gray sky at dsw parking lot

the other day i had stopped in a dsw down the street from me.  it's a little sketchy down there--  i mean, it's fine just a little sketchy.  the very first one i ever went to was a little further down the street, then it moved, i found one in uptown and i never went back west.

truthfully i haven't been doing a lot of shoe shopping.

but my feet always hurt anymore.  and i stopped at the thai place and the petco and this was just next door.

i just went straight to clearance.  i found so many shoes, i had to edit.  i came away with three pair for right at a hundred dollars.

without going to much into it, the big winner was a pair of white dr. scholl's, which at seventy percent off came to about twelve bucks.

i had worn them today.  to work.  without breaking them in.  that's why i was in the dsw parking lot on a cold gray day, uptown this time, stopping between work and home to see if i could score another pair of these shoes.  maybe another color.

when i was younger i thought i needed arch supports.  the last couple years i've decided, the more the shoe is like not wearing a shoe, except that, ya know, my toes are protected and stuff, the better i like it.  and these are all swirled and rounded on the foot pad--  like a topographical map of the foot, in 3D.

i'd been a little leary of dr. scholl's.  would probably never have tried them if they hadn't been seventy percent off.  i'm not sure why not.  i used to wear dr. scholl's exercise sandals.  in fact, when i was a teenager i really only liked shoes that were wood soled.  clogs.  clogs were my biggest love.

actually, clogs were maybe my first love.

there were ked's and buster browns and little patent leather mary janes and they were all fine as far as that went but nothing ever really turned my head until the shiny red patent leather clogs.  i was wearing them, in fact that day, the day that kid tried to tease me.

i had just moved to a new school for the second half of first grade.  the school i had been in was what i think might have been a little progressive.  we changed rooms. had different classes.  and my reading teacher had long long blonde hair that she would play with, wrapping it absentmindedly around her fingers--  twist, spool, release;  twist, spool, release--  in a way that i found, mesmerizing.  i couldn't take my eyes off her.  when asked my favorite subject:  math.  we were learning number lines and greater than and less than.  alligators.  they want to eat more people rather than less people, see.  so their big open mouths point to the more.  it was a new school though, and the grounds were flat and treeless as the plains.  sitting on our metal lunchboxes on the loose soil of the play field, strangely like a prison yard.

this new school was disappointing as a school.  the teacher was old and fat and she taught us her recommended ethical policy: me three.  as she explained it:  god should be our main focus, the priority;  then we were to see to our family's needs;  only seeing ourselves and our needs as number three.  the books we read were about dick and jane.  i didn't really read that well.  i didn't pay attention in class.  i just paid attention to what the place had going for it:  landscaping.  it was the most beautiful school i ever attended.  the day of the attempted teasing i was on the playground.  the area was fenced off with a split rail stacked western fencing that made me think of giant lincoln logs.  the ground was a mulch of fallen needles that was clean and fragrant as the piney woods. the greenery framing a view like a huge front window looking out at a pretty row of shops, the seasonal window displays of the candy shop the crowning jewel.

i stood in this little heaven;  red patent leather clogs, reversible hooded cape, probably twirling, actually.  someone interrupted me.  tried to be insulting about my hair.  but my hair was clearly the best thing about me.  my daddy told me how beautiful my hair was, like, almost daily.

whatever jealous nobody, let me get back to twirling.


the world isn't now as continuously animate as it was then.  still, there are moments.  when the sky reflected in the glass buildings and the stark denuded trees lure fat black grackles to leaf.

shoes.

they didn't have the ones i was looking for.  i still spent an hour and a half trying on.  well, not only trying on.  wandering up and down the row of ballerina flats.  when i first became aware of the trend i found them tacky.  the platformed heels strike me in much the same way now, except, of course as stripper shoes--  if you are a stripper then these must be the halcyon days, no more no more the goldfish bowls of yore.

these new ballet flats--  some are tacky, of course, with buckles, or minnie mouse bows--  they are mostly kid leather black of clean design.  some have an extended toe which gives them a sexy en pointe look.  some have sculpted rubber heels, some have rubber soles, the apparatus of which is very like a jazz shoe.  i want them.  i want to put them on.  chasse forward.  arch backward.  twisting.  one arm back of hand to forehead.  other hyper extended back. chest open to the sky.

i buy no shoes today.

i walk back to the parking lot.  i get in the car.  i start to back out.

simultaneously, a car pulls into the row boxing me in, and the car beside and perhaps slightly in front (depending on perspective) begins to back out.

i cannot move back away from the car backing out because i am blocked.  i could pull back into my space, maybe, but for some reason this seems like a bad idea.  the other car has room.  if they are paying attention everything will be fine.

the very second i can see that they do not see me, i begin to honk, insistently.

the car just rolls on back into me, thwack.

i lay on the horn.

the car pulls forward, stops, opens it's doors.  music loud and metal pours out; and though it isn't there i see a cloud of smoke billow.  i get out.  he walks toward me.

i honked, i say.  that car blocked me in, i couldn't back away.

i didn't hear you honk til after.  i heard you then.  he spares a look at the front of my car.  there doesn't seem to be any damage, well, my car has a scratch.

i look.  he has a scratch.  my car seems fine.

well, i guess it's ok then, i say.

ok? he says, mild inflection.

yeah, i say.

cool, he says, nodding slightly.

we get back in our cars.

and drive away.