A Man Without Shoes

by John Sanford

  “Last Name?”

  “Gruenberg.”

  “First name?”

  “Herschel.”

  [Born in one of the smaller villages of Kovno Guberniya, Herschel Gruenberg was the only son of a Talmudic scholar, a man devoted unequally to religion and chess, so unequally, indeed, that his wife, who supported the family on her lean earnings as a wigmaker, was often heard to condemn his pastime with the curse, “Eighty-eight black years on the little pieces of wood!” Hersche’s father died when the boy was nine—died, it may be admitted, in the act of moving a rook—and with the hopes of the Gruenbergs now centered on the son, he was apprenticed to a journeyman cobbler, and thereafter few were the muddy roads of the district that saw not the master with his tool-sacks and his rolls of leather, and young Herschel with the small silver trumpet of their calling. Twice in the year they made a circuit of the farms and villages roundabout, mending along the way such boots and harness and kindred articles as had fallen into disrepair during their absence; but apart from the privilege of heralding their approach, the master granted no concession to Hersche’s youth, and between blasts on the horn, the boy was forced to learn his trade and earn his keep. He learned well, and by the time he was twenty years of age, he possessed a route of his own, a set of tools, and a cornet-à-pistons—and but for an odd circumstance, now about to be related, he might have lived out his life playing brief airs across the Lithuanian countryside.

  [The circumstance was this. He returned from one of his journeys carrying all his equipment in an almost new Gladstone bag, and being observed by a friend, he was asked the following question: “Herschel, where did you obtain such a stylish box?” There was no more to the circumstance.

  [Now, the truth was, the stylish box had been acquired in a manner that reflected little credit on Herschel’s business ability, and being proud, he was too ashamed to be frank. In the great city of Suwalki, he had labored for many a day in the service of a certain merchant, using the best of his stock of leathers, neglecting other customers of longer standing, and even, quite recklessly, devoting the total of his skill to the fashioning of a gift, a pair of Morocco slippers in a lady’s size—all because a daughter of this merchant, a curving girl with slanting eyes, had come to the work-shed a dozen times a day, on this errand and that, hardly ever glancing at Herschel but always passing close enough to be smelled, and smelling sweet, she had intoxicated him like sacramental wine—but in the end, when there was no more work to be done, and further delay would have been impossible to explain, he had presented himself to the merchant and requested payment for his labors. With deep regret, the merchant had informed him that trade had fallen upon evil times, and since cash was unobtainable, he besought Herschel to satisfy his claim with merchandise. Believing he knew what was in the wind, Herschel had hastened to accept the offer—but he was wrong, as it turned out, for what the merchant produced was not his curving daughter, but an almost new Gladstone bag. For this, Herschel had no more use than he would have had for an iron anchor, yet he had given his word, and he was bound, and sorrowfully he had quitted the great city of Suwalki and turned his face toward home.

  [The question, “Where did you obtain such a stylish box?” remained, and Herschel’s reply, if not quite candid, was entirely honest. “It was given to me in the great city of Suwalki,” he said, and he continued on his way.

  [A little further along, he encountered another friend, and this one said, “Herschel, what are you doing with that stylish box?” and Herschel, unable to explain, explained nevertheless, “As you can see” he said, “I am carrying it by the handle.”

  [At the town’s edge, he was accosted by a third friend and asked the most perplexing question of all. “Herschel,” the third friend said, “are you traveling away somewhere with your stylish box?” Herschel gave what he thought was a perplexing answer, saying, “People come, and people go,” and well-pleased with his skillful parrying, he tarried for a moment to treat himself to a glass of peppermint seltzer.

  [The delay was fatal, for it gave rumor time to grow into fact, and Herschel reached home to find his mother, his five unmarried sisters, and all the neighbors gathered in the road, and his mother was rocking herself and crying, “Eighty-eight black years on Columbus! My son is traveling away!”

  [And Herschel, trapped by his proud nature, was compelled to say, “Aye, with this stylish box, soon I will travel away to the American States.”]

  Dan said, “What did you do after coming to this country, Mr. Gruenberg?”

  “What does a man do if he has no money?” Gruenberg said. “I worked. I worked hard and bitter.”

  “At your old trade?”

  “At my old trade, but not for fifteen years now.”

  “Why did you give it up?”

  “To make a living, I had to buy electrical machines, and how would I buy electrical machines? Is there a fortune in shoe-making?”

  “What’ve you done for the past fifteen years?”

  “Ask, better, what I have not done. I have done everything.”

  “What kind of work would you be willing to take now?”

  “It is a year already that I have not worked. I would be willing, no matter what.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you something personal, Mr. Gruenberg?”

  “Ask. I have no secrets.”

  “What’s the condition of your health?”

  The man looked at Dan for a moment, and the muscles of his face arranged a smile; the smile, however, caused a rise in the water-level of his eyes, and once or twice he blinked. “Not good,” he said, “not good,” and now, curiously, he seemed able to smile well, and his face became very beautiful.

  “I won’t say anything about that,” Dan said.

  “Ah, well,” the man said, “maybe if I didn’t taken that stylish box…. But, then, who can say? Who knows?”

  COMPLIMENTS OF JOHN CARLOS HILL

  Dan cleared his desk for the week-end, waved at Peterson through a glass partition, and started for the door. Peterson came from his room, saying, “Where you going, kid?”

  “Crazy,” Dan said. “Want to come along?”

  “I been there.”

  “My friend Hill called this morning—the Wizard of Wall Street. Asked me to drop in for a drink. See you Monday, Pete.”

  “Don’t you want the wages you earned in the sweat of our clients’ faces?”

  “Hand it over,” Dan said. “I clean forgot.”

  Peterson gave him an envelope. “Don’t spend it all in one cooperative,” he said.

  Leaving the office, Dan walked up Sixth Avenue under a sky like a vast bulging bag being dragged over the rooftops. At any moment, some spire, some flagpole, would tear it as a thorn tore silk, and the city would be smothered, powdered with a single puff. The moment came as Dan neared Central Park, and by the time he reached Hill’s house, he wore inch-thick epaulettes and on his hat an outer hat of snow. Pausing to finish a cigarette, he watched the way its smoke hung in the dense air, and then, shaking himself, he went indoors and upstairs.

  A girl opened the door for him, saying, “According to Jack, you must be Dan.”

  “Why must I, when I’d like so much to be somebody else? Who must you be?”

  “I’m Mary Homer,” the girl said. “Come in and tell me why you want to be somebody else.”

  “I don’t, really. It was the snow speaking. Whenever it snows, I think of Colorado, but don’t ask me why.”

  “Don’t you know, or don’t you care to say?”

  “I don’t know,” Dan said, and he smiled. “That leaves you in the dark.”

  “It’s lighter than you think. I happened to be at the window when you were down below. I saw your face.”

  “Did it reveal names? Did it give dates and places?”

  “It revealed you,” the girl said.

  “I don’t recall thinking about anything—except the smoke I was making with a cigarette. I love to smoke in weather like this.” “I like to
smoke in the dark.”

  “I’d find that strange,” he said. “I smoke to see the smoke.”

  “Did you have a pretty girl in Colorado?”

  “I didn’t say I had any girl in Colorado.”

  “No, you didn’t. That’s quite true.”

  “It’s also true that she was as pretty as a little red pair of shoes,” he said. “Where’s Jack?”

  “I phoned his office from the depot, and he said for us to wait.”

  “Depot? Are you from out of town?”

  “I live in New Jersey,” the girl said. “Red Bank.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of the place.”

  “It’s about fifty miles from here, on the Navesink.”

  “I’ve been in Seabright. Is Red Bank near there?”

  “Four—five miles away, maybe.”

  “Last summer, Jack and I and a few others used to take the steamer to Seabright on Sundays. Good swimming.”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “Very good.”

  “How’d you get to know Jack, Mary? If you don’t mind me calling you Mary.”

  “I met him at Seabright, on the beach.”

  “How did we avoid meeting, then? I was there every time he was.”

  “Not every time,” the girl said. “You know, this flat could use some heat.”

  “You should’ve asked the janitor for a bucket of coal when he let you in.”

  “I’ll take one of your cigarettes,” the girl said. “No one let me in. I have a key.”

  “Oh,” Dan said, and half a cigarette went up in smoke and down in ash before he spoke again. “Well, I only looked in for a minute….”

  The telephone rang, and the girl answered it. “It’s Jack,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Hi, feller,” Dan said to vulcanized rubber.

  [“What do you think of Mary Homer?”]

  “I think you’re a lucky bastard.”

  [“Isn’t she the neatest lay you ever saw?”]

  “What did you say?”

  [“I said, isn’t she the neatest lay?”]

  “What’ve you been doing—tanking up?”

  [“She’s very enjoyable. I guarantee it.”]

  “Better get here soon. I’m leaving.”

  [“What do you mean—you’re leaving?”]

  “I mean I’m leaving. Going away from here.”

  [“The hell you are! What do you think I got you up there for?”]

  “I don’t get you, Jack.”

  [“I wanted to put you two together.”]

  “I still don’t get you.”

  [“What’s there to get? I thought you’d be good for each other.”]

  “You must be out of your mind.”

  [“Why? Don’t you agree with me?”]

  “That isn’t the point, and you know it.”

  [“What is the point?”]

  “I wish you were here right now, mister.”

  [“What would you do?”]

  “I’d knock your ears off.”

  [“For what—for doing you a favor?”]

  “I can live without that kind of favor, and so can … !”

  [“So can who? Say it, kid.”]

  “Look. Why don’t you finish this nickel with Mary? She’s waiting for you, and I’m getting ready to blow. I’ve got a date tonight.”

  [“Break it. You’re going out with Mary.”]

  “But, Jack, she’s got something to say about that!”

  [“She’ll say it. It’s wonderful laying-weather.”]

  “You dirty son-of-a-bitch!”

  [“I’ve got a date myself tonight, and I won’t be home. You can use the flat. So long, now, and good luck.”]

  “So long,” Dan said, and he hung up.

  Mary was looking out of the window at the lilac afternoon. “I have something to say about what?” she said.

  “Jack won’t be able to get here.”

  “I gathered that much.”

  “He wants me to take you out this evening—that is, if you like.”

  “Is that the favor you can live without?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Dan said. “I told him you could live without it too.”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time I knew the whole conversation?”

  “That’s all there was, Mary. The office is sending him out of town, and he asked me to pinch-hit for him. I don’t want to push myself at you, though. If you say no, it’s no.”

  “What about your date?”

  “I haven’t any. I only said that to get him to stall off his Boss.”

  “You mean, you didn’t particularly care for the job he gave you.”

  “That’s not it at all. I was trying to save him a trip to Albany.”

  “When’re you going to start telling the truth?”

  “I’ve been doing that all along.”

  “You’ve been lying, Dan. Otherwise he’d’ve spoken to me.”

  “He figured it’d be nicer if I invited you.”

  “Why’re you making all this up?”

  “But, Mary, I’m not making anything up. Honestly.”

  “He said something that made you angry. What was it?”

  “That’s just my way of talking to him. He talks to me the same way.”

  “You say he only wanted you to beau me around for an evening. I’m not so hard to take that you had to call him a son-of-a-bitch for it.”

  “You’re going to keep at me till I tell you, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” the girl said.

  “Well, I called him a son-of-a-bitch because, God damn it, that’s what he is!”

  “All right. Now, what did he really tell you?”

  “He said he wanted the two of us to meet. He said we’d be good for each other.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “Who the hell knows?”

  “You do. You’re the one that spoke to him.”

  “He’s a dirty dog for making me peach on him, but you know part of it, so you might as well know the rest: he wants to get rid of you.”

  “I can understand that,” the girl said, “but why does he think he has to give me away?”

  “I suppose he figured it’d have a sweeter taste for you,” Dan said, and he watched the girl collect a few pieces of clothing and stow them in an overnight-bag. “He’s a compassionate-type feller, you know—always bleeding from the heart.” The girl put on her hat, coat, and overshoes, and then, taking something from her purse, she dropped it on a table, where it clinked against a china ash-tray. “It’s a pity. We could’ve been friends.”

  “I’m sorry you were used for this, but I’m glad we met.”

  “I can say the same, but that’s about all I can say. I feel sick, as much for you as I do for myself. I’ll walk you to the bus.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know that,” he said.

  They crossed the Drive and squinted through the snow for the red oblong eye of a Penn Station coach. When it came, Dan followed the girl to the upper deck, and they sat on a rear bench, saying nothing until two dimes had been fed to the conductor’s dime-eater.

  Dan lit a pair of cigarettes and passed one to Mary, saying, “I couldn’t leave you there in the street.”

  “Why not?” she said. “Are you any different from Jack?”

  “I must be, but I couldn’t explain.”

  “He’s hard, and you’re not.”

  “Put it that way, but I’m not nearly as soft as you suppose.”

  “Something that happened in Colorado?”

  “I don’t talk about Colorado any more.”

  “Some day I’ll say I don’t talk about Jack any more.”

  “Make this the day. Talk about yourself.”

  “There’s half a year of Jack in the way.”

  “Leave him where you left his key.”

  “I left much more than the key. I left things I don’t think I’ll ever get back.”

 
; “Not with talk, you won’t.”

  “Only with talk,” she said. “But what shall I say? How and where we met? What he said to me, and what I said to him? What it felt like to kiss him, to have him make love? Or shall I tell you the lies I told my parents, knowing all the while that I was about to go fifty miles to undress and be naked under a man in the dark …?”

  “You don’t have to work yourself up,” Dan said.

  “Or shall I say what it feels like to be on my way home, with no more lies to tell, no more trips to make, no more living all week for a few naked hours? Shall I describe the new blouse I bought for this evening, or the fresh pajamas I was going to wear at breakfast in the morning? Would you like to hear any of that, Dan?”

  He said, “If you’ll feel any better, yes.”

  “I went over to Seabright one Sunday last summer,” she said, “and I remember how fine the ocean was that day, with high-tide early in the afternoon and rolling breakers that never came apart till they were up on shore. There was very little wind, I remember, but it must’ve been blowing about two miles out, because a Clyde liner was being beaten by its own smoke. Ever see that, where a ship seems to have its hair down and its back to the wind? They never paint them that way—they must think it makes a ship look slow—but it’s very beautiful. And there were birds, I remember, a flock of gray-and-white gulls on a jetty, sandpipers on toothpick legs, and petrels behind the waves—scraps of paper, they looked like. I was lying on the sand, and my face was drying in the sun, tightening, and I felt very good, and I was glad to be alone, and then I turned over to let the sun get at my back—and I was dead. He’d been sitting on the beach behind me, with his knees bunched up to his chin, and I knew, I don’t know how, that all the time I’d thought I was alone, he’d been there and watching me. One minute I’d felt good, and the next I was dead!”

  [You let her cry. What else could you do?]

  * * *

  “All out!” the conductor said, and it was Penn Station.

  “What time is your train?” Dan said as he walked the girl through the Arcade.

  “I think the next for Red Bank is seven-thirty,” she said, “but I wish you wouldn’t wait.”

  “I won’t, if you don’t want me to.”

  “The trouble is, I do.”

  “I’m hungry,” he said. “We’ve got an hour, and I’m hungry as Christ in the mountains.”