Life's Cruel Joke

The Start of Lies

I sat around Jerome's trailer. We were both talking about how much are mother sucked, until there was a knock at the door.  Jerome got up and went to the door. There was a blonde man at the door as well as a black haired women and the ringmaster of the circus right behind him. "Hello we are looking for Lila." Jerome went back in and got his coat. He motioned for me to follow him. I did so. 

"She's not here. Why what's happened?" Jerome put on his coat and I followed him outside of the trailer. 

"Where is she?" The blonde man asked.

"I don't know she was suppose to be home ages ago." Jerome lied effortlessly through his teeth. I knew that his mother was dead. I played along with his little deception.

"Are you a relative?" The man asked. 

"I'm her son, Jerome, and this is my girlfriend, Alice." Girlfriend?! Is this part of the lie? It must be. It has to be.

"Jerome, Alice, When did you last see her?" Jerome was rocking back and forth on his feet, trying to act as if he really had to think about the question. 

"This morning. She was here when we left for the library." he kept his answers short and straight to the point. 

The ring master stepped in quickly and said, "Don't worry Jerome. This gentleman is just here because Owen and Allen had a disagreement. Your mother is fine. Gone out on one of her sprees no doubt."

"A spree? Without her hat, her coat, or her purse?" Jerome played innocent well. I almost believed him. "Look at Sheeba, she knows something wrong." There was a snake in a cage next to the trailer, obviously that was Sheeba, Jerome's mother's snake. 

"The snake does seem to be agitated." The cop smiled nervously. He obviously doesn't like snakes. 

The ring master stepped in again, "Sir, she's what you call a 'Party Girl'. Back in the morning with her nickers in a handbag, sure as eggs."

"But she didn't take her handbag, did she?" The cop was smarter than other cops I had previously encountered. "How fast does an animal like that move?" The question was aimed at Jerome, I was caught of guard. Why did he want to know about the snake?

"A fast walking pace. They rely on surprise mainly," Jerome said keeping his innocents intact.

"Let her out." The cop sounded completely serious. 

Jerome seemed to be caught of guard, "What?"

"Let her out," The cop repeated. So Jerome did as he was told and popped the top of the cage. The snake soon slithered out of the small crate and began crawling in a single direction. Before all of this had happened Jerome and I were in his trailer talking. He had told me about killing his mother in vivid detail. It kind of got me excited the way he talked about blood and gore. Anyway, he had said that he killed his mother up on the south hill, but this snake was headed east. Where was the snake going?

We all followed the snake past Jerome's trailer, past the strongman's trailer, and even past the physics tent. We ended up at a truck in the back of the circus. The snake crawled under a tarp that was on the truck. At this point I was just confused. I looked over and Jerome seemed to me confused as well, but still kept his face straight so that no one would suspect anything. The officer pulled back the tarp and there was Lila, dead. As soon as Jerome saw his mother, he started to slowly drop down to his knees. He kept repeating "No, no, no." I sunk down with his trying to comfort my "boyfriend." The black haired lady looked at the two of us with empathy. 

I wasn't able to see much of anything for awhile because my head was in Jerome's shoulder, but I could hear. 

"You knew she was here," The cop said.

"She was like that when we found her," said the ring master. So the ring master moved her. It wasn't long until everyone heard the news. The snake lady was dead. And everyone who had even the slightest connection to her was brought in for questioning, including me. What was I going to do? I didn't know Jerome or his mother that well. How was I going to lie about all of this?