The UnTexan: LIES, PICKUP TRUCKS AND REMEMBERING REMEMBERING

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

"...falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have."

Abraham Lincoln

I lost my truck in a parking lot a few days ago. I walked out of the hospital after a bit of skin cancer cutting and burning by my dermatologist and could not remember where I parked my pickup. It is a large pickup, a Dodge Ram 1500, and not easy to lose. But I lost it. I tried to visualize where I'd put it, but I couldn't. I knew it was there somewhere but that's all I seemed to know. After walking the entire lot in 90-degree heat and doubling back I found it, though I didn't recognize it at first. But the key fit the lock. I climbed in and drove on over to Target to pick up some pain medication (I have no idea why I was allowed to drive at all, but I made it). There weren't many shoppers at Target (there never are around here) and I found a front-row parking space not far from the door. And the pharmacist helped me right away (I wanted that hydrocodone in my hand before the numbness in my chest wore off). But when I left the store I couldn't remember where I'd parked my truck. I'd lost it again, just like I did at the hospital an hour before. I didn't even remember parking it near the store (and didn't recognize it when it was sitting directly across the driveway from me). I searched, found a familiar truck, made sure the key fit and drove on home.

Nothing like this ever happened to me before. The doctor believes it might have something to do with epinephrine. The numbing injection I received in my chest contained lidocaine (numbing) and epinephrine (stay number longer). Whatever it was I didn't like losing my truck. But I remembered enough to know that it was lost. At least I remembered that.

I do not forget things. I've always counted on not forgetting things. It's a good part of who I am. A good memory (and a way with words) kept me gainfully employed for my whole working life. It's also a bad part of what I used to be (the very same memory and words).

When I was younger I was a very good liar. No, I was an exceptional liar. Because I had a talent for it. And I own the tools of the trade: (1) an exceptional memory, and (2) a gift for language (and how to use it) that is not an ordinary gift. It is a gift so grand that it is like the best Christmas present ever and I still play with it after all these years. I have my mother to thank for all of it. She made me remember things (lists, facts, names, numbers, addresses, anything other people might write down) and she taught me to read (and I did that by remembering the way the words looked on the pages she read to me). Her intention was to love me. She didn't intend to teach me to read and I don't think she intended to teach me to lie either. But she did.

This is how I described her in something I published a few years ago:

"My mother is a word person, ace-speller, Scrabble-player, crossword-puzzler, letter-writer, marathon telephone-talker; she thinks it's a sin that modern children can't spell and write better and blames it on computers with spell-checkers, public school integration, Spanish-speaking immigrants, younger teachers 'who don't know their you-know-what from a hole in the ground,' the general decline of good manners and the idea that things were better when she was young."

She passed that word stuff on to me. Unfortunately she also passed along the need to live in a world where the truth simply isn't enough to get a person through. The combination of language and an ongoing sense of insufficiency is a powerful thing. My mother was a self-stitched patchwork of lies and truths. We all are. But she was the middle child among nine children and she lost her way at some early age (when she was a young child she asked for a boy's haircut, boy's clothes and boy's toys for her birthday - she wanted to be like her two older brothers, not like her sisters - and that's what she received) and never quite found the way back to herself. Ever. She was always uncomfortable with who she was and where she was (unless she lied about that too). She was many things in her long life, but she felt like nothing and nowhere. She would not be convinced otherwise. Some people grow old letting go of their old lies and seeking the truth of their lives, but she picked her way through the pieces or the life she had made up, hid from the life she had lived and clung to that patchwork camouflage, keeping it between her and everything and everyone around her even as she felt it begin to unravel. She feared the naked truth, just as she feared her own nakedness because she didn't know what she (or even worse, others) might see. In many ways she grew old without ever growing up.

But why lie? After a while, if you are dissatisfied, displaced and disemblative enough, there doesn't have to be a reason. It is a life of distorted proportions.

A good lie is built out of just the right words in just the right order and leaning slightly toward the truth if they must, but that isn't really necessary. But grammar, spelling and a dictionary are not enough. A good lie is a work of art. The right words artfully arranged become their own truth (liars and writers know that). Once the lie is built you have to remember to tend it. And a good lie is worth nothing if you can't remember where you stashed it. And you can't forget where you buried the truth either; someone might stumble across it. Forgetful people are not good liars.

My mother and I were very good at those things. Make it up. Make it real. Don't forget where you put it. But it is an exhausting way to live and my mother led a weary life (though she often lied to cover it up). I tired of the weariness. And I did not want to grow old without growing up. Besides, I am her oldest child. I was never lost in the middle. I just learned to feel that way.

The real truth of my mother's life was clear at her crowded funeral and proved she had had nothing to fear. She was something (to a very large number of people), but she wasn't there to see it. I'd decided long before that I could not wait that long. I changed my mind and decided to change my ways. It took many years - and it took leaving and staying away - but I quit lying. I became a writer instead. Fiction writing has been described as lying in pursuit of the truth. I figured I would be good at it. But liars fear the truth and writers seek it. So fear of the truth was a problem for a long time (it clouded both my writing and my thinking). I realized changing my mind was not enough. But I worked at it and just in time I had a change of heart. Life has been easier since then. And that's the truth.

The UnTexan

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie -- or Anywhere Else in Texas

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LIES, PICKUP TRUCKS AND REMEMBERING REMEMBERING

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