“My brother’s voice, like my own, is high-pitched and girlish. Telephone solicitors frequently ask to speak to our husbands or request that we put our mommies on the line. The Raleigh accent is soft and beautifully cadenced, but my brother’s is a more complex hybrid, informed by his professional relationships with marble-mouthed, deep-country work crews and his abiding love of hard-cord rap music. He talks so fast that even his friends have a hard tie understanding him. It’s like listening to a foreigner and deciphering only shit, … bitch, and the single phrase You can’t kill the Rooster. ‘The Rooster’ is what Paul calls himself when he’s feeling threatened.”
--David Sedaris, “You Can’t Kill the Rooster” from Me Talk Pretty One Day
“David Sedaris is coming for a reading at the University of Iowa? And you have tickets?!? And it’s on your 21st birthday?!? NO FAIR!!” she cried from Paris via her cell phone. “Everything happens while I’m out of the country.”
With this in mind, I picked up a copy of his latest published piece, a play called The Book of Liz. Remembering one of mine and Natalie’s favorite lines from Me Talk Pretty One Day, I shyly asked him to write, “To Natalie. Good luck beating that rape charge” when it was finally my turn to meet David Sedaris. “Sure,” he said without missing a beat. “Usually I only get that request from guys.”
“So how was it?” she asked during our next phone conversation.
“Great. Hysterical. Everything I’d imagined and more.”
“Did you get to meet him?”
“No, we couldn’t,” I unabashedly lied. I wasn’t sure why I said that. I had been planning on spilling the beans immediately. We suck at secret-keeping from each other. But the lie just popped out of my mouth. Sometimes the impulse to lie beats out my brain.
Okay, I said to myself, I’ll keep it for her birthday and give it to her then. Over the course of the next five months I nearly spilled the beans more than once. In an innocent conversation with Natalie I said, “That reminds me of when Tara and I met … this guy … on the street, and, um, well, never mind. This is a really pointless story.” I rolled my eyes at myself. Good cover, Rix. I agonized to myself, why did I lie? Why didn’t I just say yes, I met him and then give her all the delicious details, like the fact that he had a F*ck it Bucket full of candy just like in You Can’t Kill the Rooster. And he told me to take an extra one since it was my birthday. Five months is too long, I berated myself. Why, why, why?
Last night was her birthday. She laughed when she saw the book. “Turn the page,” I urged. We locked eyes. She knew. Her reaction was nothing short of what I would expect. Oh. That’s why I lied.
