Everyone does what he must. These men, they fix my shoes. Scratch righteous “X”s on battered heels, where the tread has worn, always more on the inner sole as opposed to outer, a pattern of the pigeon-toed. Tap it out with pencil: top piece, top piece, buff and shine, thirty-five dollars. We split a ticket, their fingernails blackened from polish, a permanent stain.
Something always needs work. Fur riding boots, velour peep-toes, checkered sling backs from my mother: so old they’re new again. You never know when there might be an occasion. I raid her closet, dredge out wrinkled tongues. Slumped over side welts. Toecaps caked in dust. Cart them through her living room like a hobo. My father sits in his chair; Lord knows my husband sits. When you hold on to something for long enough, my mother says. Forget it. Uneager to fix what is lying around she says to me: Take.
After a while a rapport emerges with service providers: the grocer, pharmacist. The dry cleaners slide fresh stays into my husband’s collars. A faithful pair of boots disappoint me and my cobblers say, “These, again?”
I admit I am hard on my feet.
The local shop is typical, smell of hide, rumble of subway beneath, stretchers nailed to the wall and shoetrees crooked like prosthetic limbs but there are details: a burnished mezuzah on the doorpost. Tin pushkes on the counter, painted like a Tiffany box. Along the shelves unclaimed brogues hold out for their owners and above them: Hebrew prayers. Dinky frames. Blessings for business. The sanctity of home.
Lately, my stilettos have been taking a beating. Curved toe-out but there are stranger things. Look, I push a carriage around all day. I am nothing if not practical.
They could be brothers, cousins, buddies from the gulag. Side-by-side for long enough and people become interchangeable. Opera shrills over the A.M. radio, in Russian. Sometimes they wear yarmulkes the size of cereal bowls.
Bells jangle when I shove in with the stroller. A tub of mink oil glistens on the counter.
What have we here, they say. Forearms like raccoon tails.
They compliment my daughter’s Oz shoes.
Maya claps her feet together, sprinkling red glitter on their floor.
They offer her Hopjes coffee candies.
My favorite, I gush, snapping them up.
If there’s time I tell them. You should see Maya in my closet. Clomping around in the pumps I wore on my wedding day like some kind of Cinderella. They wink at her and say the apple don’t fall far, bless your mother’s heart.
Still, they meddle: What, your husband don’t wear shoes?
He’s soft on his feet, I tell them. The man hasn’t a callus.
Is he Jesus H. Christ? They joke. He walk on water?
He creeps, I say, stuffing my change into their collections for charity.
Other times I come in to find them swarmed by Hasidism. A miasma of black hats. Buzzing with prayer. On these days the bell jars the beards from their lawful inspections of splayed leather straps, sidelocks swinging; immediately, they avert their eyes. My cobblers transact without so much as a nod. I am a good customer, I know, but fixing phylacteries is sacred business.
Today they tell me, all yellow grins, we meet your husband. I say that’s doubtful. He’s not one for errands. Yes, they insist, he come in, he use the same number on the card. Finally, we see your husband’s shoes.
I drop off a pair of ballet flats hoping for spring and they ask me if I’d like to pick up while I’m at it.
You’d think they were unveiling a headstone the way they unroll the mouth of their bag. A pair of loafers, spectators and winking in gold: Strappy six-inch heels.
I leave them.
Of course, they say, rustling. Maybe it was for surprise.
Of course, I say. Matching their look. You know it is Saturday.
really like this, sara