canon } { to live a life where nothing's as it seems

[alias_savant]

The hardest part of being a conman is learning to believe the lie.

For you, it turns out to be the easiest. You’ve been doing it since you were three.

You don’t realize that’s what you’re doing. You’re told your name is Danny Brooks. Saint Louis is your home and your father is dead. “James” becomes an elusive figure of a life you can’t remember and an ideal to strive for. He’s a mystical presence, a patchwork of movie heroes and perfect truths that at the same time are too good to be true. None of that matters, though. After all, part of the con is making sure they don’t question the picture at hand, and you never do. Your father was a cop. Your father was a hero. Being just like him is only the next logical step.

After all, it’s all about believing the lie.

The day you turn eighteen is the day that picture breaks, and you’re forced to see it for what it is. You’re an adult now, and you get to see the ugly little inconsistencies that make up the truth of what really happened. Ellen pulls you aside, and the perfect image cracks and fragments until there’s nothing left of the world you once knew. You feel like you’ve been had for the first time and the feeling that takes over is irrational. The painting’s been ruined, proven to be the forgery it was, and now it’s lost any value. When you look at what’s left, all you can see is the ugly mess that the truth leaves behind. That’s the beautiful elegance of the lie. Even the smallest ones have a way of making the truth seem all that much worse.

Only now you’re eighteen. Now the lie is yours to use, yours to live by. You can take up the mantle like your mother has, like Ellen has, or you can get away from the hideous truth of it all and create your own lie to believe. Your irrational, emotional and just barely old enough to make that choice, but that doesn’t make it any less yours. You sign the papers, catch a bus, and before anyone can say otherwise, you run.

(You’ll be known for that one day—you just haven’t realized it yet.)

When you land in New York, you’re determined to be the exact opposite of everything he was. You take what you know from the streets of Saint Louis, from school, from things you’ve read about the world, and you build yourself a brand new lie to live in.

After all, it’s the only way you know how to start.



442 words