Truth

S and I walk through the parking lot, away from the RoosT. She wriggles her fingers through mine, and tugs on the sleeve of my coat to more fully expose my wrist for her tactile satisfaction. We have no idea where we’re going, but we’re eager to find out and set a somewhat more brisk than normal pace. It’s not speedwalking speed, but definitely somebody-has-had-too-much-coffee speed.

Conversation does not spontaneously spring up, so just past the club house S asks me, “So, how was your day?”

So, it’s going to be like that, is it? We’ve actually had arguments about this particular topic, and all its casually-laid landmines. I decide to go on the offensive. “It was all right, except for the commute home. Some jackass in an Escalade drove through a red light and almost hit me, so I chased him. After a couple blocks he really sped up, which makes me think that he had a good idea what happened and realized I might be pissed. Still, no SUV is going to be able to outrun me on the street. Eventually he got stuck in a line of cars waiting for a light, and I jumped out to scream at him-”

S interrupts. “Are you serious?” She looks really pretty concerned.

“No. Not really.”

“How much of it really happened?”

“Well... I did commute home.”

“Nobody ran a red light?”

“Nope.”

She yanks her hand from mine, and swats me on the shoulder in exasperation. “You had me a little worried, because I can totally see you doing something like that.”

“See, that’s what makes it a good story.”

“Except it wasn’t really, it also stank of bullshit.”

I shrug. “Well, sure. I wouldn’t leave Grendel like that.”

“Not just that. The whole ambiance of the story didn’t sit right. What?” She seems to be responding to my wry grin.

“Well, you know. It’s that whole aspect of believability that people place stock in; gut feelings and stuff. It just seems a little... funny, I guess.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know you think that you have some sort of heightened bullshit-meter. But speaking as somebody who has been burned by its false positives, I kind of think that you place too much stock in it.”

She eyes me slyly. “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you hate the way I always tell when you’re bullshitting?”

We both laugh. It’s not that anything is really all that funny. It’s more of a shared self-deprecating sense of humour that our relationship allows. I nest her hand in mine and give it a squeeze, and she squeezes back. We reach the end of the crooked driveway, and turn right onto a yellow brick road.

“Seriously, though. I think most people place a little too much faith in their own ability to smell truth. It’s the root of much gullibility, and a source of wilful ignorance.”

Her nose wrinkles. I love it when it does that. “Hey. I think you’re going too far. People have a lot of common sense, and the problem might be just that they don’t listen to it.”

“Don’t even get me started on so-called common sense. But let’s think about what truth really is.” I look at her pointedly and cock one furry eyebrow like a question mark.

She tilts her head and moves some stray hairs from her face. “Well, I guess the truth is stuff that is right. Right in some fundamental manner.” She looks back at me, and her closed expression suggests that she is half-expecting some sort of pedantic wrangling.

I resist the urge to wrangle pedantically. “OK. That sounds fair. Would it also be fair to say that truth is still truth regardless of some person’s opinion?”

“Definitely.” Ah, she’s a quick one; I can see her shapely eyebrows do the forehead dance of realization.

“Right. People’s bullshit sense only really works on how they perceive someone is speaking with respect to their own beliefs and opinions. And even that is assuming that they aren’t really good actors or merely have difficulty expressing themselves.”

She sort of half-nods. “Yeah, OK. But within the realm of simple honesty, being able to read people is still totally useful... Say, is that scarecrow looking at us?”

I think it is. “Hmmm. Keep walking.” We continue on in silence until we stride out of sight over the crest of a hill. “That was creepy.”

“No kidding. Halloween is, like, totally over.” She complements the SoCal drawl with a dramatic eye roll.

I beam at her. “Anyway, like I was saying, there are some major flaws with trusting bullshit meters too much. Aside from the simple human disconnect from absolute truth, there’s also the frightening ramification about people who can convince themselves of things becoming convincing to others.”

“That’s where the crazy meter comes in.”

I grin at her with wild eyes. “Yours is broken!”

She pats me comfortingly on my shoulder. “No, it’s not, dear.”

I pout.

“Awww. It’s OK. I like crazy.” She leans over and kisses my cheek, then freezes. We stop walking, and she whispers in my ear. “I think there’s a bear in the trees over there...!”

I look, and see something. “Oh my!” I squint. “I think it has a mane. A lion?”

“Let’s get out of here!” S grips my elbow and urges me along. I keep a careful eye out for pursuit, or to see if there are other members of its pride flanking us. Fortunately, it – or they – don’t seem interested in chasing us.

After we slow down again, some significant distance away, I ask S, “So, do African Felidae count as good sign token animals?”

“Well, we didn’t get eaten, did we?”

“Good point.”

“Getting back to the bullshit meter, I want to clarify it a bit.”

I blink. “Sure.”

“It’s not really about divining truth, but a kind of insight into knowing when somebody is trying to be misleading.” She looks at me expectantly, probably trying to verify be my expression whether I understand.

I think I do, but I still have reservations. “Yeah, that seems... OK, I guess.” I falter for a moment, and I find myself biting my lip. “It’s just that things are never that clear cut in our own minds... well, not never, but not often. It’s hard to express exactly what we’re thinking about things, and I suspect that everybody mixes in a healthy dose of revisionism in order to try to generate an appropriate mindset in their audience – if you know what I mean. And that’s not really the same as bullshitting.” S is looking at me funny. “Well, I don’t think so anyway...”

She’s still looking at me funny. “You’re going to pick on the way I say that I’m going to die all the time, aren’t you.”

“No. No.” I give her hand a squeeze and pull her closer while we walk. “Let me just say that I never mean to be dishonest with you. Jokes and exaggeration aside, I will always be forthright with you about everything to the best of my ability.”

“And what if you don’t?”

“Well, you’ll be able to tell, because there will be flying monkeys coming out my butt.”

Right then, a flight of winged simians pass overhead in a V-shaped formation, singing a rumbling baritone “OOOOOOh WEEEEEE yOOOOOOh!”

S looks at me out of the corner of her eye. I look at her out of the corner of my eye. “They, uh, DIDN’T come out of my butt. Honest.”