The Truth Commission

by Susan Juby

  “As I Lay Dying is enough to make anyone tense. Did you see this?” I held up the book, opened to the “My mother is a fish” chapter. “Imagine writing something like that and saying, ‘Perfect. Let’s end it there.’ Who does that?”

  “Somebody who doesn’t want to spend all day writing long chapters,” said Neil.

  “Mr. Wells said Faulkner wrote it fast,” said Dusk. “And he didn’t revise.”

  “Shocker,” I said.

  Mr. Wells told us to please be quiet so he could finish telling us how Faulkner used to work in a post office, and his theory of how sorting mail affected Faulkner’s handling of point of view. My theory was that working in a post office made Faulkner so bitter and depressed that he took it out on his readers by writing books that made no sense unless you had a teacher there to explain it to you.76 Still, it was an interesting, if depressing, novel.77

  “Are you sure you’re up for this? What about Lisette?” Dusk’s question pulled me out of my recollections of Faulkner and Brian and September, which seemed months past, rather than just a few weeks.

  “I did ask Lisette. Sort of. But then I chickened out. I’ll take a run at her later. She just doesn’t feel right.”

  “I’m glad you’re joining us,” said Dusk.

  “Truce?” said Neil.

  “And reconciliation,” said Dusk.

  Like the funny thing she is, she leaned her bike against the passenger side of the truck, walked around the front, and stuck her hand out at me.

  We shook.

  My best friend.

  “To Brian Forbes,” she said.

  “To Brian Forbes,” added Neil.

  BTW

  I’m aware that I have not mentioned my sister and her confession for several chapters. In the spirit of Mr. Faulkner, who, as noted in the previous chapter, didn’t have to change so much as one word of his book (hint, hint), I offer you another really short chapter, because I’m just not ready to say more about her right now. I’ll get to her story eventually. In the meantime:

  My sister is a fish.

  I’m becoming afraid of fish.

  Tuesday, October 9

  My Life Is an Issue in My Life

  Because Monday was Thanksgiving, I couldn’t set my truth seeking into motion until Tuesday. Nervous as I was about approaching Brian, I was still happy to be back in school. Anything was better than our painfully quiet house during a holiday. Of course, Keira didn’t join us for turkey, and our small talk was all done in whispers and featured lots of long, awkward silences.

  In class on Tuesday morning, I watched the door in English class and waited for Brian to show up. When he finally slid in, Mr. Wells was halfway through his opening remarks about M. T. Anderson’s Feed, which was a welcome change from As I Lay Dying, even though it was also depressing. I think Feed may have the best opening line of any book ever written. “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” Sigh. Now that’s an opener! I was distracted from fully appreciating Mr. Wells’s commentary by my fervent wish that I hadn’t volunteered to speak to Brian.78 It was a task for a trained counseling professional. I should not have volunteered.

  Brian looked like he was in the grips of bad, bad cold. Eyes nearly blackened with fatigue, hollowed-out cheeks. His jeans hung on him the way they do when a person loses a lot of weight and doesn’t have time to get new pants.

  “Mr. Forbes,” said Mr. Wells, pausing for effect. “I’m glad you decided to join us.”79

  Brian, who used to have a goofy, good-natured remark for everyone, just ducked his head as though trying to avoid blows and slipped into his seat in front of us.

  Dusk caught my eye and nodded. I nodded back, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  On the other side of me, Neil also nodded. Again, I returned the favor.80

  Then I tried to focus on Mr. Wells’s lecture.81

  When the bell rang for lunch, it was time for me to become a full member of the Commission. I got to my feet at the same time as Brian Forbes, and I was right behind him when he slipped out of the door. I could feel Dusk and Neil behind me.

  As I followed, close but not right on his heels, I noticed people noticing us. Recognition dawned on their faces as they saw Brian, then me, then Dusk and Neil. A few nodded. One or two saluted. A boy in an engineer’s cap gave me the “Live Long and Prosper” sign. A girl wearing a tutu and ballet slippers with a hockey jersey threw up a gang sign and thumped her chest. We passed Zinnia McFarland, who was slumped in a chair outside the guidance office, and we passed Aimee Danes who was surreptitiously feeling up her nose for a change of pace.

  Brian Forbes walked through the crowds, head down, feet shuffling. Clouds of self-hatred seemed to trail behind him like a bus leaking exhaust.

  I followed him outside. He walked past the Photoshoot Tree, skirted the parking lot, and headed for the playing fields. When I looked back, I saw that Dusk and Neil had been joined by three or four other people. I muttered a swear under my breath. Bad enough I was going to get all up in this guy’s business. We didn’t need an audience.

  I caught Dusk’s eye and gave my head a small shake. She and Neil slowed and Dusk held out a hand to stop the truth voyeurs.

  Brian Forbes walked through the ball field and into the dugout. I hesitated. Did I really want to follow him in there? What drugs was he doing? Was he safe? I had never even spoken to the guy, and now I was going to do a one-woman intervention on him?

  Deep breath. Stand tall. Switch into the present tense.82

  The dugout is dark and colder than the day outside. Brian Forbes sits in the middle of the bench. He’s lighting a cigarette. At least, I hope it’s a cigarette. I’m not very druggy and I haven’t gotten around to watching Breaking Bad.

  “Hi, Brian,” I say.

  His head snaps up and I get the contradictory impression that I’ve surprised him and also that he’s been waiting for me for a while now.

  He doesn’t speak. Instead, he takes a deep drag on his smoke.

  “Good smoke?” I say, and wonder what someone like Brian Forbes thinks about when he sees me and Dusk and Neil and our candy cigarettes.

  Brian narrows his eyes and gives me a half smile.

  “Yeah. Sure. Like inhaling angel’s sighs.”

  That stops me. Brian Forbes is quick.

  I recover. “Sounds refreshing,” I say. “Might have to try it.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he says.

  Our intimacy feels weirdly immediate. Like I’m in Brian’s head and he’s in mine.

  “You doing okay?” I ask.

  “What’s your name?” he says. “It’s odd, right? Like Charles or something?”

  “Normandy. Norm.”

  “It’s cool when girls have dudes’ names. Or when they’re named after provinces. State names can sound a little porny.”

  I consider my response. Brian seems to like banter, so I need to come up with something witty. Witty-ish, anyway. “Alberta: sexy. Alabama: porny. I get it.”

  Brian leans farther back on the bench seat. My eyes adjust so I can see him better.

  “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

  The low roof of the dugout presses in on us. I wonder if he knows there are people outside. Waiting to hear his truth.

  “You don’t have to answer.”

  Brian Forbes closes his eyes, which I have just realized are quite lovely and feathered with long lashes.

  He doesn’t respond, so I forge ahead. “Are you on drugs?” That sounds too harsh. I feel like one of those overly blunt people or like a drunk. Someone who has no filter. I’m embarrassed. I’m exhilarated. “I guess I’m asking whether substance abuse is an issue in your life.”

  Brian Forbes takes another drag on his smoke.

  “My life is an issue in my life,”
he says. Because that’s a sort of a Zen koan, I don’t know how to respond. Luckily, he continues. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because my friends and I have this theory that the truth can heal. So we’re asking people truths about things that other people already suspect.”

  “Oh, right. I heard about this.”

  “Yeah. It’s . . . a thing.”

  “How’s that going?” he says. “Asking people the truth?”

  “It’s good,” I say, feeling that the interview has gotten offtrack. “I mean, some parts of it are.”

  “And some parts of it aren’t,” he finishes.

  “My friends seem to enjoy it more than I do.”

  “How does it make you feel? Asking people the truth.”

  I consider. “Well, this is my first time. So, it’s good. I mean, it’s like unleashing something. Opening things up.”

  “Freeing?” he says.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Doing drugs is like that.”

  “Oh?” I remember from creative nonfiction class that, when interviewing, it’s important not to interrupt. Silence can get people talking.

  “You try it once. There’s a rush, and all the barriers between you and other people, you and yourself, they’re all gone. Everything is possible. You aren’t alone anymore.”

  The description was exhilarating. Why hadn’t I done much in the way of drugs?

  “And then?”

  “And then you want to have that feeling again. But it turns out there’s like a half-life to getting high. The aftereffects follow you around. Make the original situation, loneliness or whatever, worse. And it’s never quite as good as that first time. Taking drugs turns out to be a shitload of work, once you get right down to it. I think the correct term is ‘diminishing returns.’”

  “I see.”

  “My guess is that the truth’s like that. You ask somebody the truth. Feel like you’ve moved into a different dimension. But it doesn’t end there. There are consequences to every action. Shadows.”

  Brian Forbes is freakishly articulate. He should be asking the questions. I’ve been standing like an intruder just inside the entrance for what feels like hours. I’m not sure where to put my hands, arms. I’m too aware of the cold concrete under my feet. I take a seat on the long bench, staying as close to the doorway as possible.

  “That sounds right,” I say. “In my limited experience.”

  Brian Forbes is sitting about five feet away from me. He turns his face and he is the oldest seventeen-year-old I’ve ever seen.

  “What’s supposed to happen now? I tell you I’ve got this problem that everybody already knows about. I sure as hell already know about it. What then?”

  “I guess things change. At least, that’s the idea.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you want them to.”

  “Therein lies the rub,” he says, and somehow I know he’s had this conversation before. “You going to tell me my options?” he says. “Treatment? Twelve Steps? Like that?”

  “No. We don’t give advice. We only ask and listen.”

  “Smart,” says Brian. He drops his cigarette to the damp concrete floor and scuffs it out with his running shoe, which is falling apart and not in an ironic, experimental way. “It’s after the truth comes out that the going gets tough.”

  Again, I have no response.

  “Everyone at school knows,” he muses. “Everyone at home. And it’s up to me to make some changes. God, that is such a tiring thought.”

  “You can talk to me,” I say. “Anytime. I want to help.”

  Brian Forbes levels his gaze at me. “You’re Keira Pale’s sister, right?”

  The abrupt change in subject causes an obstruction in my airway.

  “Yeah.”

  I wait for a comment about the sister in the Diana books. A comment about how I’m nothing like that pale starer or the hapless doughball, or how I’m just like her.

  “If you want to ask someone the truth, you might want to start a little closer to home,” he says.

  “What?” I say. “What do you mean?”

  But Brian doesn’t answer. He’s getting slowly to his feet, like some decrepit old-young man.

  “I appreciate your interest in my situation,” he says. He stands in front of where I sit like a block of cement on the wooden bench. He reaches out a hand to shake mine. I look at it. The moons of his nails are black.

  I take his hand and it’s cold, but his grip is gentle.

  “You want my cell number?” I ask. Like I’m trying to pick him up.

  “Maybe later,” he says, and gives me a sideways smile. I suddenly understand how people fall in love with drug addicts.

  And then he’s shuffling out of the dugout and I’m left with more questions than I had before I asked Brian Forbes the truth. I sit in the dugout for a long time until Neil comes in to get me.

  Wednesday, October 10

  We Don’t Take Requests

  The next day I was still vibrating from the thrill of my honest talk with Brian Forbes. It was intoxicating to be entirely direct with someone. Dusk and Neil were right: it felt revolutionary.

  Between savoring the feeling that I’d cut through the formalities to have a meaningful interaction with a strange boy and luxuriating in the thought of all the positive things that were likely to come from it, like him getting clean and me opening up, I hardly had time to think about the tensions at home. Keira had returned from another three-day absence and, after retreating to her room for a while, had gone back to work in the closet. I was curious about how far she’d gotten with the new Chronicle. I hoped there wouldn’t be too much in it about the Flounder. I also hoped Keira hadn’t named the new book something humiliating like: Diana Chronicles 4: The Less Talented Sister. Ha. Ha. Okay, so that’s not really funny. But after her last confession, she’d stopped coming into my room to talk about what had happened. Maybe our vague, one-sided chats had healed her enough that she would soon go back to CIAD. The thought made me feel light with hope.

  Plus, I was officially hooked on the truth.

  “Still feeling great, right?” said Dusk, the day after I spoke to Brian.

  We were back in painting class. Ms. Choo was teaching us yet another advanced brushwork technique. We were paying yet again only partial attention.

  “It was a rush. I’m still kind of processing.”

  “Truth is power,” said Neil. “So I’m not that used to it.”

  “Oh, Neil,” I said. “You have way more power than you give yourself credit for.”

  He blew me a kiss and I blew one back. Dusk, who doesn’t do what she calls “appalling outbursts of affection,” made a gagging noise.

  “Oh, Dusk,” said Neil and I together. Before we could tease her any more, the sound of raised voices came from the other side of the studio.

  Sarah Vanderwall was whisper-yelling at her girlfriend, Kim Yee.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth!” said Sarah.

  “Screw you!” said Kim, her voice low but reaching every corner of the room. “I do so have a sophisticated color sense. It’s just different than yours.”

  “Oh, yeah, you’re a real A. Y. Jackson.”83

  “What is your problem? Why are you being such a bitch?” hissed Kim.

  “Hey, you said you wanted to move past polite into truth. You said everyone at school is doing it. And of course you just have to be part of it because it’s a trend.”

  “Me?” said Kim. “Look at your tattoo! It’s the worst one in this school. And this school is filled with awful tattoos.”

  “Why do you have to keep bringing up Winnie? I thought we got past that. I told you Winnie and I never did anything. We just talked about it. Then she moved to Victoria!”

  “I never even mentioned Winnie!” yelled
Kim. “But it’s clear that she’s obviously on your mind pretty much constantly.”

  “Girls,” said Ms. Choo. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “What’s not the problem?” huffed Sarah.

  Then their voices dropped so we couldn’t eavesdrop properly. As Ms. Choo led them out of the room for a cool-down chat, Dusk, Neil, and I glanced at one another and then at our brushstrokes.

  Flare-ups like that had been happening with greater frequency all over G. P. Academy. Our classmates were open people, for the most part. They were ready to embrace any new movement. They liked to stir things up.

  We’d had to tell people that we didn’t take requests, that we never shared what we learned except with one another. Even so, people seemed to find out, partly because the subjects talked about it (in the cases of Aimee Danes and Zinnia McFarland). Tyler Jones remained in a holding pattern, truth-wise, and rarely left his studio pod, and I hadn’t pursued Lisette.

  Truth seeking was turning into a social movement with vague, fluctuating rules. The part of me that enjoyed a bit of control and some guidelines was made nervous by the lawless nature of what we’d started. The part of me that craved something authentic and unpredictable loved it. So did the part of me that wanted to look at magazine pictures of celebrity cellulite.

  We didn’t comment on Sarah and Kim, our school’s power lesbian couple. They’d be fine. Everyone knew that fighting was how they kept things fresh.

  “Have you seen or talked to Brian today?” asked Neil finally.

  “No.”

  “He probably went into rehab,” said Dusk, all breeziness. “That’s what happens after people get honest with another person. You were a serious catalyst for good.”

  I nodded. It had sure felt that way. His words about making changes had lifted me up, even if his other comments hadn’t.

  “On Monday, Prema,” said Neil. It wasn’t a question.84

  “Yeah. She’s next.”