Alzheimer’s and Big Dicks

When my mom was around 65 years old, she started showing signs of dementia. She had always been demented, but in a funny, twisted, hilarious sort of way ― especially when I was a kid ― buying pot from one of my drug dealer classmates when I was in high school, spontaneously bursting into song and dance during trips to the grocery store, wearing Birkenstock hippie sandals all year round, even in the snow ― that kind of demented, but still possessing all of her faculties. But this was the real deal, full-on clinical dementia.

After she retired, she became even more of a hermit than before. She had been living alone since I left for college twenty-seven years earlier, and although she was never a social person, at least she had had her place of work at Charles Schwab to be around other humans. Not having anywhere to go or anything to do after retirement started taking its toll on her, and she rapidly began to spiral downward ― stopped paying her bills, getting her mail, and bathing because she would think that she had already taken a bath but really hadn't, so weeks would go by without so much as a drop of soap or water on her entire body. Apparently, she was the only one who couldn't smell the pungent, almost cheesy stink wafting off her skin, probably due to her chain-smoking cigarettes, which had caused her to lose her sense of smell. When she ran out of cigarettes, she would rummage through the ashtray in the foyer of her condo complex, picking out old butts that had a drag or two left on them. Every time I saw her, she looked more and more like a homeless person, wearing a filthy, threadbare T-shirt and just as filthy pajama bottoms. Her neighbors told me they would see her walking the halls of her retirement building wearing only a ratty shirt and no pants, not even underwear, baring her saggy white ass for all the tenants to behold. I suspected something wasn't right with my mom at the time, but I attributed it to her being super lazy and to all the acid she dropped in college.

But when she received a $67,000 tax lien on her condo because she hadn't paid taxes for who knows how long, I knew something was amiss. So, after insisting that she put on some pants, which she was loath to do, I took her to the doctor to find out what the hell was causing one of the most intelligent people I ever knew to essentially give up on life.

Her diagnosis was, "dementia most likely due to Alzheimer's." Most likely because unbeknownst to many people, Alzheimer's cannot be diagnosed until after death, and the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are found in the brain during an autopsy. The only reason I know this is because I looked it up after her doctor told me the news ― that her erratic behavior was indeed not attributed to myriad LSD trips and the 500 kilos of pot she had probably smoked throughout her life, but was, in fact, because of these plaques and tangles.

I had to move her into an assisted living facility shortly after her diagnosis for fear that she would burn her entire building down from cigarette butts she would leave, still smoldering, on her bed — or from the science experiment in her fridge made of food so old it was probably growing spores capable of biohazard-level destruction. 

I was teaching English abroad when I had her put her into the home, a task I had to undertake from over 8,000 miles away in Thailand. She knew I was abroad but never remembered where. When we spoke on the phone, she usually asked, "So, how's Africa?"

"No, Mom. I'm in Thailand."

"Well, close enough," she would say. Sometimes she would ask me how Taiwan was, so at least she got the first letter and hemisphere correct on those occasions.

I didn't see her in her new residence until I returned from Taiwan and moved back to Colorado, closer to her assisted living facility. She insisted she’d moved into the home of her own accord because she was “tired of her old place.” She had no idea why she was really there, and even when I told her it was because of dementia, she would forget within a few minutes anyway. That's the beauty of dementia ― you don't know you have it.

During this time, I would visit my mom every week to see how she was doing and tell her the latest about my life. When the weather was nice, we would sit on the patio of her facility, and I would talk while she smoked her Kool Super Longs cigarettes. Occasionally, I would clip her toenails and shave her face, which had begun to grow a constellation of long, grey wiry hairs that sprouted out of her chin and cheeks.

Since the most exciting thing that happened to my mom at that time was making wagers for cigarettes with her caregiver on whether her adult diaper was wet (it always was), I did most of the talking during our visits. I usually had some good stories for her, which she loved, even though she would forget what I had told her by my next visit.

Upon my return to Colorado, I found most of my pals from the old hood had either moved or were married with children, rendering them unable to hang out with me. I had recently received a Facebook friend request from a former high school acquaintance whom I hadn't seen in over a decade. His name was Ethan, and during our high school days together, he was one of the most popular guys in the entire school. He was one year ahead of me, and all the girls in his class, my class, and even the classes below us had a collective crush on him and his best friend, Jeremy. Those two used to walk the halls together like celebrities strutting down the red carpet at a premiere, but this was every day for them. I had more of a crush on Jeremy. However, I would not have said no had Ethan asked me to go out with him. Still, that would have been impossible because he had a girlfriend (mostly cheerleaders) all four years of high school ― he was that level of cool.

I usually didn't accept Facebook friend requests from people who weren't actually my friends, but at this time, I found myself without a home and knew that I wanted to move to a small mountain town outside of Denver called Evergreen, where Ethan lived. I figured he could help me find a room to rent and perhaps help me find a job. Maybe Evergreen was just another high school hallway, and he still ran it.

We made plans to meet at a local restaurant in town. As I waited for Ethan to arrive, I wondered what he looked like now. Still handsome but with sexy, distinguished wrinkles and hints of grey sprinkled throughout his once very blond hair? He had few pictures on his Facebook page, and the ones he had were face shots or shots with sunglasses and a hat on, surrounded by friends, taken from afar.

After waiting a few minutes, I heard my name and glanced towards the entrance. I figured it was Ethan, but I didn't see him—or rather, I didn't recognize him. I beheld someone who resembled the once-hot high school lady's man but was packing at least an extra 100 pounds. He was fat. The dude was fucking enormous. His face was still handsome, but his thick neck had become one with the bottom part of his jaw. He used to have chiseled features, but now, because of the extra fat, his head and neck had become an amalgam of tissue and skin. The rest of his body had blown out to enormous proportions. He reminded me of Violet in the original Willy Wonka movie, who eats the forbidden blueberry gum and then inflates into a perfectly round blue ball with a small head and no neck. Ethan waddled toward me, arms slightly aft, belly bulging out, body swaying side to side with each step. Not only this, but he was wearing a shiny, flesh-colored polyester golf shirt that clung to his body like cellophane, which accentuated his sagging man breasts.

Wow. Just… wow. One of the most popular guys in high school, who all my friends lusted after, who dated cheerleaders, was now waddling toward me like a pregnant woman in her third trimester.

I expected him to say something like, "Hey. I know. I know. I’ve gained a lot of weight." But do people ever really do that—admit to their expanding and morphing bodies? The first thing he said was, "Wow, you look great!" This was not news to me. I knew I looked great. I had taken care of myself over the years. I could only respond with, "Thanks." I know it's the usual protocol to say, "So do you," but nothing about him looked good.

We chit-chatted and drank some cocktails, and after a few drinks, the conversation eventually led to the topic of sex—which it usually did with me after a few drinks, no matter who I was talking to. The sex talk started because he asked me what was new in my life. I had recently gotten a book deal for my first memoir. He asked what my book was about, and so, in my drunkenness, I told him the premise—which was about my former occupation as an exotic dancer, a job I embarked on during the spring semester of my senior year in high school. I told him all about my stripping days, from bachelor parties to the private dance rooms at the clubs where I worked, and then topped off the tale with a very detailed explanation of the tip-gathering trick I used to perform with my genitalia called “Feed the Kitty.”

Ethan's eyes grew wider and wider every time I said “pussy,” which was a lot. I could sense the growth under his extra-large khaki golf shorts that were too snug on his hefty body. I assumed Ethan hadn't gotten laid in a very long time—not only because of his weight gain and insecure disposition but because of what he proceeded to tell me about his life since high school: his mother dying, his brother dying, his sister becoming a drug addict, and a seven-year relationship with a fiancée who had dumped him the year before. So much loss in his life, yet, regarding his expanding waistline, there was one thing that had somehow stuck around.

Recounting stories of remorse is never a good way to start a friendship—or anything else—but I knew no one in Evergreen, and Ethan was entertaining and sweet enough to hang out with for a spell. We reminisced about high school and our respective status on the popularity totem pole during those years.

"You and Jeremy were so popular," I said. "Every girl loved you guys."

"You had a crush on me, right?" he asked.

I didn't, but at this point, I felt bad for Ethan—the sad, fat former athlete now riddled with problems whose glory days were 27 years behind him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had a crush on his best friend. "I don't remember, but all my friends did," I said. A harmless lie. I had to throw this guy a bone.

As the evening progressed, I got drunker and flirtier. I knew I couldn't drive back down to Denver, where I was temporarily crashing at one of my last local friend’s houses, so I asked Ethan if I could spend the night, to which he replied with an overly enthusiastic “yes!”

When we returned to his dingy, and creepy, little cabin in the woods, we sat on his couch and feigned watching TV. I kept fidgeting, switching sitting positions, crossing and uncrossing my legs. I didn’t know what to do or say. And even though his body was reminiscent of those inflatable sumo wrestling costumes you can rent at carnivals, his face hadn’t changed much—save for some wrinkles. He was still very handsome despite his head being overtaken by the fat enveloping his neck. He had maintained all of his blond hair, and his eyes were a beautiful aqua blue.

Historically, during awkward situations like this, I had a tendency to use sex as a way to break the tension. My beer goggles were strong enough to blur out his portliness, so I scooted over to his side of the couch and attempted to straddle his lap. However, I could not get my legs on the sides of his hips. I awkwardly perched myself on him with one leg on one side and the other uncomfortably resting between his soft belly and hip bone, like a drunk cowboy clumsily mounting a saddle. He froze, then smiled like a man who hadn’t gotten lucky in years.

I started kissing him. I hadn’t had any action in over a year while in Thailand, so to kiss and have someone’s hands on my body felt nice. He took my clothes off, and then he took his off. I had never been with an overweight guy before. All of my boyfriends, conquests, and one-night stands were hotties with bodies—athletic types with asses you could bounce a quarter off.

It was rather dark in his cramped cabin. The only light was from the TV and the space heater displaying a fake fire, but I could see well enough. His body, now unclothed, was very soft, very white, and very fat. Smushy was the word that came to mind as I grabbed handfuls of soft flesh on his backside. I tried not to look directly at his body—like it was a solar eclipse and I didn’t have one of those cardboard cereal box viewers—so I focused instead on the sensation of his tongue in my mouth and imaged I was kissing high school Ethan instead.

The guy could kiss. I'll give him that. I let him explore my body as I drunkenly relaxed on the sofa. It was pleasurable enough, despite being desensitized from all the booze.

When I’d had enough, I felt I should at least return the favor. I had no desire to sleep with him and hadn’t brought any condoms. From what he’d told me about his life—and judging by his sparsely furnished bachelor pad—I was almost positive he didn’t have any prophylactics either. I figured a hand job would be a decent show of appreciation for his efforts, so I reached out to grab him, but he blocked me with a surprise karate chop to the wrist.

“No, we’re not gonna do that,” he said.

What?

I had never had a man tell me he didn’t want his dick touched, let alone swat my hand away as if I were a child reaching for an extra cookie. If anything, I’d had too many men ask, or demand it, during my stripping days. And plenty more boys subtly guide my hand toward their crotch during teenage make-out sessions hoping to God that, “tonight’s gonna be the night!” Never—not once in the long, tragic history of handjobs—has a woman enjoyed having her hand subtly guided to a dick.

I knew why Ethan karate chopped me.

He wasn’t hard. Like, not even close—his flaccid penis resembled a frightened caterpillar trying to burrow into the girth of his underbelly.

In fact, I hadn’t felt any bulge while we were making out—and I’d been quasi-straddled on his lap. Was it possible that he hadn’t gotten hard at all? Since there was nothing I could do to pleasure him, and I was tired and drunk anyway, I told him I needed to go to sleep. We both passed out on his bed.

The next day, I drove back down to Denver feeling somewhat queasy about hooking up with a limp-dick fatty, which I began calling him behind his back—Fatty. It wasn’t nice, but it made telling stories about him much more fun.

I eventually found a room to rent in Evergreen without Fatty’s help. It turned out he was not as popular in town as he had been at our alma mater. He hardly knew anyone. Despite this, I continued hanging out with him as a friend—but mostly as my go-to drunken make-out buddy. He was the only person I knew in town, and despite his girth and pessimistic outlook on life, he was a nice guy. And it felt good to have my ego stroked—he was always telling me I was beautiful and still just as hot as I’d been in high school.

For about a month, all we did was hit the local bars and drink. He was now privy to how I behaved and what I might do while drunk. At the end of each night, we’d make out in his truck, parked in my driveway. Every time I straddled his lap or reached between his legs—still nothing.

After a handful of failed make-out sessions, I finally asked—half drunk, half annoyed—“Dude, what is going on with your dick?”

I knew it was mean, but I didn’t care about him enough to filter myself or have a gentle, sensitive talk about his erectile dysfunction.

He said that as men get older, when they drink, it gets harder and harder to—well—get hard. I had heard about this. Guys called it whiskey dick, but I’d been with plenty of middle-aged men in the preceding decade, and not one of them—even after many drinks—had had this problem so many times in a row. I assumed, based on all the shit he’d told me about his life over the last few years, that the emotional turmoil inflicted by his ex-fiancée was probably messing with his ability to get a boner.

On one date, he skipped booze entirely—probably hoping to dodge whiskey dick and finally collect the hand job I’d tried to give him half a dozen times.

At the end of the evening, like clockwork, we ended up parked at my house, making out like horny teenagers. I didn’t even bother exploring below his belt—I didn’t want to be disappointed again. But then something different happened.

Ethan took my hand and guided it toward his crotch. Flashback to 1988. The move. Still classic. Still terrible.

Too drunk to karate chop his hand away, I just let him slide mine under his boxer briefs. And to my surprise—it was everything I’d hoped for. Huge. This part of Fatty made him one hundred percent more attractive to me.

Men love to say size doesn’t matter. It’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean. Or, It’s not the size of the snake, but how you wiggle the worm.

That’s adorable.

Size absolutely matters—to me, anyway.

If I’d reached under his overly snug Calvins and felt something small—or even small-ish—there is no way in hell I would’ve gone where I went with that guy. No fucking way.

We didn’t have sex that night, but a few days later—after thinking about what he was packing, combined with the year-long dry spell I’d endured in a land where the stereotype is tiny dongs—I invited him over, hoping to end my celibacy. (Not that I got to confirm the stereotype. I didn’t get laid in Thailand.)

The sex wasn’t great. But men can be trained, and I could only imagine what he might do with some diligent instruction.

It’s a rare treat to sleep with a guy with a perfect penis. I’d only had that pleasure a few times with all the men I’d slept with, and Fatty’s made the top ten.

A perfect penis, for me, must meet certain specifications—and only while in its excited state. If it doesn’t, it’s merely a hairy tangle of genitalia, resembling a newborn bird, limp in its nest unable to fend for itself.

Even when hard, a penis can still be deeply unappealing—crooked, veiny, multi-colored, and aggressively mushroom-headed. It’s kind of incredible how something so objectively weird-looking can still be so powerful.

But Fatty’s? Fatty’s had star quality.

When excited, it stood straight up, was a smooth peach color throughout, velvety soft, and for me, the perfect dimensions—both length-wise and girth-wise.

Also, Fatty had hardly any body hair. And the little he did have was blonde, like the hair on his head, which made his nether region way less intimidating. The usual multi-colored, veiny, and crooked entity emerging from a nest of wiry black pubes isn't the most welcoming sight for me—and, I assume, many women.

Fatty and I slept together a handful of times over about a month and a half. I tried to train him—I really did—but alas, he was untrainable. Too insecure about his body and too self-conscious to really let loose in bed.

The last time we hung out, he got so drunk before our date that the restaurant staff asked if I needed help with him. He was wasted to the point of having lost most of his motor skills and the ability to form full sentences. He kept repeating, loud enough for nearby tables to hear: “Your ass is so hot. Your ass is so hot.” True as it may have been, I didn’t need a running commentary while trying to enjoy my steak.

I’d already sensed he had a drinking problem—he got busted for his third DUI the month before I moved to Evergreen—but his perfect penis had blinded me to how deeply fucked-up he really was.

Even a dick of that caliber wasn’t worth the humiliation he handed me that night at the fanciest restaurant in Evergreen. I was so embarrassed that I left the restaurant midway through our entrées and never spoke to him again.

But this tale about Fatty is neither here nor there. This story is really about my mom.

My mom and I had always had a very close relationship. I’d been telling her almost everything about my sex life since I started having one—after losing my virginity when I was eighteen. Even though she was in an assisted living home, suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, I continued sharing almost everything with her. She still knew who I was and had retained most of her long-term memory. It was her short-term memory that had suffered the most.

I told her the whole story about Fatty—especially the part about his impressive endowment—and wrapped it with, “What a waste of a perfect cock.” Not the usual mother-daughter conversation, I’ll admit—but even before the dementia, my mom had always been a little unhinged.

I looked at her, and she seemed to be in deep thought, gazing out into nothing but her own imagination. I figured maybe she was having a mini-stroke. After a few beats—still staring into the distance at the faded, stained flower wallpaper adorning her room—she said in a dreamy tone, “Yeah, what a waste.” She sighed. Then followed with, “God, I love big dicks.”

This wasn’t all that strange or especially humorous to me. My mom had been saying things like this to me my entire adult life. She had no filter—not during dinner, not around company, not in public spaces. If we were at a restaurant and the waiter was hot, she’d say, “God, you’re gorgeous. Are you gay?” Once, in front of a boyfriend, she casually asked me, “So, is he any good in bed, or are you gonna have to train him?”

The absurdity wasn’t just that my 71-year-old mother with dementia—wearing an adult diaper—would, without fail, greet me by asking, “So, how is… what’s his name… Mister Big Dick?” followed by, “I sure do love big dicks.”

Okay. That’s funny.

But what truly baffled me wasn’t the comment itself—it was the consistency. My mom couldn’t remember what day it was, what year it was, if she’d showered, or even my birthday. Yet somehow, a year and a half after I’d stopped seeing Fatty, the only thing she never forgot was the story about the size of his penis.

It got a little old, having to remind my mom each time I saw her that I hadn’t been with Fatty in over a year—and that yes, I’d slept with other large-sized men since then. But by the time I visited again, she’d forgotten this and would ask me once more how the guy with the big dick was doing.

I endured her unfailing question. I felt sorry for her and her progressing Alzheimer’s. So I figured, in her demented and deteriorating mind—with no ability to remember the month, the year, or the name of the current president, coupled with shitting her pants on the regular—if the only pleasant, steadfast memory she had was a story about big dicks, well, life wasn’t so bad for her after all.