A Lie By Noon

“In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect wood-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there, absolutely true, beautiful and believable,” - some big dumb macho idiot. 

I bet

If I met 

Ernest H. 

We’d argue,

We’d drink,

And we’d fight.

I’d tell him he is a decent writer,

but a pretty shit human. 

     I’d say it right to his face; even if he was holding a rifle, I’d say it to his face.

I bet he’d say some smart-ass shit to deflect.

          I’d tell him he never earned my respect. 

He’d pour us a gimlet and offer me some snuff. 

Hopefully, he’d ask me to box. 

    And I’d sock his fat nose with a jab and then a cross. 

Imagine the little guy beating the piss out of him, as all of his wives and lovers he cheated on watched . . . What a show that would be. I’d pay to watch it. And no one better fucking stop it. 

Why do I want to hit so many of these writers?

First Camus, and now you, Ernie. 

I’m probably jealous. 

I’m probably petty. 

I’m probably more full of shit than they are. 

I’m probably more competitive and more toxic. 

“But G.C. and I were drinkers and I knew it was not just a habit nor a way of escaping. It was a purposeful dulling of a receptivity that was so highly sensitized, as a film can be, that if your receptiveness were always kept at the same level it would become unbearable. You make quite a noble case for yourself, I thought, and you know too that you and G.C. drink because you love it too and Mary loves it the same way and we have such fun drinking,” Ernie. 

Oh Ernie, you saw how romanticize your vices; you saw the mental gymnastics you do to rationalize yourself to yourself; you were self-aware; you got glimpses of your own reflection, yet, you turned your back to it. You make a noble case for yourself, it’s true, but then you turn your back on what’s true, because, to you, what’s true at first light is a lie by noon.