The Liar in the Back Row
Bobby sat hunched over in a cracked plastic chair, his hoodie pulled low, his gaunt face shadowed in the dim church basement light. The faint smell of burnt coffee and cigarette smoke clung to the room like mildew. It was another Narcotics Anonymous meeting, another night of strangers’ confessions, but Bobby wasn’t there to listen. He was there to perform.
“Hey, I’m Bobby. I’m an addict,” he began, voice gravelly from years of cigarettes and dope. The circle murmured back the customary, “Hi, Bobby.”
He launched into his story, his usual act, polished from years of retelling. How his parents never loved him, how he’d been betrayed by friends, screwed over by bosses, kicked out of treatment centers by counselors who “never cared.” Every word dripped with wounded pride and self-pity. Heads nodded in sympathy, especially from the newcomers who didn’t know him yet.
But those who’d been around long enough avoided his eyes. They knew Bobby. They’d seen him come through these doors a dozen times, spinning the same sob story, collecting pity like loose change, and vanishing as soon as he’d hustled a couch to crash on or a few bucks for “a bus ride home.” He never came back sober.
Bobby had a way of twisting reality. People who’d tried to help him became villains in his tales. A sponsor who bought him groceries and paid his rent for a month became the “rich jerk” who kicked him out over “some dumb fight.” A rehab nurse who stayed up late talking him through withdrawals became a “psycho nurse who hated me.” To Bobby, kindness was currency. He spent it all and then blamed you for being broke.
Outside the meetings, Bobby’s life was an endless loop of alleyways, shelters, and cheap motel rooms. His arms were roadmaps of scabs and scars. Some veins had collapsed completely, leaving him to jab blindly at whatever blue lines remained. He told people he was a “hardcore hustler,” that he’d lived wild, partied with big names, done time for “big deals.” The truth was uglier and smaller: he stole from his dying mother’s purse, he snatched wallets from drunks, he panhandled with fake stories about needing insulin.
In the daylight, Bobby looked older than fifty, though he was barely thirty-five. His teeth were yellow and cracked, his cheeks sunken, his hands trembling. Nights were spent curled on a stained mattress in whatever flop house would let him stay. The smell of vinegar heroin smoke seeped from his clothes and skin.
He’d been through rehab more times than he could count. Fancy ones with horse therapy and meditation gardens. County ones with peeling paint and bathrooms that reeked of bleach and despair. The pattern never changed. He’d show up, spin his tales about childhood trauma, get sympathy, and disappear within a week, blaming the staff or the other addicts. “They didn’t understand me.” “They treated me like a criminal.” “They were jealous.”
The truth was, Bobby didn’t want help. He wanted escape. Rehab wasn’t a place to heal; it was a place to rest, to get a few meals, maybe swipe someone’s shoes or headphones. Counselors who tried to break through his walls became enemies in his mind. He’d sit across from them, arms crossed, nodding at their words while secretly plotting how to get high the moment he left.
And yet, in the back of every meeting, there were always people who cared. People who still believed that maybe, one day, Bobby might change. That belief was the cruelest thing of all.
Because Bobby was good at hurting people without ever touching them. His lies spread through the community like mold, tarnishing names of people who’d bent over backward for him. Sponsors lost credibility. Counselors were accused of abuse. Other addicts were painted as bullies or thieves. Some newcomers, scared off by his stories, never came back.
There was one woman, Linda, who’d been sober for seven years and volunteered at every meeting, making coffee and greeting newcomers. She’d once taken Bobby in, fed him, bought him clean clothes. She even drove him to job interviews, only to have him steal her credit card. At a meeting months later, Bobby told a tearful story about how Linda had “kicked me out in the snow, laughing.” Linda sat there silently, tears in her eyes, while newcomers whispered about what a monster she must have been.
That’s what Bobby left behind: wreckage.
One winter night, he was found slumped behind a dumpster, snowflakes gathering in his greasy hair, lips blue, a used needle still in his arm. Paramedics revived him, though part of him probably wished they hadn’t. He woke up in the hospital strapped to a bed, his body shaking with withdrawal. Nurses spoke gently to him, but he cursed them, accused them of being rough, of “trying to kill” him with their medications.
They discharged him after three days. He walked out of the hospital wearing donated sweatpants and shoes two sizes too big, clutching a plastic bag of his belongings. He was back in the alleys that night, telling anyone who’d listen about how the “evil nurses” had abused him.
In some way, Bobby was a storyteller. If he’d been sober, maybe he could’ve been a writer, a comedian, an actor. His lies were vivid and detailed, his voice magnetic. But instead of crafting novels, he crafted manipulation. His talent became his weapon.
His addiction was his god, and he served it faithfully.
As months passed, Bobby grew thinner, his face more skeletal. People stopped picking up his calls. Shelters banned him for stealing. Meetings grew colder; even the most compassionate members stopped inviting him out for coffee. He was a ghost haunting the edges of recovery, a cautionary tale in human form.
The last time anyone saw Bobby alive was at a late-night NA meeting. He sat slouched in the back row, hoodie pulled over his head, mumbling his usual story about betrayal and pain. A newcomer, a teenage boy with trembling hands, listened wide-eyed. Bobby gave him his number, promising to “show him the ropes,” but no one ever heard from that boy again either.
Weeks later, a coroner’s van pulled into a narrow alley downtown. Bobby’s body was found curled up beside a dumpster, a single shoe missing, his arm blackened from infection. He’d been dead for days. The alley cats had already dragged away pieces of his clothes. There was no funeral, no obituary. Just a line in a city database: John Doe #2745, suspected overdose.
At the next meeting, someone lit a candle for him. The room was quiet. A few people cried, though many just sat in silence. They weren’t surprised. They’d seen this ending coming for years.
Linda stood up and spoke softly. “Bobby hurt a lot of people. But I hope he’s at peace now.”
That was all.
In the end, Bobby’s stories died with him. The lies he spread had already done their damage, staining reputations, breaking trust. But no one hated him. They pitied him. Because beneath all the venom, Bobby was just a broken man who never stopped running from himself.
