Enigma

“Okay. There’s this town, right?”

“Right.”

“Now, this town is full of liars and truth-tellers. The only thing is -- liars only lie and truth-tellers only tell the truth.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, you go up to this guy and you ask him, ‘What are you? A liar or a truth-teller?’ And he says, ‘I’m a liar.’ So which is he? A liar or a truth-teller?”

“He’s a liar.”

“Yeah, but liars only lie.”

“Then he’s a truth-teller.”

“Yeah, but if he’s a truth-teller then he’s lyin’ when he says he’s a liar.”

“Man, what’s your point?”

“It’s a riddle.”

“It’s a stupid-ass riddle. There’s no right answer.”

“There’s always a right answer.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“Then what’s the answer.”“He’s from out of town.”

…

***

Blake Taylor Rockland was born on April 1st, 1978. Her mother spent seventy-two long hours clamped under the cruel agony of labor before Blake slithered out screaming like a long nail being wrenched from a piece of wood. Blake’s mother was tough, though. It was just another learning exercise, she told her daughter once, like wrestling down a drug dealer or braving a high-rise fire to save an important informant. Blake’s mother was an FBI agent. She’d been decorated by the President.

Blake grew up in her grandfather’s multi-million dollar mansion nestled away in an unknown corner of Maize, Kansas. Her grandfather got rich off of gumball machines and roller rinks. Blake had a roller rink in the mansion basement, but her grandfather wouldn’t allow her to invite any of her schoolmates over so she was the sole user of it, spinning lonely circles under the disco ball to Olivia Newton John’s Greatest Hits and the like.

When she was a child she had a maid named Lupe who laid out her clothes every day and drew up bubble baths for her at night. The maid would sometimes sneak Neapolitan ice cream and grasshoppers without the alcohol up to her third floor room. Lupe was an illegal Mexican that lived over the garage and saved the money she made to one day bring her three children to the United States. When Blake was nine, her grandfather left the car on in the garage to warm up and went to get his briefcase from the kitchen. He got into a fight with Blake’s mom over her dangerous work and forgot about the car until he went back and found the garage full with carbon monoxide. Blake’s maid died and they couldn’t call the morgue because she was an illegal, so Blake and the cook, another illegal, buried her in the back yard next to Blake’s Shetland pony, Max. Blake held a service for her but her mom was called to D.C. and her grandfather had a meeting in Boston so only she and the cook attended. When she placed a carnation atop the churned soil, a breeze lifted her hair from her eyes and she looked up to see the maid’s soul swirl outward, into the sunlight, and disappear. It was then that she finally believed in God.

Blake’s dad was an MIA in Nam. Her mom believed that he was still alive and hoped to someday lead a top-secret mission to find him. Her mom had all kinds of maps and plans to get him out. Blake had a picture of her dad from the late sixties. He had dark, shiny hair and looked a lot like Marlon Brando when Brando was young.

When Blake was fourteen, her mother died in a shoot-out. It was very sad. The next year, Blake told her grandfather that she, too, wanted to be an F.B.I. agent. Her grandfather told her that he would never give her the twenty-seven million dollar trust fund he had set up for her if she dared to pursue the same career that killed her mother.

Now that Blake is in college, her grandfather pays for her tuition, but he will not give her the trust fund money that was supposed to have been hers at age eighteen. A lawyer flies out to Maize from New York City every weekend to discuss Blake’s case with her. She hates her grandfather but she stays with him every weekend. Obligations, something.

Blake has to work at Rico’s Burger Hut to pay for rent since her grandfather won’t let her have the trust fund money. It is very demeaning. She dates around and is still a virgin. She went to see one of her professors about a paper and he had asked her out. She told him ‘no’ but she’s pretty sure she will look him up next semester when they can’t get in trouble.

***

“Alright. I gotta riddle for you.”

“Good.”

“Why did the baby cross the road?”

…

“C’mon, why did the baby cross the road?”

“I think you missed the point.”

“It’s a riddle.”

“It’s not a riddle.”

“It is so a riddle.”

“It’s an infantile joke.”

“It’s a good infantile joke. Now, tell me the answer.”

“Something to do with a chicken, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, ‘cause the baby’s stapled to the chicken. Pretty good, huh?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you thought I wasn’t funny.”

“Hmm. You are funny, in your way. But there’s a better version. Not so much funny, though.”

“What’s the point, then?”

“It’s smart. It’s painfully clear.”

“So?”

“So…so you’d never get it.”

“Nice. Very nice. Your mother teach you to talk that way?”

***

“Cut that fuckin’ hollerin’ before I backhand the both of you!” their father screamed. Josie and Bobby froze, both looking toward the living room entryway to see if their father was angry enough to escalate from screaming to what he termed “stomping their guts out.” After a brief eternity they picked up their spoons and continued to eat soggy cereal. Josie’s eyes were still red as she shot Bobby what she hoped was a look of pure hate. He stuck his tongue out at her and pretended to flick a booger from his nose into her cereal bowl. She began to sniffle, tears soaking her cheeks.

Their father appeared in the doorway and both children tensed, staring up at him with spoons clutched in their hands. His gut hung out of his t-shirt and he held the remote in his fist. His face was red-blotched and his breathing was short and loud. There was a tiny scar next to his belly-button where the Cong had shot his guts out. That’s what he had told them once: “The bullet hit and my intestines squirted out. Had to carry ‘em all the way back to the army triage after my buddy Trig drug me to the chopper.”

“Stop that snot-nosed crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Josie bit her lip and held her breath.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

“Bobby t-took my…my Blake doll and—“

“Take it back,” her father growled.

“He ripped her head off, Daddy! He flushed it down the toilet!” Fresh tears streamed down her face. Her father chuckled.

“You did, huh?” he asked his son. Bobby sat up straight and nodded. “Well, don’t do that no more,” their father said. He looked at his daughter. “Josie.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Go take Bobby’s Darth Vader and flush it down the toilet.”

“Dad!” Bobby screamed.

“You yell like that again and I’ll flush the whole goddamn lot of them. Go on, girl.”

Josie gave her brother a slow, sly look and slid off the chair. She took her time walking to his room and, upon finding Vader, took even longer to deliver the evil leader of the dark side into the stinking blackness of the septic tank. After flushing the action figure she looked at her brother, still clutching his spoon over a completely liquefied bowl of cereal.

“Happy now?” her father asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“If I hear one more peep out of you I’ll stomp both of your guts out.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Josie answered for both of them. Bobby stared at her, his darkening eyes gleaming wet and black. She tipped her gaze coyly to her father, sure that Bobby could do her no harm, at least until they got to the bus stop and out of their father’s hearing range. Her father pursed his lips at the look and backhanded her.

“I didn’t go to Nam to come back to no snivelin’ brown-nosers,” he said, blushing. He wouldn’t look at them. “Go put your bowls in the sink and get ready for school.”

“I need a can of food,” Bobby whispered.

“What?”

“I need a can of food.”

“What the hell for?”

“Food drive. At school. For charity.”

“What are you, a fuckin’ idiot?”

“No.”

“We are charity, stupid.”

“Okay.”

“Got that?”

“Okay.”

“Now go get ready for school.”

“Okay.”

***

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Don’t start.”

“It’s a philosophical question.”

“It’s shit.”

“Just play along for once, will you?”

“’Cause the Colonel was chasing it.”

“No, it was to get to the other side.”

“I was being innovative.”

“It’s really one of the more intelligent riddles--”

“That is not a riddle.”

“Oh but it is.”

“It is not.”

“It’s really startling in its implications.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“A thing of beauty--”

“Shit.”

“Like white chickens.”

“What?!”

“By a wheelbarrow. You know the one.”

“White chickens.”

“Yes.”

“By a wheelbarrow.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m outta here.”

“It’s a poem.”

“Oh, that explains it. It’s poetry.”

“Very deep. Like the riddle.”

“The joke.”

“Whatever. The point is that there is more than meets the eye. Cause and effect, you know?”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s in the poem. ‘So much depends upon…’ something. Something to do with white chickens and a wheelbarrow. It means that even insignificant things have depth and meaning.”

“Like the chicken crossing the road.”

“Right.”

“It’s a joke.”

“Yes. But its simplicity is startlingly complex.”

“Oh man. I’ve gotta headache now. Can’t we just go back to the liars and truth-tellers?”

“No. It’s been done.”