Shoes

Yearning to dance, he went to a discount store with very little money to spend. He needed new old shoes. He’d been saving to buy beer that evening, and aftershave, and a ten dollar ticket to a singles’ dance. Loneliness would sometimes crowd out the need for food, but he couldn’t dance without leather soled shoes. He needed to buy black shoes, inconspicuous ones that hid poverty and social class and help him fit in at the dance. Of fifty or so pairs of brown and black shoes, a pair of black loafers still shined, appeared almost new. He wondered briefly whose toes had shifted in those shoes-- Was he a dancing man? A rich man? A lonely man? He slipped into the mystery man’s shoes: A perfect fit. A new confidence, A feeling of wealth. Tonight in the dance hall, dancing away his blues, will be a man with inconspicuous black shoes.