He sits on a folded-over cardboard box, slightly off-balance
and without any visible sign of support other than the granite wall of the bank
behind him and the few coins in the paper cup he occasionally shakes at passersby.
Does he realize it’s 4 degrees above zero, or minus 25
degrees if you factor in the wind that blows through the city and his bones
with little concern for statistics? Does he notice the thick cumulous lifeforms
that escape from his mouth in shapes that shift and evanesce like the
opportunities that once populated his life?
Can he even distinguish the usual numbing effect of the
cheap alcohol from the cruel and indifferent caress of this biting alien
chill?
Too many questions, he would tell you, if he cared to say
anything. But his tongue sits in silence behind crusted chapped lips and
chattering teeth while half-shut eyes follow pedestrians fleeing from the
bitter cold and his outstretched cup.
His gaze falls upon the hand holding the cup as if it were
some foreign element in his personal inventory. Surprised at first to find it
uncovered and exposed, especially in weather this frigid, he now recalls that
someone at the shelter had stolen his gloves and left in their place the only
option he still has in much abundance.
Acquiescence.
Examining the hand, and the exposed fingers encircling the
Seven-Eleven coffee cup, he smiles in amused perplexity, murmuring to himself,
"White gloves."
Lifting his hand for closer inspection, he adds,
"Pretty white gloves."
An image of his daughter . . . Elissa, he thinks her name
was . Yes, Elissa!, he recalls. An image of Elissa rises up in his mind, from a
photograph taken when she was ten and beautifully adorned in a new Easter outfit:
black shoes, frilly lavender dress and hat and, yes, pretty white gloves. The
photo once sat on a table in his living room, but he couldn't tell you what
happened to it, nor to the table or the living room, for that matter. They were
just gone. Swept away in the same tide that pulled out all the moorings from
his life, and everything else that had been tethered to them.
The last time he'd seen Elissa she was crying, though he no
longer remembers why. Must have been something he'd done or said; that much he
knows.
"Pretty white gloves," he repeats, staring at his
hand.
He recalls the white gloves from his Marine dress uniform.
At most he wore them five times: at his graduation from officer's training school,
at an armed services ball in Trenton, New Jersey, and for three military
funerals. There was never a need for dress gloves in Viet Nam. They would have
never stayed white anyway; not with all the blood that stained his hands.
Out of the corner of his eye he can see a policeman walking
towards him and instinctively hides his cup, some vestige of half-remembered
pride causing him to avert his gaze from the man's eyes at the same time.
"We need to get you inside, buddy," the officer
says. "You'll die of cold, you stay out here."
Moments later, a second police officer, this one a woman,
steps up to join them.
"That's the Major," she tells her colleague. To
the seated figure she offers a smile.
"You coming with us, Major?"
"Go away," he answers, looking up as he leans
further against the cold granite wall. "Don't need you. Don't need no
one."
"Can't leave you out here," the first officer
says. "We've got orders to bring you and everyone else in."
"Leave me alone!" the seated man shouts, gesturing
with his hands as if he could push them both away.
"Oh shit," the female officer says under her
billowing breath. To her partner she whispers, "His hands. Look at his
hands."
Quickly recognizing the waxy whiteness for what it is, the
officer shrugs, "Guess we're a little late."
To the man on the sidewalk, he offers, "That's frost
bite, buddy."
"No," the seated man protests. He holds up both
hands, numb and strange as they now feel and offers a knowing smile of
explanation.
Just like the marine officer he once was, just like the
sweet innocent daughter he once knew, just like the young man grown suddenly
old on a frozen sidewalk, his hands are beautiful and special in a way these
strangers will never understand.
"White gloves," he insists proudly.
"Pretty white gloves."
"Pretty White Gloves" is a story I wrote years ago, and published in my book "How To Train A Rock". I thought of it again last week when it was five degrees outside; no weather in which to be homeless. The Major was based on a man I once met, a military man, who was just beginning the slide into alcoholism and homelessness. Heaven only knows where he is today.
Posts
As part of my professional evolution, I've left my full-time position at W.B. Mason to head out into untraveled regions as an independent advertising consultant. Pursuant to that, I've created a new website (at my old address of PaulStevenStone.com) in which I've embedded my blog and renamed it "A Stone's Throw." Many of you may recall that that was the name of my old newspaper column for over 25 years.
