MEGLOMANIAC

By Rob Rosen

“Mrs. Greene,” the doctor said to me, as he gently sat me down and stared unnervingly into my eyes, “Has your husband been experiencing any strange symptoms?  Any unusual character traits as of late?”  I paused before answering.  Two years had passed, actually, since the start of it all.  Two years that may have well been 20.  Two years, 2-million dollars, and two lives irrevocably altered—not to mention the two matching Porsches in our driveway and the two-carat ring on my finger.  And really, the changes had been positive, for the most part, so in all honesty I didn’t think anything was seriously wrong.

This whole thing began on an odd Monday morning.  My husband, Bill, woke with a start, ran to the shower, and hurriedly got dressed, all the while whistling a happy tune.  Now this, on the surface, seemed innocent enough, but hindsight is 20/20, and my vision was about to blur considerably over the course of the next 24 months.

You see, Bill was never a morning person.  And when I say never, I mean never.  Getting him up and out the door was akin to rolling a log over a searing hot beach.  Oh sure, you could do it, but it practically broke your back, and by the time you were done, you were a sweaty, stinky mess.  And Mondays were like rolling two logs over the entirety of the Sahara.  So on that morning when the alarm went off only once with no ensuing snoozes, instead of the usual five or six, I should have sensed something was amiss.  But I, gloriously oblivious, turned over and went right back to sleep.  Ignorance truly can be bliss, as it turns out.

And that’s how it all started.  It was a small thing, a happy thing, really, but it was still a thing.  One day your life is rolling merrily and blandly along, and the next day, there’s a glitch, a bump, a thing.  My thing, and many of the others that followed, were bonuses, tucked merrily into the plus column of my life; so rather than complain, which would have been silly, considering I was able to sleep in an extra half hour, I ignored the peculiarity of my husband’s behavior and pleasantly drifted back to La-La Land.

By the time I again woke up that fateful morning, my husband had already left for the office.  Our schedules had always been different, with my going to work often following his, but this time was different.  Bill was not only long gone, but also he left me breakfast; and not cold cereal or a toasted bagel either, mind you.  No, he made me an omelet and homefries, which were waiting for me in the oven when I went downstairs.  There were also fresh cut flowers in a crystal vase on the table and a nice, little love note next to that.

“What the hell?” I said, as I checked the calendar.  “Not my birthday, not our anniversary, not even Groundhog’s Day.  He must be having an affair.”

I’d seen just such a thing on Oprah:  Cheating Husbands and the Tricks They Pull.  Wait, it might have been Jerry Springer.  In any case, though exceedingly nice, it was all just a tad bit fishy, if you know what I mean.  Still, the aroma of a warm breakfast instantly obliterated any lingering fish odors, and I wiped those nasty misgivings gleefully out of my mind as I poured ketchup over the potatoes and fixed myself a nice, hot cup of coffee.

That night, however, was more of the same.  I arrived home to find my husband, who was usually plastered to the TV by that point, fixing us a four-course meal.  He’d also cleaned the living room and the kitchen, and neatly folded the clothes I’d washed the night before.

“Who is she?” I asked, almost in tears.

“Who’s who?” Bill responded, innocently, as he marinated the steaks and buttered the corn.

Bills nostrils usually flared when he was lying, and he’d stutter, neither of which he was doing at that moment, so I dropped it.  Besides, I’d had a long day and was happy for the turn in events, however benevolently strange they may have seemed.  Granted, the hot bath Bill had drawn for me, replete with floating rose petals, was equally as odd, but far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially a horse that smelled so glorious.

A half an hour later, we sat down to dinner. “So how was your day?” I asked, after I downed half my perfect steak.

“I quit my job,” he responded, light as air.  I nearly choked on my meal, but Bill kept right on eating as if he said something as inconsequential as he’d changed the air in the tires.

“You did what?” I managed, after a few sips of water.

“I quit.  I told them they weren’t paying me what I was worth, that it would take two people to do my job, and that no one could ever do what I do better than me.  Basically, I told them the truth.”

“The truth as you see it.”  My heart was racing as visions of home foreclosures and car repossessions rattled around my addled brain.

“The truth as it is,” he replied, as cool as the cucumber that sat in my salad.

“And what did they say?” I set my knife down for fear of what I might do with it.

“What could they say?  They gave me a raise and a promotion right there on the spot.”  At last he stopped eating just long enough to look up at me and smile.  “You’re now looking at the new Vice President of Finance.  Oh, and it pays 30-thousand more a year.  Do you think this house is too small?”

Actually, I did, but that was beside the point.  I had two options open to me:  I could berate him for taking the chance of being without a job, ergo an income, or I could congratulate him and finish my meal.  Naturally, I chose the later.  Why rock a boat, I figured, that had clearly sprung a leak.

And so, for the next 3 months, my husband woke with the first buzzer, hummed a happy tune, and fixed us both breakfast.  On top of that, as if that weren’t enough, he bought us completely new wardrobes and a year’s membership at the gym and tanning salon.  My husband, who I’d known for 10 years, had grown uncharacteristically vain, seemingly overnight.

But, to tell the truth, I kind of liked the change.  We both looked fabulous in our new outfits, lost some much-needed weight, and glowed like we’d just stepped off a boat from Tahiti.  People stared at us whenever we walked by.  Neighbors, who’d never given us the time of day before, stopped and chatted.  And most importantly, from a social standpoint, we were forever being invited to dinners and events by the muckamucks in Bill’s company.  We were, in short, big shots.

Now, though the picture I paint appears pretty on the surface, all was not exactly sunshine and roses.  The money was nice, sure, and so were the perks associated with Bill’s new status, but Bill himself had also undergone a serious personality change.  You see, the reason Bill started getting up on time each morning was to primp and preen.  Before this all started, my husband would shave and shower, dump a glob of gel in his hair, and be done with it.  By the time the promotion came, and then snazzy new clothes, he was spending an hour in the bathroom.  Instantly, our medicine cabinet was brimming with moisturizers, hair care products, wrinkle creams, eye gels, neck firmers, and a whole assortment of products I’d never even heard of before, at least not for men.  Bill’s eyebrows alone made mine look like overgrown bushes.  In other words, he was, all of a sudden, quite full of himself.

“What gives, hon?” I asked, one morning, as I watched him painstakingly ready himself for the day ahead.

He looked at me like I was the crazy one, but answered, “Just striving to be the best man I can be.  It’s kind of like putting the finishing touches on Michelangelo’s David.”  He smiled and winked and went back to his routine.

Fine, it was a strange comment, but I thought he was joshing me.  I knew men went through mid-life crises, only Bill’s was, apparently, hitting earlier than expected.  And, honestly, he looked super.  My husband, who was always nice looking, was now downright stunning.  The problem wasn’t that I knew it; the problem was that he knew it.  If we passed a mirror anywhere, he’d stop and look at himself and then comment on his good looks.  Same thing for windows he walked by, spoons he held in his hand, and anything with a reflective surface.  Narcissus had nothing on my husband.

But did this worry me?  Not too, too much.  I was happy that Bill was happy.  And Bill was happy, let me tell you.  He beamed with self-confidence.  It practically oozed from his very pores.  And it was, believe it or not, somewhat sexy.  My husband fully and whole-heartedly believed in his abilities, and so I believed in them.  And I unquestioningly supported him in all his endeavors, as I thought a caring, loving partner should.  Plus, if the truth must come out, I was starting to accept his boasts as facts.  In my mind, and certainly his own, my husband was the most handsome, most successful, smartest man around.  If that made me look good as well, then it was icing on the proverbial cake.  And for some, especially us, the icing was the best part of the meal.

Within a year, my husband was once again promoted, this time to President of Financing.  Again he was given a big, fat raise, and again he asserted his eminence.  His reputation grew and grew, and so did his ego—okay, both our egos.  The wife of a successful businessman, I figured, was equally as successful.  And so I let his frequent bragging roll off my back.  If he was cocky, it was rightfully so.  And if I was cocky, then we were like two peas in a pod.  And speaking of pods, ours was growing rapidly.

Our smallish house was quickly replaced by one twice the size.  Our two, old compact cars were traded in for the aforementioned Porsches.  And our wardrobes, which once fit snugly into a single closet and a chest of drawers, now occupied an entire room of their own.

“A great man needs great clothes,” my husband would say, as he supplemented his cache.

“A great many of them, too,” I would add, as my own wardrobe increased exponentially.

And all of this might have been enough.  We had a fabulous home, expensive possessions, and a super life together.  We were living dream lives.  But what’s good for the gander isn’t always good for the goose; or enough, to be precise.  My husband wanted more.  Much more.  He also believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he deserved it.  And this little secret he let one and all in on.  From country club to country club, and from one dinner party to the next, Bill spouted his accomplishments and abilities to anyone who would listen.  Oh and they listened, all right.  They listened closely and they acted quickly.

“Power,” my husband said, shortly after accepting his party’s offer to run for the state senate seat that had been unexpectedly left vacant, “is now the one thing I lack.  And you, my love, will make for a stupendous senator’s wife.”  I trembled at the thought of it; and not out of fear, but out of lust.  There’s no aphrodisiac like power, and the desire for it shined in both our eyes.

Bill held his job and his salary on an advisory level, for the time being.  His company was quick to realize the benefit of having a state senator so closely associated with it, and they gladly gave him as much time away from the office as he needed.  I, on the other hand, eagerly left my company and headed out on the road to campaign for my husband.  We quickly became the poster children for all that was good and right with the American way:  You work hard, you play fair, and you succeed beyond anyone’s imagination.

Strangely, Bill’s ever-growing ego served him well.  The public loves a confident man, it seemed.  Throw in his good lucks, charm, and million-dollar smile, and we were a sure thing.  And that’s just what we were.  Bill walked away with the election with an overwhelming margin of victory.  I was beside myself with joy.  Bill, on the other hand, was not so jubilant.

“It’s only a state senator,” he practically whined, as he plucked his eyebrows in the aptly named vanity mirror.

“That’s like saying you only won the state lottery,” I replied as I hung my Chanel suite up.

“No, one is luck, the other is earned.  And I plan on earning what’s rightfully mine.  Mark my words, 2 years from now it will be United States Congressman, and after that, who knows what.”

I knew what came after that, but held my tongue.  I chalked it up to deserved exuberance.  Besides, I figured, look how far he’d come in such a short amount of time.  The sky really was the limit when it came to Bill.  Or at least that’s what it seemed.  Just what Bill’s limits where, I was soon to find out.

After the election, I saw less and less of my husband, except on television, where his soundbites and dazzling image appeared regularly.  Bill toiled endless hours to make a name for himself.  Work became his all-encompassing passion.  The only occasions I spent any considerable amount of time with him anymore were at charity events and fundraisers.  My face, by then, had a permafrozen smile on it from all the publicity shots we took.  And still I was my husband’s most ardent supporter—well, second most ardent; Bill himself was numero uno.  Therein, of course, was the seed of his inevitable collapse.

His deriders, of which there was a growing number, called him a maniacal windbag, a blowhard, and an egocentric, power-hungry autocrat.  All this was true.  It was a hard thing to deny.  But what was also undeniable was that Bill was effective at his job.  The personal qualities and work-related accomplishments he bragged about were all accurate.  He did work harder than anyone else.  He was the smartest, most handsome, and most able man in the senate.  And to say that those that opposed him were jealous was surely a gross understatement.  Of course, on the opposite end of that teetering seesaw was yours truly.  I was always there to stand up for him, to espouse his talents, and to give him the support he so richly deserved.

And that’s why I was the first one they called from the hospital.  Was I expecting this?  Perhaps.  After all, the human body can only take so much abuse before it starts to shut down.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t his body, as it turned out, that was doing the shutting.

Mrs. Greene,” the doctor said to me, “Has your husband been experiencing any strange symptoms?  Any unusual character traits as of late?”

I snapped back to the present.  “As of late?  Not exactly.  I don’t think he’s been himself for quite some time.  Why?  What’s wrong with him?”  My heart sank as I read the doctor’s name on his jacket:  Dr. Marvin Hoffman—Department of Psychiatry.

“Your husband was found in his office today staring at himself in the mirror.  He was non-responsive to his staff and kept repeating over and over,  ‘I am President Greene.  I am President Greene’.  They brought him directly here.”

“So there’s nothing physically wrong with my husband?”

“Physically, no.  He’s the picture of perfect health.  Mentally is another story entirely.  After examining your husband for the last several hours, I believe he’s suffering from Megalomania.  It’s a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.”

Oh boy.  That sure made a hell of a lot of sense.  The shrink had just described my husband to a tee.  “Will he be alright?  Is it treatable?” I asked, once I regained my composure.

“Yes, like a bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, it can be treated with medications.  Eventually, he’ll be right as rain, just like he used to be,” he said, reassuringly, and then stood up.  “Your husband is free to go, Mrs. Greene.  I strongly suggest you have him see a private psychiatrist as soon as possible so he can begin his treatment and be on the road to recovery.  Here’s a prescription in the meantime.”

I shook his hand, took the piece of paper, and went to collect my husband, who was smiling warmly at me upon my entrance into his room.

“So what did the doctor say?” he asked, with a kiss and a hug.  “Am I going to be okay?

I looked at my bronzed, handsome husband, with his expensive suit and flawlessly quaffed hair, then looked down at my own stunning outfit and sparkling diamond ring, and with a smile and a wink, I replied, “You’re gonna be just fine, Bill.  The doctor said you’ll have to take it a bit easier from now on.  After all, this country needs a strong man like you.  So if we’re going to make it to the White House, as planned, you’ll need to conserve some of that boundless energy of yours.”

“You’re going to make a perfect First Lady,” he said as we walked outside, arm in arm.  The paper in my hand, naturally, went straight into the garbage can.

“And you’ll be a perfect President,” I added.

“Don’t I know it, dear, don’t I know it.”

© Rob Rosen 2005