Yesterday, I lied to my father.
After the words had left my cracked lips, he observed me. He took account of
the way I licked my lips, hoping to add moisture to their flesh. He saw the
bead of sweat that was crossing the finish line of a race down my jaw line. He
stared deeply into my eyes to see whether or not I would hold his gaze or if I
would break away, searching desperately for something that didn’t exist. When
saw my eyebrow twitch, he snapped, his hand moving faster than the deafening
crack of thunder.
I began putting the pieces back
together after they happened, while my ears were chiming bells, and I was
counting the stars dancing around my head. He moved before I could even blink,
but now I remember him winding back with his left hand open. The hit came so
fast, the tips of his fingers broke the sound barrier. The crisp snap that
sounded as his hand swung through the air I will remember for the rest of my
life. This was not the first time I tried to lie to my father, nor was it the
first time that he struck me.
It was the first time, in a long time, that I had not
anticipated the impact. I thought I had him. I believed that he would
believe the lie. Is that not the foundation of an effective lie? Is it not true
that before I can convince anyone of anything mustn’t I believe it, I mean
truly believe it, myself? Maybe I simply wasn’t as convinced of my truth
as I thought I had been. Perhaps, on the walk home, in the situations and
scenarios I had with myself in my head, I had convinced myself that I truly
believed the lie which I was about to feed my father. Perhaps my willingness to
believe the lie itself overshadowed the fact that deep in my soul, I didn’t
actually, truly believe what I was about to say.
Subconsciously my hand reached for my cheek to check
the damage which had been done to my face. I felt a slippery wetness which I
initially misidentified as blood. When I pulled my hand away in order to
inspect the substance I found there were tears streaming down my face. I was
crying. I found the fact I was crying from this interaction to be intriguing. I
had been hit much harder than this and had not cried. My nose had been broken,
spilling a gooey crimson river down the front of my dress and I had not cried. I
had been hit with a closed fist directly above my cheekbone which caused my
right eye to be swollen shut for three full days and I had not cried on that
occasion either. Last year I broke my ankle jumping off the roof of a two-story
building. On that occasion I thought I might cry as I ran down the street, the
approaching sounds of sirens a symphony reaching its crescendo. However, I
still did not shed a tear, even as the frozen wind whipped my face.
I came to realize the tears were not in response to
the pain of the impact. I can deal with pain. I have delt with pain my entire
life. Every day is painful; this is not something that would have caused me to
cry. Nor it is true that the tears came from the fear of my father laying his
hands on me. Maybe at one point in my life I was afraid of him. Surely when I
was but a child and I knew nothing about the world—and certainly nothing about
my family— I was afraid enough to shed tears of fear. But this is not the case
today. I looked up at my father’s face and was further convinced this fear was
not the root cause of my tears. I was not afraid of him. I knew he did not act
out of hate. I looked at the birds feed that edged the corners of his eyes and
stared into the unblinking globes in his head and I realized why I was crying.
No, it wasn’t the realization that I had disappointed him. Like pain, I was
used to that feeling.
The truth is I was crying because I thought I had won.
I thought I had pulled one over on my father. Finally, after all these years of
being caught lying and answered with hits, smacks, slaps, and punches, I was
convinced that today I was going to get away with the lie. I wanted it so badly
to be true that I overstepped and blew up with overconfidence. That
overconfidence had been my downfall I was sure of it. I was much too excited
and he could see it. He could feel it when I entered the room.
My father never taught me to lie. I had to pick the
pieces up as I watched other people. A young man at the convenience store
telling the clerk he was only buying one bundle of firewood, only to go outside
and load up two bundles as the clerk was busy helping the elderly woman who was
next in line count her change. The waitress at Waffle House telling the man at
the register they were out of eggs, when she was just too lazy to go to the
back of the store and open up a new case. The bartender telling the overly
inebriated individual that the drink he was giving him was a double rum and
coke when in fact it was just a regular coke.
Lying isn’t just something that you can do
haphazardly. It has to be thought out or you will certainly trip over your own
lies. Nor can it be overly complicated. If you are asked one too many questions
that you don’t know the answer to you lie will quickly fall apart, like tugging
at a loose thread on a new dress. For good measure, to make a lie truly
believable, sprinkle in a grain of truth. The more truthful a lie sounds, the
more someone is likely to believe it. I don’t believe that if you follow these
three aspects of lying you will get away with saying anything or that a
believable lie cannot leave out one of these elements. However, from my
experiences, my observations, these are the foundational tenets of a good lie.
So today I am putting these pieces together. To
challenge my father once again to this game of wits. I spent the whole night
last night thinking of a lie to mix with truth. Once I settled on something I
thought was even remotely believable I spent all day thinking about the
infinite possible questions that he could ask me about the lie. Not that he has
ever asked me a question. Every single time I have attempted to lie to my
father he has done nothing more than look at my face for a brief second before
striking me. But as the Boy Scouts say: Always be Prepared. I didn’t have a
distraction I could use to keep my father’s attention away from the
truthfulness of my lie, but like I said, I think a successful lie can be
hatched without every foundational aspect of lying.
When I entered my house, my father greeted me with a
soft smile and the same cheery eyes he always did when I got home. I could see
the shimmering look on his face, as always, he was genuinely happy to see me. I
exchanged pleasantries and for a time we talked about our day. As I was
approaching the moment when I would fling my lie, unannounced from my trebuchet,
I could feel my knuckles grow white on the arms of my chair. I forced myself to
loosen my grip before he noticed! My heart was now pounding out of my chest,
and I felt like the protagonist of Edgar Allen Poe’s masterpiece The Tell
Tale Heart. My favorite story, I never understood why he caved at the end
and spilled the secret he was hiding. Now, though, I could feel the pressure. I
had yet begun to sweat, a tell tale sign that someone is lying, but I knew it
would surely be soon, I could feel my insides heating up like a pressure cooker
on the edge of bursting.
It was time to make my move. With the nimble slyness
of a lyrical seamstress, I wove my lie into our conversation and continued to
talk. I had fed my father, now it was time to see if he would keep it down, or
if he would explode and burst forward striking me like a cobra once more. To my
surprise he continued talking about his work for the next few minutes. I chimed
in here and there, but with each passing moment I thought it was my time for
punishment.
I began to let myself find comfort in the fact that I
had finally successfully lied to my father. I wanted to burst out of my skin
and scream in his face. I dreamed of dancing on top of him singing my own
praises for after years and years I had finally found success with my words,
but I didn’t dare. Not enough time had yet passed and if I broke now, the lie
would have been worthless, because there is no point in a lie if you reveal the
truth moments later.
Suddenly he stopped. His mouth grew small. What had
moments before been a chattering father, opening up about his day was now a
cold and calculating machine. I could see him studying me. I could tell he was
withholding an emotion, but when my father entered this calculating state, he
was impossible to read. He stood up and approached me. When my father was
seated he gave the impression of being fragile and weak, but when he stood any
observer could see this was a lie. He radiated confidence, power, and strength.
Now, he was towering over me. I braced for the impact I knew was certain to
follow.
“Did you just fucking lie to me?” He asked. Never
before had my father acknowledged my attempts at lying to him with anything
more than physical violence. I met his gaze. My body grew cold for I was in
uncharted waters. I didn’t know what to expect. Should I tell the truth now and
accept the beating? Would it be worse than usual? Should I stay silent? No. I
was confident. I felt it in my veins. I doubled down.
“No.” He stared at me for another moment longer. Then
faster than my eyes could track he was on me. His hands wrapped around my body
like the mighty anaconda, and he squeezed. An eruption that would put TNT to
shame came from his mouth; laughter. He was hugging me.
“Honey!” he yelled into the other room. “She just lied
to me and I had no idea!”
Over my father’s shoulder my mom popped her head into
the living room. She reminded me of a meercat the way they keep an eye out for
the pack.
“That’s amazing sweetie,” she said to me, “I’m so
proud of you.” I thought she might be on the verge of tears and I became
exceedingly proud of myself for this monumental achievement. Finally, I allowed
myself to bask in my accomplishment and I hugged my father back. After our
embrace he looked at me with a newfound appreciation.
“Get your coats ladies, we’re going to get ice cream.”
Ice cream, in our family, was a desert which was reserved
for celebrations of the highest importance.
Bio:
Isaac Berlau is an attorney in Massachusetts. He lives
with two dogs, one leopard gecko, and a handful of fish.
