Fatale Abstraction

I was just listening to Don't Stop Believing by Journey. When I was in 9th grade, my band went to Disneyland, and Journey was all the rage. I, of course, was listening to British imports and stuff that couldn't be found on radio, but I was ok with a lot of what was going on in pop and rock and roll. I even rather liked Journey, compared to a lot of the crap on the radio at the time. Still, Bauhaus, Gang of Four and Killing Joke were my thing, and I'm rather proud of having better taste than the pedestrian traffic would allow.

One heifer in my band, an obnoxious clarinet player named Rhonda, was obsessed with Journey and I'll bet I heard Open Arms about 100 times there and back on that California trail of torture. Turned me smack off Journey until about two years ago. I still won't be running out and buying a Journey cd, but at least I can hear them without my skin crawling these days.

When I was about 15, our family went to California over the Christmas holidays to see relatives. A second cousin was visiting our mutual great aunt. He pulled out a cassette tape and played what he insisted was his band doing a cover of Don't Stop Believing, playing one little passage over and over and explaining that he played a slightly different flourish on the guitar there than the original, but he did admit it was otherwise indistinguishable from the original--he was just that good. Uh, yeah. You have to wonder about the compulsive liar types - it's a little sad and a little startling that they think people are so gullible. I remember thinking what an ass he was and that it would probably seem rude if I registered my disbelief, so I just said, "ah, wow, that's really good because it sounds like Journey to me."

Anyway, he's a deputy sheriff now - isn't that comforting?

I always had a spectacular imagination. I remember one particularly mortifying whopper I told once, and to further seal my shame, I'm going to share it with you now.

Aunt and Uncle (she's my pop's sister) are incredibly industrious and put themselves through college and became educators, both eventually taking the role of principals in various school districts. They were(are) known as a formidable pair who brooked no B/S when it came to teenager antics. They were particularly sought out by school districts who had problems controlling the delinquents in their classrooms. Uncle is as nice as the day is long, but he's a huge athletic guy, and would use this to his advantage when necessary. Once a couple troubled youths in his high school who were brought to his office after some sort of fisticuff. These kids thought they were badasses and could intimidate any mere school official. Uncle told them they were going to get in line and stay in line or he'd give them what-for. Then he jumped flat-footed from the ground up to the top of his desk and did a sort of gorilla pose and said "I'm a WILD man!", all crazy-eyed and menacing. Apparently the boys 'bout peed themselves before they got away from him that day, and were thenceforth model students.

So, wait for it. The idiotic lie I told - well, gosh, this is horrid - I had to tell him something impressive about how I could relate to what a tough school he had. (I was about 7, second grade) I told him I saw one kid pull another kid's eyeball out with a stick.

Whew! I'm back. I was shaking so hard from laughing that I had to stop typing for a couple minutes and wipe away the tears. The horrors! What on EARTH made me do that? [Of course, I never saw a kid poke another kid's eyeball out, thank goodness.]

Uncle said "he did? You saw that happen?"
Me, the very picture of second-grade credulity, wide-eyed and nodding: "Yeah! It was gross!"

I remember visualizing how it might have happened, the three of us standing near the street, our backs furtively turned toward the schoolhouse and the joy-killing eyes of the teacher. Inexplicably, I remember envisioning an intestine-like 2 foot rope of viscera spooling out behind the eyeball from the void of the eye socket-- I had not, as yet, made a great study of anatomy, though I did know the neck bone was connected to the head bone.

I would occasionally tell lies as a little kid, but not usually such fantastic, impossible ones. More often mine were more the garden-variety less-verifiable kind like wiping a wet washrag over my teeth and saying that yes, I had brushed my teeth. Fortunately, I learned rather early that the danger of lying was that lies might result in a switching, and we hated those. No, indeed, if one were to tell lies and not get a whipping, one must learn nuance and subtlety and be very, very good at it. Ultimately, lying wasn't worth the mental energy it took to maintain the buttressing that kept the bad story alive.

About 10 years ago, I mentioned my lie to Uncle, about how it made my blood run cold to think that I would ever have been silly enough to utter such absolute twaddle, but he very politely didn't seem to recall it at all. I suppose my whopper seemed minor and had been crowded out of his memory by more impressive spinners of baloney.

Anyway, you have to wonder about people who never grow out of the lying thing - it's got to be absolutely exhausting, and isn't life complicated enough without that? Sheesh.