Liars Paradox

Liars’ Paradox                                                                                                    Deb Smith

I am a liar.  I think it is only fair that I disclose this at the beginning. I don’t want you to get to the end and think that there was some trick and feel let down or cheated somehow. I am aware that I am a liar and that this is a problem. On the advice of my therapist, I began attending a liars’ support group. This isn’t a Liars Anonymous group. Our group is for the ordinary gratuitous and cowardly liar, but the meetings are run in a similar way, people get up and share, and they receive acceptance and support from the others in the group. We sometimes talk about the twelve steps, mostly just 1, 4, 5, 9 and 10, for reasons that are in part obvious because we are liars. Likewise, we don’t do chips, coins, tokens, or medallion because being found with such things would be just another reason to lie. And, we don’t talk about God because even non-liars lie about that.



It is Tuesday night and when I enter the church basement there are already a dozen people there; sipping coffee, picking up pamphlets, hanging at the back corners of the room with heads pulled down into coat collars or hands hidden in pockets. Our meeting starts precisely at 7:30 and is run by a guy named Nathan. When he says it’s time to get started everyone takes a seat. Some kinds of meetings set the chairs in rows and some go for circles. We go for circles and I take the wooden folding chair with the splashes of yellow paint. I always take this chair wherever it lands in the circle because it reminds me of the chair I sat on in my grandfather’s workshop watching him carve duck decoys. This is an important to me because it’s a memory that comes from a time before I was such a liar.

         Tonight’s meeting starts with a few announcements by Nathan, a reminder that we are self-supporting so people need to ante up, and a request that a couple people stay after the meeting to put the chairs away and help with clean up. Four people raise their hands and say they will stay, at least two of them are lying. The meeting begins in earnest when Tammy speaks up.

         “Hi, I’m Tammy and I’m a liar.”

         “Hi, Tammy.”

It’s not really necessary for people wanting to share to do the usual AA introduction. People just do it because that’s what they think they should do and we provide the expected response just to keep things moving.

         “My biggest problem is lying at work. I really hate my job and as much as possible I sneak away from my work station and hide out in the bathroom or slip out for coffee. In the past when somebody has called me on this I would make up a story about having a bad period or a something else. I remember one time when I got back from a two hour coffee break my supervisor asked me where I had been. I told him I had gone down to the corner to mail a letter and just as I dropped the letter in and closed the slot a car came barreling through the intersection and took out a guy on a bicycle. I told him that I had run into the street to stop traffic so no one else would hit the bicyclist, and yelled for someone to call 9-1-1. I had to stay until the ambulance arrived and then the police wanted me to give them a statement. I could tell he wasn’t quite buying it so I showed him a grease mark on my slacks claiming I got that from the bike’s chain, when in fact the mark had been there for weeks and I have no idea where it came from, and then I pulled out an official department card with “Officer Imogene Parkins” on it that I had gotten with my last speeding ticket. What could he do? He doesn’t have the time to check for police reports or call Officer Parkins. I knew I had him.”

         This is a big problem with liars. Here we are supposed to be sharing in order to get help and support for our effort to stop lying, but liars being who they are can’t help but tell their favorite lies. As Tammy went on to tell us how when she got caught today after being in the bathroom for forty five minutes she said she admitted to her co-worker that she just couldn’t stand sitting at her desk and needed the time out. But, I knew that the point of her telling this whole story was not to memorialize a victory for truth telling, but a chance to brag about the big whomping lie she once told her supervisor. And of course she said nothing about the lie which was the acceptance of her weekly paycheck even though she only worked about a third of the time.

         Anyway, Tammy finished and everybody clapped. Then Nathan asked one of the new people if they wanted to share.

         “How about you?”  He directed his invitation to the young man sitting three chairs to my left. He looked to be in his twenties, with one of those faux hawks, and a tattoo of something peeking out from his collar.

         “OK. Hi, I’m Pedro and I’m a liar, I guess.”

         “Hi, Pedro.”

We all sat up a little straighter in our chairs. There was something about new liars that really piqued our interest. I knew the regulars in the group were sizing him up, trying to decide what kind of liar he was. Did he go small and simple or wild and elaborate? Was he any good at holding to a lie or did he crumble at the least resistance? We hadn’t had a really good liar since Phillip “Mad Sam” Samerello had been active in our group. Mad Sam was required to attend groups as a condition of his parole and I thought he was making real progress on his lying issues, but he got caught as he fled during a bank robbery and was back inside now.



Mad Sam once told us a story about a time when he and another organized crime figure, who he would not name, had been ordered to rip off a bagman working for a rival outfit. This bagman would make his pick-ups and deliveries in a small refrigerated truck with the logo of some out of business seafood company painted on its sides. Mad Sam and his partner planned to hijack the man and his truck after he made a pick up at a truck stop that was a front for a brothel just outside of town. They dressed in dirty jeans and sweaty ball caps and waited at the truck stop. When the bagman made his pick up and headed out to the truck, Mad Sam and friend were waiting. They forced the bagman, whose name was Tony, into the cab between them and drove the truck down the highway until they came to a small wayside set back in some trees with a picnic table and an historical marker commemorating the site of a long abandoned pioneer cemetery, the remnants of which could be seen in a small section in one corner of the wayside protected by a chain link fence with an engraved plaque.

Mad Sam and partner were just starting to go through the contents of the small refrigeration unit on the back of the truck when they saw a state patrol car zip past going north, the trooper definitely eyeballing them. Being experienced in the trade, Mad Sam’s partner produced duct tape from his jacket pocket and secured Tony’s hands and taped his mouth. Then the pair lifted Tony and slid him into the refrigeration unit, closed the door and drove out of the wayside. Mad Sam drove with one eye on the road ahead and one eye on the rear view mirror. It wasn’t long before the squad car was behind them and both men knew they were either going to bluff their way out of this or they would spend the night in lock up. When the lights went on, Mad Sam pulled over and told his passenger not to speak unless spoken to.

The trooper asked for license and registration. No one was more surprised than Mad Sam to find registration papers for the truck in the glove compartment. When the trooper returned after calling in the information he made a point of giving the inside of the cab the once over.

“Was I speeding or something?” Mad Sam asked the officer.

“I was just wondering what you were doing delivering fish at that wayside back there.”

“It’s my damn cheap skate boss. I’ve been telling him for weeks that there’s something wrong with that refrigeration unit, but he just tells me to shut up and make the deliveries.”

Mad Sam proceeded to tell the trooper, Sgt. O’Brien, that he had gotten the fish delivery job through his cousin, Gene Lamartano, and had only been working at the fish place for six months. It was a small company with just two trucks, four drivers, a bookkeeper and Mr. La Rossa, the owner. Anyway, they would pick up the fish from the cargo warehouse at the airport and make their deliveries, only at least three times in the last month by the time they got to the last deliveries of the day the refrigeration unit had quit on them and the fish were warm.

“I heard the compressor rattling and so I pulled over into the wayside. We were just checking to see if the fish were still cold.”

“There are just the two of you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The trooper seemed satisfied and told them they could go. They waited until the squad car was well out of sight and then called the boss, not Mr. La Rossa who did not exist, but their real boss who Mad Sam would not name. The boss told them to stash the truck in a garage on 37th St. until he could figure out what to do with it on a more permanent basis. It wasn’t until almost midnight when Mad Sam was sent to get the money out of the truck and turn the keys over to another guy who would dispose of it. When he opened the refrigeration unit he was surprised to find that Tony had suffocated.



Mad Sam had taken nearly an entire two hour meeting telling the whole story about the fish truck and the final disposal of Tony’s body. I know that I was really impressed with his ability to lay out that whole fish truck lie like that with a state trooper staring him in the face.  A couple weeks after Mad Sam had been returned to prison, one of the meeting regulars brought in a story from the newspaper that described how Phillip Samerello had been returned to prison for a parole violation. However, the paper reported that Samarello was on parole for an earlier conviction for stealing money from the elderly patients at the nursing home where he had been employed as an orderly. It was true that he was apprehended as the police responded to a silent alarm at a local bank, but Mad Sam was not part of the holdup team. Mad Sam had been arrested and sent back to prison because they found a checkbook belonging to his 91 year old neighbor in his pocket when they searched him.



I didn’t know how to feel about all that. I think I can say that to a person we all believed the story Mad Sam had told us despite the fact that it was about a lie within a lie told by a liar to a group of liars. I wasn’t so much disappointed that the story about the fish truck was a lie, because it was truly a great fucking lie, but I was bummed that Mad Sam had just been pathetic Phillip Samarello who stole money from old folks and not a real hoodlum. So, when a new person like Pedro showed up we all got excited that we might have another Mad Sam who was really a master of his craft.



“My girlfriend’s making me come to this meeting. We’ve been going together for about three years and then last summer we got engaged. It was once we got engaged that I started with the lies, you know, staying out late and then telling her I was working an extra shift. I’ve got a couple of friends that will cover for me, but last month I went to a party and I didn’t want to take her, so I said I was going to be at Jose’s house to have dinner and help him fix his motorcycle. But, Jose forgot what I told him and when my fiancée called he said I wasn’t there and, no, we didn’t have plans for me to come over because he thought pretty sure I was going to the party at Violeta’s house. It was about then that he remembered he was supposed to cover for me, but it was way too late. I don’t blame him, but when I got home my fiancée was ready to throw my shit in the street.”

“Pedro, you can use her name if you want to. Everything we say here stays here. It’s all confidential.”  Nathan was a good group leader, but had some lying issues of his own.

“OK, so Mariana asked me why I lied to her about the party. I said that I had promised Violeta that I would come to the party, which was true, but then I told Mariana a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t, like that I found out that Felipe and Lucia were going to be there. I said, ‘You know, baby, I know how much you hate that bitch Lucia and it still hurts you to see her with Felipe, but I had to go because I promised Violeta. I just didn’t want to hurt you by making you go or telling you about seeing them.’ And, then I looked into her eyes to see if she was believing me or not and it seemed like she was, so I hugged her and it felt like everything was OK.” 



Pedro went on to say how things were back to normal until Elena called the house and left a message on the voicemail about the party and wanting to see Pedro again, which of course Marianna played before he could erase it. He said that at least Elena hadn’t said anything worse like how they had totally hooked up and did it in the alley behind the house. Pedro said that Mariana went to the priest who told her that she needed to help him stop his lying and gave her the information about the group.

“Did you tell her you fucked Elena? I’ll bet you didn’t you liar. I’ll bet you said ‘Oh baby, oh baby, she’s just some girl who wanted me, but I didn’t touch her.’ Isn’t that what you did?”  Lynette said this to Pedro in a mocking tone with accompanying facial gestures and expressions. Lynette had mostly turned her talent for lying into vicious sarcasm and emotive condemnations.

“Hey, Lynette, you know that we don’t do that kind of shit in this group.” I suddenly felt protective of Pedro. None of us had yet had a chance to show off our best stuff and tell him about our progress in recovery. How could we try to convince him that it was really possible to stop lying to both loved ones and strangers in small ways and not so small ways if Lynette scared him off at his first meeting?

“Who died and elected you Queen of the May?” Lynette huffed and crossed her arms.

         Nathan regained control of the meeting and then asked me if I had anything I wanted to share. Now, this is exactly the problem. If I were to be truthful, I would have to say that, no, I did not have anything I wanted to share, but having opened my big yap I felt like I sort of had to share and so being the cowardly liar that I am, I shared.

         “I’ve been trying to be more honest with myself. They say that you cannot love another person until you love yourself, and you shouldn’t lie to the ones you love, so you shouldn’t lie to yourself. We all know when we are lying to other people and we know when we are lying to them about lying to them, but it gets harder to know if you’re lying when you’re lying to yourself. It gets damn confusing. If I spend every Sunday with my mother, and babysit my sister’s children I tell myself that I am close to my family. But am I close to my family, if when I am at my mother’s on Sunday I tell her a completely bullshit story about how my boss passed over three more senior people to pick me to lead the big project at work and then tell my sister’s kids that I have twenty gold bars hidden in my basement in case of a collapse of our monetary system and make them promise never to tell anyone?  I just don’t know the answer to that.”

         “Man, I think you’re overthinking this. You’re either telling the truth or not. You’re either close to your family or not. You have told us at least one hundred times that you always take that chair with the yellow paint because it reminds you of the time you shared with your grandfather while he did his wood carving. To me, that says that you want to be close to your family. It just takes a little trust and a little guts to tell them the truth.”

Coming from someone else I would have passed this off as a bunch of crap, but this was coming from my best friend in the group, Harvey. Harvey and I had been amigos since we first started coming on Tuesday nights almost three years ago. Harvey was a big, ex-football player with a belly that hung over his belt and a smoker’s cough. Looking at us you wouldn’t think we would have anything in common, but Harvey and I had bonded over philately. I kid you not, we were both stamp freaks.



We’d been meeting about once a month to have lunch and go through the latest issues of The American Philatelist and sometimes Linn’s Stamp News. We could talk for hours about the classical charm of Maltese stamps or the use of color in Korean stamps, and don’t even get us started on inverts and errors. We would go to lectures on stamp collecting and attended both stamp exhibitions and auctions. Of course, the kinds of stamps commonly sold at the auctions were well above our budgets.



Harvey’s lying issues related mostly to questions about his past. After we had been friends for about six months, I had to start keeping a notebook so I could remember the various stories he had told me about where he came from and his family back there, wherever there was. He told me that he was an only child of immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe who came to the United States in the early 1930’s and described how his father had taken him and his mother by cart in the middle of the night after his brother, Harvey’s uncle Yakev, had been taken away by the secret police. Some weeks later, he described himself as the eighth of ten children who lived on a dairy farm in southwestern Wisconsin. He said that his mother had been raised Amish, but then married outside her faith. It was when he told me about having a twin brother who had been lost at sea, that I told him that I didn’t really care about any of that and maybe he’d like to go to the stamp show at the Marriott on the weekend.

I did feel close to Harvey and the fact that he seemed to need to continue to lie to me did not make me like him any less. After all, we had both been lying to each other all along. I did not have shelves full of carefully archived stamps. The only stamps I had were the ones I bought at the post office last week and I’m pretty sure the same could be said for Harvey. But, after all the time we had spent together and now his thoughtful and touching response to my totally specious lament about my family, I just couldn’t decide whether this was the right time to tell Harvey and the rest of the group that my paternal grandfather had died before I was born and nobody knew who the other one was. The lie about the chair with the yellow paint was one of my favorites and I didn’t want to give it up.



The one true thing that was said at the support group this particular Tuesday was when Nathan said it was 9:00 and time to call the meeting to an end. Everyone shook hands, hugged and said it had been a good meeting. Maybe it had been. It kind of depends on how you look at it.