The Lie

How many lives you have been complicit in tarnishing, perhaps even ruining? How many lies have you told? How many rumors, however outlandish, have you been all-too-eager to embrace and perpetuate?

For years, my childhood friends and I were terrified of Old Man Tim, the ancient (at least in our eyes) hermit who lived in the corner bungalow on our little tree-lined street. None of us had ever spoken to him, and hours of spying through the man’s window never yielded anything more controversial than his awful taste in daytime television. Despite our enormous lack of proof, we felt certain that Old Man Tim was a pedophile. We made up stories so convincing that we soon bought them ourselves. Eventually enough of us believed our scandalous tales that our parents did as well, and the poor man became a pariah.

The years raced by in front of Old Man Tim’s living room window, as did the block parties births deaths skinned knees fireworks love affairs heartbreaks tulips marigolds falling maple leaves snowmen. When he died, no one in the neighborhood attended the funeral. Many in the neighborhood rejoiced to see him go, still firmly believing that the old man was a child molester, though in truth, no one had ever spoken to Tim, and no one could claim to have been victimized by him.

In all likelihood, Tim was simply a lonely widower, all but forgotten by his children and grandchildren, who only ever called on Sundays to make sure he hadn’t fallen down the stairs or drowned in the bathtub. But with the brutality that is so typical of childhood ‘innocence,’ I helped make Old Man Tim a monster.