Four Pairs of Shoes

Four Pairs of Shoes was published in Folio, American University, Fall 1999; and reprinted in The Orange Willow Review, Orange Willow Press, Winter 2000-01.

About 3,625 words

FOUR PAIRS OF SHOES

G.D. PETERS

Inside my room there are four pairs of shoes. I noticed them last night, but there is no telling how long they have been here. I know they have been here longer than a little while since each pair is pointed in a different direction, if you can imagine that. It must surely take longer than a little while for a pair of shoes to accommodate its own direction.

I suppose I must have been sleeping right here in the same room with them, but I’m not at all certain that I slept quite soundly. I don’t think there was a noise, or any other disturbance; I can’t quite put my finger on it. If you want to know how it happened, it came about like this: I stepped into my room to retire for the evening, exactly as I have been doing the rest of my life. I changed out of my clothes and threw off my shoes, leaving them on the floor at the foot of my bed. The question has been raised as to why they are facing a certain direction, and my answer is that I suppose my feet were turned that way when I stepped out of them. In any event, I passed the night in repose; as I have mentioned it was not a restful sleep, although it passed without notice just the same. But when I awoke, and before I could move from the side of my bed where my feet had touched the cold floor, it occurred to me that my shoes were no longer alone, but had been joined by three additional pairs, positioned at various parts of the room, and each of them facing a different direction.

That is how it occurred, but where the other shoes came from, that seemed to me the logical inquiry. (Or, to phrase it differently, why they do not fit?) Of course, as will be seen, that is not the line of inquiry that ultimately was pursued, which has left me in my current state of affairs. In the first instance, these other pairs of shoes occupy valuable space and are a nagging hindrance, but that is not the least of it. The souls to whom they belong have been in hiding, which has been the source of no small discomfort, let me assure you. Try shaving, for example, with one eye on the mirror while the other is constantly looking over one shoulder; please believe me when I tell you this is no laughing matter.

At work today I did mention the shoes to Talber, who has been a friend to me on occasion, but he did not seem to think it out of the ordinary.

Well, my friend, I have more than four pairs of shoes myself, you know, he stated to me quite matter-of-factly, as if this were the most natural occurrence on the face of the earth. And because he seemed to have missed the point I did not think it worthwhile to advise him about the missing beings, as no doubt he would himself lay claim to the same affliction, I was afraid. There is no predicting how people will react when calamity strikes from out of the blue. With friends and family, I have learned, one can never tell.

In any event, when I returned home from work there was a crowd gathered outside my building, dozens of good neighbors jostling for position at each door and window, clamoring for a glimpse at my sudden misfortune. Inside there were officials, with cameras and lights, photographing and documenting the four pairs of shoes.

What gives? I said to one official (who seemed to be in charge).

These yours? he asked me. For a moment I thought he looked like a neighbor of mine who is known to work for the Preceptor.

I was going to call you myself, I said to him. As a matter of fact, I was going to do it just now. As you can see, I’ve left everything just as I found it. I’m sure it’s fortunate for me that you arrived when you did.

As the other three souls were nowhere to be seen, the official was staring at the four pairs of shoes. Those facing east were the footwear of a child; it was plain to see they belonged to the missing boy. The pair facing west, perhaps those of the old man, who can say? Northerly, the middle-aged fellow? Southward pointing, my shoes, and I wondered that they were still in the room, but looked down to discover (to my great surprise) that below the cuffed edges of my pants my bare feet protruded like white rabbits, a circumstance duly noted by the official, and marked with fresh ink in his ledger. He finished making his notation and then looked at me with a sidelong glance.

Well, I can assure you, I told him, I was wearing them when I left here this morning, I hope you believe me.

I am sure the look on his face betrayed some small skepticism as to this point.

Try these on, he said to me, indicating the footwear of the youth.

At this command I was taken aback. Surely, sir, you are mistaken, I said to him, these are clearly the shoes of a boy!

Put them on, he insisted, writing in his book.

Once more I demurred. If you will look about the flat, I pleaded, you will find the boy, he must have been here this morning. Perhaps he is in the streets, fighting with neighborhood slugs?

At this the official dropped his arms to his sides, and cocked his head at an angle. Wear them, he directed me, and this seemed to be his last word on the matter.

I continued to protest, muttering beneath my breath at the lunacy of this request, while at the same time pushing my clumsy, big feet into the openings of those tiny things, which seemed too small to admit even my hands.

But as I slip them on the room grows larger, and my wet palms are restored to quiet.

All at once the room is empty, and I find myself tying the cuffs of a long-sleeved jersey into knots, to fashion a makeshift straitjacket, to test my skill at the escape. I sit on the hope chest, pulling this device over my head, wondering if I will ever be heard from again. I pull down on the fabric, and when the neck clears my chin I open my eyes and there is a different pallor to the room: the walls are lighter, brighter; perhaps the sun has peaked outside my window? I find myself speaking.

“Tie this from behind,” I am saying, but the words do not sound as if my voice has uttered them. The sound is thinner than my sound, perhaps someone else is saying this for me?

My hands are being tied from behind, and now I know who is back there doing this to me.

“Okay, it’s done,” he says, “now what?”

“Now I’m going to get out,” I am saying with the assurance of somebody else’s voice, but already I know that I will not.

Instead I am transported to an earlier time, in the parking lot beside the grade school, down the block from our little house. I am riding a two-wheeler for the first time ever, guiding it haltingly in jagged, uncertain ovals about the lot. I want to look up, to smile at Grandmama, who has brought me here this sunny morning to let me play. But I am afraid to pry my nervous eyes from the pavement, afraid my trembling arms will lose their tenuous, unsteady bearing and pitch the tottering vehicle to the ground. I pass her as a bright breeze blows against my face, competing for my attentions with exhilaration and my heightened sense of worth. I look away from the path of the wheel for only an instant and the flying machine lists awkwardly to one side, crashing me to the concrete in a heap of burning flesh. My knee bleeds like the world is on fire, and only my tears flow more freely. But Grandmama says something funny to make me laugh and all at once the wind is dancing in her hair, the sunlight working through a wet sheen of tears to smile at the corners of her eyes.

The room darkens and my arms fold into my sides, collapsing like the wings of a bat. There is a damp, musty chill in the air, as if I am in the bowels of a dark cave, and will shortly be hanging, inverted, from the black, foreboding ceiling. The official directs me to remove the boy’s shoes, but my fingers tremble too nervously to untie these laces with dignity.

Kick them off, he says (rather impatiently, it seems to me).

But they will be damaged, I object, struggling under his gaze to shed these small reminders from my swollen feet.

No more than to be expected, he says, then pushes me, abruptly, toward the pair facing west.

But these are the old man’s shoes, I say, I am certain that he can not have wandered far.

My new protest is met with a stony glare from the piercing eyes of the official. Put them on, he directs, there is no way to avoid this.

I step into these shoes and the room disintegrates into a thousand blades of grass, a shower of rain in a quiet forest, a breeze which carries the fragrance of honey on its wing, the hundred grains of earth which soak in a single drop from heaven’s tears. The winds gust against my chest and I am unmoved, the rains fall in monsoons and leave me dry. A lion stalks its prey, no farther from me than a mountain from the prairie, I am unharmed. The sky is lit with flames, mushroom clouds on a distant horizon, no more to me than a photograph.

I find myself thinking, do they remember the boy? Does anyone, any longer, remember the boy, the scrape on his knee from his first fall off a bike, which still bleeds into a battleground of concrete and broken glass, or is that lost? He tied the sleeves for his own straitjacket, can it be that he never truly escaped?

Everywhere people are running for cover, everywhere everyone is scrambling for footing, climbing upon the back of humanity, trampling decency into the dirt, solely to attain some greater level of greed. Silence is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss. I stand in the shadows, and let the beast pass. I cower in the corner with the feeble and infirm, as the way becomes crowded with the mighty and the brave, the good road overrun with tyranny and deceit, the will of the many for the benefit of the few. Mouths are moving, but their voices are silent; many are calling, but their words come together into a great wind that carries out over the plain, cleansing the forest of pain and deception, and leaving this clearing tranquil and calm. I close my eyes and all things become one, all souls united, the miserable and the sublime, the weak and the brave, all crystallized in one moment as a ray of light shines down from the heavens to end this unholy masquerade.

All about me the skies are lit with wonder, somewhere in the distance a small brook trickles peacefully over a step of rocks which has been seated here since the dawning of time. Clouds sweep past as foot soldiers to the sun, which itself arcs through the heavens in rapid revolutions, ticking off seasons the way once we counted breaths. Flowers bloom and wilt, and blossom again, birds gather in a flock and migrate, all of a single moment. Light, and then darkness, yet the song of the trickling brook remains constant. Time is knowledge, patience is wisdom, and always the peaceful water of life sings out of its marriage with the rock of ages. I am an old man, I am a blade of grass, I am a thrush on the wind, I am a pebble ’neath the waterfall of time.

When the official speaks, the spell is broken.

That is all, he says.

But these are easy shoes to wear, blissful and serene, with the power of healing, and I am reluctant to surrender their soft comfort, worn smooth and pleasant with the knowledge of what is known.

Move along, I am told. This way, I am led. I leave them where they are, but hope to reclaim them in time.

The third pair of shoes belongs to me, and are still facing south at the foot of my bed, where last night I kicked them off in the weariness and haste of a long day’s welcome end.

Put them on, the official says to me, and for once I am grateful to accommodate his request, as these are the shoes I have been wearing long these past years. They have grown comfortable to my touch, their leathers worn smooth and molded, over the course of time, to the contours of my feet. I step into my shoes but something is the matter: my feet don’t slip easily into these once-familiar vessels, no longer feel welcomed by soles and uppers now stiffened with age and coarse from neglect.

You can see, I inform the official, they no longer seem mine.

Put them on, he directs, put them on, put them on. They’re yours if you wear them, and you’ll wear them if you are told, so put them on now and let’s have an end to your complaining.

Well, I force my way into them and all in a moment I am standing at the altar. There is chamber music playing over a public address system, chapel music piped in for our special occasion, a string quartet if I correctly recall what Mary Anne told me to expect, but it has been a month more busy than any I can remember, and crammed to the ridges with the details of the moment. There has been a wedding to plan, arrangements to be made. It would seem to me a simpler task to design a fleet of Clipper ships, and build them to scale using rocks and mortar for hulls, and tree trunks for sails. But somehow we got it done, and now I stand at the foot of the altar, looking behind me to the head of the aisle where Mary Anne has yet to appear. The best man, my brother, stands beside me, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot. The audience is an ocean of tedium and indifference, the breadth of its faces closely portraying the full spectrum of the human condition. I scan these faces, searching for meaning, but they are bored and restless, waiting for the breast of capon to be served at a lavish reception when the ceremony is done.

I know I should, myself, be thinking meaningful thoughts, but instead I am thinking about my car in the parking lot, wondering what our brothers, Mary Anne’s and mine, are going to be doing to it while we are drinking champagne or kissing for the clinking goblets or feeding each other rich slivers of cake. Mary Anne appears at the mouth of the chapel, her white train trailing behind her like the gown of a queen. One hand rests lightly on the arm of her father, but though my eyes are watching, my mind is thinking only about the parking lot, hoping our well-meaning, mischievous brothers will not be putting pebbles into our hubcaps. A meddlesome rain has left puddles on the ground, and I am picturing my tuxedoed knees meshing ungracefully with the grit and the gravel as I work a crowbar into the grooves to pop hubcaps from the wheels.

After the ceremony I am free to kiss the bride, but what I want most is to preserve the purity of this moment, as if lifting the veil will break this spell and pitch me headlong into an uncertain future. At present all is beautiful and composed, the plans have been laid, the movements orchestrated with the well-timed precision of a fine watch; all the parts have been oiled and primed and, as this moment attests, have come together to create this one instant, a crowning pinnacle of meticulous preparation and harmonious execution. But when I kiss the bride the spell will be broken, and already I know it’s all downhill from here.

I reach for the veil and find my fingers lifting, instead, the lace tablecloth from my dining room table. There is a pattern etched on the face of the table, a dust negative of the lace design which Mary Anne had so loved during our short time together. I think about sending it to her, certain she would like to have it, but certain, as well, that she has by now found new patterns for the furniture she shares with her husband. Their children are grown, already through college, and I find myself wondering, as I annul the dust blueprint with three swipes from a damp cloth, what they are doing this quiet Sunday evening, so long removed from one moment in time.

The official jostles me from my memory, jabbing me with his clipboard to bring me around.

All right, that’s enough, he says, move along now, take them off.

I have been comfortable in these shoes, but they no longer fit me the way they once did; they crimp around the edges, and hurt when I move. I reluctantly disjoin myself from their old, familiar feel, sadly affirming that there are some things I can never get back.

The last pair belongs to the middle-aged man, and faces north. The official wants me to wear them now, but once more I am fearful of making the transition. He is here, I advise him, the middle-aged soul. He is hiding, I am certain, but if you give him some time I am sure he will surface. Put them on, he commands, but I shrink from this duty, perhaps because of the direction they are facing. He makes a few notes in his little book, and fixes his stern gaze upon me at last.

This is the time, he ordains, there is no longer any choice in the matter.

I step into the shoes, and am no longer running across an open field, but climbing arduously on a steep incline, a craggy, twisted mountain trail which winds its way toward the heavens. The light now is waning, the sun is over the horizon, and a north wind blows cold against my cheeks, forcing me to bend to my step to keep from falling back. I look up to see what ground I have gained, but there is only a crested moon, cradled among a blanket of stars. I look about for some signpost from the past, something—anything—to remind me where I have been, but either there are none, or they have gone. Nothing is familiar here, nothing I can touch, and a foreboding way spreads before me like the unforgiving ocean of all time.

I am alone in these shoes, but my heart cries out that it needn’t have been this way. This path is steep and treacherous, but is not the only one. All about me I see other roads, level and secure, yet they all seem to lead to the top of the mountain. How is it that I chose this course, why not one of those others below? These shoes fill me with memories, and looking behind me I can see the little boy, lonesome and afraid, and the grown man behind him, binding his arms to prevent his escape. I see the handsome groom, alone at the altar, waiting for the beautiful bride to make him complete. I see them in the aftermath of one glorious moment, their perfect harmony shattered by the natural progression of growth and change, and once more he is there, alone and afraid. But these shoes will not permit a retracing of ways, can only move forward, one step at a time. I turn toward the mountain and mark, once more, my bearings. The way is long and difficult, and fraught with hardships, this much is clear.

What do I do now? I ask the official.

Why ask me, he states, writing in his ledger. I am only an official, I report what I see.

But only this morning, I protest, everything was different.

Yes, he agrees, only this morning. Regretfully, that may be true, he says, but nothing will change it, what’s done has been done.

I turn back to my young man, to register once more the pain and failure expressed in his eyes, perhaps to comfort him in some small way, reassure him that maybe it was all for the best, but he is gone. A dark cloud has shouldered its way into the sky, obscuring my view of what lies down below. There had been other paths, other roads, but they, too, are gone now, or never existed. I drop my head and my gaze falls to the ground beneath my feet. A chilling wind is picking up, and now the night grows colder.

When I turn again the official is gone, and with him the crowd and commotion of life. The other shoes are missing as well, and I am alone in this room now, standing in these shoes which, for better or worse, are all that remain.

THE END