The Bloody Doors Off

You know what I don’t get?

I write comedic plays.

For the most part.

I did write one drama. Which really came to life after my crisis/incarceration.

But I write the funny stuff.

Sometimes, it involves angels.

Yet this, this blog, is dealing with my demons.

Of which I have many.

And not only am I publishing it, I’m putting it on Facebook.

Where anyone on my friend’s list can click and read.

I think, in the past two months, I’ve had more cathartic breakthroughs than I have in my years with my psychiatrist.

And yet, I still find my appointments with him, therapeutic.

But this is where I dig deep.

Where the skeletons in the closet jangle and moan.

And I don’t care.

It’s not like I’m running, or planning to run, for political office.

It doesn’t affect my day job.

I don’t think it has.

(Yes. I’ve noticed I write. In clipped sentences.)

I am more like my father than I’d like to admit.

We’re both alcoholics. I’m in recovery. He still drinks.

We’ve both had affairs.

His ended a marriage.

Mine could’ve.

I was in my 20s. First real full-time job, taking improv classes with Theatresports at Harbourfront.

A friend, David, introduces me to Marjorie. He thinks we’d be good friends.

My first thought as I shake her hand:

“I’m gonna have sex with this woman.”

Yes. I was an ass back then.

We hit it off.

The following week, I have free passes to Yuk Yuks Uptown and I ask if she wants to go. Marjorie enthusiastically agrees. After taking a subway ride together, walking up to the venue, she drops a bombshell: “Did I tell you I was married?”

Well that put the brakes on.

Briefly.

I honestly thought in that moment: “I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sucks to be me.”

I think two weeks later, I’m having a house party in the townhouse I was sharing with my father and brothers. Dad was out of town, I’m not sure where Kevin was. I went all out: a friend was DJing, I dressed as a Roman Emperor and joked “didn’t I tell everyone it’s a toga party?”

Marjorie arrived.

She was dressed to thrill.

I remember at one point, I ran an ice cube down her bare back. And we’d snuck downstairs to make out.

And she says to me (it’s burned into my brain). “Why couldn’t I have met you six months ago?”

“What was six months ago?” I asked.

“It’s when I got married.”

My Catholic guilt went out the window.

The next week, we slept together. We spent a great deal of time together.

One time, at improv class, I had a blinding migraine and she rode the subway and bus with me back to Scarborough to make sure I got home safe. We were falling in love.

But my Catholic guilt found its way back, and I think we both knew that it couldn’t go any further.

She dropped out of the improv class after that.

There’s one big difference between my father and me.

After the affair ended his marriage, my dad continued seeing his lover and for years she would: break up with him, he’d obsess incessantly, she would eventually come back, and later break up with him. This cycled for over a decade.

I moved on.

I learned a great deal about who I was, with Marjorie.

But it turns out, that was barely scratching the surface.