The door opened quickly after the knock and a hand with hairy knuckles held it partially closed as though Kate Turpin might be a horde of incontinent and muddy youth soccer players.
“Kelp you,” the deep voice behind the door belonging to the head attached to the body attached to the arm with the hirsute digits said.
The voice more than likely meant “Can I help you?” but most Americans are so lazy now that they’ll contract anything.
It was too late. Kate heard “kelp” and imagined herself in a tropical paradise somewhere, commingling with seaweed rather than being on a freezing porch, campaigning for a political candidate that had less of a chance of winning against the incumbent, “Teflon Travis” Mertline than a unicyclist has of winning a mountain bike race.
“Hi, good afternoon,” Kate said after an awkward silence while she was fantasizing about herself in the warm seas of an island named after a saint for whom their sainthood could only have been for the creation of such an island.
“I’m Kate, representing Avery Willitz for State Senate.”
“Is he gonna get my insulin price cut in half?”
“She,” Kate said, stepping on the pronoun but not enough for her own liking, “is in favor of reduced prescription costs for seniors and-”
The door flew open.
The man in the doorway was shirtless, and the hairy knuckles were only the opening credits to a full feature length film on men who have defied evolution and kept hair jutting from every conceivable pore.
Kate held her tongue against her top row of teeth, hoping that would keep her face from dissolving into a horrified reaction.
It worked, mostly, except saliva shot involuntarily from under her tongue and landed on the man’s arm hair, glistening like some sort of clear pollen in a documentary on moths attempting to pollinate cryptids.
Kate stared at her own saliva in horror.
As she cleared her throat to apologize, praying to one of the saints named after one of the islands she was dreaming about that the man wasn’t shedding and she wouldn’t inhale a web of follicles, the man said “Do I look like an old person to you? I won’t be 52 until March 33rd.”
Kate said “No, you look–”
The man’s eyes lowered.
The Broca’s Area of Kate’s brain was primed and ready to say “just fine,” when she knew that probably wasn’t going to suffice.
Of course, that slight pump of the lingual brakes was enough for the Sasquatchian resident to wonder if she was going to make some less than humorous remark about his appearance.
Then Kate’s brain processed “March 33rd,” and that burning question got in the way of her enunciating anything.
The man crossed his arms defiantly, like he wanted to hear Kate say the dumbest thing possible.
The words that left Kate’s mouth were “...like my Uncle Mike.”
The man turned his head as though he hadn’t heard her.
Kate took her stack of Avery Willitz platform pamphlets and shifted them in her arms, ready to hand the man one and jump from the porch.
He said: “Your Uncle has hypertrichosis? Mike? Is Mike Peterson your Uncle?”
Kate’s head bobbed up and down yes, emphatically, nearly orgasmically yes.
“Mike is the rock of our support group, young lady! A shining light in our world. A god amongst pathologically hirsute men! Who did you say you represent?”
“Avery Willitz,” Kate said, stammering the first syllable so many times no sane author transcribing her words would bother trying to re-create the repetitions.
The man reached for Kate’s pamphlets.
He took the entire stack.
“Well, young lady, it’s nice to finally meet you. Mike thinks the world of you. I’ll spread the good word about Mister Willitz for you.”
Kate exhaled, but didn’t take it any farther, didn’t attempt to form words.
“You have a nice day now,” the man said. He began to close the door as Kate stepped backwards off the porch.
He stopped. “You know your Uncle Mike and I share a birthday.”
Kate smiled and waved as though she had been treated to lunch and a movie.
She didn’t have an Uncle Mike, she didn’t know why she said it, she was relieved of her campaign literature, she had to pee, and she wasn’t exactly sure where she parked her car.
***
Well now, that was a hairy little adventure. I'll be smiling till March 33rd.
Wow!
That ending!
Brilliant (and hirsute)!