My friend Claire said that her daddy once told her that if you took all of the lies humans had told since the beginning of time and set them up in the sky, the sky would become the lies because there’d be so many up there covering it. I asked Claire if the sun would shine through the lies, and she said she didn’t know.
I don’t go to Claire’s house much, because I’m afraid of dogs, and because my daddy says that it’s rude to ask a family to lock up their pet. Claire’s dog Diana is a miniature dachshund and she barks when I ring the doorbell and nibbles at my socks and loves to eat cheese. If you feed Diana cheese, she won’t nibble at your socks until she’s done eating it, and so when I do find the courage for Claire’s house, I sneak some Kraft in my pocket for Diana. If I’m gonna spend the night over, I’ll take a whole packet of Kraft sliced cheese. When Momma asks Where did all of the cheese get off to? I tell her that I don’t know, but that Daddy might know where all of the cheese went. When Momma asks Daddy about the cheese, I go practice my instrument.
Claire and I both play the flute, because the flute is an instrument for girls at our middle school. The instruments for boys are trumpet, tuba, saxophone (girls can play that too), bass, guitar, percussion, and trombone. The only instrument the boys aren’t allowed to play if they still want to be boys is the flute, and the only boy in our music class who plays the flute is Tommy, who wears pink some days. Momma says that Tommy wears pink because his daddy is a feminist. Claire and I decide that our favorite color is grey.
We color our notebooks grey over the orange (for mine)/purple (for hers). We ask our mommas to buy us T-shirts, but only if they’re the color grey. Claire tells me that her daddy once told her that dogs can only see the world in a few colors, and one of them is grey. We give Diana the Dachshund Dog a grey collar so she can know what color her collar is. I let Claire put the collar on, because Diana nibbles fingers too.
Nobody in the sixth grade knows that I’m afraid of dogs, and if someone were to take all of the lies humans had told since the beginning of time and set them up in the sky, Claire’s lie that Jade is allergic to dogs would be right up there with the rest of them. Claire says that Jade is allergic to dogs so her daddy will lock up Diana and I won’t have to be rude when I come over. Claire likes having me over more than she likes being had over because her backyard has a trampoline, and I have a cat Claire is allergic to, for real actually. My cat’s name is Michael, and we say him and Diana are girlfriend and boyfriend, and that Michael’s last name is “Jackson,” and that Diana barks to defend him against all of the lies people are saying. Claire says that if all of the lies humans had told since the beginning of time were set up in the sky, Michael Jackson touches children would be right up there as one of them. Whenever he comes on the radio, my daddy turns it off.
My favorite song is by Bow Wow, which is a little bit funny when you think about it. Everybody in music class would find that really funny too, except that nobody in the sixth grade would know what it was they were supposed to be laughing at. One day before I went over to Claire’s house, Claire’s momma called my momma and asked if the fur on the furniture would make my eyes itch and my momma said Eyes itch? and then I got in trouble. Claire got in trouble too, and the next day in class, she wasn’t wearing grey like I was.
I asked Claire if all of the truths humans had told since the beginning of time would fill up her backyard at least, and she went and asked her daddy and her daddy said that the man who killed Jesus asked What is truth? and that that was his answer. I told Claire I didn’t think you should trust answers from the man who killed Jesus and she said her daddy had smiled when he’d told her, so maybe it was a joke.
Tommy cried in music class one day, because his momma didn’t vote for George Bush and we all found out. Greg, who never wears pink, told Tommy he was gay, and for the rest of the class, we called Tommy “Gay Tommy.” Even after Tommy promised he would’ve voted for George Bush if he could’ve voted, we told him that he liked to have flutes up his butt. When Ms. Willow sent notes to our parents, Claire and I got in trouble again.
The reason I don’t go to Claire’s house much anymore is because I’m afraid of Diana, and also because Claire’s momma is afraid that me and Claire cause each other trouble. I see Claire at school and I give her Kraft cheese even though I can’t go over. We decide that Diana the Dachshund Dog and Michael Jackson got broken up, because Diana found out that Michael Jackson had been lying. We tried to picture all of the new lies up in the sky, replacing all the ones that hadn’t even been lies in the first place, but all of the words in our imagination got jumbled together. ◆
Homepage Image: Lanecia Rouse Tinsley, roots, 2021, from Gulf Coast Winter/Spring 2023, Issue 35.1.
