Truth and Lies
advice from oscar wilde
When I write, I make an effort to present myself as a gentleman. Whether it’s true or not is a matter of opinion. Just for tonight, though, let’s assume “gentleman” is a construct, and even though it’s Sunday, tell the gut-level, filthy, and unreconstructed truth.
“'D’you bang her?” Is a question I’ll only answer honestly with a very small group of people—even if the answer is “yes” in your case. The circle of people I’ll always tell the absolute truth to, no matter how broken and messed up, and absolutely dispolite to, will fit in a Volkswagen Beetle, with room for a small ice chest filled with whatever fellas put in an ice chest.
There’s no blood kin in that Volkswagen, although Jay Cooke is close. His boys are too, but they don’t live here. Doug Mann, obviously. Lance, when he was alive, Brent, even though it shocks him. There’s only one female in the bunch. I’ve made an effort to tell Jane Clover Alexander the unfiltered truth since we were ten. Her spouse knows this. He’s cool with it, since it was an existing condition when he met her.
Tom Lewis holds a specific place in my life. A knight of Kappa Alpha Order, a United Methodist Youth Fellowship kid, a talented drinker and smoker of cigars, a power lifter (but not a bodybuilder). We’ve had adventures since before they cut the umbilical cord on some of you. In the time we’ve known each other, “D’you bang her?” has not been “yes” once for both of us, although there have been some close calls. You don’t get to know who, nosey.
Despite the impression we give, we don’t mostly talk about women. That’s a pause in the conversation while the waiter brings new plates kinda question. Most of the time, we talk about Mississippi, Methodism, politics, economics, Millsaps, Jackson, and the well-being of people we love. You may not think Carter Stamm needs looking after, but “e’rry body got’s a soul, baby.” To be fair, the younger Stamm, who wears dresses, has always looked after all three of us.
Tom’s dad, you may know as Mississippi’s third most famous Methodist, after Keith Tonkle and Ed King. Because I have ADHD, I make lists so I won’t go mad. It’s Keith, Ed, TW, and Clay Lee. There are some remarkable and truly powerful Christians after that, but that’s who I look to as a model.
TW and Lee Reiff taught bible like history professors, but—in their chambers, ministered to you like a Christian. They formed and shaped generations of not only Methodist Ministers, but also clerical people of every sort. They made an awful lot of regular folks like me better Christians, too. TW, a star athlete and one of my dad’s idols, confronted Satan himself when Mississippi was at its lowest. He won. Well, he won the day. Satan always returns. Most of the time, winning the day is all you can hope for.
Clay Lee has crossed over. Minka Shura Sprague has crossed over. In my life, when I need spiritual guidance, that leaves David Elliot, The Sheltons, Catherine Freis (even though she’s not ordained), and Tom Lewis (although he’s not ordained either). I would include TW, but he’s tired and deserves the rest. I’ll carry his burden for a while. There’s no reason he should carry mine. There are some remarkable Methodists I can turn to, but I’ll be honest with you. They’re a lot younger than me—not that it matters (it does).
Tonight, Brother Tom asked me about a pretty famous business here in Mississippi. I answered him with the kind of truth that, if I wrote about it or put it on Facebook, I’d get yelled at, even though it’s still the truth. My uncle Boyd, my namesake, wrote a speech called “For The Public Good” that made him famous around the world. For good or for evil, business is a structural member of our society. Its health is our health.
This weekend, Mary Buchanan Sellers made an announcement about her career. Her writing career, not her career with the MDAH. The woman is brilliant. She is also incredibly dear to me. Having not warned me she was going to do this, I called her.
“Truth time, little Bird.”
Because my brain was broken, I couldn’t say Boyd as a child. I said Bird. My dad made sure it lasted until just a few hours before he died. I’m Big Bird. She’s Little Bird. That’s how it goes.
I apologized for treating her like a child. In my mind, and in my heart, she is, but she’s been wearing long dresses for a while now. It’s not that she’s a child that tells the tale, but whose child she is.
You should know that, like her mother and her grandmother, I’ve offered her my sword. When I was nineteen, one of her cousins offered me his, then he complained about how I wasn’t going to the right social functions in Jackson. Chivalry is a tenth-century idea, described in nineteenth-century terms, but if you let it into your heart, it can be as transformative as Christianity.
The protection Knights offer is often considered anti-feminist because “they don’t need no man.” That’s probably because a lot of us don’t express it well. Offering someone your sword means you are their servant for life. They aren’t obligated to you in even the smallest ways—except, I would say, they should be honest with you.
For an hour, Little Bird and I talk truth about her life, her career, her art, her cat, the entirety of her being. I came away feeling enormously proud of her for making difficult decisions. She is not a child. She is a woman. A remarkably strong and brilliant woman.
I remind her, as I probably always will, that I am her vassal, and will be, not for the rest of her life, but for the rest of mine, and maybe a little more. She left to make a sandwich, and I left to make soup. We make plans to meet for a finger of whiskey later this week. Maybe two.
“The Importance of Being Ernest” is a comedy by Oscar Wilde, only it’s not. It’s a deeply philosophical play, disguised as a comedy of manners. When he was alive, Wilde had to couch the truth behind the mask of polite society. In 1895, that mask slipped, charged with “gross indecency and buggary,” he was sentenced to two years at hard labor. Except for stage carpentry, “hard labor” isn’t something playwrights handle well.
The father of his lover charged him. The lover, they say, was the inspiration for the novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” but Wilde never admitted to that. There are clear parallels. Dorian Gray is entirely about truth and lies, and the damage that dichotomy causes.
Wilde has one of his charming lady socialites say, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” The audience titters in laughter because they think it’s about gossip. It’s not.
We make commitments in life, person to person, soul to soul, heart to heart. What matters is truth. There are layers of truth. Sometimes you have to protect people from the truth. I would protect Little Bird from an angry horde or hungry tigers, but we have an understanding about the truth.
