“So, what say you about Roi’s new girlfriend?” he asked me in a loud patronizing voice of a captain, while muttering to his neighbor-friend who was busy with the drinks, “what a babe”. There was no one there but the three of us, in the Shapira family’s back yard. Roi and the small number of early arrivers were discussing military stuff around the kitchen table, deep inside the lavish residence.
They were all too far to listen to the content of our exchange, yet Eliyahu’s diction and tone style remained as usual, and Eliyahu Shapira’s usual demeanor is mainly composed by a display of his wealth, his knowledge and his unbearable arrogance.
“Which one?” I asked provokingly, “By ‘new girl’, you mean Yaeli?”
“How many broads does he have, Eliyahu’s boy, one for each day?”, said the alcohol importer in a raunchy smile and continued without waiting for a response, “It’s like that joke about the king who took seven women, so he has a different one for each day of the week and when he was asked what happens if one of them gets sick on the same day she is expected to be with him, he replied in a royal indifference: Sick, her loss!” the two stout back-haired men whose head hair thins while their nose and ears grow wildly laughed like a couple of fattened hyenas, exposing the back of their yellow-crowned mouths, white foam accumulating on the side of their lips and the fat cigars held between their fingers generating noisome pillars of smoke. As they finally calmed down, they raised their glasses of expensive whiskey, imported by the drink-company owned by the neighbor – “A close friend is better than a distant brother”, as Eliyahu says. They gulped while Eliyahu continues:
“He needs to have as much fun now as possible! In five, ten years, he will make the same mistake we made and that’s it, he’s done. You reckon what I’m telling you? That’s what I told Roi, in your age there is no such thing as cheating bullshit, girlfriend or no girlfriend. In your age it is Eat-Drink-Fuck as much as you can because we might die tomorrow, god forbid, or get married which is practically the same. Legit, my life ended when I got married.”
The importer pours some more drink while adding some of his own wisdom: “word! Believe me, if I was your age today, I would be getting down, so to speak, with any broad I possibly can and commit to no one. These days, a man doesn’t need to rush like we did. We were married before 25, Eliyahu plus one and me plus two at 27. What do you think, isn’t this a tragedy? Though truth be told, we married good women, so at least we earned that. They don’t make them like they used to, nowadays. These days it’s all about money. A wife these days is worse than old times’ mistress.”

I was astonished by his words. Just a fledgling nineteen and a half year old boy. A timid virgin, sergeant in the artillery corps. I tried covering my unease with audacity: “And how about today’s mistress?” 
“Um.. Who’s got time for that today. You are alive up until the age of thirty and after sixty. In our age, with all the competition in the market and all those clients who never pay you on time, and you own a business with employees in and out of the country and buildings and expenses and fat paychecks, there is barely time to breathe. During the early years, my father-rest-in-peace managed the business so I had a little spare time – today I have four kids, each one is an onus, a klineh kinder klineh tsures[1], and I carry the entire firm on my shoulders, even when I go abroad it’s almost always for business and I can hardly find a free evening to have some fun. When Roi takes over in a few years I’ll start enjoying life again like a real human, but still, how much can I take today? We ain't spring chicken no more”.

They both became silent for a long moment, and I kept my mouth shut while looking for a clue in their eyes. A hint whether they are sharing a joke on my expense, or is it the drink and that euphoric Saturday noon time which made them pour out these truths that were not supposed to be divulged in my presence.
“Listen”, the importer lowered his voice as if he is telling a secret, “a man was not meant to be with only one woman, and a woman, after a few years and pregnancies and some elderly parents on her case, is not the same woman she was when you met her. Her passion dwindles, and you, you’re into it as always, cause you're a man! But you're not allowed to put too much pressure on her and if she doesn't feel like it you're not allowed to say nothing!”
What do you mean not allowed to say nothing? I asked naively. Eliyahu replied promptly.
“It means that if you tell her how badly you want it, and complain that she doesn't satisfy you it would only make things worse. A women, for her sex is a luxury, everyhing else comes first: the kids, the house, her parents, her friends, if she works, or volunteers like my wife does, then her stuff is more important and since you run around all day in your business and she is in charge of the house and the children she will always say: "You are complaining that I'm tired?! Let's switch, then! You will be at home and I get a job and work outside of the house.” And what, you think you want to be at home? You know what a terrible headache that is? You're better off getting your headache at work.

Getting home from work at the end of the day, you can’t allow yourself to compromise your own health by fighting with the wife. Whatever she wants, you say Yes, Ma’am. You need to internalize the fact that there is no more thrill with her. That’s the deal. If once in a while, on a Saturday or Sunday night or something, she wants it – you give it to her! If she doesn’t, you look away”. The Importer kept nodding and contributed: “Exactly! You see, even the sex, it becomes predictable after a few years. No more surprises. You already know how the act is gonna look like, what the woman is willing to give, what she isn’t, and anything you crave: something new, something younger, a different color, a different style, skinnier, tighter, more lifted, you buy all that elsewhere”. Eliyahu interrupted the importer’s words: “A woman is for building a family and a home. Marriage is business for all intents and purposes, just like any other business. You commit to taking care of some things and giving up others so you have the peace of mind knowing that the person raising your kids is an exemplary woman and mother. Adventures – buy those elsewhere! You see, me, if I need to blow off some steam, or if I feel like I need some action I pull over for ten minutes on my way home, and pay for the action I want like fifty or a hundred bucks, and that’s it! When you grow up you’ll see that it also makes you a better husband. No stress, no resentment, she tells you ‘I have a headache’ you tell her ‘I hear you. I would probably have one too if I were you. Come here, lay down and rest and I’ll make you a cup of tea’. You see? This is how your house is calm and your wife thinks, even tells her girlfriends, what a considerate husband she has. What could be better than that?”     

I muted. Or perhaps stuttered, being inauthentically jocular, I cannot remember. What I do remember is that naive sensation of wonder, spurred by these two men whose ages equivalent to my father’s, and the piercing burn generated by the clear understanding that these men – they are the reality. They are the average normative man who is certain of his entitlement to get it right here right now and whenever he desires. They are that man applauded by his wife for every single tiny help he is willing to contribute.

The sexually ignorant man, fundamentally coarse, usually submissive at home, surreptitiously hoarding his violence, who’s late to come home even when work doesn’t create a real necessity to linger simply due to the cruel cynical calculation “not to let her get used to it”. The man who does that which is required of him out of accepting the verdict of this package deal. The obligatory minimum, nothing more. Dare she not widen her demands? She needs to let him be. Fuck her. Essentially, he would want to fuck her and not let her burden his day with her pestering. And needless to say, according to their unspoken contract, she must serve him a warm plate of something before she dissipates. And in the unfortunate case where she does not dissipate, which occurs too many times, the melody of her voice and content of her words are tantamount to the sound of the air conditioner – this unavoidable background noise one gradually ceases to hear. The secret is to simply be able to accurately quote the last sentence she said, in order to rebuff her claims of being ignored.

The hypocrisy and crudity these two exemplary family men have divulged to me had irked my spirit even as a youthful boy, without being able to neither detect nor identify it. Today it is apparent to me that I was inundated by the dread and wrath of speculating whether my old man is one of their own. Today I am highly acquainted with the family rituals they lead in their homes. Today I relive that interaction, their insufferable expressions, their vulgar laughter, and I am filled with ire.

[1] Small kids small trouble. A Yiddish proverb.