That being said, I am not a spy.
I am, to be honest, an average human being. I am a white, Protestant, straight male who lives in a suburb with a middle-class family. Like many twenty-somethings, coffee is my drug of choice. My favorite color is blue. I feel like a hipster when I wear a sweater.
If you’ve watched the TV show Chuck, you know that the very characteristics that make me seem ordinary also make me a prime candidate for accidentally falling into a heinous conspiracy—or at the very least, wanting to. Thus, my obsession with spies.
*The entries you are about to read take place over a lifetime of infatuation with spies. They are not made up. Many names have been changed for the safety (and sometimes dignity) of those involved.
Junior High saw the pinnacle of my attempt to achieve secret agent savvy. It was during these formational years that I became obsessed with the TV show, Alias. Jennifer Garner plays Sidney Bristow, a spy who discovers that she is working for the “bad guys” and decides to become a double agent. In between episodes, I was often inspired to practice sparring with a friend, a pastime which we stopped after I roundhouse kicked him in the face, causing blood to spurt from his mouth. I’ll admit: I had never felt so badass in my life. The feeling was unwarranted, however, as my successful kick owed more to junior high gawkiness than any skill.
Some commentary: Spies are not people who accidentally kick others’ faces. Spies are people who, when held from behind, run their feet up a wall, propel themselves backwards over their assailant’s head, and land perfectly after rotating fully and delivering a scissor kick to the neck.
It was during my Alias years that my then girlfriend phoned to reveal her identity as a secret agent. She gave such proofs as her mother’s German accent and referenced a tube of lipstick she allegedly owned that doubled as a gun. My skepticism crumbled in a matter of minutes, with less credit to her storytelling skill than my own desire to be romantically involved with a spy. When she revealed an hour later that day that it was all a farce, I was crestfallen.
(As for her German mother, she was in fact only German, not a spy.)
My life is a connect-the-dots of small-scale conspiracies. A few weeks ago, as I waited to pass through airport security, I questioned whether the African American woman in front of me was traveling under an assumed identity. She handed her passport to the security guard, and I noted pink skin peeking out at the base of her neck and behind her ears, as if she had not quite finished a hasty disguise. The thought that she might only have a skin problem didn’t occur to me until later.
I would be lying if I claimed that I don’t question even close friends’ hobbies and occupations regularly. Maybe you would question too, if you knew the people I know. Consider my next-door neighbor, who recently grew a bushy beard, shaved his head, and put on weight so that he could integrate into Somalian culture and catch pirates off the north-eastern coast.
It is easy to understand why a guy like me might find solace in the world of spies. Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt are nothing if not extraordinary. Even when performing mundane tasks, such as crossing a street or climbing into a car, they do so with an economy of movement and a style that comes naturally. Their every action is streamlined to display an inherent importance, and they exercise control of the most impossible of situations.
I have often wished that I were a spy. Or at the very least, dating one. Then I would be involved in that world of intrigue and secrets; of cars, houses, and warehouses that explode in bursts of flame; of pricy liqueurs and pricier vehicles; of women who speak their minds and betray the presence of a gun through slits in black satin dresses.
It’s a dangerous world, to be certain. In fact, as I was reading this entry aloud to my mom, she looked at me sternly and delivered an exhortation with utter sobriety: “I would be careful what you say in that thing.”
“Why?”
“What if the real ones read it?”
What, indeed?
Tune in next Saturday for part two. If I die of a mysterious heart attack before then, you’ll know why.
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