Cutting Your Fingers to Please the Crowd

1.

I heard a story about Gary.

It was a funny story, the guy Tim on the dock tells me.

We had seen Gary blasting music out of his grey 97 Toyota Camry, some Black Eyed Peas while smoking a cigarette and driving towards us on the big loader dock that early Saturday A.M. Gary was in his fifties looking into his sixties. Round dark thick-rimmed glasses, faded black cap that said PVA in big blue letters, round face. He rolled down his window and said hi, made some jokes, drove away as the morning sun burned off the fog surrounding the dock. We watch him drive away.

Tim says, Gary is so funny. So funny. He was even funnier when he drank. Way funnier. Like, one time, he drove his car off the road into the rocks right near the ocean. Car is flipped upside down. People are near the rocks, fishing, all that. It’s a Summer day, you know? And Gary, man, Gary just gets out and he just goes, “It’s not my car,” and leaves. With a shrug. Can you believe that. So funny. It’s too bad he doesn’t drink anymore. He was a hoot.

I say, It’s probably better he doesn’t now, right?

I mean, well, yeah, says Tim, but, you know.

2.

I thought of a man, a jester, who needed a purpose. Nobody likes to watch him in the town square. They’re busy, you see. New stuff is happening in the town. So the man, this joker careerist, decides to go to the extreme. At first, he pokes himself and a little blood drips out. People turn to watch. What is the madman doing? And so he gathers a bigger crowd. Money comes in. It’s not the best work, but it’s work, and he can do it. His family are concerned. His friends distance themselves. After awhile, poking himself isn’t enough, and so he starts cutting off pieces of himself. Toes, etc. Soon, he cuts off pieces of his fingers in an effort to amuse the crowd, then juggles with those fingers. Amazing. At the end of his jaunt, after the crowd thins out, he walks home only to realize he can’t open his door without his fingers. His family doesn’t want him in there. He cries out to no response.Please, he says.

You are a madman, they yell back, we will let you in when you can open the door.

Bah, he says, if you only understood.

He tries another door. Another. Another. He yells out, calls for help. Nobody listens. They think it’s part of the bit. He runs back into the square. He sits for a long time looking at his hands.

There, on the ground, are his fingers. He realizes the only way he is going to fix this is to sew the fingers back on and pray for a miracle. The jester has fuzzy knowledge of sewing. He knows it leads to reaping if you mix in dirt. His grandmother’s sewed. He was as a child and saw her, maybe he can try to remember.

He threads the needle, puts back the pinky, the ring finger, the middle, the pointer, and the thumb. How he does this is anyone’s guess. I watched him myself, and even I have a hard time trying to explain what I saw. But he does. He finally has both hands back in their basic form. He can’t move his fingers at all, though. He will need to work on them.

And he does. Because he has put his fingers back on, decided to stop playing tricks with them, he can at least open one door to the doctor.

The doctor says, come here everyday. We will work on your fingers. It will be hard. Arrive before the rooster crows at dawn.

The jester’s notice’s the doctor’s fingers have ringed scars near the base.

Everyday, the jester, frozen and sick from sleeping in the town square, arrives at the doctor and works. He lifts things. He reads literature. His fingers work a little bit, enough to open another door, one to the grocer, who allows him to work in spite of his condition. On and on it goes. Day after day.

People ask when he will start juggling his fingers again.

Oh, I don’t think I will, he says.

One man seems disappointed.

“You seems more serious,” he says.

The jester doesn’t see many people now. He keeps his head down. Another jester down the block just died. He had taken the spot where our jester had abandoned to fix his digits. This jester juggled his fingers and toes. Accidentally tripped over a bench into a well. Gruesome. A vacant spot sits there again. The jester wonders if maybe he shouldn’t return to the business at all. So he doesn’t.

Every so often somebody, be it an old lady or castle guard, asks the jester why he doesn’t mutilate himself anymore. The jester doesn’t respond. There’s no point in defending himself. He just smiles and walks away, waving with his perfect hand.

3.

Treat yourself the way you’d want someone to treat you.