The Lies We Tell

“In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought. In fact, you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities.” La Rochefoucauld

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Who can deny the fact our lives are layered with a pack of lies? We were born into the proclivity as the sparks fly upward. Lies fuel the fires of hell. The tongue lights the match.

Ok, so maybe this is a little dramatic, but you already know what happens when we tell a lie. Like a thief, we have to keep watching our backs. Our conscience stalks us relentlessly. Truth is a persistent pursuer.

Not all consciences are sensitive. This is especially true of the “For the People” TV lawyers. Politicians and televangelists tie for second place. Golfers are subtle. They fib on scores. It pays to have small handicaps posted on the wall of the men’s locker room. Egos need enhancement.

My mama used to say, “If you can believe it, then it’s true.” I think she was trying to convince herself that her son was not born brain dead.

According to American Indian folklore, the conscience is like an internal revolving stone triangle. It has sharp edges. Each untruth grinds it until the sharp edges no longer cut to the quick. Such is the conscience of a sociopath.

They’re everywhere. The latest study by the Women for Parity Coalition concludes all men are sociopaths. Few, if any, have the mental capacity for remorse. No sense of guilt. I relate. I am a man.

My first recollection of telling a lie was when I was caught with ten rolls of Tums bulging from the pocket of my shorts. I was about five or six. Having consumed maybe three or four complete rolls, a white, chalky residue clung to my lips like I’d eaten a bowl of kaolin.

“Son, what’s that white crud all over your face?” my father asked, and not too kindly.

Out of the mouth of babes come stupid, kneejerk answers.

“Candy?” It was a question used to deflect guilt. It failed. A sharp knife sliced my heart.

Clearly, cognitive function is logic-deficit at my age. Not only was a theft involved, but a significant cover-up to boot. Watergate stripped Nixon naked.

Truth will always out sooner or later. All of a sudden the stolen contraband turned to acid in my stomach. What if it had been rat poison? Horrors.

“Where did you get that stuff, boy?” my father demanded. He was a man with sharp tongue and decisive action. He should have been a Guantanamo interrogator.

The answer was so quick you’d have thought I’d been programmed before birth. “Grandma gave it to me.” Did I just say that?

But the lie was exhilarating, I recall. A big-boy lie, at that. I felt affirmed. Some things one never forgets. Like the first dark-night experience in the back seat of a car at the drive-in. Remember? It happened just at the very moment when Bogart blurts out, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Words have double meanings, you know.

Like after eating too many sardines, my stomach began to churn. A big grin stretched over my father’s face as he un-cinched his leather belt. What came next was no surprise. I’d been there before.

Tums still turns my stomach. Some lessons have lasting results. There’s a certain proverb that reads something like this: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of iron will drive it far from him.” Belts do the job just as well.

Lying tends to run in family genes. My father was a fisherman. He was a master inventor of fiction. Creative lying has been elevated by fishermen from a science to an art form.

There are degrees of lies. Most of us are masters of the midgets, those little white ones that grease the wheels of social graces. I have a good friend. He talks a lot. Lurking somewhere in each sentence is a word of truth. Embellishment and hyperbole disguise it. Fabrication is a creative act. Trump University teaches it.

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One day we’ll lie in state. The ruse will be over then. Public viewing eliminates a world of ‘assumed personalities.’ Repent now.

And if you ever say to me, “Hello, Mr. Wonderful,” I won’t hold it against you.


Bud Hearn
July 24, 2015