We sat on the back porch of my house drinking whiskey. Fred gripped my arm. \u201cYou remember that story about my friend from high school whose dad mistook him for a deer and shot him in the heart with a Remington? Well, it isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 He missed the heart, almost missed the kid entirely, barely grazed his arm. I just made that shit up. Can you believe that?\u201d \u201cSure,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd that forty pound pike I caught up at Sacandaga Lake was a total fake. I didn\u2019t catch a single fish that day,\u201d Fred said. \u201cHey man,\u201d I said, \u201cyou don\u2019t have to be telling me all this. This isn\u2019t some kind of confession booth. I still love you, man.\u201d “Well, I love you too. I love the shit outta you, man. And that 300-point game I bowled on Valentine\u2019s Day? Yeah, it was more like 110. I felt I needed to lie to make it more exciting.\u201d \u201cListen, man, people do that shit all the time,\u201d I said. \u201cLike when you hit a bad shot in golf? The ball goes backwards and clanks off the hot dog stand, injuring a small girl waiting for her dad. That happened to me out in Denver, you remember me telling you that? Yeah, that never happened. Made for a hell of a story, but it\u2019s not true.\u201d Fred released my arm. \u201cSee, that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about,\u201d he said. “You hit a shitty shot and lied about it to make it funny or poignant\u2014that bit about the little girl laughing was a nice touch, I\u2019ll admit\u2014but it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re a bad person, it just means you hit a bad shot and had to compensate for it with a good yarn.\u201d \u201cI know,\u201d I said, \u201cbut I lie all the time. Linda thinks I\u2019m at work, but I\u2019m here with you drinking whisky.\u201d \u201cOh, listen, pal,\u201d Fred said, \u201cI\u2019m a chronic liar. You\u2019re just like everyone else, don\u2019t take it so hard.\u201d \u201cBut I do,\u201d I said, \u201cbecause people deserve the truth, don\u2019t they? We should stand for something that\u2019s real.\u201d \u201cQuit worrying about it, willya,\u201d Fred said. \u201cNobody cares. You made life more exciting with that hot dog story. The ball landing in the mustard! The foursome laughing, rolling on the tee box, heads exploding. How do you hit a fucking ball backwards! Oh, man, they\u2019re dying! I can see the look on their faces! You brought joy into the world, I\u2019m telling you.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOK, if you say so. But I\u2019m going to try and do better,\u201d I said. I got up and freshened our drinks. Fred leaned back. putting his arms behind his head. He looked well satisfied. \u201cYou\u2019re a great guy. You know that? I can really relax around you, be myself. It\u2019s not everyone you can say that about, Harry.\u201d \u201cThanks, Fred, I really appreciate that, I do. That\u2019s what friends ought to do for each other, right?\u201d We clinked glasses. I sloshed my ice. \u201cYessir,\u201d I said. \u201cNo putting on airs, just be genuine around each other.\u201d \u201cAuthentic,\u201d I said. \u201cNothing to prove,\u201d Fred added. We sat there in silence, nursing our drinks. \u201cSay, have you ever climbed Mount Marcy to see Lake of the Clouds, where the Hudson forms?\u201d \u201cWell no,\u201d Fred said. \u201cI haven\u2019t.\u201d \u201cWell I have, and it\u2019s a bitch. Took me all day to hike up there, nearly killed me.\u201d \u201cWhy is that?\u201d Fred asked. \u201cWell, see, the ledge is so damn narrow, wicked vertical up there, one misstep and you\u2019re over the edge, a goner.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s something,\u201d Fred nodded. \u201cHow\u2019d you make it?\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t,\u201d I said. I thought for a minute. \u201cI fell straight down the ravine and killed myself.\u201d Fred pondered this, and kept drinking. \u201cWell, that\u2019s a shame,\u201d he finally said. \u201cYou\u2019re telling me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You made life more exciting with that hot dog story. The ball landing in the mustard! The foursome laughing, rolling on the tee box, heads exploding. How do you hit a fucking ball backwards! Oh, man, they\u2019re dying! You brought joy into the world, I\u2019m telling you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1621,2928,712,2482,2931,2927,2930,1047,2929,2011],"class_list":["post-18073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-bowling","tag-bullshit","tag-fishing","tag-golf","tag-hiking","tag-liars","tag-lying","tag-men","tag-talking","tag-whiskey","writer-gary-percesepe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18653,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions\/18653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}