America Fantastica by Tim O'Brien

Author:Tim O'Brien
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

At their board meeting the next morning, Douglas signed off on the plan.

“Just two questions,” he said. “Isn’t one hundred percent better than two-thirds?”

“Quite a bit better,” said Lois.

“And do you know how to use my shotgun?”

“I can certainly learn.”

28

Over the next days, on the dock below Dooney’s log mansion, Boyd Halverson found himself dwelling not in actualities but amid the remote wanderings of a man who had pressed the muzzle of a Temptation .38 to his temple.

He slept alone in the camper. He spent his days in conversation with himself, explaining the inexplicable, how the issuance of big bald lies had become as automatic as breathing, without malice, without intent, without foreknowledge, and—he admitted it—without the sting of moral compunction. At various times, on various occasions, he had lied about books he’d never read, foods he’d never tasted, cities he’d never visited, celebrities he’d never encountered, diseases he’d never contracted, war wounds he’d never suffered, medals he’d never won, hotel rooms he’d never occupied, high school proms he’d never attended, double plays he’d never turned, paintings he’d never painted, schoolyard bullies he’d never confronted, cool ripostes he’d never been quick enough to frame with words. And plenty more. He’d lied about his age, his height, his digestion, and his name. He’d lied for no reason. He’d lied for sport. He’d lied to hear the sound of the lie. He’d lied for convenience. He’d lied for the thrill. He’d lied to get the job he wanted, the respect he wanted, the love he wanted, the wife he wanted. He’d lied to escape a twelve-year-old paperboy named Otis Birdsong Junior.

No wonder God laughed.

No wonder God had just sent a pair of enormous glossy-black crows crashing into the whitecaps on Lake Larceny.

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