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name: will baker blogrollin' other sites: |
ordinary people
Maybe it�s just an American thing, the idea that you can just decide to be whatever you want. Maybe somewhere we�ve gotten the idea that being an ordinary person isn�t good enough. I don�t know if it�s uniquely American, or just an artifact of a media culture in which �truth� is what�s running across the bottom of the screen on CNN. Whatever it is, there are a lot of people whose public personae are total fabrications. Years ago, when I was drinking and using, I had a good friend named Martin. Martin had an interesting life. He was the child of a man in the French Diplomatic Corps and a Japanese botanist. He grew up in Washington D.C. and went to Sidwell Friends, the Quaker private school where Chelsea Clinton went to high school. He had gotten a B.A. from UT Austin, traveled the world, and was now here in San Antonio working as a financial consultant at Citibank. He had a house big enough for his parents to come and stay for long visits. Or so we all thought, until the day we met some old friends of his from high school. From a high school in a rural community southwest of San Antonio, to be precise. A little sleuthing revealed that his father was in fact an American and an officer in the U.S. Air Force. His mother was a war-bride. They lived here. The house belonged to them, and Martin lived with them. He was a personal banker for Citibank. In short, it was all a lie. And a pointless one. Neither I nor the people in my circle of friends were particularly important or wealthy. We would not have cared who he was or where he was from. We liked him for who he was, but after you find out you�ve been conned like that, it�s too late. Martin simply disappeared from my personal horizon. After all, how in the world do you hang around with someone after he cons you like that? What in the world do you talk about? I wasn�t hurt, exactly, or angry. I just�didn�t want any more to do with him. Ever again. He fell out of my world. I guess that more than anything, the whole experience made me feel exposed. I tell my friends a lot about myself; the know me, warts and all. Perhaps I, the typical Piscean, trust too easily. I have very few secrets, because I don�t want to carry that weight around. I would rather my friends know about my drinking and drugging days, my various criminal misdoings, my sexual past, etc., than expend the effort required to maintain a fa�ade ever single day. I don�t have the energy for that, and besides, I�m comfortable with my past. I know that I am not my checkbook or my credit report or my background check. Last night, I had to tell my boyfriend that the small round scar on the inside of my left arm is a needle-scar from the days when I used to sell my blood two times a week for drinking money. And that was okay, because I am not that scar. I know who I am, and I like that person rather a lot. And I figure that if we�re friends, you probably already like that person too. Past events and external details are peripheral. All of this is preface. What�s really on my mind is this: I think someone else is telling me big lies. Someone who�s a close friend. I have no proof of this. But this feels�well, it feels like Martin. I hope to God I�m wrong. Some little details aren�t adding up, and I�m dreading the possibility that if I pull this tiny little loose thread, the whole fabric of this relationship will unravel. I have told more than my share of lies. I understand the fear and self-loathing that drives us to write a better story than the ones we�ve lived. I know that sometimes the mundane and inconsequential truth is so much harder than the complicated cognitive acrobatics required to keep a big lie rolling. And I still hate it. I think what I hate most of all is that someone I love felt that she couldn�t tell me the truth. Because I wouldn�t have cared. If anything, it would have made me think more of her. Because I love ordinary people.
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