Life, Lies, and the Little Things

by Brandon Mason



  Life, Lies, and the Little Things

  Story by

  Brandon Mason

  ~~~

  Copyright © 2015 by Brandon Mason. All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  I sat in a tepid, dark space, contemplating the ever challenging task of deciding what to write about. Of course, I was conditionally faced with the equally unnerving dilemma of whether or not anyone could feasibly give a damn about what I had to say. I hadn't been able to bring myself to play in several days, which seemingly deemed the pen to be my only escape, through torment or salvation. The attempt to narrow down emotions and experiences into something as tangible as consonants and vowels, or ink and paper, seemed almost vain. Yet there are countless stories begging to be told, over seven billion living, breathing ones today, each one unique, yet equally valuable. The weight of them all, and the prospect of failing to do them justice, seemed, and quite frankly still seems, unbearable. Through all my anxiety and self-doubt, I recalled that I could not abandon the lonesome, searching souls. By nature, I would be neglecting my own self. As I stared, rather expressionless, at the blank paper before me, the familiar sound of the repeated clicking of my pen penetrated my train of thought.

  Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.

  I immediately thought of Waldin.

  Such a similar sound had once unconsciously, yet so significantly, altered the course of his life.

  There are few things that come more naturally to us in life than lying. We lie as soon as we realize that obscuring the truth often leads to a multitude of benefits, starting with our parents’ attention and ending with our positive reputation after we pass. We lie almost exclusively out of self-interest, yet occasionally we lie for the sake of those we truly care about, or at least we tell ourselves so. It is a common perception that a person’s intellect can be most accurately measured by their ability to lie—their competence in the art of deception. It is also a fairly shared opinion that lying, whether to one’s self or to others, is the source of all iniquity and the gravest form of betrayal. Though I see it is not my place to impose a judgment of acceptance or rejection on either thought process, their tandem beckons a rather interesting question about human intellect. On a simpler note, for one reason or another, we all lie.

  I lie.

  Waldin lied.

  Waldin lied starting at a young age, primarily in order to spare his own image and that of his family. His experience in school was less a learning venture, and more a constant attempt to blend in and appear normal, when he was nothing of the sort. He lied about his parents’ jobs, sometimes claiming they were a salesman and nurse, at other times a teacher and engineer. In reality, his mother and father were in and out of multiple blue collar jobs their whole lives and sacrificed immensely in attempt to write a different narrative for him.

  His parents lived vicariously through him, but not in an overbearing soccer mom or an elitist alumni—set on his kid going to his alma mater—kind of way. College was never an option for his mother, who—after her single mother finally stopped taking her pills—had to play mom for two younger brothers, one of whom couldn’t seem to keep his veins clean. While most girls her age were just trying not to get pregnant, she already had two kids at home, who she was barely older than. She lived her youth in the brief lulls when stomachs were full and everything wasn’t intolerably filthy yet, indifferently smoking a cigarette or flipping through endless pages of shit she’d never have. One day she was a teenager; the next she was twenty-three and nothing had changed except for the death of her mother, which at that point was barely a change at all. And then, of course, she met a young man who had been working at the factory since his awkwardly large frame could lift fifty pounds of nails. He was five years her elder but the constant stress and chain smoking left them equals in appearance. Waldin came along only a year after they met, and before either of them thought about school or a real career, they were working overtime to pay for diapers, not classes. As soon as they could, they committed themselves entirely to ensuring that Waldin had, at the very least, an opportunity to be as free as they never were.

  They couldn't manage to send him to a private school, and, trust me, they would have if they could have, so they made damn sure they gave him the closest thing. They put him through it all—the summer arts programs, rhetoric classes, cello lessons, a new Rosetta Stone every year through high school, club sports—and he lied through each one. They were reluctantly forced to settle for the best charter school they could find. It was small school on the west side, populated mostly with the kids of the city's elite and business owners, who were too progressive to send their kids to private school and shelter them from the "real" word. One can imagine how well Waldin got along with a bunch of rich kids who wanted to be down to earth and tolerant, minus the whole poverty and trying life experience part. All of his friends had far more than him, materially speaking, yet appearances never revealed their socio-economic difference. He took two buses and a train across town to school, from 7th grade through high school, and never got jumped or mugged, or even hustled for money. It's funny how being completely broke works out sometimes.

  Naturally, he concealed the fact that he hated the school and its meaningless politics, and, to be fair, in his more ignorant days he was rather indifferent to it. In retrospect, he always felt guilty for his parents giving so much of themselves for things he never had the heart to tell them he didn’t care about. Waldin lied daily in school, with cliché, premeditated answers, and became an expert at telling people what they wanted to hear, which was rarely the truth. He lied during high school when his father fell victim to terminal glaucoma, claiming he was always on business trips when friends inquired about his absence. When his father finally, through death, won his battle with cancer, he told no one. He did so not because his grief was too great, but because he never saw a point in confiding in those who would never understand him and only fail in finding something valuable to say. Why be truthful to them when all they would do in return, though maybe with good intentions, was be insincere to him?

  He lied on his college applications as he claimed that he desired nothing more than to fulfill his lifelong dream of attending a prestigious university and contributing to the campus culture. He even exaggerated his high school accolades and extracurricular endeavors, and, since they were virtually impossible to confirm, why not? If that’s what they needed to hear to accept him, then that’s what he told them. It was all a means to an end, and the end clearly justified the means. It seemed that everything in his early life was purely a means to an end, with no real meaning in and of itself. He dissimulated his way through Columbia Law School and powered straight through to the bar in five years. The look on his mother’s face at his graduation, which he hadn’t seen any semblance of since his father died, was almost enough to send him back to Savanna He
ights for life. But he needed a fresh start. He needed to find himself. Of course he did nothing of the sort, until several years later at least. After her passing, he always regretted not coming back home and being there for his mother in her last years. Maybe, together, his lost years and her last years could have been avoided, or, more realistically, delayed. But maybe is always such a useless world to use when speaking of the past.

  Waldin was recruited right after graduating by a budding law firm in the city. Lying had become such an uncanny normality that he rapidly excelled and ascended the ranks at the firm. After a few years, he was widely considered to be the firm’s top attorney and his impeccable record spoke for itself. When the senior attorney retired, having made his millions, he seemed to be the obvious front-runner for the position. This is what he had been waiting for his whole life; this was his end. As senior attorney he could choose his own clients and finally work for those who truly needed his help. He could represent the poor and disenfranchised; the victims of the system who were simply fighting to provide for their families. The redemption of the man of two could be his own atonement. The man with two strikes, two families, two jobs, and two options could watch his kids go to bed hungry for yet another night or act outside of the law to find any way to provide for them. His knowledge of the system could be used to bend and manipulate it for the benefit of those who it was originally meant to protect. He could impact the lives of “have nots” in a direct and material way. Everything he had done, all the lies, could be justified through this opportunity. The culmination of all the deception would ultimately be for a clear and undeniable “good”.

  He lied endlessly in the courtroom, in defense of millionaires, with expertly crafted monologues, pulling a veil of quotes and previous cases over the jury’s eyes. He lied twenty-five to life down to community service and house arrest, and sat with a fire burning at the bottom of his sternum as the guilty walked free. All the clients with deep pockets were given to him, since he was the best the firm had to offer, each victory bringing a broad smile to the CFO’s face. He lied for the clients with perpetual smug dispositions who saw the dismissal of their sexual assault and embezzlement charges as a foregone conclusion, once they opened their wallets. He lied for these men, whom he so fervently despised, all so that one day he could fight for those he just as fervently sympathized with. And, one day, that day came.

  The deliberations over the senior attorney position were to come to a conclusion that morning, and he woke up with sense of optimism that had been absent in his life for quite some time. Though he felt quite different, this morning commenced like any other, and the lies began. He had convinced himself that he must project an evident image of success in order to advance in this world, and that image was vital that day more than ever. He hustled through his morning workout, showered and brushed his teeth vigorously, shaved and combed his hair meticulously, applied a conservative amount of after shave, stared blankly at himself in the mirror for a few moments, and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. Broadcloth shirt, Super 450s pure wool suit, silk power tie, freshly shined shoes, he couldn’t fail. He briskly prepared his usual breakfast of a spinach and egg white omelet with plain steel cut oats. Whether or not he still lied to himself about the enjoyment of this meal was unclear, even to himself, since his taste buds might have just grown indifferent to the blandness. Either way, the image of success and vitality remained intact. After eating, the final touch had to be put on his morning. He walked silently back into his room and left a blueberry muffin, a glass of orange juice, and a note written neatly in cursive, reading, “Had a great time last night. Went to work. Leave your number. I’ll call you.”

  If he had ever told a lie in his life, that last sentence was surely it. He found it less complicated this way. He used to elaborate more in his notes and leave his own number. She would call in a few days; he’d exaggerate the complexity of his schedule but find a time for them to meet again. He’d call her the day before and say his current case had intensified and he couldn’t make it but they would surely find a time to reschedule. After a few weeks she would come to the realization that he was never calling back, briefly hate him or occasionally be indifferent, and then move on with her life. His current system skipped directly to that final step. The number left was never called. From time to time he would meet a girl who had a certain chemistry or affinity with him, and he would ask himself why he couldn’t bring himself to call her. Time and time again he produced some clichéd justification like, “She’d be better off without me,” or “I don’t want her to get attached since my career won’t allow me to give her the time she deserves”, or even his personal favorite, “It would only lead to disappointment.” No matter which he chose, his lies were always enough to convince himself and the cycle continued. Without ever waking her, he slipped back out the door, grabbed his suitcase, and left for work.

  Chapter 2