by Andy Martin
He was not unresourceful. He could hide, for a while, or lose them for short periods. He took refuge in houses, a casino in Vegas, a remote farmhouse in Sussex, a mountaintop chalet in the Alps, a gondola in Venice, the rainforests of New Guinea. But sooner or later they would pick up his trail again. Their surveillance was global and infallible. He could disguise himself as someone else but they always knew fundamentally that it was him. And they would never give up. They were unstoppable, inexhaustible, omniscient.
Finally, they close in. Lee vaults over yet another hedge in his desperation to escape. But this time there is no solid footing on the other side. A void opens up in front of him, the abyss. He twists around, throws his hands out in front of him, manages to cling on to the sheer cliff face by his fingertips. He knows that his enemies are not far behind.
In order to extricate himself from this peril, he would need superhuman reserves of skill and strength and acrobatic agility. But having run halfway around the world, it is all he can do to hold on. He realizes, with total clarity, that there are now only two possibilities. Most likely, his pursuers will loom up over him, malevolently cackling in his face, before stomping on his fingers and booting him down to his doom. Or, improbable though it is, some forgotten ally, having somehow dispatched all his adversaries, would kindly stick his face over the edge and—almost like a miracle, like grace from heaven—a hand would reach down and he would grab on and be whisked up and away to safety. Maybe a savior in a helicopter could throw him a rope ladder, but it amounted to the same thing.
It is at this exact point, having weighed up his last remaining options, that he says, “Fuck it,” lets go of his tenuous handhold, and lets gravity do its work, sucking him down into the great nothingness below, which swallows him. And he dies. He has decided that he prefers dying to the other alternatives. Then he wakes up.
This is his most recurrent dream. It’s a classic, virtually an oneiric cliché. At one time or another, everyone everywhere is being chased. Most of us would probably wait, while clinging to that cliff face, to find out whether we are going to be saved or damned. Lee, on the other hand, chooses oblivion. “It’s the cheesiest narrative ever,” he said. “Like a bad movie. The worst movie ever. And it’s as if my critical faculty kicks in, even when I’m asleep, and says, ‘This is too ridiculous,’ and I have to reject both of the narrative solutions on offer. They’re both too obvious. Even my subconscious is skeptical.”
The interpretation of dreams is not a science. The biblical Joseph was good at it, so was Freud. Perhaps dreams are not even a window into the soul or the unconscious or the fate of nations. They could be just the accumulation and expulsion of mental debris. They nocturnally exorcise our ghosts or toss all the rubbish that threatens to pollute or clutter up our diurnal brain. Perhaps the dream is a delete button. But if it is, then its functionality is limited since certain dreams return to haunt us again and again. Like Lee’s.
One of his dreams actually made it into hardcovers. This was in Without Fail, the one about the attempt to assassinate the vice president. In his dream Lee is living in a neat house in the suburbs. The mailbox is a metal box on a pole at the end of the driveway. A bunch of kids drives by and smashes the mailbox. The phenomenon is so recurrent it even has a name: “mailbox baseball.” In his dream Lee is furious: he comes running out, clenching his fists, and he knows that if he ever manages to catch up with the kids there will be blood on the floor. Without Fail incorporates the story into the deep background of the vice president and his pursuers.
But the obsessive dream, the one about being hunted down, also gets into his novels, every one of them. Reacher is looking for something or someone, then someone starts looking for him. It will end badly for one or the other. Maybe it’s not so much a bad movie as the story of everyone’s life. It’s paranoia, but they really are after you.
My own interpretation of Lee’s dream was bound to be tilted by all the simultaneous talk of his “big push” towards finishing Make Me, what he was starting to call his “marathon sprint,” in March and April. “I’ve goofed off long enough,” he said. Not one thousand a day, more like two. He wanted me there every day to keep tabs on him.
Lee had told me often enough his major issue, once he had gone past the beginning, was how not to shut down the narrative prematurely. Reacher gets off the train, takes one look at Mother’s Rest, changes his mind, and gets right back on. The End. Or Stashower says, “Get lost, hobo!” Reacher beats a retreat. The End. It’s the off button. You have to find a way around it. Surely all those drooling beasts baying for his blood are forms of the ending overcoming him too soon, thus killing off him and Reacher in one fell swoop. All those readers—which included me—asking if Reacher was done yet, or dead yet, or dying, it was another version of the same struggle, to keep Reacher alive and still on his feet. And to keep Lee Child in the game.
What is happening when Lee is dangling over the abyss, his own version of the Reichenbach Falls, and he actively chooses to let go and fall to his doom? Was this conceivably the luxury of success? He could surely afford to let go and die, job done, mission accomplished. It was certainly another form of elegant minimalism. No hand [rescue], no boot [annihilation]. Another translation of “Reacher said nothing.” And it was an assertion of his own self-determination.
But it suggested to me a sublime confidence in the ending, a sense that he could come up with a fond farewell of his own, neither happy nor unhappy, and not Hollywood either. Only another approximately fifty thousand words to go. And then aaaaaaaagh! THE END.
BIOGRAPHEME
IT WAS NOT A DREAM, nor a nightmare. He was living in Coventry at the time. About three and a half years old. They had a house with an outside lavatory. It was inevitable that he would get locked in there at some point. When it finally happened, he assumed he would have to stay there forever and ever. There was no way out, none. This was it. That lock was never going to budge. No exit.
Having contemplated a future in a vertical box with a toilet in it, he thought it wouldn’t be too bad. But there was one thing that played on his mind. He could surely stick it out indefinitely because they could slip his food to him under the door. It was one of those wooden doors with a gap at the top and a gap at the bottom for the purpose of ventilation. A tray of food would fit under. He could live there perfectly well. Except for one thing.
And it was this that he couldn’t get out of his head and which, in the end, persuaded him that a life spent in the privy in his backyard would quickly pall. The question was: What were you going to do with the mashed potato? The whole point of mashed potato (he knew this from the Beano and the Dandy) was that it was served up in the form of an approximate pyramid, a small mountain (possibly with a sausage sticking out of it). The young Lee grasped at once that it would be impossible for the great mound of mashed potato, an integral part of any decent meal, to fit under the door. The gap was not big enough for the huge dollop of mash.
This was the thought that plagued him: It will all get scraped onto the floor!
The idea still haunts him even now.
METAMORPHOSIS
I WAS SITTING in Biff’s diner when they came for me. Having coffee. Black. About a gallon or so. Biff’s had a perpetual refill system, which suited me fine. I was bottomless, where coffee was concerned. I was staying in some riffraff-only motel, which suited me fine. I had even freshly pressed my hardware store chinos, shoving them under the mattress for the night. And brushed my teeth. I was looking about as spruce and soigné as I’d ever look. I was ready and primed for the showdown.
I knew they’d be coming. I’d been in Biff’s the day before. My first day in town. Little place called Cambridge, Mass. Leafy, quiet, classy, full of old stuff. Biff was this okay old guy behind the counter who would break into snatches of song between frying eggs and flipping pancakes. I was reading a newspaper at the time. In a booth. Some story about a few dead guys in Jersey. Which I had left a couple of days before, on a bus going n
orth. (If you want to know, they were roaches, I’m pest control.)
When I looked up from the paper there were these couple of guys looking back at me. Fairly intently, checking me out. Young fit-looking guys. Clocking me, registering my existence, comparing it with some mental database. They looked kind of excited about something, then they left. I knew they’d be back. It was all in the look. Like we were arranging a date, same place, same time, tomorrow? Yeah? Yeah. No retreat, no regret.
So I came back and they came back. I was still sitting there, in my booth, drinking another gallon of coffee. Only difference, this time there were five of them. They were all young and fit-looking. Not big but sinewy. One of the two guys I’d seen the first time came up to my booth. He reminded me of some Hollywood guy I’d seen in a film once—sort of small but packing a big punch. They were all wearing these rust-colored sweatshirts that said “HARVARD” on them. Like if they were lost they could be taken back there.
I have to hand it to the kid—he was only twenty or so—he was polite anyway. “My name is Tom Cruise,” he said. “Over here are my friends Bruce Lee, Arnie, Bruce Willis (sorry if that is a bit confusing, with the two Bruces), and, finally, Puller. Noms de guerre, of course.” They all gave a small bow.
I said nothing.
“Reacher said nothing,” he said. “I like that. I assume you are Jack (none) Reacher. You don’t have to say anything.”
I still said nothing. I wasn’t about to stand up and take a bow. He kept on talking.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” the kid said. Pushing his luck. “The thing is, we are great fans of yours. Admirers. Not everyone is, of course.”
I didn’t know I had any fans. Not sure I really wanted them either.
“Our professors, for example, really look down their noses at you. But they’re just snobs. We like your style. It is sooo primitive. We call it the ‘caveman style.’ Obviously it works for you. But we are a little more progressive in approach. What with being members of the Harvard Tae Kwon Do team. It’s a bit more sophisticated and Zen. The way we look at it, you don’t have to be huge and muscular. Like a big, bumbling grizzly bear. You can be slim and fine and still be effective. We appreciate you probably need to drink more black coffee, but, on the other hand, we would like to challenge you to a fight. Now. We know you like odds of five to one. But we think we can take you out, Mr. Reacher. We have the skills.”
There was something about the way he said now. Made me put my coffee cup down. “Outside,” I said, in my best grizzly bear voice.
I was lying of course. They all walked politely ahead of me towards the door. Like they were trooping into class. That was their first big mistake. I took out Mr. Puller with a huge and muscular boot to the rectum. Always hated the name Puller for some reason. Bruce Willis went down with an elbow to his head. He’d live. Leaving just the three of them. Game over. They were light on their feet, I’ll give them that, like they had air-filled shoes. They danced around a lot. But I steamrollered Bruce Lee up against a door and planted a meaty fist in his solar plexus. That took some of the air out of him. Arnie was a real butterfly. I pinned him to the wall with a tabletop.
Which left only the blabbermouth Cruise. He was still bobbing and weaving. Me and him. I like it simple. Also, I wanted to prove to him just how primitive I can be. I’m not an abnormally sensitive guy but still. So naturally I went for the head butt. His head was right there in front of me. And he was smiling. I was snarling. I was expecting to hear the satisfying sound of bone and gristle as it collapsed under the impact of my massive forehead. But it was as if his head just wasn’t there anymore. I connected with air and stumbled forwards. Which is when the foot caught me. I never even saw it coming. The foot ended up roughly where his face had been a moment before. I’m fast, but he was faster. Twinkletoes caught me square on the nose.
The head butt was my best move. Never been known to fail. Until now. Old joke: I hit his foot with my face. There was blood on the floor, and for once some of it was mine. I was stunned. But not so much for the kick in the head, more because of something he said next.
“I’m not going for the two-footed flyer,” he said. “Not like Paulie. He was an idiot.”
Paulie had been twice the size of the kid. Then something clicked in my brain. “You know about Paulie?”
“Of course. And Hook Hobie. And the Romford Boys. Not to mention that army bureaucrat you shot in cold blood.”
It was like the karate kid knew everything about me. “Who told you?” I looked over my shoulder, like a complete idiot.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Tell me and maybe I won’t grind you up into tiny little pieces with my bare teeth.”
There was something in his face then. Something I hadn’t seen a whole lot of before. I think it was pity. Which sort of stopped me in my tracks.
“Can you even read?” he said.
“I only look like a gorilla,” I said.
“Sesquipedalian?”
“Long-winded Harvard types.” Okay it took me a second or two to compute. Come on, I’ve read Proust (it was my brother’s and it was only a few pages and I didn’t really get it, but still).
“Oxymoron?”
“The intelligent idiot.”
His hand went towards his back pocket. “Hold it!” I said, tensing.
He turned around, showed me what the hand was up to. It was hoisting out a book. A cheap paperback. The kind of thing you can pick up at an airport bookstand if you have the time and the inclination. This one was dog-eared and much thumbed, with coffee stains on the cover too.
“Here,” he said. “A present.”
I took it in my hand. Killing Floor by Lee Child. “Outstanding debut novel!” said one of the quotes on the cover. But it was the name mentioned in the blurb on the back that really caught my eye. Jack Reacher. Coincidence? Whatever it was, all the fight had gone out of me. I helped all the members of the Harvard Tae Kwon Do team back on their feet. They weren’t too badly hurt. In fact, less badly than I had intended. And Cruise remained unscarred. Which I wasn’t too happy about, particularly considering that my nose had been knocked halfway around my face.
I dabbed at my face gingerly with a paper towel in Biff’s bathroom. I looked in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It never had been, but it was looking less appealing than ever. For some reason, something that one or two of my teachers had said to me several decades before drifted back to mind: “One of these fine days, Reacher, you’re going to have to stop scrapping and grow up!” Or words to that effect. I was starting to think maybe they had a point. Was I getting too old for all this? I mean, the endless roaming around, the inevitable punch-ups.
I sat down in my booth again. Poured myself another cup of coffee, pumped my caffeine level back up again.
The diner hadn’t been too badly trashed with all the fighting. The karate kid put down a cool $100 note in front of Biff and I offered to mop up the blood or wash the dishes or something. He said he wouldn’t call the cops this time. “This is Jack Reacher,” said Cruise. “What?!” says Biff. “The Jack Reacher? And you kicked his butt into next week too!”
I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. But I signed the napkin the way he asked me to and went and sat down. It was like I was under surveillance and everybody else had been tuning in. How the hell was I supposed to fly under the radar anymore? It was like Father Christmas just blew into town. Or John Lennon. Everybody knew about it. Except me apparently.
I picked up the book and started reading. “I was arrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.”
If I recall, it was more like one o’clock. The book was full of little mistakes like that. The author kept making things up. And I was having pancakes. With maple syrup. He missed that. But you want to know the thing that really got to me? Like a kick in
the teeth. It was the stupid short sentences. Some of them only four words long. Only four words long! For crying out loud. No this, no that. Whatever happened to decent complex sentences, the large, sweeping kind, broad as the Mississippi, with twists and turns and little creeks and coves and subordinate clauses and semicolons? The kind we used to write back in the day, when writers were writers.
A barely literate high school dropout could do better than that. I could do better.
Ever since the kid had landed the kick on my conk, I had been thinking: I need to do something else with my life. Maybe this was it. If this was writing, any third-rate punk could do it. I had to put right everything this snooping hack Child had got wrong. It was a matter of truth and justice.
And then I knew there was one last thing on my to-do list before I could pick up a pen (or maybe a pencil?) and start writing. I put down a note and walked out of the door and went to the bus station. I got on a bus going south. The cover of Killing Floor had told me something of interest: Lee Child lives in New York.
I found myself wondering how that would sound in the past tense.
Then I thought: that would make a better narrative. And that’s for damn sure.
THE BIG REVEAL
44,695 WORDS and five and a half months after he wrote “Moving a guy as big as Keever…” Lee was finally starting to work out what the hell was going on in Mother’s Rest. It was bad but also good, very good. In a way, it was all already there, in your face, right on the first page. Especially in the word “nothingness.” At the same time, the secret to the Child methodology was emerging.
In his previous incarnation, in television, Lee used to oversee one of the original cooking competitions. It was an early exercise in reality TV. But like every “reality” show, the set was a setup. There were in fact two sets in one. Two kitchens. With two fridges. Each fridge contained a different assortment of potential ingredients. In fridge 1, for example, there might be a bunch of grapes, some mushrooms, a tomato or two, an avocado, and a tub of ice cream. In fridge 2, we find arugula, spaghetti, a lobster, and a packet of M&M’s. The challenge to the two competing chefs: obviously, to cook up the best possible dish given the constraints of the fridge. But there was an imperative to use up everything that was in the fridge and leave nothing behind. The grape that was left sitting there, unused, meant that points would be deducted. Somehow, no matter how disparate the parts, they had to be merged into a whole.