turtles!

a good story is the best way i know to capture an idea. in science i've learned that if you really understand a concept you should be able to demonstrate it with an example. so it is even with people. if you want to say something about people, say it about one person. and if you want to say something about one person, tell a story that makes him real. even if the story is not.

will was my old roommate. we lived together in carbondale for two years, and i learned to love him. he was a backwoods boy from southern illinois. his family traced their heritage as far back as kentucky, as if they'd just sprung up from the hills. he's my favorite example of a country boy. ignorant as hell, he'd never even seen a black person until he got to carbondale. but willy was an open book. by the time i met him he knew half of campus. he had friends of every race and nationality, and they loved him because his mind was open to everyone.

does will believe in god? i could never tell. to him, church was more of a tradition. his family was protestant in catholic country, and they'd always been outcasts because of it. for will, even tiny carbondale was a haven of tolerance. i can only imagine how starved he'd been for friends back home. when he meets someone new, he's as eager to know them as a puppy. a few cautious city folk never learn to trust his forthrightness. for the rest, within five minutes they realize they've found a gem.

i've only seen two things that get him mad. one is snobbish disdain. a lot of people confuse his ignorance for stupidity. ultimately it's their loss and their mistake, and he knows it. but the other thing is something by which will cannot abide: cruelty. will doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. you might expect a little more viciousness from someone who's killed as many animals as willy, but you'd be wrong. he's fed me more squirrels than i can count, but if i'd shot so much as one turkey out of season, he'd be the first to turn me in. he used to buy baby ducks and hide them in our dorm room until he could go home for the weekend to release them in his pond. but god help you if you wantonly mistreat any animal.

one day will and i were out running. some people were walking their dogs without a leash. the dogs saw geese and went crashing through a pond after them. the geese were annoyed and flew away, so the dogs tried to catch some turtles sunning themselves on a log. will watched in horror. he started muttering: "goddamn dogs." "i fucking hate that. use a fucking leash." "goddammit phil, i can't believe that!" and suddenly he bolted. i didn't catch him for two miles. he stopped long enough for me to catch up, and then he started swearing again and sprinted another two miles without me.

will's limitless energy fascinated me, and i made it my mission to find out how he was capable of things psyching himself up like that. the next time we were at the gym, i was grilling him about it. how was he able to lift so much, so many times? he couldn't say. so i waited until he was laying on the bench and observed him. he closed his eyes for a second, relaxed, opened them, and belted out a set faster than most men do a pushup. the next time he layed down, i asked him what he thought about there with his eyes closed. he ignored me for a second, popped his eyes open, and just as he started his set, he shouted his answer: "turtles!"

i told that story to a group of friends who knew will, and they laughed so hard they cried. every time will came up in conversation, someone would yell "turtles!" the story was told again and again. soon everyone knew it and all agreed that it captured will perfectly. my dilemma was that it wasn't true. i made up the end for a laugh, because the real story had a boring ending and would have required explanation. but the fake story got out of hand, and i didn't have the heart to tell them all it was fictional. years later i was drunk and told dan i made the story up. it broke his heart. he yelled at me for telling him it was a lie. i learned then that there had been nothing wrong with making up the story. it had given us all a way of explaining our friend to strangers. the story helped new people understand him. that it was part lie was unimportant. there had become more reality attached to the fictional story than to the original mundane events.

there's a saying that captures what i learned from that story. i don't remember where i heard this. it goes, "always tell the truth, but tell it how it's meant to be told." big fish makes the same point: sometimes the truth is better told falsely.