I came into the shower with you without
asking, pushing the plastic curtain aside and stepping into the spray of hot
water. You made space for me as I muttered “Thanks.” I watched you bend at the
waist and bring your right foot up hands so you could hold it to wash it. You
grabbed your ankle and scrubbed roughly at the sole of your foot, then the top,
then between the toes. Then you did the other one. I pretended to be getting my
hair wet but really I was watching you, horrified, wondering how dirty my feet were.
They always were: stale-smelling and tough, peeling around the edges and on the
undersides and always somehow with bits of food or dirt stuck to them. They’ve
always been that way, but I’d never considered it was because I didn’t wash
them. I had assumed all feet were just the way they were, dirty or clean. Mine
were dirty, and so when washing my focus had been on the parts of me that were
seen and smelled more often. I wasn’t sure if washing my feet was a thing I could
ever do, but maybe I could convince you to do it for me. You had been cleaning
yourself from top to bottom, so with your feet scrubbed you were finished. “Do
you always wash your feet?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Oh, I never wash mine.” I looked
you in the eye, trying to gauge your disgust.
Two years ago, you told me how you hate
it when your hair gets greasy. We were exchanging quirks. I told you I eat
things off the ground sometimes—not the floor, the ground. You seemed unfazed,
and I wondered if you’d heard me. Then you told me you pee outside a lot, like of
course you don’t choose to go outside if you’re indoors and there’s a bathroom,
but if you’re already outside and not in a crowded area then you’ll probably
pee there. That was a little better than the greasy hair; that was a little
more on par with the weirdness I’d been hoping for.
“Did you know that there are bugs
living in your eyebrows?” I asked. You made a face like you might throw up and
said “No, that’s not true. Maybe in your eyebrows,
but not mine,” and that was the end of the conversation. I was referring to Demodex folliculorum—face mites—which I first
learned about from reading a book of gross facts my brother had when we were
kids. The book said that if your parents wouldn’t let you get a pet, then maybe
having bugs in your eyebrows was some kind of consolation. I thought this was
funny, but the book was right: they were a small, bizarre comfort, the bug
buddies on my face. We probably shared them; our populations co-mingled. I
imagined them hurtling from my eyebrows onto yours when we kissed. I imagined
them jumping with glee, thrilled to be taking a vacation on a much more clean
and pleasant face.
