Paranoia and Life Imitating Art

 Cindy and I are binging on “The Americans” currently streaming on Hulu.  We’re on season 5 and loving the show.  It’s set in the 1980’s, the Reagan years, and a man and a woman from the Soviet Union, posing as a middle class married couple with two children, are spying on the United States.

Now, with this kind of setup, you’d think you’d hate the characters.  After all, they kidnap, steal, lie, cheat, and murder to achieve the goals of their handlers.  Even worse…they have sex with other people to get information.  Well, maybe that’s not worse than murder, but it can still be jarring.

So, you'd think the characters are completely unlikable.  But much like Walter White and the Sopranos, you can empathize with them...most of the time. 

So, why am I even telling you this?  Writers are keen observers.  At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.  I’m always on the lookout for art imitating life or vice versa.

A CNBC headline this week stated, “Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year.”

The story goes on to describe how Mr. Maganov, chairman of the Russian oil giant Lukoil and outspoken critic of Russia’s role in the war in the Ukraine, died after falling or of the window of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital. 

Lukoil, the company Maganov helped to build, issued a press release that said the chairman “passed away following a serious illness.” 

Maybe that illness was called Gravity. 

Since the beginning of the year, seven other Russian energy executives have died by suicide or in murder/suicide events that included their immediate family.  One in particular, Alexander Subbotin, TASS reported that his body was found in his basement in a room used for “Jamaican voodoo rituals”.  The others were deaths by hanging or gunshots and not all were in Russia. One executive was found dead along with his wife and daughter in their vacation home in Spain. 

The retirement plan for Russian oil execs is brutal and deadly.

Watching “The Americans” has made me paranoid as hell.  It’s not bad enough that the FBI has found Top Secret files in a previous president’s country club estate, but dozens of those folders marked Top Secret were found empty.

Does that mean they’re still missing?  Who has them?

On August 28th, this headline appeared in BusinessInsider.com, “FBI is investigating a Ukrainian woman who posed as a Rothschild heiress and wandered about Mar-a-Lago with Trump.”

The story goes on to say, “A Ukrainian woman who posed as a member of the Rothschild banking family is under federal investigation after she infiltrated Mar-a-Lago multiple times and mingled with former President Donald Trump, a report says.”

“Ukrainian-born Inna Yashchyshyn used the name of Anna de Rothschild and claimed numerous business ventures as she rubbed shoulders with high-profile Trump guests. On several occasions in 2021 and 2022, Yashchyshyn mixed with Trumpworld heavyweights such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, Kimberley Guilfoyle, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, and Trump donor Richard Kofoed, the outlets reported. She was also photographed with Trump on his golf course, they reported.”

This is exactly the kind of shenanigans the Russian spies in “The Americans” pull.  

So, am I being paranoid?  In the words of one my recurring characters in the Geneva Chase series, “You can’t be too paranoid.”

Ghosts, shoes, and suicide.

My post this month coincides with the Halloween weekend, the time of the year for ghosts and other scary things. I'll start by talking about shoes, specifically these shoes, which are the pair my father wore when he committed suicide thirty-three years ago.

The shoes have been on my closet shelf, unworn since that fateful day. It may seem macabre to wear his shoes, but they fit and every time I put them on it's an homage to him. I'm familiar with the saying, walk a mile in my shoes--there's even a song with that title--however I don't need to wear his shoes to understand what caused him to break and disintegrate into self-destruction.

These shoes are plain, army-issue low quarters and were the only style of shoes my dad wore. Obviously he wasn't much for fashion. My mom detested these shoes, but he ignored her requests to wear something with more pizazz. What most bothered her was that the only time he'd get them polished was by a shoe-shine boy during twice-monthly trips to Juarez. In between those visits, if the shoes got muddy or dirty, so be it.

Several years after my dad's passing I was at the bedside of my paternal grandfather. Even until late age he remained robust and active. However because of brittle hip and knee joints he couldn't walk. He lay on the bed, emaciated, wearing diapers, his only companions in that dark, lonely house a live-in attendant and a terrier named Chachi. In his prime my grandfather had been a colonel in the Texas State Guard, a judo instructor, and one of the earliest activists for Mexican-American rights. He gazed at me and began mumbling and it took me a moment to realize that he thought I was his son, my dad, long since dead. Carefully, I corrected him, and he regarded me with a pat on my hand and then fell asleep. Seeing my grandfather reduced this way weighed on me. During the drive home, his spirit and the ghosts of my dad and all my other dead relatives swirled around me so very real and terrifying that I had to pull off the highway and compose myself.

This week I decided that I needed a pair of black casual shoes and these were available, so I dusted them off and took them to a shoe shop to be refurbished. When the cobbler inspected them he noted the heels had nylon inserts and so exclaimed, "I haven't seen these in forty years!" I let him keep the heels for his collection of vintage footwear.

Though I wear my old man's shoes, he and I are on different paths. In fact, I've lived past his expiration date by twelve years. Most years, the anniversary of his death goes by unnoticed. Sure, I don't have to wear his shoes to remember him or to remind myself that we have to take care of ourselves, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I wear these shoes because they are comfortable and that I need a pair of black casual shoes.