Maggie Nerz Iribarne
Slim Differences
I noted the decrepit state of Mr. Talbot’s shoes before stepping over his legs, a motion I’d performed for over a year. He slept in my shop’s doorway, as he did every night, mostly because I no longer tried to stop him.
“Mr. Talbot,” I said, always very respectful, “It’s time to get up.” I tugged at his arm.
It’s not like I was afraid to touch a homeless man. I made a point of it.
Not very long ago, after engaging him in several conversations, I learned that Mr. Talbot and I were not very different. We were only two years apart in age, divorced, college graduates. We’d both lived in Newburgh our entire lives. Talbot said his mother bought their entire family shoes at Fogarty’s. She knew my father. And we were both recovered addicts, although different addictions, and he was not totally recovered, like me.
No, we were not as different as I originally hoped.
“Morning, Fogarty,” he said. His thinning hair and baggy sweatpants contrasted with my neat comb-over and pressed khakis. A post-divorce point of pride: I did all my own laundry and ironing. He shook out his legs and arms, stamped his feet, cracked his neck and knuckles.
“I’ll get your coffee,” I said, my voice competing with an early morning siren.
“Thanks,” he said, shaking his head in what I assumed was dismay at the state of the world.
We had numerous discussions about Newburgh’s decline. We both recalled when the city possessed just two police cars.
I unlocked the front door and headed to the Keurig machine in the office.
It was a fresh early summer morning, a nice day for Talbot on his bench in the park, I reasoned.
After fixing his coffee in his usual mug, I journeyed back to the front of the store, passing through the dwindling inventory. Fogarty’s shoe store, opened 50 years ago by my father, was officially on its last legs. The bulk of the shoes would be sold at incrementally lowering prices until they were all gone. I didn’t expect them to last much beyond the big Labor Day sale.
I handed Mr. Talbot his coffee and a hot rag with which to wipe his face.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
I assured him I slept fine, tamping down the memory of my own warm bed as I stood on his cold slab.
After coffee, Mr. Talbot swept the front walk, as was his custom, and headed out for the day.
“Much obliged, Fogarty,” he said.
A nip of a nod and off he went, shoes flapping.
My heart swelled a bit as I watched him saunter off to the park. I decided right then and there I’d save a pair of Florsheims, my best pair, in Talbot’s obvious size ten. I’d save them as my parting gift. After Fogarty’s final sale, I’d head to that park, kneel down, like Jesus when he washed the feet of his disciples, loosen his threadbare shoes, slip them off his feet. I would resist my ever-present gag reflex. I would never want to offend Mr. Talbot, not again.
I would gently slide on the new shoes, buff them a little for shine, as my father did.
I’d put my hand in the crook of Talbot’s arm and help him rise up off his bench, praise him as he strutted in the sunshine, thanking me.
***
As summer lurched on Talbot and I kept up our morning pleasantries. I continued marking down my inventory, never mentioning a word of the shop’s demise. There was no need. Talbot’s pair of Florsheims sat on a special place on the shelf, awaiting the final sale.
In mid-August, a bald man introducing himself as Cope entered the store. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
“I hear you’re closing up,” he said.
“Where’d you-? Anyway. Not quite yet,” I said. “I still have shoes to sell.”
“I’ll give you 5000 for the-how many you say?”
“I didn’t. I have a big inventory. Top quality shoes. They’re worth a hell of a lot more than 5000.”
“Cash?” he said, hands in pockets, ogling the place.
I had not expected that word. Cash. I never saw cash anymore. Cash.
“Let me think about it,” I said.
“Now or never,” Cope said. “This is my one day in this town and I’ll give you cash. 5000. Now or never.”
“Let me see it,” I said.
He pulled a stack from his man purse, slapped it on the counter.
“May I?” I said, lifting one bill off the top. I held it to the light.
“Okay,” I said, dismissing a buzz of brain-nags. My ex always accused me of never taking chances. My face heated with the giddy rashness of the change of plans. I grabbed the wad and shoved it in the register.
He moved to the door, propped it open, whistled.
A chubby guy with a tattooed neck entered with a dolly.
In minutes the entire inventory, including Mr. Talbot’s shoes, were sold to Cope. I stood alone in the depleted space, throat caught between a laugh and a sob, clutching a framed photo of younger versions of my father and me, shaking hands in the storefront, now Talbot’s sleeping spot.
Just go buy Talbot a pair of shoes with that cold hard cash in your hot little hand, I told myself.
But, Charity begins in the home, that’s what my mother always said. Put yourself first, that’s what she meant. And hadn’t I already done a lot for old Talbot? The store, every pair of shoes, was my father’s legacy. I wasn’t about to give any of it away, for free.
That day, that very same day, I pulled my personal effects, even the Keurig machine and all the little pods, slapped up CLOSED and BUILDING FOR SALE signs, and left, classic Buster Brown and Stride Rite posters still hanging on the walls. I was getting the hell out of this crumbling city, heading down south somewhere.
Before I took off there was one last thing I had to do. I removed Talbot’s sleeping accoutrement from a closet and left it there for him, on the street, unnoticeable amidst the other piles of trash scattered here and there on the block. I hoped no one would take it, that he would find it. He’d need it to sleep. It was my parting gift, the right thing to do, after all.
Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 54, lives in Syracuse, NY, bakes up sometimes crispy, sometimes dense, sometimes fluffy cakes of curious people and places, recurring thoughts of dread, haunting memories, and the occasional sugar cookie. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com.