Monk Quixote

As a result of com­ments made on Laurence’s blog, it is incum­bent on me to share a first draft of some descrip­tion. This makes me really uncom­fort­able. But any­way. My prompt (from Fliss) was the word ‘shoes’.
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My name is Jed Nun­son. I am a shoe sales­man. I am a good shoe sales­man. I have cer­tifi­cates and order books to prove it. I have sold shoes in half a dozen towns in this county, and I must have mea­sured the feet of half the State.

I was taught the trade by my grand­fa­ther. He ran a small shoe shop, spe­cial­is­ing in shoes for the work­ing man. He charged more than Mellville’s, but he had a smooth man­ner and a loyal cus­tomer base. My mother and I moved in with him when father left to join the navy. It was only later I found out he had sim­ply plain left — run away — not so much as taken a spare pair of laces.

Times were tough. Mother took to work­ing in the shop, and I would help out with deliv­er­ies and gen­eral errand-running. My grand­fa­ther had a shoe-related tale for every les­son in life. I’d catch him drink­ing from a hipflask and he’d laugh at me and tell me he was pol­ish­ing his tongue. You could always tell when he was clos­ing a sale with the incom­ers work­ing in the big new build­ings in the town cen­tre. He’d say ‘shoes maketh the man’, and smile and slap the other fel­low on the back. He wasn’t always so polite after­wards, when they couldn’t make their pay­ments on their hun­dred dol­lar shoes. I under­stand now.

He always made sure I had the best pol­ished and fan­cily laced shoes at school. I guess he fig­ured I was an adver­tise­ment or some­thing for the shop. Other kids used to laugh at me, with my mirror-shine shoes and patch­work clothes. But I under­stood. Or I thought I did.
When I was old enough my grand­fa­ther gave me a book. It was about walk­ing a mile in another man’s shoes. I took him at his word and traded my shoes with a boy from the other side of the tracks. My mother gave me a hell of a beat­ing that day. But my grand­fa­ther under­stood. And he made me wear them shoes for a month until my feet bled.

I remem­ber see­ing my first pair of sneak­ers. Nate Edwards came in the store one dusty Sat­ur­day after­noon look­ing for some church shoes for his lit­tle Jimmy. Nate was wear­ing some Con­verse Hi-Tops. I’d only seen them on the TV before. My grand­fa­ther was hor­ri­fied. He’d fit­ted Nate for black Oxfords ever since the man could walk — thirty years of one-pair-a-year cus­tom going up in can­vas and rubber.

That evening grand­fa­ther shouted and threw mother’s food all over the kitchen. He kept say­ing the world was com­ing to an end. ‘Grown men wear­ing children’s shoes’. And in a sense he was right. A bible sales­man once tried to explain that you can’t spread the word of God in any­thing but Ital­ian leather. I didn’t buy the bible, but he was right about the shoes.

I guess that’s when things started to go wrong. Less cus­tomers meant less shoes sold meant less shoes repaired meant less laces sold. Boxes of boot pol­ish and lit­tle brush sets started pil­ing up in the back room. And the place started to smell more of the whisky that grand­fa­ther kept under the counter. Mellville’s diver­si­fied, my grand­fa­ther didn’t.

I guess mother should have left then. Could have left then. She was still young enough to learn another trade. But she was still hop­ing one day my father would return and pick up the shoes he’d left at the end of the bed. And she liked mend­ing things. When the work started dry­ing up, she kinda dis­ap­peared into her­self a lit­tle more.

I moved out on my 21st birth­day. I took a job in another town up the high­way in a Mellville’s fran­chise out­let. My first day was tough. My co-workers found my ways stuffy and threw shoe-horns at me when I told the cus­tomers they were wrong to but ath­letic footwear over amer­i­can for­mal wear. But I learnt. And by the end of the month I was out­selling the rest of the team com­bined.
That was 20 years ago now. I’ve sold a lot of shoes. Some good. Most of them bad. My grand­fa­ther passed on, and mother’s now in a home. I go to visit her and usu­ally find her sewing. She’s not so unhappy. In grandfather’s will he left me his sil­ver plated pol­ish­ing set, which I keep in the car and use for impress­ing the impor­tant clients. They like the per­sonal touch. Even if they’re only buy­ing shoes.

I guess I’ll keep sell­ing shoes till I die now. It’s in my blood. But peo­ple don’t respect you any more. They don’t care for craft or com­fort. I won­der about this coun­try. But most of all I won­der about their shoes.

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