The Truth Commission

by Susan Juby

  “Well,” said Neil. “I’m beginning to think that sharing truth establishes a longer-lasting bond than I might previously have thought. Once you’ve asked someone the truth and they tell you, you can’t just walk away. You’re joined by the truth, whether you like it or not.” As though to confirm this observation, Neil’s cell phone buzzed. It might have been the low lighting in the Boardroom, but his face seemed to get a little paler.

  Dusk didn’t catch the exchange because she was flipping through her pad.

  “Okay. I’ll go next,” she said. “I have asked two individuals the truth and it went exceedingly well both times. Mrs. Dekker, a secretary, responded well and honestly.”

  I wondered about the accuracy of that statement. Mrs.Dekker seemed like someone whose truth might change from day to day.

  “Things went even better with Zinnia McFarland. She not only told me her truth, she caused a truth riot that involved much of the school.”

  I thought of the expression on Zinnia’s face when I’d seen her in the hallway earlier. She hadn’t looked peaceful. I must have winced, because Dusk noticed.

  “Do you have a comment, Normandy?”

  “No. I’m good.”

  “Because of those successes, I’ve come up with several new candidates for us. But before we proceed, I’d like to review the participation of all group members.”

  Here was the peer pressure teachers were always on about. Only I thought I’d be hassled to smoke pot and drink and ride in cars with boys, not go around asking people their private business. Just my luck. Maybe if I took up smoking pot, boozing, and hooking up with random, inappropriate boys, my friends would back off.

  I fanned the notes I wrote in class right before our meeting. I thought how I would like to do a series of drawings on medical prescription pads. Maybe make one of those flip stories where the character moves.

  “Well, I have carefully observed the activities of the Commission.”

  Dusk drummed her fingers on the floor. Neil smiled encouragingly.

  “And I’ve undertaken an investigation of a truth candidate. You know, by observing her. That sort of thing.” I stopped. Then I jumped into the void.

  “You know, sometimes I wonder if the three of us can do anything without being precious about it. I mean, just for once couldn’t we use a piece of regular lined paper to write a report? Couldn’t we wear hoodies and Uggs, drive Hondas, and eat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? There are days when I have a hard time taking us seriously.”

  Neil and Dusk stared at me like I’d grown a horn out of my forehead.

  “What?” said Dusk.

  “Is it the Midnight Cowboy outfits?” asked Neil. “I just wanted to say how much it means to me that you guys are willing to honor the films I love. I was thinking next we could dress like Cool Hand Luke. Bring a bunch of boiled eggs to school.”

  Dusk fixed him with a glare. “Stop changing the subject.”

  “Sorry,” said Neil.

  “Normandy, continue your report,” said Dusk. I continued my freefall into rebellion.

  “I’ve decided that I don’t want to confront Lisette. Her relationship with the truth is so . . . you know. Tenuous.”

  “Which is exactly why she needs us,” said Dusk, pretend-reasonable. I could tell she was furious.

  “But she seems happy being quasi-delusional.”

  “Our society’s willingness to put up with and embrace falseness is killing us. We need to get real. Stop hiding behind false identities! Get off the Internet and into ourselves.”

  “George Orwell said that, in a time of deceit, telling the truth was a revolutionary act,” added Neil, who was in the same English class as me and having his mind blown by 1984. “What we’re doing here is like thought crime in a world that encourages newspeak. It’s radical.”

  I thought of Mr. Thomas’s words.

  “It’s only a spiritual practice when you ask yourself the truth.”

  “Good p—” said Neil before Dusk cut him off.

  “No one said this was a spiritual practice.” Her perfectly proportioned face was set into a mask of stubbornness.

  “I’m pretty sure we did. At least we implied it,” I said.

  “This is a social movement,” said Dusk. “A revolution, like Neil said. I thought you understood that.”

  “I—”

  “I think we should get something to eat. Come back to the Boardroom when the blood sugar is in better shape,” said Neil.

  “Can you please be quiet?” snapped Dusk.

  “That’s rude,” I said before I even knew I intended to speak.

  “I’ll tell you what’s rude. Pretending to be a part of our Commission and then shining us on. This initiative requires the full cooperation of every member for it to work.”

  Once again the words barged out of my mouth before I could organize them into a more diplomatic arrangement. “You’re being a bully about this,” I told her.

  I heard a quick intake of breath from Neil.

  “A bully?” demanded Dusk. “What are you? Some public service announcement? Also, that’s doubly offensive because you know how I feel about bullies.” It’s true that Dusk has never been one to stand by when someone’s being picked on. Unless she’s the picker. She’s got a bit of a blind spot in that regard.

  “I’m sorry, but this feels like bullying.”

  “Well, I—” said Neil.

  “How dare you!” cried Dusk.

  “He never gets a word out. You’re always cutting him off! It’s always all about you!” I was yelling now, which came as a shock, since I haven’t yelled since I was about four.

  “I don’t—” said Neil.

  Dusk whirled on him. “Do I always interrupt you? Do you think I’m a bully?”

  “I, uh—”

  “I can’t believe this!” she shouted. “The two of you being such assholes and ganging up on me like this!”

  “Just because you don’t get heard in your own house doesn’t mean you can come to school and stomp all over us,” I said.

  “Oh, boy,” whispered Neil, finally getting in a complete sentence.

  “If I didn’t talk, give a little direction, you two would just do nothing. Neil would paint pictures of women instead of having relationships with them. You’d just sit there trying to escape attention. Being as quiet as possible.”

  “I do not—” spluttered Neil and I together.

  “My paintings are—” started Neil, but before I heard the rest of what he had to say, I stumbled to my feet.

  “I don’t need the truth or this Commission. We have no idea what other people’s lives are like and asking the truth of every person in this school isn’t going to make us empathetic people. Or interesting people or anything except snoops.”

  Neil made a low groaning noise.

  I hesitated for a moment. “We need to mind our own business!”

  “You need to get some business,” said Dusk. “Until you have some, I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Come on,” said Neil. “You guys. We’re—”

  “Over!” shouted Dusk. She crossed her thin arms in front of her and she leaned back.

  I turned and ran directly into a furniture maker who was on his way into the Boardroom. He had on big earmuff headphones and screamed in surprise. I shoved him in the chest and ran for Nancy.

  Goddamned truth.

  Hole in My Life

  If you’ve experienced moderate to extreme friendlessness, you’d think it would be easy to go back to it after a period of friend-having. Turns out, once you’ve had friends, there’s no going back.

  As soon as my heart stopped pounding, which happened about five minutes after Nancy stalled four blocks from our house, the hole in my life made itself apparent.

  When you have friends with you, st
alls are a time to relax and chat. When you’re by yourself, stalls leave you alone with your gloom-laden thoughts and miserable feelings.

  As I waited for Nancy’s engine to recover, I found my emotions rearranging themselves. I might get a little internally judge-y, a little resentful, but I have never been a yeller or a particularly angry person.

  I especially never wanted to be the angry one among my friends. That role had already been taken by Dusk. Neil was the joker and I was the diplomat. I also knew enough about Dusk to know that she’s like her family, no matter how much she doesn’t want to be. She wouldn’t get over our first fight without a clear expression of regret from me in the form of a truth telling by way of apology.

  I’d seen how her parents handled her explosions and her smoldering rages. They waited until she calmed down and then made amends in a way she could understand. Her attendance at the Art Farm was their way of apologizing.

  I had to find a truth target I could handle. Who, who, who . . . ?

  My phone, a shitty flip that might as well puff out smoke signals as texts, burped. A text from Neil.

  You okay?

  We use proper spelling and punctuation in our texts. Another form of quiet rebellion. Also, I insist on it, and my friends go along because writing is my thing. At least, I’d like it to be.

  Slowly, using the non-text-friendly keys, I punched out a reply.

  This is bad. But I have an idea how to fix it.

  Message me later if you want to talk it over. I hate this.

  Me too.

  It’s interesting that neither of us went off on Dusk. She is who she is, and Neil and I have enough experience of tricky people that we know better than to try changing them. Also, we’re not gossipy or mean, in spite of how our Commission might make us appear. I felt immediately better just hearing from Neil. At least he was still speaking to me.

  Another text appeared.

  We’ll get through this.

  I turned the key, and Nancy’s engine hacked and sputtered to life. I drove slowly home and formulated my plan.72

  xxxxx

  At home, I found Keira in the closet. Light leaked around the edges of the door frame.

  “Keira?” I said.

  “Working!” came her muffled reply.

  “Me too,” I muttered, too low for her to hear.

  I sat at my small desk. I’ll tell you what’s difficult: to truly focus on anything other than embroidery when your sister’s making magic happen in your closet. Stitching is like drawing mandalas. Meditative and precise. Structured. Writing often doesn’t feel that way, but I gave it my best effort.

  In the spirit of diplomacy and feather de-ruffling, I wrote my plan on the tiny pages of the prescription pad.73

  TRUTH TO DOs

  1. Ask two people the truth in a way that shows fellow Commissioners my commitment

  a)

  I was going to have to come up with good ones or Dusk wouldn’t budge. Truth seeking is simply not my forte. Doesn’t “come natural,” as those with bad grammar sometimes like to say.

  I started again.

  Candidates for a Truthing Performed by Normandy Pale, Proud Member of the Truth Commission.

  1. Brian Forbes

  2. Prema Hardwick

  “Norm?” Keira’s voice was muffled inside the closet.

  “Yes?”

  “Want to talk later?”

  I would rather die, thanks. “Sure.”

  “That would be good. What are you doing?”

  “Homework,” I said.

  “You needling?” she asked.

  “Pretty soon.”

  “You want to come in here?”

  “That’s okay,” I said, my skin crawling at the thought. Who knows what details would come sliding out of my sister if I got trapped in the closet with her?74

  She said something I couldn’t hear.

  I used my lousy cell phone to take a picture of the prescription pad. After a deep breath, I messaged it to Dusk and to Neil. Then I sat back in my chair in my bedroom and ignored the sounds of my sister working away inside my closet. I put my stretched canvas under my lighted desk magnifier and started stitching.

  Saturday, October 6

  A Tall ’Scrip

  Neil and I waited for Dusk in the parking lot at Pipers Lagoon Park. The rain was an insistent spittle that would continue off and on all winter until the clouds peeled away in their annual spring migration. Nancy’s defrost system, like her heating and cooling systems, barely functioned, so the windows were fogged up. I traced a sad face in the condensation and then wiped it away with my sleeve.

  “She didn’t want a ride?” asked Neil.

  I shook my head as I checked the cars around us. Some belonged to people who’d gone for an afternoon walk around the narrow spit with the ocean on one side and a saltwater lagoon with houses crowding the other. The spit terminated in a high rocky hump covered in grasses and arbutus trees and Garry oaks, which was home to a profusion of short-lived and rare native flowers in the early spring. Pipers is small but magnificent, and I find it fascinating how many people come here only to score drugs and meet the people with whom they are having affairs. I know this because Nancy has stalled in the lot many a time, giving me a ringside view of various illicit activities.

  Dusk wasn’t ready to ride in Nancy or to completely forgive me, so she was going to ride her bike to meet us. It wouldn’t take long. Her house is a big, handsome place sided in red cedar with charcoal and light gray wood accents, and is the nicest one on the lagoon. It has attractive, environmentally appropriate landscaping, and four kayaks poised to launch when the water in the lagoon is high enough. Everything about the house and property screamed: Two doctors plus high-achieving offspring live here! The only offbeat detail was the coracle that perched like an ungainly plaything beside the kayak rack.

  The crude little half-shell of a boat, which Dusk built and named The Big Girl Pants, is adorable and has a jaunty nautical optimism no kayak could ever match. One of my favorite photos of Dusk is her paddling The Big Girl furiously after her parents and brothers, who are gliding off in their kayaks.

  “You nervous?” asked Neil.

  “I guess.”

  “Dusk will be okay. She’s just really into this.”

  “I know.”

  “I decided to start doing a podcast,” he said. “You want to be on it?”

  “What’s your podcast about?” I asked.

  “Making stuff,” he said.

  “That’s cool.”

  “I hope so. Artists can be pretty boring to talk to. Some of us are nearly nonverbal. Also, we take ourselves too seriously.”

  “We do?”

  Suddenly, Neil himself went serious, a rare enough event that I paid close attention. “Of course. And I think that we should sometimes. Especially you, Norm. Just because you’re—”

  Dusk thumped on the passenger window, and Neil lost his train of thought.

  Dusk had on a red tam. Worn with oatmeal sweater, leggings, flats, and a navy raincoat. If some European filmmaker who had a thing for much-too-young girls saw her, he’d immediately offer her a lead role in a film about a crippled bureaucrat who collected kites in his spare time. Or maybe Wes Anderson would put her in his next movie about peculiar institutions such as boarding schools, summer camps, or families.75

  “You texted?” she said, looking unsmilingly at me.

  “I did. I’m sorry. I apologize. I repent. I atone,” I said.

  “You use a lot of words, Grasshopper. Words are not enough.”

  “I know. Only the truth is enough.”

  Dusk inclined her tam-topped head. “You’ve written yourself a tall prescription,” she said.

  I resisted the natural urge to use a lot of words to explain
myself.

  “Have you seen this?” she asked Neil.

  “Norm’s list? I think it’s awesome.”

  “Me too. But I’ve seen too much hesitation to really trust.”

  “I’m about this,” I told her. “I’m part of this Commission.” I had this overpowering urge to say something incredibly lame, like “I am a committed Commissioner!” but my fear of Dusk and my innate good sense prevailed.

  “When will you start?” she asked.

  “I’ll start with Brian Forbes. As soon as possible.”

  “Excellent choice. Truth telling has the power to do a lot of good, I think. My guess is that after he comes clean, he’ll go to rehab. Meet a girl who may or may not be a celebrity. He’ll give talks at schools. Make a name for himself,” said Dusk.

  “Come clean,” I said. “Good one.” I saw her expression and wiped the smile from my face.

  “It’s no laughing matter.”

  But I agreed with her. I figured she’d outlined the usual trajectory for people who got honest about substance abuse issues and, unless everyone at school was wrong, Brian Forbes had developed himself a little drug problem over the summer. Actually, his slide started earlier than that. Last spring, he started skipping wrestling practice and losing weight and hanging around with iffies. His style changed. It was like seeing one of those advisory notices unfolding in real life. This fall, about two weeks after school started, Dusk elbowed me in English. Brian had finally showed up.

  “Look at that,” she said. “There is something way wrong with Brian.”

  That much was indisputable. His hair was long and stringy, and his muscles had turned into tendons. Normally, he was one of those slightly overblown guys, all popping energy and biceps, bouncing in and out of the welding shop. Over the summer, he’d turned into shadows.

  He made me sad.

  “He’s looking pretty ragged. A little tense,” Dusk added. We’d just started As I Lay Dying to kick us off on a yearlong list of what Mr. Wells called “dark readings.” Most of the books were dystopians, but he’d thrown in a few realistic and experimental bummers as well.