Truth is Where You Find It.


 

I found mine in the book Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. No there was not an incident with a dolphin in my youth. But there was a circus. A couple actually and both are rather dark memories. A clown in one which I get close to in Stephen King books like IT, but always shy away from the total truth of. But the one Prince of Tides uncovered was the one in Roswell where a trapeze artist fell to her death.

No wait. Everyone tells me I remember that wrong. But all the principals are now dead so I get to have it my way. Mom was not even there. She was home with Gary who has no way of knowing the truth. I was with Dad. Who enlisted me as is conspirator and told me to not tell Mom. The Dolphin, the Tiger, and the Circus in Pat Conroy's fiction are all wrapped up in an elaborate tangle of lies and cover up. The Circus, the rape, and my brother the conspiracy of lies that exploded as a result of reading Prince of Tides.

I had been so indoctrinated in the party line (translate that as family) I had always assumed my shady partial memories were my wild imagination. My brother said so. You're just crazy. Never happened. And shouldn't he know because he was there for that. Later when I remembered I wanted to ask him if he enjoyed it. But by then we were not talking to each other. And besides we grew up in a different family.

We had the same Mom and same Dad but our relationships with both were very different. Mine was never quite as good with either parent after the tidal wave of truth. And my sister, ten years younger, was raised in a different age and a different family. I have been spending some time of late talking to my sister about the family she grew up in after Gary was off to the military and I was off to college and beyond. For a long time I worked on the book I was going to publish after everyone died. I had an agent. But then I realized everyone was a long way from being dead.

Truth is fragile. And it is my truth. Perhaps only important to me. I have found other doors to other portions in other books like Cider House Rules by John Irving. He is a truth holder for me. But nothing my brother says is the truth for me. And everyone else involved is now dead or was not present. Pat Conroy is the closest to collaboration I will ever come and he doesn't even know it.

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