Chapter 1

From the time he could speak till the age of five, Jeremiah Greenfield told the truth. He told the truth about writing with crayons on the wallpaper in the hall and about stopping up the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. He was yelled at, spanked and humiliated. By the age of six he noticed that those around him lied - especially his parents - and that they did well for themselves in the process. Jeremiah began testing the waters and found that the sailing was a lot smoother when he lied, too. By the time he was eight he was lying with dedication and conviction, creating things to lie about, confessing to doing things he didn't do.

On the occasion of Jeremiah's ninth birthday there was a party with relatives from both sides of the family. When asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, Jeremiah answered with abject seriousness.

"I want to be a liar like Daddy."

This drew chuckles and guffaws.

"Why don't you run for president, sonny?" asked his grandfather.

"What do you think, Daddy?" asked Jeremiah.

Jeremiah's father was a bookie who parlayed his many connections into a successful career as a politician. As mayor of Paltry, in upstate New York, he presided over one of the most corrupt townships in the county. He syphoned money off the school budget to pay gambling debts. He built a new swimming pool at taxpayers' expense, and restructured the retirement system for town employees in such a way as to enable himself to retire at the age of fifty with a salary of $150,000 per annum.

In private, Saul Greenfield was a falling-down drunk who would beat his son with rolled up newspaper as if he were a dog and trained him to respond to dog-like commands from the age of six months - "Stay!" "Sit!" "Come!" - which Jeremiah's mother, Hilda, boasted about to the neighbors. Hilda worshiped her husband and insisted that Jeremiah treat his father with the utmost respect. Jeremiah called his father "Sir." He shined his shoes, fluffed his pillows, cleaned up his vomit, and honored him with a ritualistic kiss on his ring finger before going to bed each night.

Saul liked to fish. In the summer, he fished almost every evening after supper. In autumn, he fished till the last leaf had fallen from the trees. At his side was his son Jeremiah. These were the most memorable moments from Jeremiah's childhood. These father-son expeditions lasted a little more than three years. Then Hilda decided they were taking too much time from Jeremiah's schoolwork and threw away his fishing rod.

Wintertime, Saul helped Jeremiah with his stamp collection. Claiming it was an accident, one day Hilda threw away his stamps as she was cleaning out his closet. Whatever mattered most to Jeremiah, Hilda saw to it that it was discarded.

In the fifth grade - shortly after the beginning of the school year - Jeremiah reported to Mrs. Gambol that Bobby Grimes, the best student in the class, had cheated on the history test. Bobby went home with a note. His parents were called into school. Jeremiah admitted that he had made it all up.

"That's it," said Hilda. "You're going to see a therapist."

The logical choice was Dr. Marvin Allworth, the most successful medical practitioner in the town of Paltry, who specialized in doing appendectomies on psychosomatic patients. Allworth was balding and handsome. He had a calming and sympathetic manner, wore glasses - though he could see perfectly well without them - which he would take off once or twice during a consultation for purposes of emphasis, sometimes pointing to a diagram, sometimes sketching on the blackboard, sometimes resorting to a medical tome for further clarification. "The appendix," he would say, "is the least understood and hence the most important organ in the body." From there he would go on to explain how the hypothalamus, "the seat of the emotions, and the motor for all human behavior," derived its milk from all over the body, drawing most heavily on the appendix, which, in psychosomatic patients, due to a genetic defect, was sour. This he explained, was the problem. Once the source of sour milk was eliminated, the patient would be freed from the psychological disturbances that had been plaguing him for decades. By this time in the conversation Allworth could have charged whatever he wished, which is what he usually did.

For Saul Greenfield, however, there would be no charge, owing to the many favors the mayor had done for him over the years. And the cure would be something altogether different.

"Sit over here," he said to Jeremiah in softly modulated tones, pointing to an oversized leather chair. Allworth pulled up his rolling desk chair to within a foot of Jeremiah.

"Place your left hand on your left knee. Your right hand on your right knee. That's good. Very good. Now just relax." Allworth gazed into Jeremiah's eyes. With his right hand extended to his side, he moved a small penlight in a slow circular motion.

"Tell me the place you most enjoy being, a place that is just yours, where no one will bother you."

"The tree house in the backyard," said Jeremiah in sleepy tones.

"Good. Very good. Now I want you to imagine yourself in your tree house all by yourself. Think about climbing up the ladder. Imagine how the wood feels. Think of how it smells. Are you there?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah, slowly.

"Good," said Allworth. "Now count backwards from ten, one number at a time, after me."

Jeremiah did as instructed.

"You are asleep, Jeremiah," said Allworth. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah from afar.

"Good," said Allworth. "Jeremiah, you are in a wonderful place. You are safe. You are at peace. You are filled with a sense of wellbeing. You are in complete power. No one and nothing can stop you. The world is yours. This is where you will be every time you tell the truth. Do you understand, Jeremiah?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah.

"Now, Jeremiah, I want you to imagine your worst nightmare. Do you have nightmares?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah.

"What is the worst nightmare you have ever had?"

No response.

"Tell me, Jeremiah. Tell me your worst nightmare."

"I am on a stage."

"Continue, Jeremiah."

"There are people from school, students and teachers. The principal is sitting in the middle of the stage in a high throne. He is dressed is rags. He is filthy and disgusting. There is a puddle of vomit. Some students have gotten out of their seats and are staring at the vomit and watching me. 'Now Jeremiah,' says the principal, 'lick up the vomit. Every bit of it.' Everybody laughs and cheers. The principal gets down off his throne. He is holding a rolled-up newspaper. He beats me with the newspaper. I lick up the vomit. There is cheering and screaming. Everyone is laughing, even the principal."

"Good, Jeremiah. That is a terrible nightmare. That is an awful experience to live through. Every time you lie you will be on that stage licking up the vomit. The principal will be beating you. The students will be laughing and cheering. You cannot escape. When you lie that is where you will be. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah.

"Good," said Allworth. "Every time you lie, Jeremiah, you will wink with your right eye. Everyone will know that you are a liar. You have no control over this wink and will never be able to stop it. Do you understand, Jeremiah?"

"Yes," said Jeremiah.

"Good," said Allworth. "Now I want you count slowly after me, from one to ten. At ten you will be awake. You will forget everything that just happened."

Jeremiah did as instructed and opened his eyes. It seemed as if he had just sat down.

"That's all for today, Jeremiah," said Allworth. "Your mother is waiting outside. Now you are going to be a good boy. Isn't that true?"

"You bet," said Jeremiah, winking with his right eye.

Thus was established in Jeremiah Greenfield at the tender age of nine years the conflict which was to govern his life till the day of his death: to lie or to tell the truth. Each lie would fill him with torment which, over the years, he learned to live with, periodically succumbing to paroxysms of self-contempt. The wink never went away. In his teen years young women thought he was making a pass. Later on people thought it was Tourette's syndrome. Friends and relatives knew he was lying.

Chapter 2

In the autumn of his junior year in high school, Jeremiah fell in love. Katelyn lived in a small, gray-shingled house in one of the less prosperous neighborhoods. She was Irish. She was Catholic. Her father was a bricklayer. Hilda forbade Jeremiah from ever being in Katelyn's presence. After all, she wasn't Jewish. Hilda's interdiction only served to intensify the passion which united the two young people. In class, they exchanged furtive glances and passed notes. They held hands on the way home from school and kissed in the dark on wintry days on the front steps of Katelyn's house when no one was looking. They wrote love letters. Katelyn quoted Byron, Keats and Shelley. Jeremiah poured his heart out. For sure he would marry her and love her till the end of time. One day he came to pick her up on the way to school. No one was home. She was barefoot in her plaid skirt and Irish-knit sweater. He watched as her unshod, arched foot slipped gracefully into her sock. The moment was filled with longing. The image would never leave him.

Summertime came and they were with each other every day, despite Hilda's best efforts to keep them apart. The second week in August, Katelyn appeared at the door of Jeremiah's house and braving Hilda's admonishments insisted on seeing Jeremiah at once. Hilda complied. Looking at her green eyes through the screen door, Jeremiah knew that something awful was about to happen.

"We're going back to Ireland, in September," she said, her eyes swollen with emotion.

Jeremiah saw Katelyn every day for the next three weeks. He traveled all the way to the airport by train and bus. It was the most troubled hour and a half of his life waiting for her plane to take off. He wanted time to stand still so she would never leave. He wanted her to leave at once and relieve him of his anguish. There was one last embrace.

"Jeremiah, you will always be in my heart," she said.

Katelyn turned to wave good-bye and then was gone. Jeremiah watched the plane taxi down the runway. He watched the plane take off and gradually get smaller until it disappeared. There was an invisible cord, one end of which was attached to the plane. The other end was attached to Jeremiah's heart. When the plane disappeared, the cord snapped. Nothing in Jeremiah's life was ever quite right again.

Jeremiah was a bright student. He had gotten good grades in his junior year. After Katelyn left his grades started slipping. He would get one hundreds on his math and science tests and then barely pass the course for want of homework assignments. He was suspended more than once for carrying on in class. In the last half of his senior year he was failing half his courses. One day in May, he hit his English teacher in the back of the head with an uncooked egg. He had been aiming for his friend in the first row. Saul Greenfield was called to school. A deal was struck. Jeremiah would graduate on time if he performed community service. Jeremiah spent the last three months of high school recovering paper cups, beer cans, newspapers and stray hubcaps from the side of the local highway. From there he went straight into the army. Jeremiah had no say in the matter.

It is difficult to determine who had the worst of it: Jeremiah or the army. He enjoyed nothing more than provoking authority, regardless of the consequences. His fellow inductees loved him for it and encouraged his misdeeds. The more push-ups he did the stronger he would get, so Jeremiah counseled himself. He spent a night in the stockade for short-sheeting his sergeant.

In his second year Jeremiah met Nick Belladonna, the son of a wealthy Park Avenue physician. After a year at Harvard, Nick had decided it was time to get serious. Over his father's objections, he dropped out of school, dusted off the old Leica and started shooting everything from magnolia blossoms to stop signs.

"One more dirty dish in the sink and you are out on your ass," George Belladonna had said to his son.

Nick took him at his word and made a neat stack on the floor, in the corner, near the broom closet. This is not what the old man had in mind.

"I am sure the army could put your talents to good use," he had said. He was right.

Nick's talent as a photographer got him a stint in communications, where he met Jeremiah, who was working for the base newsletter. They immediately took a liking to each other, did assignments together and spent their time off at the same bars. Nick was a serious drinker and skirt-chaser.

Eventually, Jeremiah even won the friendship of his superior officers. He was a loyal friend, easygoing and playful. He was neither competitive nor vindictive. Granted, he played fast and free with the truth, but no one seemed to care. People saw it as part of his charm.

When he stood tall, Jeremiah measured over six feet. Usually he walked stoop-shouldered, in a slow, ambling gate. He was solid at over two hundred pounds, largely from all of those push-ups. Women found his thick brown hair and warm smile appealing, especially one Emma Fink, daughter of the largest clothing-store owner in Smytheville, Pennsylvania, a fifteen-minute ride from the base.

Emma was a large-breasted, voluminous woman, who immediately established proprietorship over Jeremiah. She was crass, slovenly and self-indulgent with little talent but a businessman's sense of the worth of a dollar. She was not easily fooled. She was not easily cowed. She was what she appeared to be and nothing else.

"Be careful," Nick had warned.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," said Jeremiah. Clearly, he didn't.

The couple married a week before Jeremiah's discharge. Just about everybody on the base joined in the celebration. Just about everybody knew Jeremiah was making the mistake of his life. No one could explain why he was doing it, least of all Jeremiah.

Chapter 3

Emma's father, Bernie Fink was a businessman to his bones. He had a hairy chest and wore a gold chain, both of which were visible through his open shirt collar. He wore a large ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. He smoked cigars and was an avid golfer. He started out as the owner of a modest one-thousand-square-foot shop, selling dungarees and work shirts to men. By the time Jeremiah married into the family, Bernie had a thirty-thousand-square-foot establishment, on two floors, selling designer clothes to men and women.

Bernie gave the newlyweds the down payment for an impressive home in the right part of town. He bought them a second-hand Buick and a brand new lawnmower. He was going to teach Jeremiah the business from the ground up and then pass it on to him when he was ready for retirement. Without meaning to, Jeremiah had married the boss's daughter.

Jeremiah started out in purchasing. It was his job to purchase everything from paper clips and hangers to bathroom supplies and light bulbs. Jeremiah ordered too much of this and not enough of that. Some things he forgot to order altogether. Bernie decided to switch him to the floor. Jeremiah was good with customers but could never get the knack of writing up a sales slip or getting the right size shirt or jacket for his customers. Bernie was starting to have second thoughts.

Smytheville, Pennsylvania, is a town of some thirty-thousand suburban home-dwellers. Main Street - its proud architecture going back to the mid-eighteen hundreds - had become a hangout for drug dealers and vagrants. It was unsafe to visit the few remaining restaurants and bars after dark. Suburban sprawl had sapped the town of its soul.

Smytheville social life was divided along strict class lines. At the top of the pecking order were the physicians. To be invited into one of their homes at holiday time was the highest honor this small-town society had to offer. The neighborhood one lived in, the color and texture of the grass on one's front lawn, the size and shape of one's back deck, the presence or absence of a swimming pool, where and how often one vacationed, all these factors taken cumulatively determined just how much social mobility one would be accorded.

Jeremiah could not have been more unhappy. Wealth and status meant nothing to him. He was not much of a golfer and found the exchange of dinner invitations with these self-satisfied middle-class gentry tedious. Emma, on the other hand, could not have been happier. She had a husband. She had a home and - thanks to her father - enough money to acquire the status she sought. She had no children and never intended having any. This she had made clear to Jeremiah when they first met. She had no career and no wish to work. After all, she was a married woman.

Emma sensed that Jeremiah was out of place and quickly losing interest in the life she so dearly prized.

"Why don't you get into politics?" she suggested.

This was not a bad idea. It fit in very nicely with the vision Jeremiah had for himself, a vision no less grand, and perhaps more so than the one which Emma had for herself. Jeremiah Greenfield intended one day to be president of the United States.

Some would call it a quirk, some an obsession, still others a delusion. Everyone teased him about it as they did his wink. Yet ever since that session with Dr. Allworth, Jeremiah had gotten it into his head that he would one day be president. "You are in complete power. You rule. No one and nothing can stop you."

Jeremiah believed in himself as president. He had no doubt that he would one day be elected. Evenings and weekends, he did everything he could to prepare himself for his eventual candidacy.

There were campaign posters, stacks and stacks of them, that one had to walk over and around to get in and out of his bedroom. Emma was very tolerant this way. She actually gave him the money he needed to have professional photographs taken and posters printed, and would even discuss with him, in her practical way, what she thought were the drawbacks or advantages of a particular poster.

Jeremiah wrote speeches. He wrote speeches for times of celebration and times of crisis, speeches honoring those who died for their country going back to the war of independence, speeches honoring bankers, stock brokers and oil executives. And he even wrote speeches honoring elected officials, the hardest job of all.

Jeremiah pondered the various political possibilities in Smytheville and realized that the most intelligent choice was to run for the state assembly. The dentist who had held the seat in his district was running for attorney general. Here was an opportunity made to order. With his father-in-law's influence and Jeremiah's personality he had no trouble getting his name on the ballot and winning the slot for his party. The opposing party offered up a sleepy-eyed dealer in scrap metal. Election time came and Jeremiah was prepared. He knew what the voters wanted and told them what they wanted to hear. And so they voted him in. He did a lot of winking that year.

There was one subject about which Jeremiah could not lie: the environment. He had a strong attachment to those streams and lakes where he had spent so many contented moments fishing with his father. In his first term he began a campaign to clean up the waters. Ecoline Transistor, the largest industrial polluter in his county, was his target. It was Jeremiah's goal to pass legislation prohibiting further pollution. He was close to realizing his goal and was up for re-election. Ecoline mounted a strenuous public relations campaign against Jeremiah. It spread rumors that he cheated on his taxes and on his wife. Company officials let it be known that if this legislation were passed they would be shutting their doors and moving to another part of the country. That's all it took to convince the voters that Jeremiah was up to no good. The scrap metal dealer was a shoo-in.

About six months later - he had just celebrated his thirty-third birthday - Jeremiah received another jolt when Bernie Fink decided to sell the business and retire to Florida. No amount of pleading on Emma's part could convince her father that Jeremiah could take over. Jeremiah did not even bother trying.

At the age of thirty-three Jeremiah was being called upon to support himself and Emma. He had no career. It never even crossed his mind to choose one. Earning money simply had never been one of his concerns.

Emma was by turns morbidly depressed and viciously aggressive. She had had everything she wanted. And now it was all slipping through her fingers. She held Jeremiah fully accountable and would never forgive him.

The last thing Emma wanted to do was leave Smytheville. But, under the circumstances, she realized it was the wisest choice. No matter what happened, Jeremiah would never be able to support her in the style to which she had been accustomed. She would never be able to hold her head up amongst her peers. The only choice was to leave. This is what Jeremiah had wanted all along, which made it doubly painful for Emma. Not only did he ruin her life but now he was getting his way. They both agreed on New York City as the next destination. Opportunities abounded. Even someone like Jeremiah would find a place for himself. Bernie said he would use his connections to get Jeremiah started.

Chapter 4

The couple found an inexpensive walk-up apartment in Manhattan's East Village. Under Emma's guidance and her father's influence, Jeremiah was hired as a manager of a discount shoe store on Fourteenth Street. Jeremiah knew nothing about shoes or management. At the end of three months he was fired. Emma met a woman who made her living selling display ads for Times Square bulletin boards. She convinced her to take Jeremiah on as an assistant. Jeremiah disliked Estelle on sight. Next, Emma managed to line up a job with a fabric shop on Orchard Street.

"I am going to get a job waiting on tables," said Jeremiah.

"No, you are not," said Emma.

On this Jeremiah did not yield.

For a little more than a year, Jeremiah worked at Giacomos, an old-fashioned Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan. At the end of six months he realized that his future lay elsewhere. At the end of a year, he became desperate but could think of no alternative.

"Will today be another day just like the last?," he would ask himself each morning. "Definitely not," was the persistent reply. This day would be different.

Jeremiah would begin the day looking for omens to prove to himself that he was right. Omens were small occurrences, usually misadventures and annoying inconveniences that Jeremiah took as proof that his luck was about to change.

He would awake with a headache. That was a good sign. He would nick himself shaving. Another good sign. He could tell by the aroma coming from the kitchen that, today, Emma had baked zucchini bread, his least favorite. These were all good signs. And when he got to work, if his boss told him he would have to work a double shift this was proof positive that something important was going to happen. Yet, nothing ever did.

One day, a heavy, brown mist blanketed the city. The temperature had not dropped below sixty-five degrees in more than a week. Piles of heavy, winter coats could be seen on a many a street corner, discarded like so many crippled umbrellas after a windy storm. Rats scurried from one garbage can to the next in broad daylight. It was mid-January in Manhattan, in the year 2002.

It was after eleven, and close to closing time. Jeremiah was heading back towards the restaurant kitchen when a voice called after him.

"I asked for spaghetti and meat balls," whined a heavyset woman in her sixties, with short, frizzy, red hair.

"I am sorry," said Jeremiah, bending over the table in an act of solicitousness, "but we are all out of spaghetti and meat balls. The tagliatelle bolognese is the house specialty."

"But I asked for spaghetti and meat balls," said the woman, with shrillness in her voice this time.

Jeremiah, his large frame in a slouch, raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders and picked up the plate.

"I'll have the check," said a man hidden from sight in a corner booth on the far side of the restaurant. This was not one of Jeremiah's tables. Jeremiah put down the plate of pasta.

"I'm sorry," he began, looking through his pad of checks just to make sure. He looked up. It was none other than Nick Belladonna.

"Nick," he said.

"Jeremiah," came back the reply.

The two men had lost track of each other after Jeremiah got married. The had met once for drinks after Nick found a newspaper job and on occasion after that when Jeremiah visited New York. It had been years since they had been in contact. Jeremiah brought Nick up to date on his life in Smytheville and his career in politics. Nick talked about his job at the Ledger. They reminisced about army days.

Jeremiah got himself a glass. Nick poured wine into Jeremiah's glass and refilled his own.

"To Sergeant Kastavian, the lousy bastard," said Nick.

"To Sergeant Kastavian."

Nick poured some more wine into his glass, swirled it around and then gulped it down.

"You can do better than this," he said, nodding in the direction of "spaghetti lady," as he referred to her. "Call me tomorrow afternoon. I'll see if I can set something up."

"Thanks, Nick," said Jeremiah.

"I'll be waiting for your call," said Nick, as he got up to leave.

Jeremiah had written for his high school newspaper and the army base newsletter but had never considered a career in journalism. Yet, almost at once it seemed that writing newspaper stories had been his calling all along. He couldn't wait to get home and tell Emma about his meeting with Nick.

"Guess what?" he said, taking off his coat and throwing it on the sofa.

"You should really hang that up," said Emma.

Dutifully, Jeremiah picked up his coat, passing along the day's news with his head buried in the closet.

"I can't hear a word you said," said Emma, taking a bite out of a Ben and Jerry's cherry garcia, frozen yogurt on a stick.

"Guess whom I met today."

"I can't imagine," she said.

"Nick Belladonna," he said.

"Oh," said Emma coolly. Emma did not like Nick.

"Guess what else," he said, turning off the television.

"You shouldn't do that," she said.

"Nick works for a paper in New Jersey. He thinks he can get me on as a reporter."

"Where the hell is New Jersey?" asked Emma, "and why would anyone want to hire you as reporter?"

"Don't you see what this means? This might actually lead to something. A career. Who knows? Anything is possible."

Emma was starting to see dollar signs.

"You know," she said, placing one of the throw pillows on her lap, "if you play your cards right, you can move from print to the six o'clock news and I can be looking at your smirking face instead of one of those other jerks."

This was not what Jeremiah had in mind.

"It's not about money," said Jeremiah, sitting down on the couch beside Emma. "It's about something bigger. It's about the truth."

Like Jeremiah, Emma was a liar. In her case, however, there was no turmoil. There was no winking. It was in response to Emma's lying and more out of rebellion than conviction that, early on in their marriage, Jeremiah began developing an interest in the truth. Or was it once again that session with Allworth and the tree house?

"Liebling," said Emma, taking his hand, "people don't want the truth. They want to be entertained."

"The elections, the vote, the entire system is a scam," said Jeremiah.

"No one cares," said Emma.

"The truth," said Jeremiah, reclaiming his hand, "will save the world."

"And what," said Emma, rising from the couch to turn on the television, "will save us? Look at you, Mr. Has Been and future president of the United States, waiting on tables in a cheap Italian restaurant on the Lower East Side. If not for the money Papa is sending us we couldn't even afford this flea trap," she said, turning up the volume.

"It is not 'the Lower East Side,' said Jeremiah, straining to talk over the television. "It is in an area of town known as 'Noho,' which stands for 'North of Houston.' And further, it is not a 'cheap Italian restaurant.' It is a restaurant with pride and tradition, which has been serving homemade pasta to discriminating diners for the past seventy-five years."

"Oh," said Emma. "I didn't know."

"And," said Jeremiah, knocking a magazine off the coffee table, "do not make light of my presidential ambitions."

"You should pick that up," said Emma, pointing to the magazine.

"I am going out to take a walk," said Jeremiah, ignoring Emma's entreaty.