what would you do if you found out i was a fugitive? would you turn me in or live life knowing your wife could never ever get a parking ticket or else you might lose her forever?

susan lefevre in 1975, left. marie walsh, ex-fugitive mom, right. pretty mugshot! you go, girl!

you might hate me for saying this, but i’m not the biggest oprah fan.  she’s incredibly good at what she does. but honestly? i’ve always imagined she’d be a bee-otch to work for (confirmed by these annoying behind-the-scenes shows on her new cable network–which holly inexplicably likes to watch while we’re trying to go to sleep, don’t even ask me why–and all her producers seem very, extremely scared of her) and therefore find her show hard to watch.

i also don’t enjoy the fact that she’s on the cover of every single issue of her magazine. she is, however, a big friend of the gays and i enjoy her interviewing style. so that might cancel it all out.

anyway, it was with great surprise when i found myself absolutely glued to her show yesterday, which focused on this lady, marie walsh–just your typical upper-middle-class, tennis-playing, horse-riding mother of three (or four, i forget)–who was, unbeknownst to her husband and family and everyone else, actually a fugitive on the run for 32 years. yeah, i know.

her real name was really susan lefevre and she was arrested at 19 for selling 2.5 grams of heroin to an undercover state trooper in 1975. (it sounds like it was a set-up but i don’t know.) and it was her law-abiding grandfather that helped her break out of prison. (you can read all about her story here. she has a new memoir out b/c, apparently, you have to either be snookie or a longtime fugitive to get a book deal these days.)

holly and i both got really into watching the show and at a certain point, after oprah talked to this woman’s husband, i got to thinking:

what would holly do if she found out i was a fugitive? not that i am. (really, i’m not. tho saying that does make me sound kind of suspicious.) no really. what if i had escaped out of prison and was on the lam for like 25 years (this would, of course, make me a seven-year-old fugitive) and changed my identity and had totally kept it a secret from my partner and one day she found out?

so i asked her.

“it depends on what you’d done,” she said.

my gut reaction to her answer was disappointment. [versus, say…when she rated me “an eight” (and that was “including my personality”) on a scale of one to 10 when my gut reaction was red hot seething anger. you can read all about that disastrous conversation here and don’t say i didn’t warn you. ew i’m getting angry just thinking about it.] b/c i was prepared to say i would support her as a fugitive no matter what. b/c we’re married and best friends and together for 10 years next month, and hello, we love each other.

so i thought about it.

“yeah, i guess you’re right,” i announced. “i mean, if i was a murderer, that could be a source of worry. but if i sold 2.5 grams of heroin in 1975 it’d be different.”

(now she’s saying, as i write this, that the bigger issue would be lying. like, if i lied about that for so long, what else could i be hiding? quiet holly! i’m trying to blog. she’s kind of right but whatever, i’m totally not talking about that right now.)

i told her that i would support her as a fugitive no matter what, and commit myself to living a life devoted to making sure she never got a parking or speeding ticket. (this would be difficult, as she’s a pretty risky parker sometimes. also she sometimes speeds but usually only b/c i’m always running 10 to 20 minutes late so she needs to drive faster to whatever event we’re going to so it doesn’t, you know, end before we get there.)

anyway, despite my disappointment, i’m going to stick to my original thought which is that yes, holly, i would stick by you if i found out you were a fugitive. i know that you’d never hurt a fly, so how bad could it be? plus i wouldn’t mind moving every few years. i might even let you get a motorcycle, b/c, you know, fugitives need motorcycles. and fugitives’ wives need jet-black motorcycle jackets with lots of unnecessary zippers to wear on their fugitive partners’ motorcycles. and i’d have to get, like, badass boots to match. these are my priorities, folks.

anyway, i’m wondering: would you stand by your woman or man if he or she was a (non-violent) fugitive and was hiding it from you for, like, 32 years. discuss.

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