Do the shoes you wear have special powers? Can they send messages to you?

If you’re brave enough, you’ll find out in the following tale . . .

Always Wear Polished Shoes

     My grandfather was a shoe man—sold shoes and managed shoe stores for two of the largest footwear companies in New York. I didn’t enter a shoe store until my early twenties, after I left home to go to college over 400 miles away.

     If I needed new shoes, Grandpa would pull out the Brannock Foot Measuring Device he stored in the bedroom he and Grandma used when visiting our house. I would stand on it, first with my left foot and then with my right. He’d make me do each foot twice to make sure the measurements were correct. And then, the following weekend he would appear with a shoebox tucked under his arm.

     As he handed me the box, he would smile and declare, “Remember, you must always wear polished shoes.”

     I was eight years old the first time I recall him saying this. I looked at him and asked, “Always? What if I step in mud?”

     He would grin and say, “Well, carry a rag with you and wipe them clean.”

     “But why can’t I wait until I get home to do it?” I whined.

     With a snicker in his voice, he’d mutter in a very eerie way, “The answer is in the shine. You must see what it reflects up at you and do what it tells you to do.”

     This made me quite uneasy. And because of this, I avoided wearing my new shoes for the next few weeks. I didn’t even look at them. I kept them in the box stuffed under my bed. When Mom asked why, I mumbled, “I’m saving them for when Grandpa and Grandma come to visit after they return from their vacation.”

     Three weeks passed. I awoke early on Saturday morning. The sun shined through my bedroom window. The smell of pancakes made me drool. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and raced into the kitchen for breakfast.

     As I entered the room, Mom turned and smiled. “Good morning, Ernie. Grandma and Grandpa will be here at one o’clock. Don’t forget to wear your new shoes.”

     The thought of opening the box and letting the shiny, message-sending demon out made me tremble. “But Mom,” I stuttered, “I want to wear my sneakers. I can run better in them.”

     “You won’t have time to run today. We’re going to have a nice lunch and go to an early movie. You have to wear the shoes. I don’t want to disappoint Grandpa. He will expect to see them on you.”

     “But Mom . . .”

     “No buts. Just do as I say. Now sit down and eat your blueberry pancakes. I made them especially for you.”

     Mom’s ultimatum caused my stomach to feel queasy. What was meant to be a great breakfast turned into a force-feeding nightmare. I finished and rushed out of the kitchen and headed to the bathroom, fully expecting to throw up the two pancakes I’d eaten. However, to my surprise, it didn’t happen.

     How I could avoid opening the box under the bed eluded me. It was 9:00 a.m. I had exactly four hours to come up with something believable—something that would not make Mom mad or Grandpa unhappy.

     I went into the bedroom and took the shoebox out from under the bed, placed it on the rug, and twirled it around. Maybe I could drive the evil demons from it by making them dizzy, I mused. Nothing jumped out of the box, so I picked it up and placed it on the bed. I knew I had to open it sooner or later, but now wasn’t the time.

     There also was another box under the bed, but this one didn’t worry me. It contained my baseball cards—all two hundred of them. I hadn’t looked at them for more than three months. I got down on my knees and pulled it out from under the bed. I picked it up and put it down next to the other one. They were almost identical, with one exception—the writing on the top of the box, in bold printed black letters, read, “ALWAYS WEAR POLISHED SHOES.”

     I started shaking. Could the shoes in the other box have sent the message to this box? But how did it get out of the box containing the shoes and end up printed on the top of this one? I was frightened and confused. Should I tell Mom? And what do I say to Grandpa? For now, more than ever, I didn’t want to open the box containing the highly polished shoes. “But Grandpa will expect me to be wearing them when he arrives,” I grumbled.

     My eyes moved in the direction of the clock on my nightstand. “Oh, my God! It’s noon already. Grandpa will be here in one hour,” I shouted.

     Mom yelled from the kitchen, “Ernie, what’s all the screaming about? Are you all right?”

     “Yes, I just hit my elbow on the dresser. I’ll be fine.”

     “Okay, I hope you’ll be dressed by the time Grandma and Grandpa arrive.”

     “Yeah, I will.”

     “And remember, no sneakers.”

     “But maybe the shoes won’t fit.”

     “You mean you haven’t tried them on?”

     “No, I’ve been busy.”

     “Ernie, you’re trying my patience. I want you down here at one o’clock when the doorbell rings. When I open the door, I want you dressed in your new shoes so Grandpa can see them. Do you understand me?”

     “Yes,” I muttered.

     “I didn’t hear you.”

     “Yes,” I yelled in a way that made me shake. Mom didn’t respond.

     I had no idea how I was going to survive this. What I did know was there was no way those shoes were coming out of the box.

     Opening my closet door, I pulled my nice light blue shirt down off the hanger and then grabbed my good, dark blue dress pants from the hanger next to the shirt. After putting the shirt and pants on, I put on some blue sox. And now the shoes. Oh my, what am I going to do?

     Just when I felt my anxiety level would make me burst, a light bulb went on in my head. I remembered our carpets had been cleaned last week. The guy doing the cleaning gave me shoe covers so I wouldn’t dirty the rugs. After the rugs dried, I took them off and stuffed them in the back of my sock drawer. I opened the drawer, stuck my hand in, pulled them out, and placed them on the bed.

     Now the hard part began. I had to get the new shoes out of the box without looking at them. I stared at the box on the bed—my enemy—and began to wobble back and forth. Then it all became clear.

     I steadied myself, closed my eyes, and lifted the lid off the shoebox. I grabbed a shoe and placed it on the bed. With my eyes still glued together, I felt around for a shoe cover and managed to pull it up over one of the shoes. I breathed a sigh of relief and, with success under my belt, performed the operation a second time with the other shoe. Happy to find the shoes didn’t have laces, I slipped them on my feet, just as I heard the doorbell ring.

     I hurried down the hallway and stood next to Mom as she grabbed the handle and opened the door. With a big smile on my face, I shouted, “Hello Grandpa. Hi, Grandma.”

     We hugged and kissed. I helped Grandpa drag his and Grandma’s suitcases in. Just as I thought everything was going so well, I noticed Grandpa looking at my feet.

     “Ernie, why have you covered up your shiny new shoes?” he asked.

     Feeling very uncomfortable, I stared down at my covered shoes and whispered, “I don’t want to get them dirty.”

     “Well, you’re going to have to face that possibility someday, so it might as well be now. Off with the covers, young man.”

     “Come on Ernie, do as Grandpa says,” Mom stated.

     I stood motionless. But gathering courage, I dragged myself over to the bench beside the door, sat down, shut my eyes, and pulled off the first shoe cover.

     “One more to go,” Grandpa sang out.

     I knew I had no choice, so I ripped off the second cover exposing all to my audience. I heard Mom giggling and wondered why.

     “Ernie, you must open your eyes,” Grandpa commanded.

     Squirming around on the bench, I opened them and saw Grandpa, Grandma, and Mom with broad smiles on their faces. I sat looking straight ahead.

     “You have to look at the shoes, Ernie,” Mom gushed.

         So I did. Slowly, I bent my head down and saw the words, “Love you, big boy,” taped to the top of the shoes. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And although I now believed Grandpa had written “ALWAYS WEAR POLISHED SHOES” on the other box, I wasn’t about to ask him if he did, for he might say, “No.”

Copyright © 2017 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.