IV Lies

A recess is called. It seems we are to meet with the court counsellors before the judge passes judgment. I am the first to leave the courtroom and search for Snooks. He is nowhere to be found and, disheartened, I head for Granville Mall. The idea seems a good one - no traffic except taxis and buses along the street. The sidewalks are wider and benches and flowers take up residence with the congregations of homeless young people that disdain the benches in favour of blankets on concrete. I used to make sandwiches and deliver them to those huddled in doorways on drizzly Vancouver afternoons. The manager of McDonalds on the corner of Robson and Granville once chastised me for adding to the troubles of the neighbourhood. Now I have troubles of my own.

Books have always brought me comfort and I enter The Granville Book Company to search the shelves for the answers to my predicament. I buy:
Never Be Lied to Again: How to Get the Truth In 5 Minutes Or Less In Any Conversation Or Situation (Paperback)
by David J. Lieberman.

The book suggests when liars are being accused of something, they'll stay calm because they're working on their rebuttal; this is why detectives were suspicious of O.J. Simpson when he didn't express outrage when accused of murdering his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman. Never Be Lied to Again claims to be bursting with tested tips like this for quickly determining when you're being boondoggled.

“Body language, facial expressions, sentence structure, and word choice can all reveal when someone is lying, says psychologist David J. Lieberman, and he includes 46 of these "clues to deception" to help you, including tricks for framing questions without putting others on the defense. Once you use your newly honed "human lie detector" skills to figure out if you're being lied to, you can then dig for the truth using the specific, influential words and body postures that Lieberman suggests. Written with flair and humor, Never Be Lied to Again is designed to help you get the upper hand in any situation, whether you're trying to figure out if your spouse is cheating on you or if you suspect your coworkers are cooking the books.”

I know J.C. is lying. But why? And more importantly, can I really get him to stop lying to me? Hope is a powerful force. It is the force that keeps us upright, on our feet, anti-gravity.

The Simpsons Handbook is for Snooks, not really nine as the judge presumes, but thirteen and mightily confused by the world. He takes most things literally. He studies joke books to teach himself the underlying message in things. Bart Simpson is his eye on an alien landscape. I realize he is similar to me as I try to discern the truth from the lies. I am not well versed in either. Fear prompts me to avoid the truth. After all, I might discover that someone really doesn’t like me or that someone really is as cruel or manipulative as he or she appears to be. I hide from violence and anger, often behind a fantasy - a lie. When Snooks doesn’t know what to say, he meows - literally. We all have our ways of avoiding the truth.

My husband, the gentle South Sea, is not here today. He is 1500 miles south, lapping the Santa Barbara shores, and maintaining the rhythm of a normal family life with Londonderry and Bean.

III Snook's World

Groundhog Day, 1986. I poked my head out and, seeing no shadow, was born. I often think it was a rash decision. The world is not only full of shadows but evil also frequents them. My mother thought it was her fault. It probably was, but that is not my point. It became a habit of mind and she was so busy trying to find the reasons for all the wrongs in the world in her own actions that she never shone a light in the dark. She loved me brilliantly but failed to protect me from the creatures snapping at my ankles from the shadows. One day I was snatched away.

II The Court

“Tell me the story.” Ruth types as I pour out the details of the past six months. She has agreed to meet me, after her last client of the day. One of God’s angels, she spends the night fashioning a script for court in the morning. She loves the theatre, antagonists battling for the judge’s favour, strange pedestal lover.


The courtroom is whisper quiet. I sit near the back with a yellow legal pad. Ruth has told me to write everything down. I’m a good student and do as I’m told. Only now has it occurred to me that this action was meant to keep me too busy to throw up or say something hysterical to the judge. Perhaps she did not gauge accurately my level of bafflement or shock.


Snooks comes in, pinned between twin bodyguards, J.C. and J.C’s older and only sister, Everdead. I know the name lacks beauty but, as such, it fits. J.C.’s name is an invention. Chameleon like, he changes his name and age to suit his purposes. Reptilian, snake oil and seeping pustules - J.C. oozes charm and talk “signifying nothing.” They hustle Snooks to the front and squeezed shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, he tries to sneak a peek over his shoulder. Everdead intercepts.


“All rise. Judge J presiding.”


The judge hears J.C.’s presentation first. I take careful notes and relax a little as I realize he has made a mistake in representing himself. He talks on and on and the court reporter rolls his eyes. The veneer of care and concern begins to wear off. Although slim, in a dark pinstripe suit and an educated voice, he looks less and less slick and professional and more and more like oil and a bad haircut. The bad news, however, is that the judge is the same one who granted J.C. interim custody. It is highly improbable for judges to reverse their own decisions.


“Why have you brought a nine year old into court?” The judge interrupts the interminable testimony. Snooks is sent from the room. He walks down the isle, leaning forward on tip toes, his arms up like a little squirrel, hunched over like a wizened old man.


“Hghaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” The gutteral throaty hiss seems to rise from the bowels of Hades rather than those of a little boy. He startles me with his malevolence. “We’re going to get you,” trails on the end of the curse. Although I don’t know it now, this incident will forever alter my world view. I have witnessed and recognized the existence of evil for the first time. Pollyanna has glimpsed something that a friendly smile and greeting cannot defeat.

I The Cottage

I learned today that my father apologized to J.C. for the accusations against him. Perhaps he thought he had found God. Snooks and I sit looking over the bay where the Captain used to winch runaway logs from the water to build the weather beaten deck we now shiver on. The Captain’s wife, my mother, rarely remembers him now as time telescopes and she reverts to being her Daddy’s Daffodil Girl. She has always been a powerful woman, larger than life to me, five foot nine and three quarters plus three inch heels. I have always been a more timid hue, smaller, quieter, mousey colouring and a studied invisibility. She dresses like a Canadian Spring, pink blossoms and glistening rain jewels splashing on Pacific drenched islands of cedar and arbutus; I dress like a lumberjack, indistinguishable from the rain forest except for a touch of red to warn off hunters, or indeed, to beckon them if I am the intended kill.

I cried today as I sat with my son, damaged by the hunt, shattered by my naiveté.

Snooks looks almost good, slender in new duds. Dark navy dress pants, a crisp white shirt and a diamonded black tie are worn to honour his grandmother. He has had a shower and smells like clean ocean spray. Clippers trimmed half his beard before the charger gave out on the ferry. The shaver couldn’t tackle the scraggle and Snooks hasn’t the dexterity for a razor. In the Depression, men, tramping town to town in search of work, had patches on thread-bare clothing. My twenty-three year old, never employed son wears that trademark on chin and cheek.

You may wonder at my dwelling on appearances. I know - now - more than most, that things are not always as they appear. I also know that things are often exactly as they appear. Our abilities to rationalize, justify, analyze, imagine, invent and on and on create a maze of possibilities and explanations. Lost, like the Minotaur, it becomes difficult to discern the way. Too clumsy and bull headed and literal, subtleties are lost on me. I never understand jokes. By the time I analyze them, the humour is gone. Even today, in the absence of an enduring joy, I wonder if some cosmic joke was played on me.