Fingerless Gloves (5 page)

When I closed my cell phone, my eyes adjusted their focus and I was able to read “call ended” and then, once the home screen lit up: “9:25pm.” The burrito and taco wrappers were strewn on the passenger seat and my mouth was still on fire. I had no idea how I was supposed to talk to Beth when I couldn’t, in reality, feel my lips. I was parked in the center of a parking lot designed to hold everyone who makes a high school run according to plan including faculty, students, janitors, secretaries, and the whole rest of it. As I sat behind the wheel, slouched as low as the steering wheel would allow, with the defroster on for no apparent reason, I watched as deer chewed things off the ground, ignoring the sound of my idling truck. The deer wandered around, flipped their tails in circles, stood on impossibly thin legs and clunky hooves, and got nourishment from some minute fragments of food on the ground.

Beth Fallow cheated on me. How was I supposed to confront her with burrito breath? How was I supposed to deal with this? We had spoken before, even had heart-to-heart talks while I was high. I wondered why the hell no one called me to tell me about James. I should have heard something…some news about him from him parents, my parents, one of his friends. For the first time I noticed a hole in my hoodie pocket, right where my thumb sat. I must have worn right through the fabric over the 4-year lifespan of the selfless piece of clothing. I never realized how long it had been since I bought a new sweatshirt, or anything new to wear at all. I washed this hoodie, but some stains never came out. There was the grease stain on the lower third of the sleeve from when James’ car broke down on the way to some house party and we thought we had enough knowledge of car mechanics to fix it. There was the popcorn oil stain from a botched movie date with a girl who really, really loved greasy popcorn…in particular scooping handfuls of it out of the bag while only managing to land half-handfuls in her mouth.

I saw faint headlights coming up the high school entrance. At first, they just cast a wide glow on the ground, then they began to get more focused. Even the widely-cast lights made my eyes dart around in discomfort. I leaned back against the seat and felt the warmth from the heater on my sneakered feet. I valued those few seconds that I was alone. Solitude, despite my best efforts to prove otherwise to myself, was the only place I was absolutely sure I could function on a normal plane. The hungry-for-grass deer, with a few hoof clicks, leapt into the woods. I watched them, all four legs off the ground, move from the edge of the curb through the trees. I watched until the last one, slower than the rest, was out of view. In their wake, branches swayed and partially broke. After a moment, the headlights shot strong, focused beams into the lot and, before too long, the front of Beth Fallow’s 2001 Honda Accord rolled right through the spray-painted stop sign at the high school’s entrance.

The headlights circled and the Accord ended up parked right next to me. The window rolled down and there was Beth, her hair blown out for some reason. Maybe she had just come from dinner or church or a date. It was a bit early to be ending a date, so I guessed family dinner. It had to be a family dinner. I couldn’t see much of what she was wearing, but even in the pale parking lot light, those green eyes color corrected the whole scene. I never felt quite right around Beth, even that night, when the two of us were separated by car doors and parking lines and substances there on the asphalt. I had this inherent fear that she was too close…she was always too close. I mean, I had learned to get used to it…as you have to let the people you care about in to see you for exactly what you are. Now that we weren’t together, the discomfort had returned to a noticeable level. I squirmed and mashed the burrito wrappers back into the bag. As these thoughts ran through my melted brain, I came around barely in time to hear, “I know you’re stoned and I can smell you from here. You stink like beef, cheese, and weed.”

I nodded, “Nice to see you too Beth. In case you didn’t know, I’m high. I’m high, hungry…and tried to see James at the hospital, but I just read
Sports Illustrated
instead…you know, in the waiting room…and now you’re here…which is okay I guess.”

Beth was trying to help, the best way she knew how I guess. Despite how both of us moved on, she took it upon herself to take care of me from a distance. Since we’d broken up, she would bring me food when I was sick, bailed me out when my car broke down, even come to the movies with me so I didn’t have to go alone. It bordered on weird. On more than one instance, friends of mine asked if Beth and I were still together. I would scoff and spit and deny ever knowing her. We were over…never going to date again. I told interested parties that fact over and over again, no matter how much they refused to believe me. The best front I could muster to explain Beth’s weird caring-but-not-really-caring attitude was the assumption that she knew she was guilty for what she did to me. She had to have been motivated by guilt, even after all this time. In my naivety, I thought that everyone who ever cheated on their boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife had to have been eaten alive by guilt. That thought, even as it came together slowly in my brain at that moment, was obscene. Beth Fallow would always be in the picture, no matter how much the landscape of my life would change. My whole self could erode and she’d be the canyon that people passing through on a tour would stop to admire.

“On the night your best friend is laid up in some hospital bed, you shouldn’t be doing drugs on your own. At least come with me and act social. I’m going to Vin Thomas’ new apartment…he’s having a party. Since you’re already good and lit, all you have to do is sit there and pretend to talk to people. Can you handle that? I’ll drive us.”

Vin Thomas decided, upon our graduating high school, that he wanted to be an artist…a filmmaker to be specific. His father sent him to a big city school where Vin spent his days churning out Super-8 duds and posting black and white photographs on the internet. He grew his hair, started shopping at thrift stores and became another mediocre artist in a system feeding on mediocre artists. Upon graduation, Vin moved back home with his parents who, thinking they’d gotten rid of their only son by sending him to college, began splitting more time between their house in our town and their house in Florida. Gradually, the house in Florida got more and more use. Vin was left home for epic stretches of time…weeks, months. None of us were ever sure what Vin’s dad did, but it was enough that we never really saw him go to or come home from work. He drove a new car, and had a “comfortable-sized” home.

A home now used to throw art parties. This meant that usually, some noise rock band was being played at maximum volume or old movies (mostly experimental films) were being screened. There was always alcohol to drink and pot to smoke, but never more than 15 uninterested people present. These were backwards house parties populated by those banished to commute to and from the city for jobs in graphic design or journalism or advertising. These were the same wanderers who, at the end of the week, became relegated to the suburbs. If I were to raise my thumb and pointer finger on one hand, that’s how many of Vin’s art parties I had been to. To say that it wasn’t quite my scene was saying too much. Vin was always cordial when he saw me, but never quite broke away from the court he was holding near the couch to ever actually have a conversation with me. I was glad to have Beth in tow because, despite her beauty, she was treated with the exact same chilly indifference by the self-involved crowd of beards and skirts.

Beth’s car smelled like one of those air fresheners you get at a gas station; an air freshener shaped like a dolphin or a seashell that hangs by an elastic band from the rear-view mirror. The smell is certainly nothing natural, more of a combination of laundry and White Diamonds. The funny thing was, as I scanned the dash for the air freshener, I couldn’t actually find one. It had become the naturally unnatural smell of Beth’s car. The whole ride was like an MTV Party-To-Go CD, with the songs all meant to be different; they blended into one gigantic dance remix. The radio was turned up to maximum on the national top-40 station. The lane lines all came together into one solid strip on the road…like a music teacher’s chalkboard. Beth was talking to me, but I was not anything close to a suitable conversation partner. I’m pretty sure I just nodded and said things like, “Wow, that kind of sucks” and “I’m calling bullshit. You’re unbelievable.” With those insightful gems, I was able to survive the short car ride that felt like a cross-country, post-college excursion.

Vin’s house wasn’t gigantic, but it was well kept. His mother, in her free time, studied interior design so that, while the square-footage wasn’t anything obscene, every inch of the home was decorated to the maximum. Wood cabinets matched the frames around paintings. The colors in the paintings accented the carpet. The brick driveway that wrapped around the front porch was filled up with a range of vehicles, from BMW’s to Kias. The lawn was freshly manicured and trimmed. The front light pushed out a rich orange into an exaggerated doorway. Beth parked around the corner. I, feeling the immediate need for something other than scented, canned perfumed air, threw the door open. The car door got lodged in the dirt past the curb and when I tried to close it, I took out a huge divot of earth. The door made this grinding sound and Beth, wondering what she was doing taking an already-ripped me to this house party, stared in amazement at the clump of dirt now hanging on the bottom of the closed door. She said, “The hell was that move? I’m going to be trailing sod all the way home…great.”

As we walked towards the house, she punched the lock button on her keychain remote and I heard the horn beep and the power locks slam down. We started up towards Vin’s front door. While there were cars, there was no music…no cigarettes being roasted on the front steps, just some stragglers standing off on the side of the lawn, pissing into the grass. The inverted house party was shaping up to be ridiculously subdued. The pot in me activated this superpower where I could actually feel the eyes of the kids on the side of the house burning a hole in my back as I waited for the front door to open. Beth, when I looked over, seemed unfazed by all the sights and sounds. The vibes were ugly - the street was too dark, there were no lights on, and when we knocked on the door a second time, the audible low mumble grinding on the other side ceased. Two hands braced a face against the peephole and we heard the gears in the doorknob begin to work. Vin pulled the door open and the smell of cigarettes and booze hit me even in my numbed-up state. Sometimes, in the interest of maintaining an acceptable high, one should reconsider knocking on certain doors.

Vin stood about 6’2’’, with long greased-straight brown hair and a neck beard that blended into some type of soul patch-chest hair combo. His facial hair, especially in my current state, was particularly upsetting. He was wearing torn-at-the-knees skinny jeans, brown Dr. Martens, a plain V-neck and some Goodwill-inspired cardigan. He flashed a hint of a cigarette-yellow smile before letting us into the house.

“Beth, still parading Duchamp around town I see?” Vin asked. In the background, on the gigantic LCD in front of the couch, I recognized the film to be
Salo
, or the
120 Days of Sodom
. The freaks crowded around looking for some hidden meaning in the shit-smeared grins and sexual perversion that lit up the screen. I couldn’t look at the film for more than 20 seconds without feeling like my cortex was going to straighten out and twist around my brain stem. I barely made it through that movie sober. While I was side-eyeing a scene, I heard Beth tell Vin to suck it, and their conversation was over. As my attention diverted from the movie, I wondered if Vin had a thing for Beth…I wondered if he had always had these deeply hidden feelings for her, just waiting for the day where I wasn’t in the picture. Paranoia took its grip and I felt my hands get clammy and my neck start to grow red. There were Bud Light cans in a blue plastic tub filled with ice and placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. The water from the melting ice had begun to leak onto the hardwood floor. I grabbed a beer and handed one to Beth. After her first sip of watery, bitter liquid, she finally turned to the television and caught a glimpse of the sexual degradation of
Salo
’s Italian youths. Having not seen the film before, I could tell she was completely repulsed.

“What are we watching? I think that girl just peed on that guy. Is this some fucked up porno or something? Why is he feeding her that brown stuff?” With that bit of critical analysis, I followed Beth into the other room, far away from the backlit television.

To be honest, I had seen
Salo
twice, and while I was utterly repulsed the first time, upon second viewing, it has some artistic merit. You can call me sick or twisted but this fact cannot be denied. The sheer gross-out quality of the imagery is enough to turn off about 98 percent of the population. I guess there are certain ways to view the movie, beyond the scalpings and depravity, that make you appreciate the far-reaching boundaries that art can stretch. We are never forced to watch anything other than what plays out in front of us, in real life.

When you can watch 3D cartoons flying at your face or superheroes bloodlessly blowing away bad guys, why spend your time watching a film, in another language, that features some guy realistically getting his eye cut out? I guess the answer lies in sheer curiosity. It’s the kind of movie that spreads slowly through certain circles, riding a certain wave of word-of-mouth. I thought about this through sips of palm-warmed beer and handfuls of dusty Blazing Buffalo Nacho Doritos. The taste was what I imagined week-old jalapeños covered in instant-cheese might be like. My green-orange powder covered hands fumbled in my pocket for my phone. The powder smeared all over the stitching around my pants pockets. Through the grease haze over the front of the screen, I saw it was 10:35pm. Yammering in Italian, at various speeds and with wavering intensity, pumped through the surround sound speakers that could be heard an entire room away from their source.

Beth told me, “I’m sorry I took you here. I heard about James before I left my house and I figured you couldn’t have been anything close to okay. I’d say something stupid like ‘I still care about you’ but face it Anton, we’re past that. I’m not some girl you saw in a movie once.”

I guess being poetic, once you pass 18 years old, becomes overrated. The best statements, unfortunately, are the most direct. I remember the roundabout way I used to talk to people in middle school. It wasn’t so much skittish as it was curious. I wanted to know everything about everything, and would stumble to my point or my original idea. If you ask me, we’ve done away with the romance of every day conversation in this massive, overhaul effort to get to the point. After Beth said that, I heard screaming and crying blaring out of the television speakers in the next room. My high was wearing off and the marching band began going through their routine in my head. We were in some type of seldom-used dining room, with an ornate table holding a giant, aromatic floral centerpiece. Giant cushioned chairs with embroidered ivy vines surrounded the table. Beth had her beer resting directly on the table’s rich finish, no coaster. I wondered who watered those flowers when Vin’s parents were gone?

I sat down in one of the chairs to tell Beth, “Don’t worry about bringing me here. I like
Salo
, James likes
Salo
…he was the one who first showed it to me. He asked if I wanted to see the most fucked up movie of all time. Will you check out this house? How did I never notice just how crooked this all is. Look where we are. The evidence of taxidermy is everywhere.”

That last statement was unfortunately true. All over Vin’s house, mounted on walls and standing on floors, were stuffed animals. Not carnival stuffed animals, but ones that used to be very, very real. On the wall were stuffed moose heads but, what really tied the room together, was the upstanding mountain lion frozen in full attack pounce in the corner near the far end of the table. If you listened closely, I bet you could have heard these things in their last moments of life. I didn’t even know Vin’s dad was a hunter…or, for that matter, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he bought all these on trips or vacations. Money makes people bored. There was the white fur rug in the living room, and the big, ornate rifle with etched tree roots on the barrel, framed above the doorway. This was all offset by dark wood walls and flooring. The house looked like it belonged to the bad guy from
Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls
. Beth, after closely examining some of the specimens, perhaps seeing them for the first time, was understandably freaked out. I took to wondering how neither of us was quite prepared for this eccentricity in the Thomas’ home. There was a certain horror evident on both our faces.

Beth finished her beer and I followed her out of the pet cemetery and into the kitchen, where the bottle she tossed away clinked and bounced around at the bottom of a plastic recycling can. I pulled the one-hitter and the baggie of pot from my hoodie pocket. The sour scent from the open bag pervaded the kitchen as a couple in the doorway casually looked over to see if the smell was, in fact, drugs. There were no dead skunks stuffed up on these walls. Previous knowledge of Vin, and this crowd’s taste in cinema, had led me to remove the contraband and paraphernalia from my car, stow it away in my pocket, and bring it into the hipster freak-fest.

“Will you look at this backsplash,” Beth said while examining the ornate tile pattern behind the kitchen faucet. She ran her hands over it while I concentrated on how my high was shifting into big-head mode. I was starting to feel the weights hanging off my ears dragging my whole upper body down to the floor. With the baggie opened and costing much-needed freshness, I packed the incognito device and made a move towards the door attached to the kitchen. I had the glass cigarette braced between my fingers. It was still warm from my pocket. First I opened the massive wooden inner door, then the outer screen door. A wreath reading, “Home is Where I Stay. Love Is What I Give Away” bounced against the door violently.

I heard Beth muffling words through the doors but I was too focused on lighting the already-blackened end of my piece. I inhaled nothing close to smooth and, as I held the burning smoke back in my lungs, I looked through the kitchen window at this weird hanging lamp. It was one of those expensive, optical illusion lamps that appear to float above the countertop when, in reality, they are held in place by thin wire. Between the modern art and the animal mausoleum, I could see why Vin spent his time working on one endless screenplay for one endless movie with an endless supply of cigarettes. I saw Beth’s head criss-cross back and forth past the window, each time obscuring my view of the lamp. She was pacing back and forth looking down at what could have only been her cell phone. Just as the screen door handle pressed in and the springs began to tighten as the door swung open, I let the smoke out into the air. Pot mixed up with the oxygen and the nitrogen, then swirled up into the night sky.