The well-known secret

My mother was sitting on her front porch this morning telling doozy of a Southern gothic tale about life in this parish when she inadvertently let slip a brilliantly observed paradox of life in a small town:

“Of course, all that was a well-known secret.”

Isn’t that just about perfect? In a small place, everybody knows your business, or at least most of your business. But when the business gets really weird and gothicky, as it so often does, at least here in the South, social harmony depends on an unstated agreement that the unpleasant thing will remain publicly unacknowledged. Even if everybody knows it, everybody pretends (out of politeness, or, I guess, fear) that they do not: a well-known secret.

Any of you have examples of well-known secrets where you’re from, and the effect those secrets had on the people who were party to it? I’ve thought of a couple from here, but I’m not going to write about them because local folks who read my blog might know what I’m talking about and not appreciate my airing it, even not using names. I’m thinking there’s no point in risking causing trouble by bringing this stuff up, even obliquely, even though everybody (well, “everybody”) knows this stuff?.

And now you see how the Well-Known Secret works.