Stepping Out

Take for instance the other day. My sister and her boyfriend had a bunch of people over for one of their famous soirees. I was sitting close by, munching away on my usual sandwich — baloney and cheese slices on white. I took the time to appreciate the familiar comfort of my life. The steady sureness of it all. My overstuffed recliner chair, my sandwich, and looking around, my sneakers parked over by the front door.

The thing about some old shoes is they’re sort of like old friends. You don’t really care what they look like. And if they smell a little ripe on a hot day or when the windows aren’t open, well, you don’t notice it enough to make too much of a deal out of it.

But if others around you — people you know and their friends and maybe even their friends’ friends, or whoever those other people over there are – if they point and snort behind their hands and then maybe make smart aleck remarks to you, well that’s different.

Me, I have a plain heart. Those soiree people, though, they’re all uptown and what’s new, and did you hear, and go go go. “How about those shoes, buddy?” one finally said. “Grass stains, beat up, past it,” said someone else. “Eww. Yuck,” one of the young ones said. Then “Eww. Yuck!” they all yelled out at once and laughed.

“See, I told you,” my sister said. “If you thought no one noticed you have another think coming.” I was afraid my reputation — such as it is, you might say, but still — was at stake. I picked up my shoes to have a look. Maybe if I did something. Maybe if I wiped them down? Maybe they weren’t as bad as all that. Maybe the soiree people were just nasty and full of their own opinions. But who knows, if I tried to fix the shoes, maybe they would fall apart for good. After all, these old running shoes had never done me any harm.

Maybe I shouldn’t do anything. Maybe I should.

‘Maybe I’m not ready,’ I thought. ‘Maybe I should check. You know, consult with someone. Jack,’ I thought, ‘is just the guy.’ I have always had great admiration for old Jack. The jalapeno hot-‘n-spicy tofu chili dog eating champion three years running. The Coordinator Emeritus of his Round Robin pickleball team. A muckety-muck. A man among men.

Jack agreed to help. We met secretly at the back of the back yard. Jack examined the shoes with scientific care. “Well, they’re dirty,” he said. “You might at least have washed them. And the heel is worn down. How do you walk in these? And there are pieces of grass stuck here,” he pointed “where the toe meets what’s left of the sole.” I looked myself and had to admit he was right. I hadn’t looked at them that way before. I remember the year the stuck grass part happened. It was a good memory. But a distant one.

I needed to act. I needed to move. I needed to go shopping for new sneakers.