City of Truth by James Morrow Page B

praise.
    "Dad, what are you doing here?"
    I hadn't seen him in a month. He seemed taller, leaner, darker — older —
    standing there in his grimy Ditch-the-Kids T-shirt and the bluejeans he'd shredded into shorts last spring.
    "I've come for you," I told him, moving as close as I could without making it obvious I was scanning him for symptoms. His hair was as thick, dark, and salubrious as ever. His eyes sparkled, his frame looked firm, his tanned skin held no trace of blue.
    "No, I'm taking the bus Sunday." He nocked an arrow. "Mom's picking me up at the station."
    "The plan's been changed. She had to go out of town — there's a big UFO
    story breaking in the Hegelian Desert." I experienced a small but irrefutable pleasure, the sweet taste of truth bending in my mouth. "We'd better get your stuff packed. Where's your cabin?"
    Toby unnocked the arrow and used it to indicate a cluster of yurts about twenty yards from the targets.
    The archery instructor approached, a woodsy, weathered fellow with a mild limp. Toby introduced me as the best father a boy'd ever had. So strange, I thought, the spontaneous little notions that run through the heads of pre-burn children. My son turned in his bow, and we started toward his cupcake-shaped cabin.
    "You've got a nice tan, Toby. You look real healthy. Gosh, it's good to see you."
    "Dad, you're talking so funny ."
    "I'll bet you feel healthy too."
    "Lately I've been getting headaches."
    I gritted my teeth. "I'm sure that's nothing to worry about."
    "Wish I wasn't leaving so soon," he said as we climbed the crooked wooden steps to his room. "Barry Maxwell and I were supposed to hunt snakes tomorrow."
    "Listen, Toby, this is a better deal than you think. You're going to get an entire second vacation." The space was only slightly more chaotic than I'd anticipated —
    clothes in ragged heaps, Encyclopedia Britannica comics in amorphous piles.
    "We're going to live in a magic kingdom under the ground. Just you and me."
    "What sort of magic kingdom?" he asked skeptically.
    "Oh, you'll love it, Toby. We'll go fishing and eat ice cream." Toby smiled hugely, brightly — a Satirevian smile. "That sounds neat." He opened his footlocker and started cramming it full: crafts projects, T-shirts, dungarees, poncho, comics, flashlight, canteen, mess kit. "Will Mom be coming?"
    "No."
    "She'll miss all the fun."
    "She'll miss all the fun," I agreed.
    My son held up a hideous and lopsided battleship, proudly announcing that he'd made it in woodworking class. "How do you like it, Dad?"
    "Why, Toby," I told him, "it's absolutely beautiful." SIX
    Twelve gates lead to the City of Lies. Every year, as his commitment to mendacity becomes increasingly clear, his dishonesty more manifestly reliable, the Satirevian convert is told the secret location of yet another entrance. Mere notiviates like myself knew only one: the storm drainage tunnel near the corner of Third and Bruno in Nietzsche Borough.
    So many ways to descend, I thought as Toby and I negotiated the dank, mossy labyrinth beneath Veritas. Ladders, sloping sewer pipes, crooked little stone stairways — we used them all, our flashlights cutting through the darkness like machetes clearing away underbrush. My son loved every minute of it. "Wow!" he exclaimed whenever some disgusting wonder appeared — a slug the size of a banana, a subterranean lake filled with frogs, a spider's web as large and sturdy as a trampoline. "Neat!"
    Reaching our destination, we settled into the Hotel Paradise. Unlike my previous accommodations, our assigned suite was sunny and spacious, with glass doors opening onto a wrought-iron balcony from which one could readily glimpse the local fauna. "Dad, the horses around here have six legs!" Toby exclaimed, hopping up and down, his skin aglow. "The rats chase the cats! The pigs have wings! This really is a magic kingdom!"
    It soon became obvious that the whole of Satirev had been anticipating our arrival. The Paradise guards