The Secret to Lying

by Todd Mitchell

  ghost44: I’ve been taking a break lately.

  johnnyrotten: From what?

  ghost44: Haunting people.

  johnnyrotten: Uh-oh. Too much snickerdoodle and spinach over break?

  ghost44: Yes, actually. But that’s not why.

  johnnyrotten: Then why?

  ghost44: I think I’m losing my ghostly edge.

  johnnyrotten: How so?

  ghost44: For starters, I keep trying to stop a friend from hurting himself, but he keeps doing incredibly stupid stuff like jumping into frozen ponds and crashing cars.

  johnnyrotten: You heard about that?

  ghost44: Only the whole school’s heard about that, Speed Racer. Do you miss Jess?

  johnnyrotten: Hmmm . . . a little. I miss being with someone, but I think you were right. We weren’t very good for each other.

  ghost44: I’m always right. It’s the curse of being a ghost — to be right yet have no one listen.

  johnnyrotten: I listen to you.

  ghost44: No, you don’t. If you did, you’d stop making the same mistakes over and over again.

  johnnyrotten: At least I make mistakes. You won’t even try to be with the person you like.

  ghost44: That’s because I can’t be with him.

  johnnyrotten: I don’t buy it. Maybe things won’t turn out exactly the way you want them to, but some things might surprise you. They might even be better than you thought. The only way to know is to take a risk.

  ghost44: Like speeding on an icy road?

  johnnyrotten: I mean a good risk. Like going up to the person and being honest with them.

  ghost44: If only it were that easy.

  johnnyrotten: Why isn’t it? You keep talking about breaking through all the superficial crap that keeps people apart, but the truth is, you keep yourself apart. You’re just like Emily Dickinson, hiding behind her door.

  ghost44: That’s not true.

  johnnyrotten: Then why won’t you try to be with the person you like?

  ghost44: I already told you — it won’t work out.

  johnnyrotten: Why?

  ghost44: Because there’s this gap between who I am and who people see. I can’t be myself in person.

  johnnyrotten: Can’t or won’t? It’s your choice — you imprison yourself or you free yourself.

  ghost44: It’s not that simple.

  johnnyrotten: But what if it is? What if all it takes to cross the gap is to reach out and have someone reach back?

  ghost44: And if the person doesn’t reach back?

  johnnyrotten: Then they don’t reach back. Only you have to believe that they will, or you’re not really reaching.

  ghost44: I can’t believe you’re giving me relationship advice.

  johnnyrotten: I’m just saying, maybe it’s better to try and mess up than not to try at all.

  ghost44: I have tried.

  johnnyrotten: So try again.

  ghost44: And if it doesn’t work? If I lose hope and fall into the gap?

  johnnyrotten: Then you have to look for someone with freakishly long arms who can pull you out — like the world’s tallest man who saved those dolphins.

  ghost44:?

  johnnyrotten: It’s true. These dolphins swallowed some plastic trash, so the veterinarians called in this incredibly tall Mongolian goat herder to reach in and pull it out.

  ghost44: You were doing well before you brought up the dolphins.

  johnnyrotten: Sorry. But you get what I’m saying, right? You have to try.

  ghost44: Fine. I’ll try again to reach across the gap.

  johnnyrotten: And will you tell me what happens?

  ghost44: That depends.

  johnnyrotten: On what?

  ghost44: On whether there’s a part of me left that still trusts people.

  johnnyrotten: Good luck, ghost.

  ghost44: Good night, James.

  SUNNY KEPT BUGGING ME about my promise to see Chuck. I put it off a few times, but I knew that the more I avoided it, the bigger deal it would become. On Tuesday, I finally agreed to go with her during lunch, when most students were in the cafeteria. Even though I’d been to Health and Student Services before to get a Band-Aid or an aspirin, this time felt different. I worried that someone might see me going in there and think, “Yup, he’s a nut job.”

  Saxophone music murmured from the radio on Linda’s bookshelf — the sort of bland “soft jazz” that businesses piped into offices to make us calm, productive robots. I stood, my skin crawling from the music, while Linda finished typing something into her computer.

  “Hi, Sunny,” she said. “And James — been a while since you’ve dropped by.”

  I took a dark chocolate Hershey’s Kiss from the candy jar on Linda’s desk. “If I’d known these were here, I would have come more often,” I said. “Dark chocolate’s my favorite.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Linda tapped a few more keys on her computer, then leaned back. “What can I help you two with?”

  Sunny explained that I was there to schedule an appointment with Chuck. Linda nodded, suddenly very professional. She gave me a form on a clipboard to fill out.

  I looked over the form while Sunny read a magazine. The questions ranged from the normal name and date of birth to things that I knew better than to answer honestly, like: “How often do you drink alcoholic beverages?” and “Check off which substances you have used: Hallucinogens, Marijuana, Amphetamines, Cocaine, Depressants, Other.” I checked off “Other” and wrote in “Tater Tot casserole.”

  On the back, the form listed different behaviors and asked me to “check all that apply.” The list had a bunch of hard-core crazy things on it like “hyperventilate in open spaces,” “suicidal thoughts,” “pulling hair out,” “feeling guilty when I eat,” “purging,” and so on. I looked through it twice. “Lonely” wasn’t an option. Neither was “bad dreams.” They must have been too common to count. I thought about not checking anything, then, on a whim, I checked the box marked “cutting.”

  I gave Linda the form. She scanned the front and back. “So,” she said, giving me a long look, “how many classes have you missed?”

  “What?”

  “The cutting,” Linda said. “It says here you’re cutting classes.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Too many.”

  Chuck didn’t have time to see me that day, so I had to come back for an appointment on Thursday. I considered skipping it after Linda’s brilliant assessment, but Sunny might have found out.

  When I arrived on Thursday, Linda sent me straight in. Chuck’s office resembled a run-down living room with an old brown couch and two orange chairs arranged around a beat-up coffee table. Books covered one wall, and the others were decorated with cheap art prints. A row of filing cabinets stood in the corner with a spindly plant on top — all yellow leaves and bare branches.

  Chuck sat in one of the padded orange chairs. He had his feet on the coffee table and a stack of papers in his lap. This was one of his bold, eyeless days. His lid hung limp over the empty socket. I had a ridiculous image of him lifting the lid, and instead of an empty hole, there’d be a mystical jewel that he’d use to hypnotize me. Any second now, he might lift the lid and stare at me with his witching eye and I’d be gaga.

  “Take off your coat,” Chuck said, glancing at me with his good eye. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  I did, since it was pretty hot in his office. Chuck made no indication about whether I should sit in the chair or on the couch. I figured it might be a test, so I sat in the chair and stared straight at him. No way was I going to lie down on the couch and talk about my mother.

  Chuck stared back. The eyelid over his missing eye didn’t move at all. “A lefty, huh?” he said. “Southpaw.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, wondering if my handwriting on the form could have given me away. People didn’t usually notice I was left-handed until they saw me write or throw. “How can you tell?”

  “Most of the scars are on your right
arm.”

  I wanted to kick myself for taking off my coat. “It’s from martial arts,” I said, crossing my arms. “I spar a lot, and sometimes we use swords.”

  Chuck nodded, like he believed me. “Do you enjoy fighting?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “I don’t.” I fidgeted in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position on the sunken cushion. “I was kidding about the fights.”

  Chuck nodded again. “Sorry. I tend to take everything people say seriously. Otherwise, what’s the point of talking?” He paused, as if expecting an answer. I knew this trick — stay silent and let the other person mess up. I looked around the room, scanning the titles on the bookshelves.

  “So you’re not a fighter?” He arched his eyebrows, as if he knew I wasn’t being straight with him.

  I thought about the stories I’d told people at the beginning of the year. Maybe Chuck had heard some of the rumors about me. I opened my mouth to explain, but what could I say? That I’d lied to everyone to make myself seem interesting? That I’d completely reinvented myself and now I wasn’t sure what was true and what I’d made up? The lines had blurred. It was too late now to go back.

  “I try not to fight anymore,” I said.

  “Then how’d you get the cuts?”

  “Maybe I want to kill myself.”

  Chuck didn’t flinch. “Is that what you’d like me to believe?”

  “No.”

  “Good. It’s not funny.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

  “Fair enough,” Chuck said. “You’re testing me, which is fine, but I should level with you. I don’t think you’re suicidal. You’re smart enough to know that if you really wanted to kill yourself, the cuts would go the other way — lengthwise along your vein.”

  I looked at the thin white scars that crossed the inside of my forearm. “Linda thought I was cutting classes.”

  Chuck shrugged. “People don’t like to acknowledge things that disturb them.”

  “And you’re different?”

  “Listen, James,” he said, putting his feet on the floor and leaning toward me. “I believe there’s nothing too terrible to talk about. But there are many things too terrible not to talk about. What we don’t talk about, what we don’t face, often comes back to haunt us. So why are you here?”

  He did it again — stared at me with his one eye and arched his eyebrow, like he knew I was hiding something.

  “I’ll be honest with you,” I said. “I only came because a friend dared me to see you.”

  “I see. And you couldn’t turn down a dare?”

  “Guess not.”

  “What do you make of that?”

  I smirked, refusing to fall for such an obvious ploy. Instead of answering, I looked at the pictures on the walls.

  The guidance counselor’s office at my old high school had been covered with inspirational posters of mountain scenes or ocean waves with things like PERSEVERANCE and CHARACTER defined on them. Chuck’s posters were only a little better than those. A van Gogh of a field with crows, a café scene, a Picasso of the man with the blue guitar — your cliché “classy” art posters.

  “Nice pictures,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  I stared at the van Gogh. The yellow wheat under the dark blue sky glowed bright as sunshine. An art teacher I’d had a few years ago had told me the crows in the picture symbolized madness. “You know van Gogh was crazy when he painted that,” I said. “He used to stick the dirty brushes in his mouth to wet them, and the yellow paint had lead in it. So all those pretty colors poisoned him.”

  “Is that so?” Chuck seemed genuinely interested, as if he’d never heard that before. I could tell things were going nowhere.

  “Hey,” I said, preparing to stand, “I appreciate you being here, but I don’t want to waste your time.”

  Chuck glanced at his watch. “Your appointment doesn’t end until one.”

  “I don’t have anything to talk about. Honest. There are people with real problems who need to be in here.”

  “And your problems aren’t real?”

  The way he said it made me cringe. “Look, I can deal with my problems,” I said, “so there’s no point in me wasting your time.”

  Chuck wrinkled his forehead, which made the eyelid over the missing eye lift the slightest bit. “It’s my time. Right now, I’d like to talk with you. In fact, you’re exactly the sort of person I’m here to help.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

  I glared at him. “You think I’m stupid?”

  “Not at all. I’ve no doubt that you’re smart enough to fool me. And yourself.” He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. Even sitting down, he looked big. “For instance, you might fool yourself into believing that you don’t need help.”

  “I don’t need help. That’s what I’m saying. I only came because of a dare.”

  “Okay. But can your life be better?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Everyone’s life can be better.”

  “Not everyone cuts themselves.” He folded his thick hands in his lap, exposing the blurry blue line of a tattoo on his forearm. I couldn’t make out what it was. Probably an anchor, given his clichéd taste. “That worries me, James. Why do you hurt yourself?”

  Great. Just what I needed — a two-hundred-pound-middle-aged-one-eyed-tattooed shrink worried about me. “If you think I’m trying to hurt myself, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “Number one, I don’t cut myself to hurt myself. I mean, it hurts, but I’m not afraid of pain. I can control it. And number two, I like myself. I really do. The only reason I cut myself is to feel something.”

  He folded his hands beneath his chin. “So you’re beyond being hurt?”

  “I can deal with it.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Look, I’m not afraid of pain. I’m in control.”

  “Control?”

  “Of myself. Everything’s great.”

  “Then why do you have to cut yourself to feel?”

  I glanced away, not wanting Chuck to see that he’d stumped me. “Your plant’s dying,” I said.

  “So it is.”

  He didn’t say anything else, and neither did I. The buzz of the Nomanchulators hovered at the edge of my awareness.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Sure.” Chuck raised his hands in a no-one’s-stopping-you gesture. “It’s your decision. If you don’t want to be here, I can’t make you stay.”

  I headed for the door.

  “Hey, James,” he called before I made it out. “I’m just curious. What are you running from?”

  “I’m not running from anything.”

  “I think you are.” He fixed his eye on me.

  A chill crept up my spine as the buzz of the Nomanchulators grew louder. Lately, their deadening sound had begun to spill out into my waking life, numbing me.

  “We can talk about it next week.” Chuck reached for his planner, eager to put me down in a box. “I’ll pencil you in for the same time.”

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

  Linda’s radio was turned down so low when I left that I could barely hear the music beneath the buzzing swarm. She flipped through a stack of papers. By her overly industrious movements, I could tell she’d been listening in.

  “Need a pass?” she asked.

  I shook my head, anxious to get out of there.

  Someone else was in the room, waiting for Chuck. She kept her face buried in a magazine, trying to remain anonymous.

  “You can go in now,” Linda said to the girl. “Chuck’s waiting.”

  The Ice Queen set her magazine down, brushed her skirt flat, and stood. I remembered how I’d run into her here previously. All at once the full significance of her presence sank in. She hadn’t been getting a Band-Aid, as she’d claimed. Sh
e was seeing Chuck. Ms. Perfect had problems.

  Our eyes met. For a moment her usual icy confidence was gone. It was like peeking behind a movie set and discovering that the walls that looked so solid to the audience were only painted sheets of cardboard, held up by a few flimsy struts.

  I opened my mouth to tell her something, but I didn’t know what.

  Ellie slipped past me and ducked into Chuck’s office. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I realized what I should have said. But by then, of course, it was too late.

  THAT NIGHT, I COULDN’T SLEEP. The Nomanchulators still seemed close and I didn’t want to risk dreaming of the city again. After thrashing in bed for over an hour, I finally got up to find something to eat. The only snacks I had left were a dozen packets of ramen. I considered fixing a bowl, but the thought of eating more fake-chicken-flavored noodles made me want to hurl. Then, in a stroke of late-night-snack-attack brilliance, an idea came to me — the prank to end all pranks.

  “Hey, Dickie,” I said, shaking him. “Wake up, man.”

  He grunted and tried to bat my hand away.

  “Dude, wake up! It’s important.”

  Dickie struggled onto his elbow, blinking against the light I’d turned on. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  He frowned. “I was sleeping.”

  “Come on — it’s the best prank ever.”

  “I have a test tomorrow.”

  “So?”

  “So I need to sleep,” he said, annoyed. “You do, too.”

  “Who cares about tests? If we pull this off, we’ll be legends.”

  “I don’t want to be a legend. I want to sleep.”

  “You say that now, but think of the glory.”

  “Go to sleep,” he said.

  “Sleep is boring.”

  “Sleep,” he groaned, burying his head beneath his pillow.

  I thought of shaking him again, but I didn’t want to piss him off. After standing by my bed for a moment, I decided to proceed without him. I pulled on my shirt and slipped out, already composing the story I’d get to tell Dickie and Heinous in the morning.

  Hassert stormed the commons the next afternoon, ordering everyone into his wing. He instituted a complete lockdown. I asked Mike, our RC, what was going on, but he just rubbed his bald spot and said, “No talking.”