I nodded.
“My nephew! You have your grandmother’s nose, did your dad ever tell you that? I’m so happy to see you. Eddie’s told me all about you. You must be some kind of rock, living with your dad without shattering into a million little pieces. But you look like you’ve turned out all right. You look so normal and healthy and adjusted. How is it that you’re not crazy? It’s crazy that you’re not crazy! Though maybe you are. That’s what I’m looking forward to finding out. And Caroline! Seeing you comes as a bit of a shock, I’ll admit. Of course Eddie told me you’d married…”
Terry stared at her for a long moment before snapping himself out of it.
“I know, you’re all caught off guard. Drink your beers, you’ll feel better. I’ll wait until you calm down. There’s time. Christ, if there’s one thing we all have, it’s time. Marty, you’re giving me the heebie-jeebies with that look. You too, Caroline. But not you, Jasper, eh? Maybe because you’re still young. When you’re older, it’s a surprise that you can still be surprised. I wonder, what’s the bigger surprise, that I’m so wonderfully alive or that I’m so wonderfully fat? You can say it- I don’t mind. I like being fat. I’m Henry the Eighth fat. Buddha fat. Let’s get it out of the way so we’re not bogged down in it. I’m a fat fuck. I’ll just take off my shirt so you can see the extent of it. See? OK? I’m a whale. My belly is unrelenting! Invincible!”
It was true. He was so enormous he gave the impression he was indestructible, that he could survive any cataclysm. The zoo of animal tattoos Dad had described to me many years ago had stretched into shapeless swirls of color.
Dad had stiffened. He looked like he wanted to say something but his tongue wasn’t cooperating. “Alive…fat,” was all he could manage.
It dawned on me that Terry was sort of confused himself. He didn’t know who to look at. Every now and then he turned and gazed searchingly at me, perhaps his best chance of immediate love and acceptance. He wasn’t getting it, because despite the incredible news that a family member so thoroughly mythologized was alive and well, more than anything I felt a bitter disappointment that this had nothing to do with my mother after all.
“Isn’t anybody going to give me a hug?”
No one moved.
“So who is Tim Lung?” Dad said finally.
“Tim Lung doesn’t exist. Neither did Pradit Banthadthan or Tanakorn Krirkkiat, for that matter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m doing it, Marty. I’m finally doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“The democratic cooperative of crime.”
Dad spasmed as though he’d been jump-started with cables. “You’re what?!” he screamed. This was the first emotive response he had given.
“Well, mate, the first time I stuffed it up good and proper. Harry was onto something, though. This thing works like a charm.”
“I can’t believe it! I can’t fucking believe it!”
This apparently was a bigger shock to Dad than the news that Terry had been alive all this time.
Caroline said, “What’s the democratic-”
“Don’t ask,” Dad interjected. “Oh my God.”
Terry clapped his chubby hands with delight and hopped up and down on his stumpy legs. I was thinking how utterly different he was from the young renegade who had so often appeared in my mind’s eye. This fat man was the same sporting hero, the same fugitive, the same vigilante worshipped by the nation?
Suddenly his knees locked up and he looked embarrassed.
“Eddie tells me you’ve been ill,” Terry said.
“Don’t change the subject,” Dad said, his voice turbulent with emotion. “I scattered your ashes, you know.”
“You did? Where?”
“I put them in bottles of cayenne pepper in a small supermarket. The rest I dumped in a puddle on the side of the road.”
“Well, I can’t say I deserved any better!” Terry laughed loudly and put his hand on Dad’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me, you fat ghost!”
“Mate. Don’t be like that. Are you pissed off about the millionaires thing? Don’t be. I just couldn’t resist. As soon as I heard about what you were doing in Australia, Marty, I knew what I had to do. I’ve been rescuing you from one drama or another your entire life. And helping you has made me who I am. I don’t regret it. I love who I am, and just taking those millions in such an obvious scheme was the easiest way for me to rescue you one last time. You see, mate, I wanted you to come here. I thought it was high time we saw each other again, and I was long overdue to meet Jasper.”
I could see that Dad’s inward rage had almost made its way out. An evil storm was churning in him, and it had everything to do with Caroline. He noticed that she was demonstrating none of the rage; she was quiet, still literally gaping at Terry in horror and wonder. Terry, meanwhile, aimed his smiling eyes back at me.
“Hey, nephew. Why don’t you say something?”
“How did you get out of solitary confinement?”
Terry’s face looked empty of thought for a moment, before he said, “The fire! Of course! And Marty, you told him the whole story. Good for you! Good question, Jasper, right at the beginning.”
“Were you even in solitary?” Dad asked.
We all leaned forward with utter absorption as Terry began.
“I sure was! That was a close one. I almost did get baked- in solitary there are no windows, of course, but I heard a lot of screaming, guards shouting orders to each other, and when the smoke came under the door I knew I was cooked. It was pitch-black in that cement cage, hotter than hell and full of smoke. I was terrified. I started shouting, ‘Let me out! Let me out!’ But no one came. I banged on the door and nearly burned my arm right off. There wasn’t anything I could do, and it took all the psychological effort I could muster to calm myself down enough to settle in for an unpleasant death. Then I heard footsteps in the corridor. It was one of the guards, Franklin. I recognized his voice: ‘Who’s in there?’ he shouted. ‘Terry Dean!’ I answered. Good old Franklin. He was a good man who loved cricket and he was a big fan of my rampage. He opened the door and said, ‘Come on!’ and in his panic to save me, he let down his guard. I knocked him unconscious, took his clothes, threw him in the cell, and locked the door.”
“You murdered the man who came to save you.”
Terry paused a moment and gave Dad a strange look, like a man deciding whether or not to explain a complex natural phenomenon to a child, then continued. “After that it was easy. The whole prison was on fire, and I didn’t even have to use the keys I’d stolen- all the doors were open. Somehow I made my way through the smoke-filled corridors and out of the prison, I saw the town up in flames and disappeared into the smoke. That was it.”
“So it was Franklin who burned in your cell.”
“Yeah, I guess it was his ashes you scooped up.”
“What happened next?”
“Oh yeah- I saw you in the fire. I called out to you, but you didn’t see me. Then I saw that you were running into a trap. I shouted, ‘Left, turn left!’ and you turned and disappeared.”
“I heard you! I thought it was your bloody ghost, you mongrel!”
“Spent a couple of days in Sydney lying very low. Caught a freighter to Indonesia. Worked my way around the globe checking out the other continents to see what they had to offer, and wound up here in Thailand. That’s when I started the democratic cooperative of crime.”