Oxfords and Red Lizard Spikes Spur Nikes

 
Shiny as beetles, maryjanes are for Company or the spaced-out Sundays when mother or daddy "haul" her and Brother to First Baptist or First Methodist.  School days, look for butt-ugly oxfords.  "Put da doity rat in concrete shoes,"  bad guys in Saturday matinees sneer.  Not only heavy, the strings untie.  Extras snake across the sill over the kitchen sink.  The mother spends Half her Life Untying Knots and Rubbing Out Stains.   Summer's maryjanes are white, so she is forever having to get dressed and go to the store for more Griffin's Allwhite.  Hotter it is, more work the child makes.  Good little girls do not make  mud pies!   Good little girls have tea with dolls!  Go to reform school, don't stop stealing berries off Miz Pritchitt's holly.  Here's another lick for not turning  off the water and putting away the hose, Stupid. But Stupid learns.  She learns to lie.  She learns to hide.  She learns  it is possible to win a race with her feet weighed down.  Lady at the shoe store has her stand on a metal whatchamajig.  She can see the skeletons of her feet!  They are green!    Only princesses have long second toes, the lady says.  "Your Highness!"  Daddy boxes her ears and says something to the lady.  Good thing princesses don't cry.  Ears are on fire.   Bell's jingling, or the lady would smack daddy, sure enough.  Instead, she rushes to box up the same old oxfords.   "Herring boxes without topses, da-de-da-da Clementine."   Note from mother at home.  Moved to S_d..  Charging Cruelty.  "Send for the kids in June.  Suppose you can manage to put them on a *#.*&?!x! bus?"   In no time, a Greyhound pulls out.   Daddy's gone.   Car, house.   Apartment cold and dark.   Down to summer maryjanes by Christmas.  Water and slush pry loose the soles.  To cover the flapping, she shuffles and sings what she remembers of Jacob's Ladder.   Better "crazy" than "poor thing.".   Soon l3, lie gets her a job clerking.  Store's  little, and it's fun.   First thing she buys?   Ballerinas!   Black. and soooo soft.  Feet look smaller.  Boys despise big,  people say.  "Bad enough you're tall."   Can't shrink,  so buy  heels.   3-inch ones  that match the Coty lipstick she got for half price less her Thrifty discount.  Lizard looks genu-wine, clerk says.  "Worth falling to learn.  Look like a Star!"  For school, she watches for those green moccasins to go down.  Perfect with the kelly-striped, box-pleated skirt laid away at Lerner's.  Cashmere Sweater Set laughs and points, but a customer she's friends with now -- an old, old woman with grey-blue hair who lost her husband -- says she looks swell.  "Meet me in front of Walgreen's when you get off," she says.  Guess who's got a pair of real leather loafers?  Penny kind!  "Oh, and here's a check for college.  Scholarship won't cover."  Always been lucky that way.  The woman who cared for her -- about her -- while she ironed and scrubbed for the mother, back in B_n, made a point of  pointing out the swollen red lumps near her big toes.  "Get an education, child!" The woman the girl has become  wishes she could go back and buy her a closetful of shoes.  Specialist first?   Many blessings. . .close calls!  Why is she here?   Not killed by some sicko and hidden in garbage?.  Wobbled around S_d  like a street-walker.  Skirt rolled at the waist.    S-t-u-p-i-d.    More wolves whistled, but knob knees and fried eggs up top spell Jail.  Never any shortage of men who ease to curbs, stick out turkey necks, and coo: "Heeere, girl-eeeeee."  Not a stray!   Little did she know that the parades were unsendable telegrams to a father who on the rare event he surfaced,  hugged close and promised the moon.  Cold fit.   Too busy.  Mean to write.  Didn't send a present?  Oo ah tho thweet, baby-talked.  Pwetty!  Daddy's Widdo Dirl,  'bye.   So make men slobber.  Thrust your hips, stick your nose in the air, and keep walking.  Who would think that one day you'll climb the  hills of a college campus in penny loafers?.  Graduate before they wear out!  Afterwards, shoes begin coming easier.  Stretch after kids, but she and Worn White Bucks manage.   Soon got dancing shoes, walking shoes, 'flops,  sandals, espadrilles, boots.  Fur faux, of course.  Not a flapping sole!.  Dear Diary:  Walk in others'  moccasins!   Writing this, her face heats and her heart thuds.  Need to cancel that order and write a check to Running Strong.   "For shoes and socks~!"

                             (c) Phyllis Jean Green, 2009

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