“You know my friend Fletcher?” I asked.Susan held my hand as we walked down Hollywood Boulevard. It was an overcast afternoon, with a pale grey glow as the smog and clouds veiled the California sky. Large billboards lined either side of the street, advertising the latest movies and TV shows with over-sized versions of their stars. We stepped on the stars of former entertainers- movies stars, singers, directors- but paid little attention to who they were.
“Of course. He’s hilarious,” she replied.
“Yeah, he is a really funny guy. He’s just…”
“What’s wrong?” she asked. She read me so well.
“He… he lies. All the time. Compulsively.”
“I hate people like that. Janice does that all of the time, I can’t stand her!” Susan threw her free hand into the air emphatically.
“But I do like Fletcher! He’s a great person to be around. He’s always good for a laugh. But…”
“…he lies,” she finished my sentence.
“Yes! And not because he needs to get out of a bad situation. Or because he wants to exaggerate details of a story. He lies because he can’t help it.”
“How so?”
“Well, just the other week, we were talking on the phone and suddenly he was like, ‘Oh shit, there’s been a bad car wreck. Can I call you back later?’ I agreed, of course.”
“Let me guess, he never called back,” she sighed.
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect him to. The astonishing thing is that there wasn’t even a crash! Not even a fender bender! He made the whole thing up.”
We squeezed between the tourists to avoid running over anyone with eyes glued to the colorful characters performing on the street. Mexicans with flyers tried to convince us to join them on a double-decker bus for a tour of celebrity mansions. We had already been on one previously, and it was a little disappointing.
“Why did he make it up? Just to get off the phone?” she inquired.
“Good question. I asked him, later, and he didn’t even know. He lies just for the hell of it.”
The sun peaked out from behind a cloud, so I put on the glasses hanging from my shirt collar. I noticed I was the only person around not already wearing them.
“It’s gotten to the point where nobody can take him seriously. No matter what he says, you assume there is some part that is embellished.”
“That is so strange. Why are you friends with him?”
We passed a street vendor selling hotdogs off a portable grill. A short, round man wearing Mickey Mouse ears had both hands wrapped around one, shoveling it into his mouth.
“Cause he’s still a cool guy. If anything, his lying makes him even more fun to be around. In college, we’d go out drinking on the weekends, bounce around between bars and, ya know, get into trouble, or whatever, and usually we would have a few stories when it was over. Like almost getting in a fight, or hitting on some girls, or seeing the cops arrest some guys, or just general drunkenness. But point is, when we’d hear him tell the story, the next day or week or even a year later, it was like we weren’t even there. He was telling a story so completely different than what anyone else experienced.”
“So… he made it all up?” she asked.
“Some of it. He kept the basic story the same, but added to other parts. Some of it was totally fabricated, and people would start laughing so hysterically he’d keep pushing that storyline out like a tangent, until it morphed into something entirely different than what he started with. But other times he would give such a sincere account, recalling details- the pace of his heart beating, the smell of sweat and booze, the ornament of a girl’s necklace- with so much precision that you couldn’t tell if it was fake or not. He could be making it up on the spot, but he could also be remembering those details, like some sort of autistic savant. You didn’t know what was truth and what was lies.”
“Wow. That must have gotten annoying.”
A man dressed as Spiderman pointed to his bucket in an attempt to get our money, but we walked past without talking to him.
“Not really. You sort of learn to take Fletcher as an entertainer. You just listen to his story and don’t worry about what the facts are. As long as you enjoy yourself, that’s the important thing.”
“But you could never communicate with him. You could never have an honest discussion. I, personally, couldn’t handle being friends with someone like that.”
“You can’t really be friends with Fletch. He’s too wrapped up in doing his own thing. He’s a wild animal, and we’re all domesticated. If you’re lucky enough to hang out with him, you just grab hold and enjoy the ride while it lasts. But it will end. You accept that, just like you accept that he will lie.”
“So you have to change who you are to accommodate having him around?” Susan huffed. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not, but with Fletcher it doesn’t last that long. You may see him every day for a week, then not again for six months.”
“Where does he go?”
Three men in suits greeted us on the street. Two were wearing masks, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and the third was a black guy. From the way he asked if we wanted a photo with him, I could tell he was supposed to be Barak. We kindly declined and moved on.
“Where does he disappear when you don’t see him?” she asked again.
“That’s just it… you never know. One time he said he spent three months in Florida, bumming it on South Beach. Another time he told us that his grandma had been sick, so he moved in with her until the family could put her in a nursing home. But you can’t tell what is fact and what is a fiction. Everything he says has so much authenticity and detail. It’s like he even believes all his lies.”
The sun had retreated behind the clouds, and I considered removing my shades before ultimately deciding to keep them on.
“Well I don’t know how you stay friends with this guy. I would not be able to put up with all of his lies, his deceits,” she asserted. “If he wants to live in a fairytale, then that’s his deal. But I’m not able to have to someone lie directly to my face and just listen to them spout complete bullshit without calling them out on it.”
“If I had to deal with him every day, I might feel different. But in small doses, Fletcher’s stories are actually very amusing. You just can’t take them for anything more than that: Entertainment.”
We hit the end of the tourist section and were about to head into the poorer part of town. The buildings in this area lacked the glitz and glamour we had just walked through. They were mostly comprised of grey apartments and small businesses. Susan asked if we could turn around, and I agreed.
“I guess that makes sense,” she conceded. “As long as it’s just temporary. If I had to put up with his stories every day, I’d kill myself. Oh look!” she exclaimed, pointing at a billboard. “Can we see that?” It was for the latest film in a book series she enjoyed. I wasn’t really into it, but I told her we could go together, anyways.
“I’m so excited!” Susan shouted.
“Yeah, I’m excited to.”
“It’s going to be so good!”
“I’m sure it will be,” I said.
I stared out of tinted lenses at the flurried movements of people around me as they rushed to meet their favorite characters and step into the footprints of famous movie stars.
I woul like to use this space to announce the start of a challenge, mostly to myself, to write and post a new short story each day for the next week. So starting today, I will be updating my blog for seven straight days with a new story. I will try to keep them no longer than this one (3 pages) but I think this will be fun. Or stressful. But interesting nonetheless. I would love to get feedback from readers, letting me know which ones you like best. And if you want to contribute, I would love to read another person's work as well. You don't realize how fun it is to write fiction until you try. Just don't go overboard, or you'll end up like Fletcher.
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