Red Tape

The Man Who Didn't Know How to Play Himself.

I love my wife. I really do, so when I make my confession you might not think so. I wish I could speak with her. I wish I could speak with her as I am with you. Without consequences, without slitting open the curtains to see the artifice of my performance. Once the actor reveals his true self, the illusion is broken, the character he plays, no matter how well-crafted, deflates in on itself; a melancholic balloon at a children's party.

My first error in judgment happened a year ago. I had been lecturing for 10 years and time had dampened the fire of youth. The Arts and become a tired and badly written supporting role to the Sciences. I managed an elephant's graveyard of thesis and essays, regurgitating the same ideas in different ways. I walked out on my stage, going through the motions, reciting the same words, until they lost their meaning.

I kept my professional life Independent from my personal. I never talked shop at home and only talked about my family, if egged on by my colleagues. Most of the time I produced some snaps of the kids on my phone to "ughs" and "ohs" and comments on the passing of time. With only the space for vocation and fatherhood, my time with Nicole was squeezed into an empty pulp. Not that she seemed to mind, in fact, she appeared to grow happier with each passing day.

When Kathy took an interest in me I felt flattered.

Am I so weak? Was the first step on the path of infidelity a sad need for attention? Was I so desperate for an audience?

Yes.

Fresh-faced and freckled, with a burning mane of curled auburn hair and an unwarranted tendency to hang on my words. A disciple of Lacan, we met at an after-party of a student play. We had drunk a little too much. It had been years since I'd shared anything intimate or private with anybody. Suddenly someone was listening.

The next time we meet, things became even more intimate. My betrayal of Nicole became something carnal.

Nicole was delighted that I had started to "get out more". Part of me marveled at how easy the affair was. Somewhere else in my mind I knew, I couldn't continue the facade forever. Yet, in the beginning, that was part of the thrill. Now, I was complicit in the acting out of a spy thriller. Initially, the adrenaline rush was intoxicating. Perhaps, part of me wanted to get caught. So I rehearsed my guilt and confession just like I am for you now.

The role became tiring, but it was better than the dull lines I had to speak from behind the other masks I wore. Soon things started blurring into one another. Nicole's occasional sorties into my social circles meant she got to know Kathy. I juggled parts like a regular on daytime soaps.

All of this provoked in me the question: "Who Am I?"

I was a husband, yet I wasn't. My Fatherhood was fraudulent in some way. I was lying to the kids just as much as to my wife. I was a professional, but I was breaking the rules by seeing a student. I was an adulterer, Yes, That's the only costume I wore that seemed to fit, and I had started to despise it.

And so it was that I decided to confess.

The children were asleep. Nicole was getting ready to go out. She wore a chic little black dress, her matching heels clacked across the wooden floor, gold earrings dangling, showing off her newly cut short hairstyle. The sun was setting the pollution reflecting the light into a dozen shades of crimson outside the window.

"Hello, Mon Cherie!" she greeted me as always in French being one of the few people in the universe who thought it sophisticated o do so. Perhaps that was the part she played, the mask she wore?

"Hello... Nicole, I have something to tell you. Something important."

I must have given the performance of a lifetime, Oscar-winning, as my face spoke to Nicole almost immediately, in a way it hadn't for years. She started to laugh.  A rich, unfiltered laugh, of the kind that flushes all the tension from the body and the mind.

"My darling, is this about the little affair you've been having?" her voice inflecting just at the end in the key of mockery.

She walked up to me, gave me a kiss, and said "Did you think you were the only one who was having a little fun?" and left me.