When Lying Became Okay
By: Charles Baker Harris August 29, 1935
There’s a staggering man with a big fat lie in our town! Now I want you to wipe away your pretenses of this man right now... it is none other than the town drunkard, Dolphus Raymond. I’ll tell ya’ the truth, and I promise I’m being honest. First of all, I was interested that the man made an appearance at the trial at all this weekend. Mr. Raymond sticks to what he owns on the one side of the riverbank. While watching the Tom Robinson trial with my utmost attention, making sure I could write a great first article for The Maycomb Tribune, my lady could not handle herself and had to leave the courtroom.
I was trying to calm her down when we ran into the town’s black sheep. Boy, I made him reveal some juicy stuff. For my lady’s safety, I warned her to stay away. Mr. Raymond had his infamous paper bag with him. He was sitting with those Negroes before; I bet he was too drunk to notice. My darling needed her stomach settled so he offered her a drink. A drink! A lady shouldn’t be drinking I told him, but he just smiled and offered the sack. My friend took the straw poking outta the bag and gulped it. She turned to me, “Dill, it’s nothing but Coca-Cola.” Now I know y’all are gonna say that I’m the one lying to everyone, but I’m honest. Folks, it was never whiskey in the bag. After lengthy minutes of inquiring as to why he actually had pop, I realized that he only pretends to be drunk. He can’t tolerate some of our very own racists and hypocrites in town, so he lives isolated. When did our society become so corrupted that a man has to pretend to be a drunkard in order for us to accept his ways? He may have different views about how to live, but let me just say, Dolphus Raymond has his morals beyond intact. |
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