Inside Television

Short Fiction

Generic Monitor, 1998, Photo-Illustration, Getty Images

Tracy said capitalism was like anal sex — hostile, unnatural, pleasurable for men at women’s expense.

She said that and a whole lot else, like “whenever we’re around my mom I feel like I’m suffocating” and “your brother talks way too much about wanting to see Winona Ryder’s tits.”

I wasn’t listening. I know that now. I should’ve been. And especially to that comment about Winona, who, it was true, my brother Colin desperately wanted to see nude. Maybe if I’d been listening I’d have known when to shut up, and what to keep to myself.

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When I was nineteen I slept with a woman I met in a bar in Vancouver. She’d just wrapped a day of shooting on The X-Files. Esther — I think her name was — had been an extra in some scene where Mulder chastised Scully for being too rational. I hoped to meet and sleep with many women as I got older, but women had different plans. My experiences have been few, which might be why I couldn’t shut up about that one from so long ago.

Thirty years later, Tracy and I, married for almost two decades, were lying in bed watching old episodes of The X-Files. She loved the show, but I’d never seen it. It took me much longer than Tracy to grow out of my pretentious artist phase. I agreed to watch it reluctantly, then discovered, as has always been the case, that my wife knew better than me. It’s a great show. One day I’ll be able to watch it again.

It was Season 1, Episode 10, “Fallen Angel.” Mulder and Scully were walking through a hallway at the FBI headquarters in Quantico on their way to be upbraided by Chief McGrath when I saw her, and just blurted it out.

“I fucked that girl when I lived in Vancouver!”

These are things you keep to yourself. That was what Tracy’s face said, and I knew she was right. We didn’t talk about it, but the bell couldn’t be unrung. During the next commercial break Tracy said she found the episode boring. I suggested we skip to the next one, but she was tired and went to bed early.

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I loved Tracy in a real corny way. I love her that way still. We met at CalArts when we were both grad students. On the night of our third date, both of my parents were killed in a car accident. Tracy spoke to people at the funeral when I couldn’t, then invited me to spend the summer in Georgia with her family. We were married that August and haven’t been apart for more than a week since. Until now.

During the weeks following “Fallen Angel,” whenever we watched television, Tracy would ask if I’d fucked anyone on screen, just like you’d expect. No, I’d say, I didn’t fuck The Nanny, and no, I didn’t fuck Carla — or Diane, or Rebecca, or Lilith — on Cheers. I’d asked for it, really.

The truth — and I’m pretty sure Tracy knew it — was that beyond her and Esther in Vancouver, you could count the number of women I’d had sex with on two hands and still have fingers to spare. I’ve been married to Tracy long enough not to be an idiot about certain things. It wasn’t that Esther was an actor that bothered her. She was an extra with a non-speaking role. It was — I think at least, I could be wrong, and often am — that Esther was nineteen on The X-Files, while Tracy, like me, was forty-nine in our bedroom. In an explanation I was smart enough not to vocalize, I told Tracy that it wasn’t like I thought nineteen-year-olds were hot, television had just rendered Esther permanently young.

“I bet you wish you could fuck her again,” Tracy said one night, during an argument about something else. This was the first real thing she’d said about it. I didn’t wish that. From what I could remember, the sex had been unremarkable — probably because I’d been involved. If I wished for anything, it was to be the age I was when “Fallen Angel” was shot. Tracy and I were both experiencing the humiliation of aging, and seeing Esther on screen likely reminded me of a time before knee pain, ear hair, and unforgiving mirrors.

“I don’t wish that at all,” I said, and reached for her hand, which she pulled away. The next day it was forgotten. We had sex, which was very good, despite my being involved.

I could always be myself around Tracy, which speaks to her tolerance for bad comedy, bad style, and bad taste. When she wasn’t around I felt awful, uncomfortable in my skin, like something was chasing me. Each time I heard her entering our apartment my shoulders dropped and my breathing slowed down. Maybe that was unhealthy, or felt to her like pressure. If I get the chance I’ll ask.

Months passed and Tracy stopped poking me about who on television I might’ve fucked. We’d abandoned The X-Files and were deep into the third season of The Sopranos, a show I’d also resisted watching initially, suspicious of its popularity. We were watching Season 5, Episode 2, “Rat Pack,” holding hands, our dog Fuckface asleep at our feet. During a commercial break Tracy hit mute, then turned to face me.

“I’m in love with Christopher,” she said, then looked away.

Christopher Moltisanti, played by Michael Imperioli, was a degenerate heroin addict, a violent criminal, and worst of all, short. But he had aspirations to something larger than mob life — he wanted to make movies. I almost threw up in my mouth. I knew not to say anything negative, not after the whole Esther affair. I would’ve preferred she’d fucked Imperioli. Being in love with his character I couldn’t wrap my head around.

“In love with him?” I said, unable to not sound baffled.

“In love with him,” she said, this time looking me right in the eyes.

And then I did it, I laughed. It was beyond my control. The next part wasn’t though.

I remember that every day.

“If you’ve gotta be in love with anyone on The Sopranos,” I said, “it should be Tony. He’s complicated. Christopher is so fucking obvious. What are you, some kind of Adriana?”

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We fought that night. The following morning I woke up in an empty bed. There wasn’t a note, but I knew she only had one place she could go — her mother’s, which, considering that being around her made Tracy feel like she was “suffocating” helped me realize how serious things were.

I really didn’t get it. I’d fucked a girl decades earlier and was dumb enough to bring it to my wife’s attention. She was in love with a fictional character on television. The two weren’t the same.

It would soon make sense. I went to our computer to see if Tracy had emailed me. Our browser was open to IMDb. She’d seen me searching for other shows Esther had worked on.

Brad Phillips is the author of Essays & Fictions. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Playboy, Vice Magazine, Granta, Purple Fashion Magazine and others.