Long fingers

For as long as I could remember, my Uncle Chet was always a strange fellow. I can still imagine him clearly, even after all these years. He was a gaunt, chestnut-haired saturnine man with features that spoke of late nights and childhood malnourishment. He was spacey, spoke very little unless spoken to, and gave off the impression he was always half-listening during conversations. He wasn’t homeless, though he looked it, and we never visited him, rather, he visited us.

He was never seen without gloves on, always the same ratty, moth-eaten mechanic’s gloves that he had worn for years. My parents loved him and all but didn’t seem to really want him around whenever he came to visit. I, of course, was brought up to “love” him at arm’s length as well, albeit with healthy skepticism. I couldn’t think of a single time my parents showed him any physical sign of affection other than beleaguered smiles and pats on the shoulder from as far back as they could reach. I was told to keep my distance. I thought at the time, maybe he had some mental illness or had a drug problem, I don’t know.

As far as I could tell at the time, there was no discernible reason for him to be held at arms length. He never did anything to hurt the family that I know of but we were the only ones who would have anything to do with him. I knew so little about him. I didn’t know if he was related to me paternally or maternally or just a surrogate, he was just referred to as Uncle Chet by everyone. Our other family members spoke of him briefly. Any questions related to him I asked were always put down.

As I mentioned before, I found his gloves to be the most striking thing about him apart from his skeletal countenance. I thought they had something to do with his occupation or maybe they were simply to hide whatever scars or burns he had on his hands. I couldn’t imagine tattoos to be under there, he looked too meek to have any sort of gang affiliation. The outlines of his hands had no gross deformity to them but the way he’d move them was a bit disconcerting. They moved not in the cross-fingered, close-knuckling indicative of arthritis but in an almost serpentine manner. The closest comparison I can think of is a double-jointed pianist. His movements were graceful yet somehow grotesque. It was other-worldly how, in absent-mindedness, his hands would skitter across the surface of an armrest or tabletop as if they had minds of their own, like spiders attached at the wrist, articulating and weaving webs invisible to all but themselves.

He would visit us every two months and had been doing so for years. His visits were…uncomfortable at times but the atmosphere was never terse or overtly negative. Uneasy, sure but more awkward than anything, as if everyone were walking on eggshells. My uncle, looking chronically haggard, would say nothing about it, either out of obliviousness or indifference and though it was more at our expense than his, a small warmth was visible against his pallid complexion as it donned a look of feeble contentedness.

The air hung low as if it were going to rain on that cold November day but it never did. It would be the last I would see of him.

My mother waited expectantly on the porch like so many visits before except she had a peculiar look on her face instead of the general air of forced pleasantries she usually had when Chet came about. These were the first of many signs that something was wrong, more so than usual.

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