The Pearl 2020

A Walk with Jim
Gable Meade
I pull on my gloves. Sitting in the passenger seat of the Iowa Braille
School company car, the heat from the vents in front of me goes from inviting
to uncomfortable. My gloved hands are just a little too warm, but it won't
be like that for long. It's under twenty degrees, with barely any wind, but that
doesn’t really matter. A winter’s day in Iowa is frigid as can be.
I can't see my gloves, but I know what they look like. They are gold
microfiber gloves. They are the nice kind, the ones you can use your phone
with. I suppose they would be worth something like $30, maybe, but the Kohawk
logo on the backs of the hands would've boosted the price up to maybe
$45-50 in the Coe College Bookstore. Fortunately, I got them at a Crimson &
Gold Visit Day, absolutely free.
I don’t like wearing gloves. They dampen my sense of touch. I can't
feel anything, except for the soft fibers inside the gloves, over the pads of my
fingers. Real physical details, any grooves or crevices or other small textures
of an object, are lost to me, which puts me in a state of mild it’s-okay-but-it’s
-not anxiety. Even running my covered fingers over the smooth glass of my
phone, what they were designed to do, feels uncomfortable, unnatural. I find
I’d rather just take one off to use the touchscreen. The good thing about
them, though, is that they’re thin, so if I really need to, I can pick up on some
texture. The bad thing about them, though, is that they’re thin. The wind cuts
right through them, biting into my fingers, making them grow cold and numb
in the January air. They offer me little protection, if any.
Fumbling with my gloved fingers, I grasp hold of the zipper of my
pullover, and I draw it up mid-chest to collarbone. Then I zip up my winter
coat, followed by doing the same to my slick overcoat. My phone, wallet, and
anything else important is hidden in the pockets of my second layer of protection
against the cold. In the pockets of my overcoat, I fish out a stocking
cap that I put on before pulling up my hood. Finally, I take only one of two
heavier gloves, the kind where you can barely move your fingers, and slide it
over my right hand. I don’t like the impaired movement of my fingers, and
whatever muffled sense of feeling I had before is now nonexistent, but I
know I just have to deal with it. I’ll be holding my cane with this hand, which
means I can’t hide it in my pocket to elude frostbite.
I’ve only taken a few seconds for myself. Jim left me alone in the car a
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