Shoes Read online

station where he releases it into the urban wild. Again the wind whispers and Shoes wonders nervously whether he heard his name. He returns, uselessly wiping his hands on his even dirtier pants. He takes another drag from his cigarette and lets the smoke slowly trickle out of his mouth where it hangs motionlessly before nestling in the pockets of his twisting hair. For some reason, the smokes navigating through Shoes twisting curls reminds John of the night that he took LSD.

  “What a path in life you’ve chosen, Shoes.”

  “I hide from the sun but it’s really the moon that stalks me-people like us. Neither will ever catch us. Not people like you and me.” Shoes clears his throat and is breathing better. Sometimes he says things that don’t make much sense but John never draws any attention to the comments.

  A couple of days earlier a gang of sloppily dressed kids with ill-fitting pants, and underdeveloped ethics offered to sell John a couple of homemade bum tapes. After they explained to John that bum tapes were tapes of the real live beatings that they gave homeless people and then sold on the streets, he told them to “get the hell on your way and never let me see you again or I’m going to kick the shit out of you.” They threatened John as they left. He thought about warning Shoes about the kids but then decided against it. Shoes has enough demons to worry about already.

  “That cough’s gotten pretty nasty, Shoes.”

  “My dad died of emphysema when I was twelve. He was about the same age when he died as I am now. Pretty tough to swallow at the time. Harder on my mom than it was on me. Wrecked her pretty much for good. Couldn’t move on. Wakes up and finds herself looking for him a couple times a week, to this day – far as I still know – the last time I saw her. She deserved better.”

  “She’s still alive?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I don’t know. I called her from a phone booth about a year ago. She somehow knew it was me before I even spoke. It’s like mothers have the real super powers. Batman, Superman, just frauds in dance tights. Make-believe. Mothers share the soul. My mother kept crying and I just hung up on her. I couldn’t take it.”

  “You couldn’t talk to her?”

  “Like I said, she deserves better – better than what happened to her – better than her life – better than me.” He takes a drag off his cigarette and looks up at the horizon where a hunter’s moon hides behind the island of pumps struggling to disguise poorly veiled accusations. “One day, after I get myself cleaned up, I’m going to hitch my way down there and see her, show her I’m alright. Stop her from crying.” Releasing a billow of Marlboro, “That’s the way I always see her in my mind now, crying.”

  They hear the roar of 400 horsepower as an old sky-blue Impala with a modified engine and glass packs tears up the street carrying an illegal capacity of drunken frat boys that’ll miss their eight AM economics class. As it passes, indistinguishable profanities are shouted and a pale, naked, hairless bottom squeezes out of the passenger window. The prank is punctuated at the finish with the distant sound of a breaking beer bottle and wild laughter that continues to fade as the classic car, which daddy paid for, disappears. For a moment, neither John nor Shoes bears witness. Then John finally asks, “You know the asshole hanging out of that window?”

  The comment only earns a smirk in return.

  “You want to come in and warm up?”

  “I thought I was kicked off the premises.” Shoes extinguishes his cigarette with his tongue, spit crackling as it defeats the cherry, and places the remainder in his pocket.

  “You are. I repositioned the cameras to create a blind spot in the North corner, near the coolers, next to the milk. I moved a sunglass rack over there too, for cover. I’ll grab you Looter’s stool so that you can just hang out and rest. If Looter reviews the tape again he won’t even see you. You’ll be like a ghost.”

  “You’ll get in trouble. You don’t have to do that for me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it because I get so bored I’m going to fall asleep.”

  “So fall asleep.”

  “Don’t be an ass.” John drops his cigarette and moves to grind it out with his foot but the act is intercepted when Shoes snatches it and ferrets it to his pocket along with the other partial. “What the hell, Shoes?”

  “Still plenty left of that one.” Shoes always smoked his butt right down to the filter. Tiny burns between his fingers were proof of miserly conservation.

  “Here,” says John pulling the pack from the breast pocket of his shirt and shaking five loose and offering them to his friend.

  “I didn’t ask for your cigarettes. I just don’t believe in waste.” He grabs the cigarettes from John’s hand and pockets them. “I’ll still take them though.”

  John rolls his eyes. “Come on.” They walk toward the door. “When you go through the entrance, go quickly and take a right. Go really fast right to the corner and stay there while I grab the stool.”

  “Are you sure the camera can’t see me?”

  “Yup.”

  They make their way in to the brightly lit fishbowl that is the store and Shoes quickly scurries down the first aisle past a snack chip tree, overpriced oil, and a selection of magazines depicting bikini-clad models with impractically large breasts posing next to pickup trucks with impractically large wheels. Shoes takes cover behind the displaced sunglasses rack. While waiting for Looter’s stool, he accessorizes with different glasses and looks himself over in the tiny mirrors on top of the rack that stare back like dozens of alien eyeballs. He’s content with a pair of Ray Bans as he angles his head different directions. When John makes his way to the corner with Looter’s stool, Shoes has changed to a pair of loud neon Eyegogs with little round fuchsia lenses.

  “Who are you supposed to be? The Walrus?” John slides the stool into the corner next to him.

  “Not bloody likely,” Shoes says, doing a fairly good imitation of John Lennon. “I could never be Lennon, maybe Ringo but I’d rather be one of the Stones – maybe Richards.” He replaces the shades on the rack.

  Outside, next to the pumps, a delivery truck pulls up and brakes long overdue for some affection let out a high-pitched whine as the vehicle stops. The truck is naked white except for a mural of a wide-eyed, slovenly, overweight, red-head kid taking an eager bite out of a Supreme Turkey Rye club sandwich. Jimmy’s is in red letters over the top of the mural. The regulars down at Curley’s bar always make fun of the ‘fat retard’ in the mural whenever Jimmy makes a pit stop for a beer. He smiles and laughs it off even though it makes him sad because a local artist rendered the image from a photograph of his handicapped son.

  John watches Jimmy hobble out from the cab. “Cool. It’s Jimmy the sandwich guy. I’m starving.”

  Jimmy always gives John the sandwiches that are out of date and ready to be thrown away. They’re still perfectly edible for a few more days. One morning, Looter found out about the sandwiches when John left a box of them in the milk cooler. First, Looter threatened to fire John for accepting them, but then he told John to just save them until he came in and took care of them properly. John knew that properly, in that instance, just meant that Looter would shove all of the sandwiches into his eternally-swelling face. Tonight, he’ll secretly split the sandwiches up, saving half for Looter. Sacrifices keep angry gods at bay.

  John walks up behind the counter like an errant soldier returning to his post. Jimmy enters the store carrying a box of fresh sandwiches. His face is pained.

  “What’s up, Jimmy? You don’t look so good.”

  “Smells in here.”

  John shrugs.

  “You know that guy Vic that plays pickup basketball on Sundays over at St. James? That son of a bitch broke two of my ribs during a game last week. I know he did it on purpose, too.”

  John nods. “That psychopath broke my brake light with a bat. Said next time, he’ll take the bat to me or any of my fucked up friends that
he can find.”

  “Why?”

  “He heard that I said that his girlfriend looked like an Irish setter.”

  “Is that the old, dirty blond that offered to service me in the back of my sandwich truck a couple of months back?”

  “Service you? What? She offer to change your oil?”

  “You know what I mean, wiseass.”

  “I think she’s a redhead but yeah. She works the register over at President’s.” John was referring to the rival gas station down the block: President’s Gas and Liquor. “She’s always sneaking over here leaving her store completely unattended and trying to get me to fool around with her.”

  “For free?”

  “Yeah, for free. You don’t seriously think she could charge for it, do you? She’s missing half of her teeth and those that are left are as brown as popcorn kernels. Not like I go for that kind’a thing anyway… you know, payin’ ladies?”

  “She wanted sandwiches from me. I offered her out-of-dates but she wanted fresh ones so we couldn’t come to an arrangement.”

  “I tried to tell her to have some self respect and she tried to slap me but I ducked.”

  “I’ll get with her if I can do it for out-a-dates.”

  “You’re crazy. Your dick’ed just shrivel up and fall off after she got through with you.”

  “I never get a chance to use it anyway. My wife has her legs locked shut. Threw away the key five years after I put a ring on her finger.” Jimmy