Justin - A Tale of Two Gloves

          I must admit that twenty years later some of the details of the following events are a bit cloudy in my remembrance. Cloudy enough in fact, that I am not completely confident in saying it was twenty years ago; it was at least twenty years ago, but maybe more. Perhaps this would prevent some from telling the story, or cause them to shorten the telling in order to avoid any point that may be fuzzy in their memory. It may prevent some, but not me. For it is a great family tradition to embellish details, indeed, to make them up in order to make the story better. I am nothing if not a traditionalist.

          It was sometime in the mid-nineties. My brother had come home from college for the weekend and was staying in his basement bedroom. Now I say bedroom, but this was really my dad’s library with the addition of some bedroom furniture. I say library, but in fact this room is the last room of an unfinished, Michigan basement with one wall lined with homemade bookshelves covered with a vast collection of paperbacks. The exterior basement walls were roughly poured cement. It was cold and there were exposed pipes and heating ducts running across the ceiling. I say were, but I should say are. The pipes and heating ducts are still exposed; the walls are still roughly poured cement.

          I awoke after an entirely too short sleep and went to the bathroom to shower and take care of other necessities. I closed the shower curtain and turned the water on to hot. This particular shower in my parent’s house, being some distance from the water heater, takes time to warm up. As such, common practice was to turn on the shower then pee, brush teeth, etc. before venturing in. I was going about my business when it occurred to me that something was off. Something sounded wrong. I could hear the sound of the pipes running, but not that of splashing. Something was wrong.

          With trepidation, I pulled back the curtain slowly, glancing up toward the shower head not sure how this phenomena was happening. There, bound tightly to the stem, fully encompassing the shower head, was a rapidly swelling latex glove. Quickly I shut off the flow and stared at the amorphous body of the glove quivering with the last reverberations of the stopped flow. The fingers swollen like Bessy’s udders, overdue for milking. I knew how it had gotten there; the question was how it was going to be removed.

          I imagined that, if done right, I could cut the tips off of one of the fingers and keep the water aimed safely into the shower minimizing cleanup. Consciously or subconsciously, I cut the middle finger knowing this could not end here. After draining the water, I cut away most of the glove, leaving only the stubbornly bound cuff around the stem. The cuff that taunted me while I stood in the now unobstructed flow of water, pondering.

          It was a good prank: taking advantage of one in a semi-conscious state; minimal risk of damage to property or person; shocking; inconvenient. Yes, it was a good prank, but my brother could not be told that. In fact, I could not bring it up at all, it is part of the rules of the game. If he brought it up, any inconvenience, any shock must be minimized: “Oh, that. I cut it off and took a shower.” The most important rule though is revenge; the glove could not go unanswered. That was what I mulled over while standing in the shower. That is what consumed me looking at the cuff of the glove hanging from the stem of the shower. Revenge.

          I had until his next visit home to plot, prepare, and execute. Every day the cuff looked down from where it hung reminding me of my duty for response; my need for retribution. Every day I thought about the sight of the swollen glove hanging from the showerhead. I could not escape it. It had to be exorcised by ritual. Revenge.

          He had caught me at a time of weakness; just up, not yet awake. So I would have to catch him at a time of weakness. He had ambushed me in that weakness by requiring me to forcefully summon up my problem solving to avoid a mess. I would do likewise. It needed to be made clear, two weeks down the line, when he came home again, that this is a response, not the first strike of a fresh war. I needed a glove.

          I knew a bit about the properties of latex gloves from my time working at Arby’s. One cannot expect a group of adolescents allowed access to such a temptation will not experiment. They might discover that the contents of an un-stretched glove can fit entirely into one of the digits and if said glove was filled with Arby’s Sauce and tossed at the kitchen sink, it is possible that those adolescents may spend some time mopping sauce off the ceiling tiles in said kitchen. It is possible. But while hurling a sauce bomb at my brother might be shocking, it is not a proper prank. The escalation alone would lead to a full blown war. They might also discover that a good latex glove can stretch to hold a couple gallons of water. Now that could be something.

          When I knew he was coming home, I took a glove, and placed a five gallon bucket in the laundry sink in the basement. I filled it until it came up to the half way mark in the bucket. Two and a half gallons or more. Then I took the bucket back to his room and gently rolled the glove out onto his bed and covered it with his blanket. I imagined him coming home late after visiting friends, turning off the light and crawling into bed next to that thing. “WHAT IS THAT?” I imagined, but I don’t know. He never mentioned it; I never asked. But a day or two after he went back to school, my mom asked me why there was a water filled latex glove in the laundry room sink and I laughed.