The Foot

The Foot

    Greg gets home from a late night at his shop.  He realized when we was their that he needed some sleep but he was ankle deep in polishing and scrubbing that he tediously did at his job.  So Greg Ditch, Shoe scrubber entrepreneur, brought some of his work home to himself, especially the long-term acquaintance of Alfred E Whittacre.

    After Greg Ditch ate his dinner that generously consisted of steamed eggs and friend green beans, he pulled up his bearskin ottoman right up next to his pleather love seat.  Greg swung his arm around naturally, reaching for the remote that laid on his oak table, scrambling for his remote but accidentally picking up a wad of cigarette butts, a piece of crust from some left over bread until he finally felt its familiar touch.  When he turned on his 44 inch flat screen, he searched through the hundreds of channels that he insisted on paying for which, I might add, he never used respectably.  After wasting at least 15 minutes scanning each channel as if it was worth something or just in case he might stumble on the history of shoes or boots or sandals or anything or everything you could put on your feet.  Greg Ditch wanted to be a podiatrist but before applying for any college, he already struck a note in the polishing business and he knew he had a knack for it.  Finally after being frequently disappointed, he ended up on the most meaningless, droneful television show which happens every night and is usually, the local news. 
    He lifted up his potato sack, filled to the brim with many variants of shoes, galoshes, sandals, slippers, and most importantly and his focus, the boot, right up next to him.  As he paired the first pair, a leather pair of Fike swooshes.  He lifted up his work briefcase and placed it next him on his love seat which he did any night he brought work to home which was his excuse to banish his wife, Georgia O’Flubber Ditch to the Lazi Boi.  When Greg opened his briefcase, he whiffed the smells that protruded from the assortment of polishes and cleaners that were the rarest in his field.  When customers or other professionals in the industry ask him where he gets his “toolbox” from he always says the same thing. Greg says “They have been off the market for 10 years because I bought the market.”  Then he chuckles uncontrollably while the audience waits confusingly.  He would never entrust his work secrets to anyone, not even his own wife. I should tell you a little about Greg’s demeanor before further going on in the story.
    Greg is a middle aged man, never experienced a midlife crisis and especially loves his craft.  He worries about nothing because he is so focused, or delusive and caught up in his life, that he rather not worry about anything else.  Especially his wife, Georgia.  She tries to be their for him but he won’t accept intruders into his secrecies.  The way they met is very cute and especially gentlemen like from such a coniferous prick.  She walked up and Greg offered her a free shoe shine when he still worked for one of those booths in the subway stations.  But after they got married and never had kids, they instantly grew apart when they kept living closer and closer to one another.
    As Greg hands slowly and particularly scrubbed the dirt and grime off other men’s shoes, Georgia would stare at her husband, every night, cleaning those shoes and would wonder who owned those pair of shoes and pretend she was that woman’s husband.  It was a fairy-tale that she knew never existed in matrimony but isn’t that the reason why so many married women read romance novels. 
    No females took their shoes to Greg Ditch because he was a known sexist pig who would either openly stare at the breasts and ass at the women that came in or if they seemed to snuudy for him, Greg would recite one of his countless phrases which was “None of them (which he stressed) could afford my work.”  You might think Georgia would be rather upset after hearing this information on her husband but she was to old to care and knew their was no harm in it.  She already caused him harm by coming home every night so by actually hearing about him, because she never heard from him, she was quite pleased and some times would even chuckle the way George did.
    As Greg got to the end of his bag, and the news show finally got to that one thing about the elections which they only dedicated 5 minutes to, he picked out the last remaining pair of boots and was surprised.  When his mouth dropped, Georgia turned and looked at them as well and, contrary to his emotions, was not intentionally moved by the boots.  But Greg, fondled these boots and smoothed his hands on its rough, embroidered edges.   He turned to his wife, smiled, and began to converse.
“You know where these were made, oh my god it’s completely amazing.”
“I am guessing Indonesia but I’ll probably be wrong, where at Greg?”
“It was made in fucking Italy.”
“How can you tell?” Georgia thinking her husband had such an eye for shoes (even though they were boots) that he could just honestly tell by the feel.
“It says right here on the tag.”
And a paused wandered through the room and Greg got back to mind-fucking this pair of beautiful shoes.
“Ah ha, you see this embroidery?”
“Yeah, it looks pretty.”
“It was made by an ancestor of Emmanuel the third, one of the Kings of Italy.”
“How in the world can you tell that by just looking at leather, Greg.”
“I have seen it once at an exhibit and I know he still does work, very loosely and very, very expensive.”
“Well that is pretty impressive, who owns them?”
“Well only the poorest man in town, Alfred E Whittacre.”
“The poorest man? How could he afford your services?”
“Yep the poorest and he saves up.  Sometimes I put him on a tab but he has always paid me.  I have been doing business with him since I started and he loved my fine detail to scrubbing.
“Well, well, someone in this house has a heart but how could he get such shoes if he is so poor.”
“That I do not know, Georgia, and you know we don’t have hearts.”
They both laughed, somehow reaching out to each other while sharing glances at each others round eyes.
“And they are boots.” Greg says, completely ruining the moment.
    As Greg began to become self-absorbed again with his work, he got a sudden flood of relief.  Finally, he felt like he chose the right field.  He always knew it but finally he is exactly at the top of his game.  He was uplifted cleaning these boots and as he got lost, watching his reflection shine off the lip of the boot, Greg felt like he was wiping off his dirty pride.  Greg, after finishing up these shoes would be known as the best in the city of Baltimore where shoes polishers and boot scrubbers still existed in their entirety.  They held conferences and exhibitions and regular citizens actually attended these like other normal city goers might attend a sporting event or a car show. 
    But what set Greg off from the rest was his concentration on “care” which was his first and last business motto at his good ole shop called “Greg Cares about your Boots.”  Many people laughed at his stupidly titled business but his rebuttal was this it wasn’t false advertisement and it was straight to the point.  Only he worked at his shop because he couldn’t trust a mule and he provided all customers with the same delicacies, never picking favorites.  It was first come, first serve and he was a stickler for this rule even if these corporate executives through Benjamins at him, he would quietly and coyly push the money aside and put his foot down.  Money means nothing if you ain’t doing what you love and since he was doing what he loved, the value of money is meaningless.  His favorite technique that only he did, was how he would insist on pulling off his customers “foot apparel” (his words; changed from shoes), which he said helped with getting the feel of his customers sense of comfortability so he could provide them with the extra “care” they absolutely deserved.  This was also required for him to start working on your shoes.  When confronted with questions on this technique such as “how he could tell” and “how did he explore this technique” he would answer with simple answers even though when ever he talked about the industry, he could ramble and garble for hours boring the interviewee or audience.  He only did it for the “reference” and in my personal opinion, to find some sort of connection with his customers because Greg felt un-attached.  He was a very strange man who was delusional.
    While finishing up on the polish and applying the base, he felt like he wanted to try something special and that would be to fluff up the padding in the boot.  He was surprised he never though of it before and also surprised that he had another business technique.  He was confused.  And when he reached in for the first time, he was shockingly confused.  Something blocked the entrance into the shoe.  He tried to tug on it and release it but nothing came out.  He asked his wife, Georgia, who was clueless to Greg’s delusional demeanor, asked if people hide anything in their shoes.
“No.”
    And as Greg, took a light and peaked into the shoe, he finally saw what was blocking the entrance to the boot.  It was a man’s foot.  He couldn’t believe it.  He was astonished, most peculiarly because it didn’t even bleed on this fine, one of a kind boot.  He looked around for specks but he remembered he just cleaned them and he knew he would notice such a uncommon liquid on especially this pair of shoes.  So he tried to remember.  And remembered nothing.
    He looked into the shoe again and tried to with all his might, pull out the foot but it look cemented to the boot.  Greg was curious and was wondering how Alfred even got home after not having his foot but it all came together.  But before explaining his pondering to me, his paid biographer, he passed out.  When he arose in the morning, he quickly tied the shoe laces together of these very expensive shoes, which were made of goat tails might I add, and went to work carrying the shoe-laced tied boots around his shoulder.  While walking to work, Greg was trying to decide what to do but was suspicious of the police who seemed to be every where.  On top of building with binoculars, in tree branches and other people were chasing after them.  It was very weird, so he decided to just start running because he could of either responded with fight or flight and he didn’t want to have anymore attention on him and he remembered he was not a fighter.  I could of told him but thought the paranoia was conclusively funny but it was International Cops and Robbers day which explained the runners and hiders but Greg was cut off from the world.
    As he passed his work, he finally decided to give back the boots because maybe he could recover Alfred E Whittacre as a customer and get this long story behind him.  As he approached the apartment complex that Alfred lived at, Greg got very sweaty and antsy.  As if he was having an anxiety attack and the thought of having one even terrified him even more.  He knew he had to get to work, yes that was the answer to his anxiety or what ever this confused man was going through, so he took one lunge, swung the boots that were tied together and started swinging them around like a hunter would with a pair of rocks.  He turned a complete 180 degrees and while running the other way, he whipped those boots and high as he possibly could while closing his eyes, wishing he didn’t have to ruin these fantastic shoes, but to him, their was no other way of doing such a delicate work.  He didn’t even look back and went back to work. 
    The shoes ended up on a telephone wire which in these parts of town, recognize hood rats where the drug dealers are.  It made this neighborhood look like shit which upset the apartment tenets who were reasonable below the poverty level but still didn’t want their small community to be known as the “ghetto” like all the other.  They had pride and the custodian of the apartment complex was, the one and only, Alfred E Whittacre.  As he got his phone call, he limped to his phone wondering what happened last night and worried that he lost his prosthetic leg again.  He was doomed when he heard what he had to do.  How was a man with one capable leg supposed to reach his own pair of shoes on a telephone wire?  He was completely doomed.