Three Fingers

Here's a piece I wrote during the summer of last year:

I hopped in a pickup truck today with a man I had never met before. He didn’t speak a lick of english, and his right hand was missing two fingers. The truck itself was as dirty inside as it was on the outside, and the passenger door was jammed shut, so I had to climb in through the window – NASCAR style.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. You are probably wondering who this strange three-fingered man is and why I would want to hop in his grungy pickup. Fair enough. I’ll start from the beginning.

I eventually found my way to 1000 Denton Lane to retrieve a few things Carinne had left in her totaled Toyota Corolla, which was being stored at “Auto Auctions”, which is really just a sophisticated name for a huge field full of wrecked cars surrounded by fences and barbed wire.

I strode in to the office and instantly knew I was not their typical customer. The man ahead of me looked as though he hadn’t bathed in well over a week; he appears to be the reason deodorant was invented. The people who worked there seemed accustomed to men like this. They stared at me, probably wondering if I’m lost. But I wasn’t. I knew I was supposed to be here, even if they didn’t. I waited patiently, trying to breathe in only through my mouth.

I finally got to talk to Juanita, [not her real name, but rather one I have assigned to her based on her ethnicity and massive waistline], and explained the purpose of my visit. I triggered some alarm bells in her high-school educated brain, and she proceeded with caution. After convincing her I wasn’t a criminal, she agreed to let me get a few “personal items” from the car. Given the vast size of the lot, and the 500+ cars in the field, I would need a guide and a ride there [rhyming intentional].
This is where Three Fingers comes in. He was my guide. It was an awkward car ride [about 5 minutes], I’ll admit. I knew we probably weren’t going to have a great connection after he glared at me for trying to wrench his jammed door open – he had to hand-signal to me that I needed to pull a Dukes of Hazard maneuver and jump in through the window. Come to think of it, it would have been easier if I had just gotten in from the driver’s side and scooted over to my seat, but apparently Three Fingers is either too lazy to wait for me or too selfish to think of others. So we passed along through this graveyard of cars in silence. Maybe he was a mute. I hadn’t thought of it until just now, I just assumed he didn’t speak English. Splitting hairs I guess.

With no conversation to entertain me, I speculated about my driver. I wondered if he was born or immigrated here. I hate to admit it, but I wondered if he is here legally. I wondered if this is the America he dreamed about moving to and/or living in. I wondered if he keeps his missing fingers in the freezer, and if so, if he has ever used them to play practical jokes on people like Juanita.
But before I can feel any emotional attachment to my new companion, Three Fingers drops me back off at the office. Getting out through the window is more difficult than getting in [again, why didn’t Three Fingers just let me get out the driver’s door? That selfish bastard], and after nearly tearing my hamstring, we part ways without so much as a nod.

That’s it. No big twist. No epic tale of me avoiding rape at the hands of Three Fingers, or me arriving at some deep realization about the duality of man; just a bizarre, brief encounter with a man who didn’t say a word to me and never will.

I hope my swim workout tonight is this interesting – unless it involves a practical joke involving missing fingers.