of only three things: either Terry had committed another crime or he’d been arrested or he was dead. I wanted to shake them awake and ask them which it was, but I didn’t dare, not when I was on my way over to Harry’s—a lesser fugitive, sure, but a fugitive all the same. I let the reporters have their sleep, wished them all nightmares, and walked to the bus stop.
I heard footsteps behind me. I grimaced, expecting police or a gaggle of reporters. It was neither. It was my mother in her beige nightgown and bare feet. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in decades. She must have sneaked past the reporters too.
“Where are you going at this hour of the morning? Are you going to see Terry?”
“No, Mum, I don’t know where he is.”
She gripped me by the arm. I saw something terrible in her eyes. They looked like they’d been crying, draining her body of salt and other essential minerals. Her illness was taking its toll. She was already thinner, already old. She said somberly, “There’s been another attack. It was on the radio. This time another cricketer—they found him with his head bashed in and a cricket ball stuffed in his mouth. They’re saying your brother did it. Why, why are they saying he did it?”
“Because he probably did it.”
She slapped me hard across the face. “Don’t say that! It’s a lie! Find Terry and tell him to go to the police. If he hides, it just makes him look guilty.”
The bus came while she was still babbling hysterically. “And if you can’t find Terry, then for God’s sake, find that double!”
I stepped onto the bus and found a seat. As it drove off, I looked out the window at my mother. She rested one hand against a tree while picking gravel off the soles of her feet with the other.
I arrived at Harry’s to see him glaring at me through the front window. As I entered, I resisted a powerful urge to hug him.
“What are you doing here?” Harry shouted in my face. “I was hoping I wouldn’t see you until you finished! You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? Fucker! Traitor! You’ve had an attack of conscience! Why don’t you get out of here and go join a monastery, you bloody hypocrite!”
Resisting a smile, I pulled the manuscript from the brown satchel and waved it in his face. His eyes widened.
“Is this…”
My smile couldn’t contain itself any longer. I let it explode.
“So quick?”
“I had great words to work with.”
Harry dived for the manuscript and flicked through it excitedly. When he reached the end, he turned back to the front page. I stood there awhile before realizing that he was going to read the thing to the end. I went into the backyard, which was drenched in sunlight. The pool was now an enormous fetid swamp. The lawn was overgrown with weeds. The metal frames of the banana chairs were brown with rust. I stretched out on one and looked up at the sky. Clouds shaped like pregnant bellies were floating through it. My lids closed and I drifted languidly into sleep. Before I got there, in the half dreamworld, I thought I saw Terry hiding out in one of the clouds. I saw him pull the soft fluffy veil over his face whenever a plane sailed by. Then I fell aslee
p.
I woke sweating. The sun was sitting on me. Blinking through the bright light, I could see the silhouette of Harry’s head. It seemed enormous. When he leaned into the shadows, I saw him beaming at me. He sat on the edge of my banana chair and locked me in a tight embrace, covering me in kisses. He even kissed me on the mouth, which was revolting, but I took it in the spirit it was given.
“You’ve done me a wonderful service, Martin. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”
“There was another attack,” I said.
“Yeah, heard it on the radio. Stupid bugger.”
“Any word from him? Any idea where he might be?”
Harry shook his head sadly. “He’s become a true-blue celebrity. He can’t avoid the coppers too much longer. Famous faces make lousy fugitives.”
“Do you think, if they catch up with him, he’ll go quietly?”
“Not bloody likely,” he said, picking up his manuscript and stroking it as though it were a thigh. “Come on. Let’s go make some noise of our own.”
Finding a publisher wasn’t going to be easy, and not only because of the risky content. Harry was a fugitive. If we went to a publisher with Harry’s name plastered all over the manuscript, we might get more than a simple rejection. It was possible one of the publishers might call the police. A double rejection! After much arguing, I managed to persuade Harry that we should keep his identity secret until the last possible minute—right up to the moment of printing we’d withhold the author’s name. But Harry still wanted to come along to choose the publishing house most worthy of his tome. It seemed impossible. He was a wanted man—not in Terry’s league, but police don’t forget to look for escaped criminals just because the press isn’t in love with them. On top of that, Harry’s leg had gotten so bad he could hardly walk. Unfortunately, nothing I could say would dissuade him from personally guiding his legacy into print. It was all too vital to leave in my inexperienced hands.
We went out the following day. With his limp and scraggly beard, he looked like a castaway. I suggested he shave and make himself more presentable, but he insisted that authors always look unfit for society so it was actually to our benefit that he looked like shit. He threw on an old coat despite the hot sun and hid a sawed-off shotgun in the inside pocket. I didn’t say anything. “Let’s go then, eh.” I offered my services as a human crutch and he put all his weight on me, apologizing profusely. It felt like I was lugging a dead body.
The first publisher’s building looked like it would cost you just to enter it, and inside, the lobby was full of mirrors that proved you were a slob. We made our way up to the twentieth floor, sharing the elevator with two suits that had men trapped inside them. The publisher’s offices hogged the whole floor. The top of the receptionist’s head asked if we had an appointment. What little of her face we could see was smiling cruelly as we fumbled a no. “Well, he’s too busy to see you today,” she said in a non-negotiable voice. Harry went into his thing.
“See here. This is one of those opportunities you’ll be kicking yourself about. Just like the publisher who rejected that famous book which went on to sell a gazillion copies. What was the name of that book, Martin? You know, the one that got rejected and went on to sell a gazillion copies?”
I didn’t know but thought I’d better play along. I joined in by naming the best seller of all time.
“The Bible, King James edition.”
“Yes, by God, that was it. The Bible! The receptionist wouldn’t let the apostle through, even though he had a gold mine in his hands.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” the receptionist said, sighing. She glanced down at her appointment book. “He has an appointment at the end of the day, and if that runs short, you can see him for five minutes before he goes home.”
“Good enough, kind lady,” Harry said, winking. I helped him to a chair in the waiting room.
We waited.
Harry was shivering and his hands were hiding deep inside his coat, which made me nervous, knowing what else was in there. His teeth were clenched together as if someone had asked him to smile for a photo twelve hours earlier and hadn’t taken it yet.
“Are you OK?” I asked him.
I could tell his paranoia was firing on all circuits. His eyes circled the room while his neck swung his head from doorway to hallway. Around lunchtime I noticed that Harry had his fingers in his ears. When I asked him about it, he muttered something about a noise. I couldn’t hear anything. A split second later there was a loud bang. I craned my head and through one of the doorways saw a young man kicking the life out of a photocopier machine. I looked at Harry incredulously, and remembered again that when Terry and I had first gone to the prison to meet him, Harry had mentioned something about telepathy being highly developed in the minds of career criminals. Long-term paranoia earns people a certain level of ESP, he had said, or something to that effect. Was it true? I hadn’t taken him seriously then, but now? I didn’t know what to think. I scrutinized Harry’s face. He nodded at me with an almost imperceptible smugness.
At five minutes to five we were ushered into the publisher’s office. Everything about it made you feel small and unimportant. It was spacious and quiet and air-conditioned and newly carpeted, and instead of a window there was a wall of glass you couldn’t open and jump out of, even if you wanted to; at best you could press your face against it and dream of falling. The publisher looked as if someone had told him if he smiled he’d lose everything he had ever worked for.
“You’ve written a book. I publish books. You think that means we’re a match made in heaven. It doesn’t. I have to be bowled over by whatever you’ve got, and I don’t fall easily,” he said.
Harry demanded that the publisher take a quick look while we waited. The publisher laughed without smiling. Harry tossed in the line about missing golden opportunities that went straight to the man’s heart, the one in his back pocket. He picked up the manuscript and browsed through it, clicking his tongue as if he were calling his dog. He stood and walked to the glass wall and read it while leaning against it. I worried the glass would crack and send him tumbling into the street. After a minute he threw the manuscript at us as if it were making his hands dirty.
“Is this a joke?”
“I assure you it’s not.”
“To publish this would be suicide. You’re instructing people how to break the law.”
“Why is he telling me what my book is about?” Harry asked me.
I shrugged.
“Get out of here before I call the police!” the publisher screamed at us.
In the elevator on the way down, Harry shook with fury. “That cunt,” he muttered.
I felt similarly dented, and I didn’t know much about the publishing world, but I tried to explain to him that we had to expect some rejections. “This is normal. It would have been too much to expect that the first place fell all over it.”
At the second floor the elevator stopped. “What are we stopping for?” Harry yelled at me.
The doors slid open and a man stepped in. “You can’t walk down one fucking floor?” Harry shouted, and the man leapt out again just before the doors closed.
On the street it was impossible to get a cab. It was really not advisable to be lingering on the street like this with a known fugitive, but neither of us seemed able to make a taxi materialize just by wishing it.
“We’ve been made!” he whispered.
“What?”
“They’re onto me!”
“Who?”
“All of them!”
He was out of control. He was trying to hide behind me, but the crowd was on all sides. He circled my body like a shark. He was drawing too much attention to himself in his panicked attempt to remain inconspicuous.
“There!” he screamed, and pushed me into a stream of traffic, into a taxi. Cars halted and honked their horns as we jumped in.
I really put my foot down after that. Harry was to stay at home. I simply refused to help him anymo
re if he insisted on coming along. He put up a struggle, but it was a weak one. The last incident had added seventeen years to his face. Even he could see it.
The following weeks were a nightmare. I tripped from office to office in a blur. They were all the same. I couldn’t get over how quiet they were. Everyone spoke in a whisper, and the way they tiptoed around, you’d think you’d wandered into a sacred temple if it weren’t for the telephones. The receptionists all wore the same condescending sneers. Often I sat in waiting rooms with other authors. They were the same too. They all emanated fear and desperation and looked so hungry they would have signed away the rights to their children for a lozenge, poor bastards.
In one of the publishing houses, where I waited all day for two days in a row and still wasn’t granted an audience with the king, a writer and I swapped manuscripts to pass the time. His was set in a small country town and was about a doctor and a pregnant schoolteacher who passed each other on the street every day but were too inward to say hello. It was unreadable. It was almost all description. My spirits lifted when, on page 85, he’d deigned to put in a smattering of dialogue between the characters. His novel was a real struggle to wade through, but he was sitting right beside me so I had to persist, out of politeness. Every now and then we glanced at each other to see how we were getting on. Finally, around lunchtime, he turned to me and said, “This is a peculiar book. Is it a satire?”
“Not at all. Yours is interesting too. Are the characters mute?”
