Barbet is one of those people who catch bugs in the house and set them free outside.  Malcolm finds it easier and less involved to turn them into black smudges on the bottom of a shoe.  Barbet drives around feeding homeless people regularly, but she’d never tell you about it.  Her favorite color is whatever color she’s wearing when you ask, she has a dog with three legs, and she dusts the top of the refrigerator.

Malcolm leaves his dirty underwear on the floor, unless it’s stained, in which case he hides it in the closet.  He bites his nails and spits them on the floor because they’re biodegradable.  He doesn’t like spicy foods, or bitter foods, or anything in the produce section, really.  There’s a dog chained in his backyard.  The bottom of its water dish is mossy green, but he feeds it regularly.

Barbet and Malcolm are a couple.  On paper, the numbers don’t match up.  On paper, it looks like gas leak and an unlit match.  In person, it looks about the same.  His burps echo off her white walls.  She won’t shower at his apartment without wearing sandals.  They both laugh at the differences.

One day, their second date…maybe third, Malcolm went to Barbet’s house to pick her up.  She was in a dress, he was in a pair of jeans that had never been cleaned.  In an act of uncharacteristic politeness, Malcolm opened Barbet’s door.  She climbed over the garbage on floor, unfazed and smiled up at him.  He shut the door on her fingers.

She didn’t curse, but those words rolled around in her mouth.  Her finger turned into a dried plumb.  She squirmed and kicked the empty bottles out onto the street.  Malcolm held his hands to his face.  He tried to help.  He apologized and apologized again.  Barbet paced back and forth on the sidewalk, holding her hand above her heart.

Then it happened.  It slipped out.  “Stupid piece of shit,” or “You shithead,” or something like that.  She didn’t just say the words, she spit them at him.  Malcolm wanted to spit venom back at her.  What had happened was an accident and Malcolm apologized profusely.  They glared at each other for an instant, but as soon as Barbet saw the look on Malcolm’s face, she stopped.

She took a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”

Malcolm nodded.  “I’m sorry too.”

The finger was still growing and blood was starting to ooze out from under the nail.  Malcolm took Barbet by the arm and led her back into her house.  He found her first aid kit, neatly packed and labeled in her medicine cabinet.  She sat at the edge of the tub while he cleaned and wrapped her throbbing finger.

“Look,” Barbet said, “It wasn’t your fault.  I’m sorry I called you a ‘shithut.’”

Malcolm smiled, “It’s okay.  I don’t know what a shithut is.”

Barbet went on a long diatribe, partially trying to explain, and partially trying to figure out why she’d snapped in such unusual fashion.  She was sincerely apologetic and uncomfortably appalled to witness that behavior out of herself.

Malcolm stopped her, “I hate to break the bad news to you, but we’re all animals. When we’re hurt, it becomes more apparent.  Think about it, if you try to help a wounded animal…”  Just then, Barbet’s three legged dog hobbles to the bathroom door and stares in at them.  “Well…they’ll probably fucking bite you.”

Barbet smiled at Malcolm and then at the dog.

“It’s easy to diagnose that now, because…well, your finger looks like an old banana.  But sometimes it’s not that easy to see.  Most people are hurt in one way or another.   The problem is – most of that hurt isn’t going to be throbbing and squirting blood.  I guess that’s when we really have to pay attention.  When people react shitty, just know that deep down somewhere, something just got slammed in a car door.  We just can’t see it.”