Off my chest

Rachel and I have a stupid habit to get our picture taken everytime I go on a business trip for longer than two weeks. I have to leave tonight right after dinner with our friend, Stan.

“At the restaurant? With a suitcase?” Stan shook his head reproachfully. “How come she hasn’t left you yet?” he made fun of me again.

“You know I hate it but for now my job is like this. My floor in the office is like a ghost town, only every now and then you see people with suitcases wandering the hall, looking at their watches, calculating if they can have another coffee and still make it in time to the airport. But the third floor, for example, is more lively, at least people there know each other's names and…”

“Rach, you should give a look to the third floor, I guess..” Stan looked at Rachel with a grin.

“Shut up and finish your steak,” I said and she laughed. She likes it when we play bullies.

“Stan, would you take our picture with your Polaroid?” Rachel asked him. He got this camera a few weeks ago and had never stopped talking about it since then.

“Sure! Scoot over a bit!” 

“It’s like we have only one shot,” said Rachel and I caught a sweet whiff of her hair, as she leaned towards me, “Polaroids fascinate me.”

Stan took a moment to search for the best angle and then clicked. 

“There you go guys,” he gave her the photo, “I agree, Rach, there is something precious about taking pictures with this thing, magical even.”

“Take it,” Rachel said to me. “I always keep them, why don’t you take this one for a change?”

“As you wish, dear,” I kissed her and put the photo in my pocket.

“Get a room, you two!” Stan couldn’t miss a chance to make fun of us. “Or next time find me a date, at least.”

Once I get home from this trip, I’ll ask my boss to review my schedule, I thought as I was driving to the airport after dinner. I think about it every time I leave but I will never do it. There was always some boldness inside me, the urge of being on the edge, on the border line. The thought of not getting home from work, accelerating the speed as I approach my house and passing it, makes my heart beat so fast! And I play over and over that adrenalin boosting scenario in my head.

*

I have known Jack for over 15 years. Busy and important export manager, who suffers his nomad life, and his loving wife, who is always there for him. That is what everyone sees on the surface. Sometimes I wish Jack and I weren’t so confidential, because it gives me too many perspectives, makes me feel twice their pain.

“Rach, tell me honestly how does it make you really feel?” I decided to walk her home from the restaurant.

“I knew from the start what I’m getting into. I didn’t want an ordinary man and it came with a price,” she let out a weak laugh, “this job is his way to escape the oppressive monotony of life but as a part of his life, I feel abandoned, I feel like I barely exist.”

“I couldn’t bear it,” I said, “I need to share daily life with a person, feel that she is right here and now with me.”

“Here and now,” she sighed, “you know, when he is far away all I do is scrolling through our past conversations in my head and inventing new dialogues, fitting him into various fictional scenarios of what could we possibly do, or say when he comes back. It’s all I can do to keep connection with him. But as you can see, most of the time I deal with his image and not with a real person here and now.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Great deal. Sometimes I miss him so intensively that I cannot believe that he doesn’t physically feel it in some way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I think about him so much when he is not around, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see, I don’t know, some mark of my missing on him, like a scar,” she said and I frowed. ”Does that make sense?” she laughed. “Sorry, I’m just tired and talking nonsense.”

“No, I think I got what you mean. You miss him, you think about him constantly and then that asshole comes back as good as new, like nothing happened,” she laughed again, “jokes apart, Rach, I think you should try to tell him exactly what you just said to me. It comes from your heart and there is a chance that the asshole also has one.”

“Thanks, Stan.”

I hugged her by the shoulder and we continued walking along the river.

*

I spend half of my life in hotel rooms. But not always alone. Sometimes I invite women and sleep with them. I can’t explain why I need it. When I finish my job duties, I get in the rented car, almost mechanically, and drive along the streets in search of someone. Then I rent the one I find and in the same mechanical way I do what has to be done. I never even enjoy it, always feel guilty and can’t wait to come back to Rachel.

Rachel. I took the photo that Stan made last night out of my pocket. Here we are, illuminated by patio heaters, a little uptight in front of Polaroid that gives us only one shot. She is so beautiful, and I have something on my shirt. I looked at it, since I just arrived and haven’t changed yet. Nothing. My shirt is clean. I touched the photo. What seemed to be the stain was rough on the surface, so I must have scratched it with something in my pocket.

I put the photo in the angle of the mirror. Will I be able to make my usual night raids, knowing that a little squared polaroid is waiting for me in the hotel room?

The next morning, while I was dressing, I caught the photo with the corner of my eye again. The little scratch made me stare for a while. Is it me or it got bigger, I thought and took the photo to give it a closer look. Not only was it the size of a brooch on my chest now, but it was also pierced through, as if someone picked a little hole with a needle in it during the night.

I lifted the photo against the window to examine it further, and the morning light sharply made its way through my chest. There really was a hole in the paper. 

Ok, it’s a really tiny hole, there is a chance I didn’t notice it yesterday, I tried to rationalize it as I was standing at a red light on my way to the meeting. A hole in the picture, no big deal. I placed it back where it was, in the corner of the mirror, it’s alright.

“Move, idiot!” I heard a man yelling from behind. How long has it been green?

During the day the image of the hole was flashing before my eyes every now and then, sometimes even the sensation of its rough edges was running on the tips of my fingers. At the end of the day it was the only thing I could think about. I quickly had dinner and took a walk to my hotel. Walking calmed me down a little, but as soon as I approached my room, I felt disquiet again, as if I should have met some very unpleasant person and have a tough talk behind that door.

This time the hole was the size of a cigarette burn. It has to be some sick joke, I thought. My chest was opening more and more. To see even a little scratch on your photo, on your face or body is always a bit disturbing, not to mention such hole, maliciously placed in the middle of your chest.

Silence in the room made me even more anxious, so I took a glass of water and went out, taking the photo with me to make sure nobody has access to it while I’m not there. As naturally as I managed at the moment, I asked at the front desk if someone had been to my room today, a guest or some kind of a stranger, to which I got a polite “no, sir, absolutely not” and a slightly perplexed look.

The photo in my pocket, I got in the car. All of a sudden, I felt rage growing in me. A very little was enough to destabilize me to the point when people give me strange looks, a stupid photo turned me into a paranoid mad man. This stupid piece of shit.. I hit the gas. Since the night raids are part of my traveling routine, I thought, it can calm me down as something familiar and solid in this unclear situation. 

It was close to midnight, too late for any radical decision. So I turned to a street where there was this dirty club and watched young guys and girls gathering on the entrance, smoking, laughing, living. I concentrated on girls and met eyes with them a couple of times. My car slowly crawled down the street. Is my need a sexual one? Or is there another nature of it that pushes me on the edge, pushes me to look at these girls from my fish tank. At these moments I imagine my car being a fish tank and myself being a stupid fish that can’t do anything, just opens its mouth without making any sound. But the glass of the tank is very thin, touch it and you’re risking to break it, and I will be out on the floor in a puddle as helpless as I was inside. 

I stopped the car and leaned to the steering wheel with my forehead. I want to see Rachel. I know she can save me. I took out the photo and barely cried when I saw the hole spread all over my chest. I could put a finger through it. Gulping the air, I took my phone and with shaking hands dialed Stan.

“Jack?” he said with a dry voice, he must have been sleeping. I forgot the time difference.

“Hi, Stan, sorry for waking you up.”

“You can go straight to the point.”

“The photo that you took in the restaurant that night,” my voice got higher than usual, so I cleaned my throat, “something is wrong with it.”

“The photo of you and Rachel?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by wrong?”

“First I noticed a little scratch on it, on my chest in the picture, I mean. Then, the next morning that scratch turned into a hole and then the hole kept growing. Now it’s almost half a photo. Still on me. Rachel is safe. But I’m disappearing, Stan.”

“You have an actual hole in the paper, you mean?”

“Exactly. I didn’t touch the photo, I was at work and then I came back to the hotel…I know you don’t believe me…”

“I do.”

“You are a dear person to me, Stan.”

“Are you into that thing again?”

“Into what?”

“Raids.”

“Yes,” I never lied to him. “How is Rachel? Tell me how is Rachel there?”

“She misses you. It’s never easy for her when you leave.”

“You know, I tried to explain to her that it’s the worst thing I could do, my night car raids.”

“Wait, you told her about it?”

“I gave a hint, asked her to imagine a hypothetical situation, but she took my head between her hands, and, nearly crying, I confessed all to her. And she tried to convince me that I’m not on the bottom, she didn't push me away, can you believe it? She wanted to save me…”

“Jack, are you ok?”

Still in my car, I was staring at the hole that almost reached my neck. I wiped my wet cheeks and said:

“You know, the worst thing is that I continue coming back home to be saved once again, to get under the blanket and hug the one who has nobody to save her from me. I'm a liar, Stan. Am I?”

“I never judge you. But I think you should come back home as soon as possible. Can you come home, Jack?”

“I’ll try.”

“We are with you.”

“We?” 

“Me and Rach. You’ll be alright, just come.” 

“Thanks, Stan.”

“Me and Rach”. He calls my wife Rach. My wife who misses me out there. With a blurry mind I came back to the hotel. I put the photo in the angle of the mirror again and stared at it for some minutes, then I slowly shifted the gaze to my reflection. I wanted to do it from the very start. One by one I unbuttoned the shirt. It all will be alright, Rachel. It all will be alright.