The Hoarder

​As a boy I would frequently visit a friend of my father's named Jed. I remember him fondly as whenever I would see him at Christmas or at New Years or if he was just coming over for a visit he would always bring me a gift. But these were not cheap gifts by any stretch of the imagination. It was always something that was a quality toy, like an expensive stuffed animal or some sort of building set. I had always thought of him as a fun, happy and jovial kind of man. But as I got older I realized that he had symptoms of extreme nervousness. His hands were always trembling, his upper lip would quiver and he would always be blinking his eyes for some unknown reason. As a kid I remembered asking my dad about his trembling hands and my dad said that he was born that way and it wasn't a big deal. That was a lie.

​We would see him almost every year with his wife and then around my 14th birthday she suddenly stopped coming over to our house and no longer did we meet at his house. I looked at Jed during his visits in my teen years and noticed that he had aged dramatically and no longer brought gifts, but maybe I was too old for toys. Many times when he was at our house he would drink himself into a stupor. I could tell by what he said that he was having problems at home. Then one night when he was over at our house I asked Jed where his wife was and he said that they were still together but she had become very unsocial. 

The next New Years, unbelievablely, Jed invited us over. We hadn't been over to his house in years. That night when we went over to his place I thought everything was going to he normal but this was not to be. Our family arrived that cold New Year's night and my father rapped on the front door. We waited for five minutes before he answered. When he finally opened the door he looked stressed and couldn't hide it. He invited us inside and his slurred words and wobbling walk indicated that he had already been drinking heavily. My guess was that he had no more than about two hours left before he passed out. 

We all sat down in the living room which was full of junk and boxes of all types. There was so much junk that when you walked into the living room it was like going through a tunnel. The house that had once been in such mint condition was now a mess with a smell of something rotting. I noticed a couple of mice curiously show their faces and then run back under the the junk. 

There was one thing missing and that was his wife but we didn't dare ask where she was. The conversation was laboured and the evening was turning into a nightmare and all I wanted to do was go home. I excused myself to go to the washroom but instead headed downstairs to have a look at the basement. It was more of the same but it smelled even worse than the upstairs. 

I walked over to one of the rooms in the basement and opened the door and there was his wife. She was laying on the bed having sex with three male prostitutes. She looked at me and said, "Hey there cutie, do you want to join us."  

I closed the door and went back upstairs.