Stupid Hands

Stupid Hands

By

Leo de Natale

Illustrations by Vince Giovannucci

        The late wordsmith extradonaire William F. Buckley, Jr. coined a term I have long embraced: the jeweler’s eye.  Whether it is innate or learned, paying minute attention to physical characteristics is a gift few possess.  Novelists are perhaps the group who demonstrate the most attention to physical detail.  In  developing  a story’s characters, good writers can describe subtle or glaring  attributes: a person’s height, the color of the eyes and hair, physical anomalies – a bulbous nose, a fat belly, a woman’s curvaceous body, a person’s wardrobe- a dilettante or slob.  Polished vs. scuffed shoes.

        I have that jeweler’s eye and became aware of this trait early in life.  My parents did influence me.  Pay attention to anybody’s physical appearance, they’d say.  It tells you a lot about him – or her.  I became a scanner.  I would assess people’s physical appearance head to toe.  In school I became increasingly observant of how my schoolmates were dressed.  In the   1960’s, males were pretty easy to scan.  Guys were conformist – chinos or slacks (blue jeans were not allowed), sports shirts, generic sweaters, Bass Weejuns loafers and Jack Purcell sneakers.  Nike shoes hadn’t been invented.

Girls were different. Most wore skirts or dresses, with sneakers. In middle school years and beyond, makeup and jewelry were added. Of course, most males became pubescently aware of body changes. Which girls had the biggest boobs? Sexuality was increasingly prevalent as we headed towards high school. Today, the dress code norms have irreversibly changed. Everybody wears jeans. Among males blue jeans are loose around the waist and reveal whether a guy is wearing Calvin Kleins, Tommy

Hilfiger or other designer undies. Many girls wear tight clothing and blouses that accentuate cleavage. In most high schools, pheromone aroma can be overpowering.

Even faculty’s appearance has changed – no more dress shirts and ties, no more dresses.  Everything is casual.

Everybody dealt with acne, a by-product of raging hormones.  Some unfortunate bastards had acne vulgaris, a condition where they acquire a pizza face and are left with disfiguring facial scarring.  Their scarred faces and necks resemble moon craters.  Most were self-conscious of their disfigurement and  developed loss of self esteem.

My nascent observational skills increased during my college years. I had the neatest summer job working for the Metro West Mosquito Control. Most of my days were spent driving a three-wheel Harley-Davidson motorcycle equipped with a pressurized tank and spraying wand. It was the closest I ever came to being a biker.

My job was to insert the pneumatic wand into roadside catch basins and spray with eco-friendly insecticide.  Mosquitos breed in the basins.  My friends dubbed me “The Entomologist”.

There were certain times, however, when I was a common laborer,  digging drainage trenches in woodland areas to prevent water stagnation – the prime source of mosquito breeding.

I occasionally worked with Floyd, a full time employee, who was the only illiterate person I’ve ever met. The manager had to give him verbal instructions for each day’s activities. He never obtained a driver’s license. When we stopped for lunch breaks he’d ask me to recite menus. Once we were using a men’s room to wash hands. A sign by the mirror said “Please wipe the sink after washing hands. Thank you.” Floyd did not comply. I pointed to the sign and, because he couldn’t read he said, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to tell me. I’m not takin’ a shit here.” His most frequent expression was “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout it”.

Floyd was first-generation Irish and prematurely bald with a swath of black hair surrounding a bare skull. At age 25, he’d never had been to a dentist. His teeth were gray and rotting. He told me “I’m havin’ ‘em yanked. I’ll just get some fuckin’ false teeth.” He could be unpleasant and argumentative with college men who worked only summers.

At 6’ he was burly and an ex-boxer. His nose had been repeatedly broken and flat as a pancake. He was an unattractive man. The most notable anatomical feature were his hands. Floyd had what I termed Stupid Hands. They were oversized, the hands of a lummox.

The fingers were thick and hairy. The fingernails, especially his one-inch-in-diameter thumbs, were exceptionally wide.  The simian hands were callused from years of ditch digging.  They would never be confused with Chopin’s and they were a metaphor of his personality and demeanor.

Floyd was one of the first persons who sharpened my jeweler’s eye.

Hands weren’t a fixation but after observing Floyd’s ham hocks I began paying closer attention. You had the nail biters. Some persons would chew their nails to the quick. My assessment: they tended to be nervous individuals possessing some neurosis requiring them to utilize fingernails as a pacifier.

Some manifested poor personal hygiene. There’d be black dirt under the fingernails. These individuals were oblivious to physical appearance. Handshaking was not in the cards with these folks.

And there were “strangler’s thumbs. The thumbnails were truncated. Very unattractive. Legend has it persons possessing this abnormality used them to strangle victims. The thumbs were a tool of the trade.

Of course many women regarded manicured fingernails as a fashion statement and manicures and pedicures became de rigueur.  It was a statement of being well groomed.    Some women were cursed with hairy forearms and often wore long-sleeved blouses to hide unwanted hirsutism.

To my astonishment, I noticed men having manicures that were punctuated by an application of clear nail polish. I’ve never understood why some men considered this attractive. Many times those hands were festooned with a pinky ring. The Prince of Wales is the only man who can wear one and get away with it. For me, the word association was pinky ring equals Mafia.

Women can adorn their fingers with multiple rings.  Some add toe rings and create a hygiene/skeeve factor.

Hands can also be an age indicator.  Nancy Pelosi, for example, has pushed the Botox envelope but her 80-year-old hands unfortunately cannot undergo plastic surgery.  They resemble flesh-colored cabbage leaves.  I’m sure both hands possess the age-related brown spots that usually cover an entire body.  She wears long-sleeved dresses to hide the wrinkly skin of her arms.

Observing hands today has an additional factor. Many millennials under age 40 have tattoo festishes and inked fingers and hands have become commonplace. It’s today’s generation that embraces tattoos as “skin art”. Inking is no longer restricted to sailors and motorcycle gang members.

Gay men manifest certain hand characteristics.  Many are fastidious about their physical appearance.  “Immaculate” is a term often used to describe their hands and demonstrate effeminate hand gestures.  They, too, often have manicured fingers and wear gaudy rings. 

Hands can indicate a person’s health.  Among the elderly, you can see changes indicating arthritis.  Fingers become irreversibly calcified.  Such common tasks as opening a bottle become difficult.  The poor souls afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis undergo tragic changes where the fingers become bent, gnarled and resemble a clenched fist.  They lose the ability to flex their fingers.  Their hands become paws.

I spent my professional life as an optometrist. It’s an occupation where doctors are up close and personal with patients. My observational skills became twofold. The more important aspect was assessing the health of a person’s eyes. Internally, I inspected the retina while looking for pathologies – glaucoma, retinal detachments, uncontrolled hypertension and other internal anomalies. Using a microscope known as a slit lamp, I checked for potential external problems: carcinomas, elevated cholesterol, dry eyes or skin lesions.

Using the slit lamp also provided internal chuckles. Women who relied on heavy eye makeup had no idea how bizarre mascara and eyeliner appear under high magnification. Gobs of mascara hideously stuck to eyelashes. I always was reminded of the La Brea tar pits in California. Eye liner and shadow were also not a pretty sight. With a naked eye cosmetics used to improve a woman’s physical appearance have an opposite effect upon close inspection. Under magnification these eyes were other-worldly. All is vanity.

The slit lamp also revealed a condition called blepharitis, condition often associated with dry eye syndrome. Staphylococcus bacteria congregate at the eyelid margin. It irritates the skin and causes 360 degrees of redness. At the base of each eyelash, crusty deposits adhere and cause further irritation. It occurs in males and females and in severe cases unattractive.

Before the era of Covid 19, I could also evaluate a person’s face.  Once again I’d observe closely and discover an anomaly we all have: facial asymmetry.  Many humans have one eye or ear higher.  It many times involves the entire face – one cheekbone higher than the other. 

Actress Alison O’Donnell who stars in the Shetland television series has significant asymmetry.  The left side of her mouth, her right eye and ear  are misaligned.  She is nevertheless a beautiful colleen.

Men’s hair is a different animal. Baldness is very common and men deal with alopecia in different ways. Many decide upon hide-and-seek and use the traditional comb-over. They live in self delusion. If I can comb my hair it’s there, but, hey, if you look into a 360 degree mirror, there’s more flesh-colored hair, aka, skin than those wisps plastered up front. Then you have these guys with full, thick hair. Bald men, myself included, say, damn, I wish I had that and I think of Elvis Presley or retired pro football player Tedy Bruschi. It’s all in the genetics, fellas. Us bald guys? We have Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Pablo Picasso. Small consolation.

Covid 19 prompted my retirement. Things have changed. I can longer scan patients with my jeweler’s eye. The pandemic has made things more difficult. Health care professionals can no longer assess people’s faces when they’re wearing masks. Doctors and patients rely solely on eye contact. The human face is one of the critical parts of anatomy that reveal the essence of who this person is. The head-to-toe scans provide data but without a face it’s not as much fun and creates too many question marks.

What I’ve learned is most people are not observant of physical appearance or dress. You might want to try scanning. With concentration you can gain clues to the people, places and surroundings. You might bump into another Floyd. Fortunately in this pandemic era, you won’t have to shake his stupid hands or hear “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout it.”