2003 Christmas dinner: Eduardo Chávez, Victoria Chávez, Nancy Chávez, Mario Chávez, Lisa Miguel
In 2004, when the machinations of revenge were set in motion over my life, the primary collateral consequence was the murder of a man who in no way, shape, or form was associated with any of the involved parties. Someone more cynical than myself might venture to say that he was a casualty of war, or an unfortunate ripple effect of secondary consequences and bad luck that lingers on the sidelines waiting for that less than opportune moment to strike us down so as to settle the score on this zero-some game we call life. Or, perhaps “casualty of war” is nothing more than the pathetic excuse of a morally bankrupt individual who refuses to assume responsibility for actions taken.
Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderlos de Lacros is said to have coined the phrase in the late eighteenth century, “revenge is a dish best served cold.” For the ensuing centuries to follow his phrase has spoken on the emotional detachment ideal for taking revenge. What it doesn't speak on, however, are the collateral consequences. Which brings us to the question, are we justified? And, if not revenge, then what?
There is a favorite novel of mine, “The Count of Monte Cristo.” I first read it while in prison, and have revisited it on numerous occasions since. For those who haven't read the Dumas classic, the basic premise is one of revenge and a man's fervent belief that God is behind his righteous actions of pursuing justice against his enemies—the individuals who framed him for a crime and robbed him of not only his identity, his fiancé, his ability to care for his aging father, but also 14 years of his life.
When I first read the story I immediately identified with the protagonist Edmund Dantés I commiserated with his pain and frustrations as he grappled with having to accept a cold, dark and dank prison cell in the Chateau D’If (a gloomy island prison off the coast of France where for three centuries political exiles were sent to die without any form of due process).
I commiserated with Dantés because I understood his predicament of having one's life erased, not for a crime committed, but because of a machination of revenge pushed too far.
I am the first to acknowledge that I am not a victim in the truest sense of the term. I made certain decisions that directly caused harm to others, (revenge?), and that harm provoked them into a counter pursuit of revenge. And the question as to whether or not they were justified is a question that you as the reader will have to answer, since I am obviously too close to the situation to be objective.
You might be tempted to look at this situation and say, if someone was murdered in their efforts of exacting revenge against you, and, obviously, that someone wasn't related to your imbroglio, then they stepped out of bounds and should be held accountable for their actions. But, I assure you that real life is never as black and white as we would like it to be.
I don't know where to say that the tragedy of my life began, other than to say at my conception and birth. But given the fact that I’m unable to connect the dots that far back, I instead invite you to my first encounter with Lisa Miguel at a health club called Mountainside Fitness in the Phoenix suburb of Awatukee in the summer of 2003.
Lisa Miguel, photo courtesy of Facebook
We both frequented the gym in the mornings and both used the treadmills religiously. Our verbal interactions were limited to the typical morning greetings of two adults not formally acquainted, but familiar enough so as not to be adverse to friendly conversation and the occasional flirtatious innuendo.
I had first noticed Lisa because she was attractive, quick to smile and laugh, and well educated and intelligent. But, she also wore a wedding ring and on weekends would sometimes be accompanied by a man who was presumably her husband. I would frequently be absent from the gym for days at a time for business, but when I would return Lisa would always make it a point of commenting on my absences.
She made it part of her normal to arrive at the gym after me and ask whether the treadmill next to me was open. It obviously was since nobody was using it, but by being next to me the conversation between us became somewhat inevitable. I made her laugh and she made me wonder. And after a few interactions I finally decided to explore my curiosity with a direct question.
“Are you open to having a drink with me?” I asked one day as we exited the gym.
She smiled and laughed somewhat nervously, but said, “thanks for asking, but I’m married.”
I acknowledged the obvious and told her that I understood, and then walked to my car as she walked to hers.
A few days went by and I intentionally avoided the gym. I doubt that I had any kind of clear reasoning for having done so, other than having felt that I had somehow misread her friendliness for flirtation and wanted to avoid the awkwardness of being the asshole who had just asked a happily married woman out for a drink.
When I finally did return to the gym I avoided the treadmills. I noticed that Lisa was present and accounted for, but felt it best to keep my distance. What I didn't account for, however, was her willingness to take risks.
Lisa approached me in the parking lot days later. “Is it my imagination, or are you trying to avoid me?”
“Probably your imagination,” I admitted.
She laughed in a way that hid her nervousness. “Is your offer for that drink still open?”
“That depends,” I said, “are you still married?”
“I am.”
Two words that sort of dangled there like ultimatum for several uncomfortable moments. I was waiting for some kind of delimiting “but…” statement, and when that didn’t follow I realized that it was on me to answer her initial question. Was my offer still on the table? The offer being, was I still asking a married woman out for a drink?
“Yes.”
We met later that night at a local sushi bar for cocktails. It felt like a date, in that there was a lot of nervous tension in the air. But after a few drinks the tension was replaced by a strong mutual attraction. And from there the night progressed into a decision needing to be made.
“I have to get home,” she said. “I have to send the babysitter home. Do you want to come over?”
“Your husband?”
“His flight doesn't get in until later,” she said, then clarified that we were just friends and she was just inviting a friend over for a glass of wine. “Last I checked, I'm allowed to have friends.”
I agreed, knowing perfectly well that we were not on the verge of becoming friends. And as I followed in my car she called and said it would be better if I didn't park in front of her house, because her neighbors were “very nosy.” Her suggestion was for me to park down the street, I would then get into the back of her SUV. She would then drive into her garage, go inside to relieve the babysitter, and after she had confirmed that her girls were sound asleep she would invite me inside. She had a way of making the bizarre seem normal—almost as though it were rehearsed.
And, I admit, it was all very exciting.
Minutes later we were sipping pinot grigio by her swimming pool listening to soft music. Moments later we were dancing in the atrium. She kept repeating that her husband would be home at any moment, then she would kiss me and pull me closer. Common sense said that I shouldn't be there, but the physical touch of her lips on mine said that she wasn't ready for me to leave.
It was never clear to me who seduced who, and when we finished she walked me to the door. And in all honesty I didn't expect to hear from her again.
I simply summed her up as a neglected housewife who needed some sexual promiscuity to spice up her life. But, the next morning she called and the conversation began with, “I can't believe we did that… I swear I've never done anything like that… You must think I'm a horrible person…”
But from that point on instead of casual encounters coupled with flirtatious conversations at the gym, she would just show up at my house with her youngest daughter Victoria in her arms and proceed to get undressed and into my bed.
The challenge was that it was hard to keep it that way. Mostly because we enjoyed each other in ways that went beyond the physical. During the week we could see one another, but the weekends were off limits. She wanted to be with me, but couldn't successfully manage the dichotomy of her circumstances because she wasn't effective at assuming her role of wife during the weekends and lover during the week. And, I didn't help her predicament in that I made it clear that I had zero intention of pursuing a monogamous relationship with someone actively living in the farce of a happy marriage.
Her husband was Chris Miguel, a programmer who was contracted with Nike in Portland, and later became the IT Director of Fender Guitars in Phoenix. Obviously, he became concerned that his wife was paying a babysitter almost every day of the week, something she hadn't done before, and when he questioned her she told him half a lie.
Chris Miguel, photo courtesy of Linkedin
Lisa told her husband that she was spending time with her new friend Mario. When she explained it to me it seemed like her husband was just an oblivious moron who could never fathom his wife being unfaithful. What she didn't tell me, at least not initially, was that she had also told him that I was her gay friend. How she managed to convince him that I was a homosexual was because my cousin was a kind of flamboyant homosexual who wore his sexual orientation on his sleeve, and he would sometimes accompany me to the gym. Unbeknownst to me, Lisa's husband Chris had seen me at the gym with my cousin and assumed that we were a couple. How this was brought to my attention was at a grand opening for a local nightclub in Tempe.
I had invited Lisa because it was during the week when she was presumably available. She had agreed to meet me there, but moments before arriving sent me a text message to inform me that her husband had arrived a day early from his business trip and had decided to accompany her to the event. She explained that she couldn't think of any logical reason for why he couldn't accompany her—logic like the fact that she was attending this event with her lover! Nevertheless, she quickly found me and also informed me that her husband thought I was gay, and that I needed to play along with the narrative.
Honestly, in the moment I thought her play was brilliant. Her husband Chris was understandably nobody to me. Up until that point he had just been a dormant fixture in the background of our love affair that we never really discussed or considered. And had Chris not shown up there that night, shaking my hand and thanking me for having invited them, I probably would never even have considered him as anything more than the dormant fixture.
What further aggravated the predicament of my conscience was the fact that Lisa proceeded to get punch drunk, which caused whatever inhibitions she may have had to evaporate. So, while her husband Chris had his back turned she proceeded to make out with me. And when I pulled away she would get loud and spout nonsense about not caring whether he knew the truth or not.
She did everything she could to make sure that he knew what was going on, but surprisingly he didn't appear to notice anything amiss—or maybe he just didn't want to see anything other than the fact that his wife was drunk out of her mind and that he needed to get her out of there, which he did.
Regardless, that night marked significant change in our relationship. Because it was one thing for us to have a love affair in secret, and quite another to humiliate this man for no other reason then his bad luck for having married a woman who was about as incapable of loyalty as a black widow spider.
I also couldn't escape the thought that whatever she was willing to do to him, the father of her children and the man who had purchased her a semi-luxurious life in the suburbs, she would gladly do ten times over to me.
Lisa must have intuited that I wasn't copacetic with her little performance at the grand opening. Because the next time she was in my bed, post-coitus, she said, “I think he's cheating on me.”
I knew who and what she was talking about, I just didn't know how to respond to her in a way that wouldn't come off as cynical and provoke an unnecessary argument.
“Do you plan on confronting him?”
“Yes, but first I need to prove it,” she said.
“That shouldn't be hard,” I said, unconvinced that the man I had met was even capable of such a thing, which led me to explain that I had a friend who was a private investigator.
We agreed that I would hire my friend Jerry to investigate the husband. He did so, and within a matter of weeks Lisa had the video evidence of her husband with another woman. Once again we were post-coitus and this time she was ranting about her husband's infidelity, and wanting to use her evidence to rape him in a divorce. Apparently, her hypocrisy knew no limits and I was every bit her accomplice, an observation that I pointed out to her.
“You're upset with him for doing exactly what you're doing, you do realize this, right?”
“You mean, ‘what we're doing,’ right?” she threw back.
“Yes, we are both here, but I'm not the one married to him, you are.” Words that as I said them I knew were a pathetic cop-out to a sordid situation that I had helped create.
Lisa was angry at her husband's temerity at being unfaithful, and I tried to make her see the irony of the situation. Then added, “if you don't want to be married to him, then leave him, move on, and minimize the drama.”
“No, I'm not about to give him what he wants without first getting what I want,” she insisted.
“And what exactly is it that you want?”
“I want him dead,” she said, and it was the calmness with which she said it that arrested my attention.
I tried to laugh off what I knew to be a serious statement. “You want to kill someone when his only crime is that he's doing the same thing that you're doing to him, do I understand you?”
We argued. I told her that she was acting like a child who gets bored with her favorite doll and only wants to play with it when someone else picks it up.
“You could help me,” she insisted. “Maybe you know someone.”
I changed the subject hoping she would let it go, and for a time she did because of something even more unexpected: she was pregnant. And being that her husband had had a vasectomy and rarely touched her it seemed highly unlikely that the child was his.
And for the moment, at least, Lisa wasn't focused on her husband's infidelities. There was a much bigger issue to contend with, an issue that she handled by having an abortion at a nearby clinic in Chandler (an adjacent suburb).
I later questioned whether or not I could have convinced her to have the child. A question that would never find an answer because I didn't try, and I didn't try because I knew that if we had a child together she would do to me what she was doing to her husband in the present moment. Instead of considering his homicide it would probably have been my own she considered. And then there was the child to consider, consideration that we didn't give it.
I have always believed that a woman has the right to make decisions that involve her body and person. A position that's not easy to hold when it's personal, but I could have probably moved on from that had it not been for a second pregnancy months later. Now there were arguments and accusations, but in the end she did the same.
Her daughters went with us the second time, and I sat with them in the nearby pizzeria while their mother had their half brother or sister scraped out of her. The experience was surreal on many levels, but mostly because I questioned the ease of her detachment from the gravity of the situation.
The fact that we were at an abortion clinic felt like a definitive statement about the future of our relationship. I tried to imagine Lisa as the mother of our child and saw a future fraught with perils.
When she finally walked out of the clinic she felt ill and I didn't know if we would even see each other again, but I was too much of a fool not to see the opportunity for a clean break.
Unfortunately, thinking and knowing that I needed to stay away from her was not the same as acting on it. I called her that night to check on her and she asked for sushi. I agreed, and also agreed to have my driver drop me off so that I could enter from the poolside instead of the front door—to avoid the “nosey neighbors.”
I found her in bed watching an episode of Seinfeld when I arrived. Lisa's personality was a lot like that of Jerry's friend Elaine, a comparison I frequently made which led me to call her Lainey.
I went to the kitchen to get Lainey some wine and noticed a pending message on her machine for her husband Chris informing her that he wouldn't be arriving until the next day.
I asked her about the message when I returned to the bedroom because it sounded suspicious. But she insisted that messages like that were standard protocol for him.
Moments later we were reclining on the bed, talking about nothing in particular, when her husband suddenly appeared in the entryway to the bedroom. Of course, we weren't in a compromised position but nevertheless Lisa proceeded to scream and hide under the blankets.
Chris, her husband, proceeded to the kitchen and I could hear him opening and closing drawers in search of something which I presumed was not a corkscrew to help with the wine. I asked Lisa what she wanted me to do, because I had the impression that an unstable husband who just found his wife in bed with another man could be fatal.
“Just leave,” she insisted. “I'll handle this.”
“He's going for a knife,” I told her. “And he may try to use it on you.”
“Just go!”