Walk A Mile In My Shoes 1

What is it that's so telling, maybe even tender... about shoes? I can't make this niggling feeling go away. Sometimes, things like this grab at me; whisper in my ear, tell me that they are cosmically important. And then the little barefoot spirits flit away, and leave me standing there, a bit dazed, looking down at my shoes.

Maybe it's my oxfords calling me. Yes. My Mom once bought me a pair of oxblood colored oxfords. Say that fast three times. I wanted white go-go boots. She said that they'd be great for my wide feet. She was speaking from the foot vantage point of an adult, though; an adult with wide feet that craved that big old toe box. My feet were seven, and I wanted pinchy, zip up the side white go-go boots, darn it all! 

And oxblood. Just exactly why did she feel the need to add insult to injury, and tell me that my ugly new shoes were stained by the blood of a huge ugly bovine?

They simply had to go.

I woke up early the next morning, pulled on my play clothes, and started out on my mission. I almost forgot to get my red penlight, there in my top dresser drawer. But I remembered it, just in the nick of time. I'd need that little gem.

I crept down the hall in measured tiptoe steps, avoiding all the creaky spots in the floor. Take a step. Freeze! Take a step.  Freeze! Listen! I imagined myself an Indian warrior, moving silently through thick woods. Listen!

I had to be stealthy. Didn't want to awaken She Of The Wide Foot And Bad Taste In Kid Shoes. For a split second, I thought about sliding down the banister, the express route down. But I snapped back to reality, just in time. All it would take, would be one false move. One false banister squeak from the sweat of my chubby little thighs sliding down, and I'd be dead meat. I nearly always sent up that tell- tale squeal, like a violin out of tune. Couldn't risk it.

The oxfords were there, right where I'd left them. Two leathery blood clots near the door. On their way out!

I bent to pick them up. Lambs to the slaughter. So passive. They just waited there for me. Shoulder to shoe shoulder, side by side. I lifted them up, in one swoop, the two of them dangling from my thumb and fingers. Funny, I remember they felt kind of warm and soft. And the leather smelled kind of good too.

But they were dead men walking; they were on their way to the bowels of the house, a land of dirt and doodlebugs, a place where no one would ever find them. I would see to that.

I had to squat down and peer under the porch before I entered the misty morning darkness there. A spider web glistened in the morning sun, like a grandmother's shawl laced with dewy diamonds. I hated to do it, but I broke a stick off of the honeysuckle bush, and scrambled the glimmery web into a mass of wispy threads. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I peered overhead to see if there were any spiders near, flicked the sliding switch on my red penlight, took a bravery breath, and waddled under the porch--in that duck squat position kids assume to get into low places. As I waddled, I shot the light into all the corners, the thin little beam pulling me along, like a dog on a leash of light. Deeper and deeper, into the dark.

I ventured farther than I ever had, dragging soft little piles of gray dirt along with me, mounding there in the V of my heels and outturned feet.

I went in so deep. There were copper pipes gurgling all around me. I could hear She Of The Wide Foot slowly shuffling about in the kitchen, getting the morning coffee going, maybe a foot above my head.

And then I did it. I placed the oxfords on a little mound of dirt. They sat there, atop the pyre, as pretty as you please--if you're into oxblood oxfords. As my hand flew away from them, I swear I could almost hear them cry. But I rocked side to side, in my squat position, turned, and waddled out. I did look over my shoulder at them, once or twice.

Sure, She asked where they went. She upended the house. But she finally gave up, maybe when she saw that I was none too interested in finding them. She had to know. I had to wear my old shoes for the rest of the school year. My toes got cramped. Who knows? Maybe that's when and why my bunions started up.

Maybe that's the first time I ever lied to my Mom, too. And I still feel bad about it.

See? Shoes do take us places, tell us things. Tender things. Things we ought to know.