by Steve Toltz
At the moment the ball hit the pins, a bullet hit Terry. That ball was Terry’s ploy to make a run for it, but not all police are that gullible or even like bowling.
He lay on the lane, smeared in his own blood, shouting, “My ankle! Again in the ankle! The exact same spot, you mongrels! That’s never gonna heal!” and he lay there while overcome by forty policemen all competing to be the one to walk him outside in the bright flashing glare of the paparazzi, to get their little dose of immortality.
Farewell
I’m no expert on linguistics or the etymology of words, so I have no idea if the word “banana” really was the best-sounding collection of syllables around to describe a long yellow arc-shaped fruit, but I can say that whoever coined the phrase “media circus” really knew what he was talking about. There’s simply no better description of a bunch of journalists clamoring for quotes and photographs, although “media primates,” “media rioting mob,” or “explosion of a media supernova” might do just as well. Outside the courthouse where Terry’s trial was to take place, there were hundreds of them—sweaty-faced leering men and women of the press, pushing and elbowing and jeering and by their appalling behavior generally degrading the human race in the name of public interest.
Inside, the courtroom was standing room only. As Terry denied none of the charges, it was more a process than a trial, and his court-appointed barrister was there to navigate Terry through the bureaucracy of the system rather than aid him in an actual defense. Terry had no defense. He admitted everything; he had to—his infamy was tied up in it. To deny what he had been trying to do would have been like the crusaders explaining their journey into the Islamic world by saying they were just out for a long walk.
Terry sat defiantly next to his lawyer, and when the judge began his deliberations, he rubbed his hands together as though he were about to be sentenced to two scoops of vanilla ice cream. Speaking slowly and solemnly, like a seasoned actor getting his one and only chance to deliver Hamlet’s soliloquy, the judge projected his voice to the back of the courtroom with the words, “I sentence you to life imprisonment.” It was a bravura performance. Everyone let out the typical murmur that follows sentencing, though it was just for show. No one was surprised. There was no other way it could have gone down. What did come as a surprise, however—though you’d think by now I would’ve been accustomed to the taste of ironies squeezed from the cosmic juicer—is that the prison Terry was sentenced to was the one in our hometown.
That’s right.
Our prison. In our town.
Automatically, I looked to my father. Terry was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in the prison his father had built, the prison that lay 1½ miles from our front door.
With their prodigal son home but not home, detained in a building that we could see from both the front veranda and the kitchen window, the sweaty grip that my mother and father had on their sanity began to loosen at an alarming rate. While there was some comfort having him safe from eager police snipers, to have him so tantalizingly out of reach was a torment that made it impossible to tell which of my parents had drifted further from light and life; they were dissolving so fast, each in his or her own sad way, you’d have thought it was a competition. It was like living with two ghosts who had recently accepted their death, who had given up trying to blend with the living. They had finally recognized their transparency for what it was.
With a curious, crazed look of joy on her face, my mother took up a new project: she framed every photograph of Terry and me as children and nailed them to every available wall space in the house. There was not a photo in the house of us over the age of thirteen, as if by growing up we had betrayed her. And I can see my father now too, sitting on the far right corner of the veranda, which allowed a view of the prison unobscured by treetops, binoculars pressed up against his eyeballs, trying to catch a glimpse of his son. He spent so many hours a day peering through those binoculars that when he finally put them down to rest, his eyes strained to see us. Sometimes he’d shout, “There he is!” I’d come running out to see, but he always refused me permission to use his precious binoculars. “You’ve done enough damage,” he’d say inexplicably, as if my gaze were like that of an ugly Greek witch. After a while I stopped asking, and when I heard my father shout, “There he is again! He’s in the yard! He’s telling a joke to a group of inmates! They’re laughing! He looks like he’s having a ball!” I didn’t move a muscle. Of course, I could’ve gotten my own binoculars, but I didn’t dare. In truth, I didn’t think he could see anything at all.
Our town became a place of pilgrimage for journalists, historians, students, and scores of curvy women with teased hair and excessive makeup who turned up at the prison gates to visit Terry. Most were turned away and wound up wandering around town, many clutching first and only editions of The Handbook of Crime. The book had been ripped from the shelves on the day of publication and quickly banned for all time. It was already a collector’s item. The obsessive fans were searching the town for guess who? Me! They wanted me, as credited editor, to sign it! At first it gave me a thrill to finally be the focus of attention, but I rapidly couldn’t stand it. Every autograph fiend hounded me with endless questions about Terry.
Again, Terry.
It was in this throng of star-hungry morons that I ran into Dave! He was wearing a suit but no tie, and his hair was neatly combed back. He’d really cleaned himself up. He was going for a new life. Apparently he’d found God, which made him less violent but no less unendurable. I couldn’t get away from him; he was hell-bent on saving me. “You like books, Martin. You always did. But have you read this one? It’s good. In fact, it’s the Good Book.” He held a Bible so close to my face I didn’t know if he wanted me to read it or eat it.
“I saw your brother this morning,” he said. “That’s why I’ve come back. I led him into temptation and now I’ve got to lead him out.” This Biblical talk was making me irritable, so I switched subjects and inquired after Bruno. “Bad news there, I’m afraid,” Dave said sadly. “He was shot dead during a knife fight. Martin, how’s your family? In all honesty, seeing Terry was only half my mission. I’ve also come to see your parents and beg their forgiveness.”
I strenuously advised him against it, but he was unswayable. It was God’s will, he said, and I couldn’t think of a persuasive argument against that, apart from saying I’d heard otherwise. Religious nuts! It isn’t enough that they believe in God, they have to go all the way, seeing into his vast mind. They think faith gives them access to his glorious to-do lists.
Dave didn’t come up to the house in the end; by chance he ran into my father outside the post office, and before he’d so much as pulled his Bible from his back pocket, my father’s hands were already wrapped around the poor bastard’s throat. Dave didn’t fight back. He thought it was God’s will he be strangled on the post office steps, and when my father pushed him to the ground and kicked him in the face, he thought that was God’s afterthought.
You see, my father really did have a list, and Dave was on it. The list fell out of his pocket during the fight. I picked it up. There were six names.
People who destroyed my son
(in no particular order)
1. Harry West
2. Bruno
3. Dave
4. The inventor of the suggestion box
5. Judge Phillip Krueger
6. Martin Dean
Given that he hadn’t been shy in blaming me with every look and gesture for most of my life, I wasn’t surprised to see my own name on the list, and it was only fortunate for me that my father didn’t realize I actually appeared on it twice.
After the fight, my father stumbled off into the dark, muttering threats. “I’ll get every last one of you!” he shouted to nobody, to the night. The police wandered up as they always do, like garbagemen after a street party, and as soon as Dave’s breath returned, he shouted, “I don’t want to press charges! Let him come back! You’re impeding
God’s will!”
I grimaced, hoping for Dave’s sake that God wasn’t listening to his presumptuous rant. I don’t imagine God likes a sycophant any more than anyone else.
To tell you the truth, that episode saved me from death by boredom. With The Handbook of Crime finished and promptly buried, with Caroline gone, Terry locked away, and Harry dead, the town had little to recommend itself to me. My loves were all out of reach and I had nothing to keep me occupied. In short, I had no projects left.
Yet I couldn’t leave. True, I couldn’t stand cohabitating with the living dead too much longer, but what to do about my regrettable oath not to leave my mother under any circumstances? Certainly while she was decaying so unpleasantly, it seemed impossible.
There was nothing I could do to help her condition or ease her physical suffering in any way, but I was very aware that my presence in the house gave my mother considerable peace of mind. Jasper, do you know the burden of being able to make someone happy by your mere presence? No, probably not. Well, my mother was always visibly affected by her sons—the light in her eyes was unmistakable, every time either Terry or I entered a room. What a heavy load for us! We felt we had to enter said room or else be held responsible for her sadness. What a drag! Of course, when someone needs you to the point that your very existence acts as a sort of life support, it’s actually not bad for your self-esteem. But then, Jasper, do you know what it’s like to see that same loved one deteriorate before your very eyes? Have you ever tried to recognize someone across the street in a heavy rain? It became like that. Her body became too thin to support life. And with her approaching death came the approaching death of that need for me. But it wouldn’t go quietly. Not by a long shot. The course of her life had produced two things: me and Terry, and Terry had not only slipped through her fingers long ago, he was now languishing indefinitely just out of her reach. That left me. Out of her two boys, whom she once said she wished to “pin to her skin so as never to lose them,” I was the only one left, the only thing that gave her any meaning. I wasn’t going to abandon her, no matter how revolting the notion that I was only waiting in that dusty house for her to expire.
Besides, I was broke. I couldn’t go anywhere.
Then a letter delivered by courier complicated matters. It was from Stanley.
Dear Martin,
Well! What a shit storm!
The book is out of print, out of the stores, out of circulation. The state is suing me, the bastards. You’re in the clear, though, for about five minutes. If I were you, I’d make myself scarce for a while. Go overseas, Martin. I’ve been listening very carefully to these clowns. They’re not done yet. They will come after you. I told you not to put your damn name on the book! Now they’ve got you for harboring a known fugitive and correcting his syntax. But you’ve got a little breathing time left. The cops don’t know the first thing about publishing. They’re looking for a way to beat the defense that the whole thing was done by mail. Plus, how about this for a kick, they don’t want to know about Harry. They slap me in the face every time I mention his name. They refuse to believe that Terry didn’t write the book. I guess they figure it gives the case a bigger profile. No wonder the world’s a mess. How can you trust anyone to act decent when all they want is to push you out of the way so they can get to the spotlight? Oh well.
Honestly, Martin, listen to me on this one. GET OUT OF THE COUNTRY. They’re coming for you with a briefcase full of bullshit charges.
I’m giving you everything from the initial sales. Don’t think I’m being generous. The truth is, there’s no point in me holding on to it, the courts are going to take it all anyway. But I know how much you put into it. I know how much it meant to you. Plus, I want to thank you for the ride of my life. We did something! We made some noise! I felt for the first time that I was involved in something meaningful. For that, I thank you.
Enclosed is a check for $15,000. Take it and go. They’re coming for you, Martin. They’re coming soon.
Warm regards,
Stanley
I shook the manila envelope until something nice fell out. The check. There it was: $15,000. Not a huge amount of money, but by the standards of a man who was in the habit of recycling old cigarettes, it was considerable.
So that was that. I was leaving. The hell with my unbreakable bond—I was breaking it. I didn’t think I’d be doing my mother any good rotting in jail next to her other rotting son. Besides, jail was Terry’s thing. I wouldn’t last one shower.
I hadn’t even been up to see him since he’d been in. That may sound strange, after all the fretting and running around I did after him, but to tell you the truth, I was sick to death of everything to do with Terry Dean. The public accolades had got to me in the end. And now there wasn’t anything more I could do for him. I needed a breather. I had, however, received a note, and I remember thinking it was the first time I’d seen his handwriting.
Dear Marty,
What’s this shit about a book? No one will shut up about it. If you get a sec, straighten that out, will you? I don’t want to be known as a writer. I want to be known as a vigilante who liberated sport from the dirty hands of corruption. Not for scribbling some stupid book.
Prison—blah. Still, I can see our house from up here. The warden treats me well on account of me being a kind of celebrity and he lent me his binoculars the other day, and guess what I saw? Dad looking at me through a pair of binoculars! Weird!
Anyway, don’t forget to get the hell out of town and do something with your life. Politics, mate. I reckon that’s for you. You’re the only one with brains in this whole silly circus.
Love,
Terry
P.S. Come up and see me sometime.
I started packing immediately. I dug out an old brown suitcase and threw a few clothes into it, then looked around my bedroom for memorabilia, but stopped when I remembered that the purpose of memorabilia is to trigger memory. Fuck that. I didn’t want to be lugging my memories all over the place. They were too heavy.
“What are you doing?” my mother asked. I spun around, shamefaced, as if she’d caught me masturbating.
“I’m going,” I said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Paris,” I said, surprising myself. “I’m going to track down Caroline Potts and ask her to marry me.”
She didn’t say anything to that, just swayed back and forth on her feet.
“Lunch in half an hour.”
“OK,” I said, and when she was gone, the gaping mouth of my open suitcase looked up at me accusingly.
After a silent lunch, I made my final journey up the hill to say goodbye to Terry. It was the hottest day of summer, so hot you could fry bacon on a leaf. The wind was hot too, and it felt like I was walking into a hair dryer. Sweat ran into my eyes. As I passed through the gates, the blistered hands of nostalgia gave my heart a good squeeze and I realized you miss shit times as well as good times, because at the end of the day what you’re really missing is just time itself.
The guard wouldn’t let me in.
“No visitors. Terry’s in solitary confinement,” he said.
“Why?”
“Fighting.”
“Well, how long is he going to be in there for?”
“I dunno. A month?”
“A month! In solitary confinement! Is that legal?”
“I dunno.”
Christ! I couldn’t wait a month just to say goodbye. I was terrified of putting the brakes on my momentum.
“Well, can you tell him his brother came to say goodbye?”
“But his brother hasn’t been here.”
“I’m his brother.”
“Oh. And what’s the message?”
“Tell him I’ve gone overseas.”
“But now you’re back, eh. How long have you been away?”
“I don’t know. A couple of years maybe. But when you tell him, put it in the future tense, OK?”
“Why?”
�
�Private joke.”
“All right. I’ll say his brother is going overseas for a couple of years,” he said, winking at me.
“Perfect,” I said, and turning away from the prison, I made the steep descent down the treeless hill and took in a full, unobscured view of our town. Nice town. Nice little town.
Fuck you, nice little town.
I hope you burn.
I walked through the streets, entertaining various revenge fantasies of returning one day rich and successful, but I quickly got over that idea. In truth, all I ever wanted was for everyone to like me, and coming back to a place rich and successful never won anyone any hearts.
As I was thinking these pointless thoughts, I noticed a queer sensation in my interior, and an odd noise that sounded like a little man was gargling mouthwash in my abdomen. The sensation quickly developed into an awful pain. I doubled over and rested my hand against a streetlamp. What was this? It felt as if all the glands in my body had started secreting battery acid.
Just as suddenly the pain subsided, and feeling light-headed, I groped my way back home.
When I got into my bedroom, the pain returned worse than before. I lay down and shut my eyes with the thought that a twenty-minute nap was all I needed to get over this.
But it was just the beginning.
By the morning I was still unwell. Some crazy sickness had struck me down suddenly, with debilitating stomach cramps, vomiting, then fever. At first I was diagnosed as having the flu, but my mother and I were worried; these were the symptoms I’d had as a child that had led me into the black arms of the terrifying coma. Once again I was confined to bed, and I feared that my brief flicker of light was growing prematurely dim, and every time I shat my pants from the stomach cramps, I shat my pants from fear. There’s no two ways about it. Sickness and fear were making me incontinent. It was while lying in bed that I realized that illness is our natural state of being. We’re always sick and we just don’t know it. What we mean by health is only when our constant physical deterioration is undetectable.
