Coronavirus, Limp Fish, and the Feasting of the Rabid Horde

I did an open mic a couple weeks ago, after the COVID-19 stuff started but before it became a full-on pandemic.  Saw a bunch of folks I hadn’t seen in a while, and was happy to see them. Lots of handshakes and hugs all around, and the whole time I was thinking, should we be doing this? But I did it. 

Next day I had a meeting and we all pointedly DIDN’T shake hands, and were totally self-conscious about it. Heh heh, wouldn’t want to kill you, wouldn’t want you to kill me, heh heh.

Then, the day after that, I had lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while (by the way one thing I notice in all this is I have no friends I actually see enough of – do you?), and we shook and hugged, despite my misgivings, and then when we were parting he saw my hesitance and said “if you really don’t want to—“ so I felt compelled. We shook. Hugged.

I’ve been alone in my apartment for four days. I’ve been thinking about handshakes. Supposedly they started a long time ago, as a way of demonstrating that neither person had a weapon (at least not in one hand, I guess?). And then it just became custom. Like primogeniture, or shoes.

My father’s father taught me to throw punches, and my mother’s mother taught me to shake hands. The second skill has proven far more valuable to me than the first over the last half-century. Had I chosen a life of vicious pugilism I might feel differently, and there have definitely been moments where I wished I had paid closer attention to my grandfather and done a better job of honing the skills he tried to give me, but I have, for better or for worse lived a primarily friendly life.

 However, I can’t help but hear my grandmother when I meet people and shake their hands for the first time, She let me know there was a great deal you could tell about somebody by the way they shook hands. A man of good character shakes firmly, but not too firmly (the implication being that should I wish people to perceive me this way, that’s what I should do). To drive the point home, she demonstrated, her charm bracelet jangling as we firmly, formally squeezed each other’s hand. Then she showed me what not to do.  I was  7 or 8 years old, and my grandmother Wilson ( we always called our grandparents by their last names)  loosely cocked her wrist and dangled her cool, leathery hand into my palm. Fucking weird. She described it (as everyone does, though I didn’t know that at the time) as a “limp fish.” That type of shake was a clear indication that this was a person with whom you should not consort. If a man, he was most likely rude, petty, mean, impious, lacking in integrity, and and quite possible a drunkard or a degenerate gambler (or both!); if a woman, she possessed loose moral character, was probably a floozy, possibly even a harlot. It was a very uncomfortable moment for me. I’ve never forgotten it, so I guess it was effective. But I wonder if, at the time, I was struck by the strangeness of the term- “limp fish.” Should a fish not be limp? What, then? Firm?  The fish itself is still firm. It’s just behaving limply. What has made the fish behave limply? Fish don’t limp. They can’t.

 I try not to let her lessons affect the way I feel about people when I meet them. But I can’t swear I’m always successful.  Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.

 Then there are the people who overdo it. To them, a handshake is a demonstration of machismo (these people can be women too, by the way). They’re making a point of showing that they are not just people of good character, but could probably take you in a fight, and certainly will never back down from you. You know the feeling- you start to shake hands with somebody and suddenly they are a beat cop and your hand is Radio Raheem. 

There’s a guy I knew, who had figured out a way to reach out for your hand in just such a way that he would grab your four fingers firmly and thumb-lock you in, so he had the front of your hand pinned and you couldn’t reach with your thumb to grip, preventing you from engaging in a normal handshake. He’d have engulfed your whole hand, but you would only be gripping his with those few fingers. It  felt like a mistake, like he had grabbed wrong. I only saw him a few times a year, but eventually I realized he did it every time. A handshake was a battle to him, and he was fucking winning every time. Even though it made me realize there must be something wrong with him that made him act that way, it also, when he did it, felt vaguely emasculating, and I realized I would not be satisfied unless I started winning. So the next time he did it I watched very carefully, and realized that if I just swooped my hand in a little lower at the last second I could—yes! Got him! Normal handshake. The look of shock and disappointment  on his face at being defeated in a game he thought he was the only one playing was so—well, let’s just say my entire rabid horde sang as they feasted that night. No utensils. 

Once, drunk, I saw, across the bar, a friend on the verge of fisticuffs with the leader of a crew of hooligans with whom we’d been verbally sparring.  My friend and he were nose to nose, the point of no return was imminent, but I thought I could save things, so I waded in heroically and offered the boss hooligan my hand. Pax tecum. He accepted the proffered hand, and I tried to talk things out. Nobody wanted any trouble, of course, I explained confidently, lucidly, leaning in close, not my friend not them, not me, none of us. And it wasn’t too late to avoid it, if we all just- as I talked, I could feel that he wasn’t letting go, and not only was the guy shaking my hand, he was slowly tightening his grip, as if his hand were a starving anaconda and mine were a succulent capybara.

Fisticuffs were not avoided.

 ALl that said, I like handshakes. Especially when I see people I haven’t seen in a while, which is everyone, I guess. And it seems like they may be going away foe the foreseeable future. If that’s the case, I don’t know that I’ll miss them. Or at least, I won’t miss thinking about them.

Namaste.