A Man Without Shoes

by John Sanford

  “But I ought to know it without being told. This is a moment when I’d like to be at my best, but I’m a dark house. Do you still wish we had a car?”

  “I fall just short of prayer.”

  “See that old wreck over there? Gene let me have it for the day.”

  “By God, Gene is the greatest carpenter since Christ!” Dan said. “And any minute, now, you’re going to stop being plain!”

  “I’ll drive,” Mary said. “You sit sideways.”

  As they turned into Ocean Road, Dan said, “Find us some darker dark than this, and I’ll talk to you till you light up brighter than your Navesink flash. You’ll be forty billion candle-power, and they’ll see you from Spain.”

  But when the car was headed inland, he fell silent, and for a long way, under a sky like a faded blueprint, he stared out at the somber masses that rose against it—trees, houses and barns, slopes of ground, and wall—and then at the roadside there was water-shine, and from below a bridge came the sound of water-fall, and now the car was moving along a pair of tracks through a field, and insects sprayed up into the lamp-line, and the savor of shrubs and the earth was on the air.

  Within a mile, the tracks came to an end, and Mary stopped the car and turned off the lights, and for a while the quiet was broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine. “You’re not looking at me any more,” the girl said to the coal of a cigarette in the windshield. “Can’t you make me beautiful this time?”

  “I never really could,” Dan said. “But I’m looking at you all the same.”

  “I’m over here.”

  “You’re over here too,” he said, “and you’re straight ahead, and straight up, and straight down. You’re all around me. I don’t have to turn my head to see you. I don’t even have to open my eyes.”

  “You must know I’m crying, then.”

  “I know that and a great deal more,” he said, “because I’m more inside you than you are yourself. I know what’s going on there better than you do. I don’t know how I know, but I know. You’re not in love with Jack any more, and I’ll bet my life on it. He’s finished, all but the ten minutes of him you had on the floor—and it’s those ten minutes you’re crying about, nothing else. But you won’t cry them away by yourself any more than I’ll cry away Julia Davis, and when you realize that, we can start doing each other some good.”

  “I’m willing to try, Dan.”

  “You’ve got to mean it, or it’ll only be worse.”

  “I do mean it.”

  “Not yet, you don’t.”

  “How can I prove it?”

  “By looking at me and all at once turning very beautiful.”

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “Do better. They still can’t see you from Spain.”

  “I love you, Dan.”

  He put his hands on her face, saying, “I hope to God I look like this to you.”

  “You always have,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”

  She left the car and walked away through deep grass, and he watched her until her figure became dim in the dark, and then he followed, hurrying to keep it in view, but it vanished around the corner of a barn, and when he reached the corner himself, he found that he was alone. He paused, listening for footsteps, but he heard only a few night-sounds, the machinery of tree-frogs, the call-and-answer of birds, and dew-drip dropping from the eaves. A wind came and briefly stirred the trees and the broad leaves of sunflowers, and then it died away, and again there was only smaller sound or silence. His name was spoken now, and he glanced about him, and it was spoken a second time, but in a way that seemed for once to fill it full, to extend it from a three-letter identification to his utmost and total meaning, and he turned to the black oblong that was the doorway of the barn, and within it he saw a less-than-black figure, and he joined it [and you remembered saying one thing before you lay with her, and it was, “This doesn’t end it, Mary; it only begins it” and then you were a longtime going-going-gone…].

  * * *

  He said, “If I could tell you every thought I’ve had and everything I’ve done in my life, the few good things, all the bad things, and all the things that don’t seem to have counted, I think you might remember me if I died tomorrow. Once I wanted to be remembered by the whole world, but that was before I knew I was ordinary, and because for an ordinary guy the world must shrink to one person, I’d like that person to be you.”

  She said, “If not for you, I’d’ve been a dead one till I died, but now I’ll have to die all over again, Dan—I’ll have to die twice.”

  He said, “I ought to be kissing you and memorizing your flavor, I ought to be trying to get the feel of you in my hands, I ought to be supplying myself with you—because death is long, and I want you to last me….”

  * * *

  What he saw first in the morning was a slope of rafters, and thinking he was still in the barn, he sat up, saying, “Mary,” but it was a bed that he was sitting in, with Mary leaning over its footboard and looking at him. “Get undressed, you, and climb in here.”

  “I came up to find out what you want for breakfast.”

  “I told you what I want: you.”

  “To eat, I mean.”

  “You’re edible. I could live on you and coffee.”

  “Wash your dirty face, and I’ll bring the coffee up here.”

  “A better way to let Ed know about last night is to show him.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little thing like a father.”

  “Me?” Dan said. “Listen, I’m going right down and smack him on the back, saying, ‘Ed, ole boy, that dotter of yours is sure a mighty sweet piece,’ and he’ll say, ‘That’s no way to talk about m’ own flesh and blood!’ and I’ll smack him again and say, ‘Clam down, Ed, ole boy, clam down and pass me them pancakes,’ and he’ll say, ‘You got to have a little more respeck for m’ dotter!’ and I’ll say, ‘How can I, Ed, ole boy? She laid there just like them cakes!’”

  “You’re vulgar.”

  “From Vulgarville. I’m Daniel V.Johnson.”

  “I must be from there too. I’m Mary V. Homer.”

  “Homer?” he said. “I wasn’t out with anyone named Homer last night.”

  Mary spoke to her hands, saying, “Weren’t you?” “I was under the impression that she was Mrs. Johnson,” he said. “How’s that for a proposal?”

  “It was the kind I wanted.”

  “Don’t bother accepting. Just go hot up the coffee.”

  * * *

  When Dan reached the kitchen, he said, “Morning, folks. I overslept,” and after touring the table to shake hands with the family, he sat down in the spare chair next to Mary.

  “Get started,” Ed said. “I’m about ready for lunch.”

  “Pancakes!” Dan said, and looking at Mary, he laughed.

  “Been wanting to ask you something, boy,” Ed said. “How do they rate this feller Roosevelt up your way?”

  “Well, we made him Governor.”

  “I mean, for the big noise in Washington.”

  “If my vote settles it, he’s in.”

  “What’s wrong with the man we got right now?”

  “You take me by surprise, Ed. I didn’t know we had a man right now.”

  “I think Hoover’s done as good as anybody could.”

  “Not as good as Chester A. Arthur. Arthur—there’s the man to handle a depression.”

  “Arthur’s dead as a nit.”

  “The country’s lost its best men—Hoover, then Salmon P. Chase, then Arthur. I don’t know what we’re coming to.”

  “Say, what the hell’re we feeding here,” Ed said. “A Democrat?”

  “Politics and breakfast don’t mix,” Mrs. Homer said.

  “Ma’am,” Dan said, “I’d like three more of your Republican pancakes.”

  “He sure can eat,” Ed said.

  “Eats like a Democrat,” Gene said.

  “We’ve been out for twelve years,” Dan said. “We
’re hungry.”

  “Give him another cup of coffee,” Ed said.

  “He’ll be out for twelve more.”

  Mary said, “Could you stand another egg?”

  “After Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover,” Dan said, “I could stand anything but another Republican.”

  “I like this boy,” Flora said. “The first time I look on him, I say to Genio, ‘Genio, there is a boy I like.’”

  “I like you too,” Dan said. “I never saw the wop I didn’t.”

  “A wop is not me. I am eSpanish.”

  “Wops, spies, shines—I love ’em all.”

  “I can understand about the spies—I married one,” Gene said. “I can even understand about the wops. But where do the shines come in?”

  “Up to now, through the back door,” Dan said.

  “In my local, they don’t even come in that way.”

  “One of these days, a nice big shine is going to walk into that White House and say to his secretary, ‘Get me some new stationery, man. This is the Black House.’”

  “You feel like that, you ought to vote Republican,” Gene said. “The Democrats didn’t free any slaves.”

  “Nobody freed any slaves.”

  “I learnt otherwise about Lincoln.”

  “If Lincoln was alive today, the Republicans wouldn’t nominate him to run for a train.”

  “Republicans, Democrats—what’s the odds?” Ed said. “They’re all crooks, and what I say is, stay away from the polls and stick to your trade.”

  “That’s just what they want you to do: tear up your vote.”

  “They’d only tear it up themselves, the bamboozlers!”

  “It’s high time we did some tearing up,” Dan said. “I’m sick of being on the dirty end of the stick. I’m sick of losing Saccos and Vanzettis and not even handing out a broken head in return.”

  “I told Genio,” Flora said. “‘There is a boy I like,’ I said.”

  Mary said, “I like him too. In fact, I love him.”

  Dan turned to her and kissed her a long kiss on the mouth, and then he scanned the faces of four staring Homers and smiled, saying, “Could you use a good Democrat in the family?”

  There was a moment of silence before Ed said, “Ain’t this kind of sudden, boy?”

  “I’ve known Mary since last winter,” Dan said. “I think I’m late as hell.”

  “But all we know about you is you eat like a lion.”

  “Suppose I tell you more,” Dan said. “The great regret of my life is that I was born an hour too soon. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to meet Mary, I’d’ve shown up on earth exactly a hundred years after Lincoln, and maybe I’d’ve been a Lincoln myself—who knows? As it is, though, I’m only a guy called Daniel Johnson. My father’s a hack-driver, the best God damn hack-driver in the world, and I love him because he lives for two things: my mother, and the hope that some day a sport will hail him for a spin to the moon. My mother comes from a farm up around Port Jervis, and because I love her too, I’ve had four street-fights on account of her name, which is Apollo Panetela, after a stogie her old man happened to be chewing on when she was born. I went to public school for eight years and to Clinton High for four, and then, instead of working my way through college like a hero, I drifted around the country like a bum. I’m ashamed of a lot that I’ve done, and I’m proud of almost nothing, and up till a short time ago, I got fired from job after job with appalling regularity. That came to an end when I met Mary. I met her on a snowy afternoon about six months back, and I spent the rest of the day with her, and I stood her to a meal, and then I brought her home on the train. The next day, I went away, and from then till this weekend, I never set eyes on her. I didn’t have to: I was always with her. I ate with her, I walked the streets with her, and if you understand what I mean, I went to bed with her and woke up with her. I’m crazy for her. I don’t want any mistake made about that.”

  “Is no mistake,” Flora said.

  “Shut up,” Gene said.

  “Now I’d like to say something, and I hope it won’t hurt your feelings,” Dan said. “This is what it is. I think if I hunted around, I could find many a girl better-looking than Mary, and betterbuilt, and better-educated, and maybe even better-natured, but I could hunt for the rest of my life and not find anyone better. Do I make myself clear? She’s the best.”

  “It is very clearly,” Flora said.

  “What I mean is, one girl would have a straighter nose, and another would have a smaller mouth, and a third would have finer hair, and so on, and if I could take the best features of all, I’d have somebody who’d beat Mary all hollow for looks—but I still wouldn’t want her. I want Mary. Am I clear now?”

  “You could not be clearer if possible,” Flora said.

  “For God’s sake, Flora!” Gene said. “He ain’t asking for you!”

  “But what there is to Mary isn’t clear at all,” Dan said. “I only know that there’s something about her face. It’s plain most of the time, or maybe quiet would be a better word, and in a careless moment, a man might pass it by without ever dreaming that what he was looking for was gone—but I happen to be careful with faces, and that’s how I know there’s something about Mary’s. Things seem to go on behind it, and I think if I watched it long enough, they’d show through. She has her hands in front of it now, but her hands can’t hide the things I mean, and I doubt that a stone wall could, either: some day the things would work their way out, and I’d know what they were. So if it pleases you, Ed, I’d like to have the right to watch for them.”

  There was a silence then, during which Dan did nothing with a fork—he made four fine-tracks on the oilcloth, and then four more, and then four more, nothing important, nothing worth remembrance or mention—and now a chair was moved, and shoes scraped on the floor, and a pair of hands were placed on his shoulders, and a voice said, “You can watch if you care to, son, and I want you to make Mary watch you: there’s something about your face.”

  * * *

  Gene had given them his car again, and Mary was driving it toward Seabright along a shaded river-road. For a way, now, they had spoken little, both of them looking ahead at the stencil of sunlight that the touching trees made on the pavement.

  “Do you really want to marry me, Dan? You don’t have to, you know.”

  “On the contrary: I do have to.”

  “I don’t want anyone to get tired of me again. I don’t want to be shucked like a dirty shirt. It’d be more than I could stand.”

  “Jack Hill would make a bright remark in here somewhere—like ‘Sooner or later, all shirts get dirty’—but on the subject of marriage I’m not bright in the least. In fact, I’m quite an ordinary cluck, and there’s nothing original about what I’d say if I said it.”

  “Say it.”

  “Well, it’s just that you’re a shirt that won’t ever get dirty—anyway, not on my neck—and while you may get tired of me, which is likely, I’ll never get tired of you, which is sure. Ordinary stuff—what every man says and what every man means—but with this difference, that beyond you the world seems to end.”

  “Where would it’ve ended if you’d never met me?”

  “It would never’ve begun.”

  “No one ever said that to me before. Why do you call it ordinary?”

  “Because I’m ordinary.” “Men’re funny people.” “Real comedians.”

  “You don’t have to sit so far away, Dan. I’d be glad to have your arm around me.”

  “In France, the woman puts her hand on the man’s knee. Shows ownership.”

  “I’m driving. You show ownership.”

  “I don’t want to own you, but I’d dearly love to use you.”

  * * *

  At the beach, again they were assigned a locker in the last aisle, and when again they stood in its sea-sounding gloom, Mary said, “Would you care to use me now, Dan?”

  “Anywhere but here,” he said.

  “Yesterday you said this place
hadn’t changed.”

  “It’ll never change: it’ll always be four walls, a roof, and a floor. But we’ve changed—or at least I have. Yesterday there was no place I’d’ve refused you; today there’s this one.”

  “For me, it’s just the opposite, so I’ve changed too.”

  “I don’t know why I feel this way. Maybe it’s because when I’m through with somebody, I’m not quite as through as you are.”

  “I wish you were, Dan.”

  “Why? Because Jack Hill was sitting in a car outside?” “Yes,” Mary said. “I didn’t know you’d seen him.”

  * * *

  They put on their suits, and he followed her along the planked aisle toward the beach-ramp. She glanced back at him once, and once she stopped to say, “You stare and stare, Dan.”

  “What else is worth looking at?” he said. “A miserable little ocean? There are quite a few of those, but there’s only one of you.”

  Many people were on the sand, and many heads on the shuttling water, and there was much lace on the gallant surf, and a boy with a tin shovel was shoveling fill from an always-filling hole.

  Near one of the jetties, they found an area not yet pocked by feet, and they lay close to each other, and Dan said, “One question, Mary.”

  “I know what it is,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for it.”

  “Did that bastard up there have anything to do with your offer in the locker?”

  “It has everything to do with your refusal.”

  “I know that, but it isn’t an answer.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “How’d you know what I was going to ask?”

  “It was all over your face—that I was out to get even.”

  “You can hardly blame me for wondering.”

  “I think I could, and very easily.”

  “Damn it, Mary, I believe we’re going to have a quarrelsome life.”

  “Only if you harp on Jack Hill. Forget him.”

  “He’s hard to forget.”

  “I’ll help you,” she said. “What do you do for a living? You never told me.”

  “I work for an employment-agency,” he said. “With seventy-nine million people out of work, we get calls for about four jobs a day—and there are four hundred and four applicants for each. Supplicants would be more like it. Strangers come in and zip open their lives for me, and they want one thing: they want to eat, and most of ’em want to eat then and there. All I can do is ask their names, their qualifications for jobs they’re not going to get, and do they take spirits or advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence—fine questions to put to guys with holes in their gut. If they could afford the truth, or maybe if they were hungrier, they’d say, ‘Spirits? Mister, I’d drink anti-freeze if it came with a straw, and if Heaven was run like this country is, I’d overthrow God Himself!’ It’s a terrible thing to sit and listen to the terrible things that happen to people. Even if your heart’s no bigger than a buckshot, it’s a terrible thing to be on the inside looking out—and that being so, good Christ, what must it be like to be on the outside looking in? When I was a kid, I once ate a big mushy sundae while a Negro boy watched me through the window of the store. I had another dime in my pocket, and I could’ve called him in and bought him a sundae too, but I didn’t, and always I’ll remember the anguish on his face, an anguish so vast that it was racial—but now I see that same anguish day after day and thirty times over during each, on white faces as well as black, on men’s faces and women’s, on the young and the old. It’s a terrible thing to make a living off such misery, because I love all those people—I must, or I couldn’t love you.”