The Mistress

“He stopped loving her today. They laid a wreath upon his door. Soon they’ll carry him away, he stopped loving her today.” George T. Jones

Ray was an architect. His creations were exquisite. He lived by the addictive sword of ‘not enough.’ On Monday he fell on it, slain by his inability to say ‘Enough.’ They buried him today.

He would have blamed his demise on age, or the infidelity of the so-called ‘mistresses’ he had accumulated by his obsessive desires. In the end they couldn’t save him. They mocked him and found new homes. Mistresses follow the scent of money. Ray’s luck and bank account had run dry.

Ray was a small man with a huge ego. He gobbled life in large gulps. He lived for the moment, the next new thing. Work was his passion. It was the nectar he drank, the spirit he breathed, the god he served. People and details were flotsam, churned up by his wake. He chewed them up and spit them out like seeds from a grape. He never loved his ‘mistresses’…he just used them.

I recalled a conversation we had about his inordinate affections. It’s as fresh as a Georgia watermelon. Here’s what I recall:

“I can’t keep up this pace,” he says. “They come, they go. The opportunities get more beautiful, more challenging. They torture me with their seductive possibilities. I’m powerless. I just cave in.”

“Listen, Ray, ‘NO’ is still a word,” I say.“ Get a grip. You can’t deal with everything that walks in off the street. Be selective.”

“I tried that. Years ago. I’m obsessed with them. They walk into my life wherever I go. It takes more to satisfy me now.” He fidgets.

“Man, you sound like a meth addict chasing another high. The risks are huge. Take a vacation.” I say.

“I do. But they haunt my mind. I’m hooked. I can’t escape. They stalk me in my dreams. As soon as I say ‘good bye’ to one, another pops up. I’m in prison.” He wrings his hands.

“How’s your home life, the wife, the children? Do they know about your fetish for these so-called ‘mistresses?’ Have you been honest with them?” I ask.

“From the start. I explained to my wife that I had the will power of a mouse when it came to saying ‘NO.’ She suffers the embarrassments, the slights, the burned bridges of friends. She tries to overlook it, but, you know, she’s hurt when I come in late, missing dinner, my clothes all crumpled and wrinkled. I spend more time with ‘them’ than I do with her. Am I a bad person?” he asks. I tell him to consult with Freud.

“Early on they were tawdry tricks, easy to manipulate,” he says. “In the old days I could juggle a bunch of them. It was a cheap high. Not today. They’re complicated, expensive. I’m borrowing big money to support my habits.”

He continues his lament. “I work harder, longer, and the thrill is gone. My vitality and patience are flagging. If I don’t react quickly they walk out, find some other fool,” he says. “It’s an insidious cycle.” Age has taken its inevitable toll, I think.

Before I could offer my advice, his secretary enters. “Ray, she’s here again with her lawyer. She says that the charade is over.” He sinks into the chair, a beaten man. I leave him with his dilemma. I think he died inside that day. Reality is tough to take for such a romantic.

The funeral was sad. His casket sank slowly into a hole that was carved from the bone-dry earth. Dried clods of red clay landed on it with thuds. His widow cried. The end had come for Ray. His mistresses had abandoned him.

The mourners left slowly. I sat on a bench and watched the grave diggers erect a white-marble tombstone. Curious, I wandered over to see what the widow had inscribed. It read:

Ray Mountebank
1942-2012
A Man Who Never Said NO
RIP

I concluded that falling in love with work and with a Siren, the ‘Mistress of More,’ are dead ends…sooner or later.

Bud Hearn
May 10, 2012