February Sucks - The Hail Mary

He looked at me, the bravado was gone, there was fear in his eyes -- he knew I had seen through him.

Time for the kill shot.

"You know what Marc, on further reflection, I honestly feel sorry for you. You've been felt a pretty shitty hand -- you have my pity."

I may have pushed too far.

My words completely enraged him. He rose up in his chair, eyes wide, chest puffed out and veins popping all over his body. "Pity? Pity? Fuck you, you soft, limp-dicked sonofabitch! Put that gun down and I'll show you who should be fucking pitied. You better kill me right fucking now or I swear to God I will hunt you down and beat you to fucking death!"

I have no idea how I was able to sit stoically and listen to the tirade. Perhaps I knew in my heart of hearts it was the final flailing salvo from a defeated man, and I said as much.

"Marc, Marc, Marc -- personal insults? Come on now, everyone knows that is the last bullet in the clip of the defeated. Don't worry my friend, we're almost done here. I have just a few more things to say and then I'll be on my way."

"First, to you Marc. You have my word that you have nothing to worry about from me going forward. I'm not going to send the recording I've made of our entire conversation to your team management, to the NFL or to any of the networks I know would love to receive it." As I said this I reached down to pick up my shirt and pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the recording and checked my other app. He gulped.

"I'm also aware that I've broken several laws tonight. You can call the police when I leave and have them track me down and they would have me dead to rights. The recording I made is mutually assured destruction. If it comes out, you're fucked and I'm in jail, so might I suggest we behave in a manner that ensures it stays a file hidden on a computer somewhere?"

"Also, regardless of what happens for the rest of tonight between you and my wife, I'm not going to hunt you down or hire some thugs to take you out when you least expect it. I'm better than that and I have too much self-respect to do that. But let me give you a sincere warning. Despite what you might think of my actions this evening, I'm a good man. I'm a solid citizen and an upstanding member of the community. Yes, I could hurt you right now -- or sometime in the future, but I won't. However, know this. If you don't change your ways, eventually you are going to pick up the wrong married woman. One whose husband isn't as good of a guy as I am, one who isn't as solid of a citizen as I am, and instead of just pointing a gun at you, he'll pull the trigger. I found where you lived and walked into your home 15 fucking minutes after you left the bar. You can't hide -- if someone wants to find you they will. Remember that the next time you pull a wife away from her husband. And there's one last reason I'm not going to hurt you tonight and it's completely selfish - I'm hoping you can finally take us over the top and win us a Super Bowl -- you are a monkey trained to do just that after all -- and I don't want to fuck up our chances."

I looked over at my wife. She was sitting there almost dumbfounded. I can't imagine what we must have looked like. A beautiful woman sitting perfectly clothed and looking as desirable as any man would want; a man, no, the ideal of a man, perfect body, perfect hair, perfect face, perfect teeth, perfect cock and another man -- let's just call him, slightly above average, both sitting there buck naked.

"And now, you, my dear wife."

She seemed to snap out of a trance and her head snapped over to look at me.

"I know I said it earlier, but I have to say it again, you look incredible tonight. Honestly, I don't blame Marc for picking you out of the crowd -- you were easily the most desirable woman there."

"Jim, I..."

"No, Linda, I'm not done speaking yet. Please be quiet." She immediately stopped.

"This has been one of the most horrendous nights of my life. The 10 minutes in the club when I was wondering where you were and the 15 minutes drive here were as terrifying as anything I've ever experienced. I knew that if I was too late and you had fucked him, our marriage would be over -- and it still may be. I'll be honest, on my way out here, I was pretty sure I was going to tell you that our marriage was over regardless of what I walked into. Now, getting here and seeing the situation, I can kind of see how this all happened. I mean, hell, look at him. He's fucking perfect! At least the "idea" of him is fucking perfect. And I realize now that THAT'S what hooked you. The idea of a perfect night with a perfect man. One night in his bed and a lifetime of memories. And you can still have it -- I'm not going to stop you. But, I believe that it hasn't happened yet. Sure you may have blown him in the car on the way here -- I'll give you the Bill Clinton pass on that one -- but ONLY that one. "

"You have a big decision to make. I'm not going to drag your ass out of here with me; I'm not going to beg you to not fuck him and I'm not going to do anything that will prevent you from doing any of it. What I am going to do, is put my clothes back on and leave you two alone. I'm going home in a few minutes -- if I'm not mistaken, my Uber should be arriving any time now. What I want you to do before you do anything is reflect on why you are here and what brought you here. Our asshole so-called friends back at the bar probably think that this will be just a "bump in the road;" Linda, I'm telling you with complete sincerity and clarity it will NOT be a bump. It will be a sinkhole that will swallow our marriage. I managed to hit the brakes just in time but now the front wheels are over the edge. You've got all the power right now. You can either hit the gas, have your fun with Mr. Porn Cock over there and sink our marriage, or you can change gears, put the car in reverse and pull us back from the brink. You have all the power. I leave our marriage in your hands."

I tossed her the car keys. "It's a 15 minute drive back to the hotel. I'll give you 15 minutes to go to the room and check out and it's a half hour drive home. It's currently 10:50 -- I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say if you're home by 12:30, you'll have bet on us. If you are home then, you'll see my laptop screen will be filled with listings of local marriage counsellors. Obviously we've gone off the rails somewhere along the line and I want to do whatever it takes to correct our course. On the other hand, if you're not home by 12:30, when fuckface over there decides he's had enough of you and you do come home, I won't be there. I pledge this to you in all sincerity. It's a one time offer. It expires at 12:30. A little after Cinderella, but it's the same idea. The ball is in your court."

I started to put my clothes on, still casting a wary eye on the mountain on the other side of the room. He seemed, I don't know, "less." But still fucking menacing and still could snap me in half if given the chance. Once I was fully clothed I said to him, "One last thing Marc. Don't let the fuckers win. They're using you -- don't you understand? The owner of the team, your coaches, your trainers -- they only care about one fucking thing -- your performance on the field. Life's more than that man. Check your fucking ego. Strip the outside away and you are an empty shell -- but you don't have to be. There's nothing that says you can't be a good guy as well as an elite athlete. You don't have to constantly take just because you can. Give some -- you'll find you'll like yourself more."

"And with that, I will leave the both of you. Marc, I hope NEVER to see you in person again, but I wish you a long and prosperous football career and for fuck sakes, bring this town home a ring -- we definitely need it. Linda, I truly, truly hope to see you at home in a little while. If not, well, I guess, this is goodbye."

I turned, tucked my gun under my jacket, and strode out of the house to the waiting car in the driveway.

The entire way home, my hands were shaking and I was fighting the urge to throw up in the poor Uber driver's perfectly fine car. He tried to start a conversation, but I was having none of it. I just told him I had had a rough night and just wanted to get home, please. Thankfully he complied.

I thanked him for the ride, used the code to open the garage door and barely made it to the toilet before the contents of the evening were deposited in the bowl. I collapsed on the floor and wept uncontrollably. I was shaking, my nose was running, I'm pretty sure I pissed myself. I sure as fuck couldn't stand up. The next hour was going to be agony. I screamed, I banged my head against the wall. My heart was racing, I was sure I was having a heart attack. What would I do if she didn't come home?

What would I do if she did?

Eventually I pulled myself together. I cleaned myself up, changed my clothes, threw my soiled underwear in the garbage and went into my office. I googled marriage counselors in the area and a huge list of potential candidates popped up. I must have looked at my watch every 30 second and every time I saw a car's headlights, my heart would soar, only to crash when they passed the house. I finally decided it would kill me to continue watching so I went back into my office and closed the door. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction, even if she wasn't there to see it, of me grovelling at the window praying it was her. I even took off my watch so I couldn't look at it even 10 seconds.

I was so lost in thought and so convinced that my marriage was over that when my office door opened at 12:28 I damn near fainted.

Epilogue

Many, many, many tears later, combined with a very large investment in marriage counselling, we are stronger than ever. As great as our marriage was before, we learned in counselling that there's always room for improvement, always a way to make it better and to NEVER get complacent.

We learned that to move past this, we had to completely disengage from our former life. That meant that our friends from that night became "ex-friends". We brought them all together at a restaurant and quietly but firmly informed them that we would no longer be socializing with them. There were some tears and some protests, but we were steadfast. Some texts and phone calls followed asking us to reconsider, but when they weren't returned, eventually they stopped. We would run into one or more of them occasionally. When that happened, we would smile and be pleasant, but it would go no further.

To this day, I don't know how I gathered the nerve to do what I did. I only know that I acted on pure instinct. I had to save my marriage -- this was the only way I could think of how to do it.

And Marc? Well, we did see each other one other time. I was standing right in the front row when his float went by holding up the Lombardy trophy. Our eyes met and it took him a second to process who I was, then with a big smile, pointing at the trophy he yelled, "There, you fucker, happy now?"