Was thinking about the slippery slope nature of this struggle. And I guess one thing that hit me was that I
want to stop for like a whole bunch of good reasons. But I
need to stop because despite all those good reasons I can't stay stopped. And that lack of control is a taste of death.
So I wrote a little forecast of that taste of death. (It's little because I need to work.) I tried not to disasterify things. Just a natural progression of where I see this loss of control leading. Without further ado:
A TASTE OF DEATH
All the new staff at MedHomes Home For the Aged ("Voted #1 Place to Wait To Die") get a little intro tour. A more experienced staff member will take them around. They'll show 'em the coffee room, where the best place is to take a quiet break away from the residents, and they'll warn them about Room 302. "You'll want to be careful when you go into 302," they'll say. "Always leave the door propped open and have a buddy within shouting distance."
302 is Old Man Shem.
"Keep one hand free so you can block his hands" they'll warn. "He's feeble. But he gropes anything that moves."
But we're going too fast. How'd Shem end up in this cold room by himself? Well, old Man Shem is completely gaga now. Can't take care of himself. His kids, though they can afford to and some of them would even like to, can't keep him in their homes. Jim doesn't want to - Shem and him never really talked much after the divorce (but that's coming.) Sarah's got old beef and won't have Shem either (yeah we'll get there too.) The third kid, Rebecca, always loved her Daddy, no matter what. And her husband, Jason, is pretty chill. So they took in Shem when it became clear he couldn't take care of himself anymore. Sweet kids.
And that worked out pretty well for awhile. Shem's good at making the grandkids laugh - he's always been a bit of a clown. And he was pretty with it at the beginning. But when when Shem would forget who or where he was and loosen those fine reigns of control he held for so long, weird things would happen. Rebecca dealt with it when Shem masturbated in the living room. ("It's so sad, but the doctor said it's normal for someone in his condition" she whispered to Jason later that night. Jason gracefully agreed, though he thought that was pretty messed up.) And when he sat in the office watching porn (sound on baby!) while the kids were doing homework, they dealt with it. But it was what he did to Samantha that screwed things up.
As Jason told his youngest brother-in-law, Jerry, later: "Listen, I love your Dad. But he's dangerous. If I hadn't come in when I did, he would have raped his own granddaughter. Sammy has been crying nonstop. We just can't keep him in the house. Frankly, I don't want to see him for a long time either."
So off went Old Man Shem to a quiet little room where he could wait to die. He cried when he realized. And when he realized. And when he realized. But by now he doesn't realize often anymore.
"Sad," the new staff member will tut. And then move on.
And moving forward to that inevitable very awkward and emotionally messed up funeral will be too depressing. So let's move back in time instead. How far back can we rewind? To Shem's bochur years, watching movies and porn instead of night seder? To his early marriage? Too . . . real. Let's go back to July of 2024, when Shem left GYE for the third or fourth time.
We'll fast-forward (in a cute little montage) through a couple months of binging, quitting, binging and giving up to Elul of that year. The occasion? Shem's first business trip. Now, Shem's kinda given up, but he's a fighter. So he arranged a buddy and a chavrusa to keep him "clean". First night goes well, but the second night his chavrusa ditches him. Shem's lying around in his hotel room, tired, feeling "urges" and grumpy. His wife's pissed at him and it's been a few days since he's gotten any action. He turns on the TV to distract himself.
[Yo, part of the chill of being an omniscient narrator is I get to do these really cool interludes. So let's tune into Mrs. Shem's mind:
I really don't like it that Shem's gone. It's so hard to take care of these kids without him to help with bedtime. And I wonder what he's doing out there all alone. I hope he's not doing anything inappropriate. Ever since I caught him looking at those disgusting things, I've never felt like he loved only me. And who knows what he could be doing out there by himself. Sigh. And why has he been so mad at me recently." And she cries, but just a little.]
Shem's found a good movie to distract himself. And wow is that female lead hot? Shem has a shot from the minifridge to numb that whiny voice in the back of his head. (we'll draw a curtain over the scene. But we know how it ends.) Shem told his wife the trip was fine. But etched in the stone of his heart he knows he's set a new pattern of behavior.
It's a couple months later, and Shem's on another trip. He feels confident - after all, he cried so much over Yom Kippur that he must be a new person. And he's back on GYE with 34 days clean.
By the fourth day of the trip, Shem's not feeling so confident anymore. He's out looking for the only kosher restaurant in Town, when he drives by a massage parlor. A thought crosses his mind, but he pushes it away and keeps on going toward the restaurant. A couple hours and a few beers later, Shem's sitting in his car outside the massage place shaking. He's never done anything with a "real person" before but something irresistible has taken hold of him. Shem sits in the car and cries, watching as his body opens the door and goes in . . .
Shem's wracked by guilt in the bright light of the next day. But we'll spare you the histrionics, the teshuva, the anger at himself that he takes out on his kids. Suffice it to say that three weeks later he's got a trip to the same place and ends up in the same bed.
And time goes on. Shem's being as good a father as he can be. Trying to be a good husband. And he's managing to keep porn and masturbation down to just a couple times a week. Still, his work is suffering due to his bi-weekly 3 hour porn binges. Eventually, the business needs to downsize and it's Shem who's let go. His boss apologizes. Tells him that he's a great employee and they're very sorry it came to this. But he's just not producing as much as the other guys and someone needs to go.
Shem is broken for a couple weeks. A bad couple weeks. Tells his wife he's going to look for work but spends the days in a strip club. First time going to a strip club in his own city, but he's not in control.
Eventually, a friend sets him up with a job. But this job has a little more traveling involved than the old one. His wife doesn't like it, but what choice do they have. Another thing this job has that his old one didn't: a really friendly secretary. She's a few years older than Shem, and honestly pretty ugly. But she's friendly and loves to schmooze with Shem.
And so before we talk about the new relationships Shem's working on, let's talk about the old ones. Shem's got 6 kids now, and loves them to bits. But somehow, just somehow, he's never gotten as close to them as they are to his wife. There's just something in his way. Shem wishes it wasn't so, and tries to spend as much time as he can with them. But sometimes he's gotta take a break, watch a little porn and masturbate real quick. Just so he can focus.
As for his relationship with Mrs. Shem. Well, spoiler alert, she doesn't even get a name in this story. Oh, they had some closeness in the early years of their marriage. And she's a nice lady. But he's come to blame her for his struggle - if only she was prettier, kinder, sexier then he never would have to abase himself in front of some prostitute. And he knows that he takes out some of his self-hating on her. But what can you do . . .
B'kitzur, they run the house together. And Shem's very makpid on his mitzvah of onah. But that's about it these days.
Shem flirts alot now. Runs into an ugly little relationship with his high-school daughter's friend. It never gets physical (his daughter realizes before then) but it gets pretty weird. His daughter never tells anyone, but she never feels comfortable with him anymore, and that makes family dynamics pretty awkward.
And so things go on. Shem's actually not really watching porn now. He hasn't tried to stop anything for a long time, but porn just doesn't do much for him anymore.
And so the business with the new secretary runs its course, until the day Mrs. Shem catches on. It's seeing one text, that leads to another, that leads to the whole ugly revelation. Suddenly, her worst fears (that she denied to herself for such a very long time) are realized. Oh there's shouting and tears. And even an attempt at couple's counseling. But this marriage has been dead for a long time, and this was just the nail in the coffin.
Shem moves out. It's over. Shem makes a desultory attempt at joining SA (for about the third time) but it's a joke.
He travels a lot now for business. Goes to his two married kids for shabbos sometimes, and that's nice. He's only in his 50's, plenty young enough to get married again. But he can't seem to work up the motivation (though he happily dates a lot.)
And that's how the next 15 years go. Alot of loneliness. Shabbos by his kids is nice, Shabbos by himself is sad and lonely, and Shem finds himself watching porn on Shabbos, just to cover the loneliness. He hasn't cried on Yom Kippur in a long time.
And so we're back to the beginning. Old Man Shem sitting in a room waiting to die. But honestly, he died a long time ago. Very, very slowly.
Mamash the stuff of my nightmares. Thank you for not keeping that all bottled up inside. Here's a virtual hug my Brother. Please accept it because now I need one too.
