Shredded Twine and Muddy Boots

Is there ever a convenient time for a person to die?

Those boots were awfully shiny on that first day that he held them. Golden-brown, sleek in texture, and adorned with a gentle flourish of beautifully engraved flowers, they were heavy in his palms— and yet, this weight felt not as a bag of stones or litter does, but rather, massed in the same fashion that a plentiful sack of artifacts might strain the wrists of an eager explorer, or a hefty collection of well-loved books might burden the arms of a dedicated reader. It was a sensation of awe, of pride, that swelled within his bosom as his father presented the pair of shoes to him.

“Now, wouldn’t you like to make a set of these someday?” the older man chuckled. His gray stubble, flecked with patches of stark white, folded deeply into the smile that stretched across his wrinkled features. “I believe you’re grown enough to start properly helpin’ me out in the shop, kiddo. You know, I won’t be here forever. Someone’s gotta be able to take care of your mama’s spending when I’m gone.”

His son returned the humorous scoff and shrugged his broad shoulders. “These are a mighty fine work, old man. You almost make me interested in your career.”

“But?”

“But I’d rather work the earth outdoors, in nature, than hunch over a desk in this humid leather shop for hours.”
 

A hearty laugh erupted from his senior. “Well, I suppose I can’t tell you what to do with your life.”
 

The younger fellow grinned, shaking his head, grunting lowly.
 

As his father left the shop, however, an excited lump began to form in the recipient’s throat, one he didn’t attempt to swallow down. Soft early morning sunlight slowly peeked over the open windowsills, shading the room with a deep tinge of auburn as it cast through ample red leaves hanging from the trees outside; the boots, he noticed, reflected the same warm color upon his wide hands, and he felt in this moment that he was a man, come into his own, in possession of his life. Fingers tightened around the thick cowhide; breath caught in his lungs; the chill of the Texan Autumn breeze rippled goosebumps across his muscular forearms. He was invigorated in his newfound adulthood.

 

That same enchanting sun that had illuminated the tender atmosphere of the rising morn was the same wicked star that would herald the tragedy of that eve in its fall. As night approached, the young man found himself in the setting of a bleak hospital room, eyes as pale as his white cheeks, staring at nothing in particular and yet everything at once. Frozen in their petrified stance were the leather boots on his feet, solid and wise, and with a small tear at the edge of the right shoe’s heel: in his haste an hour before, as his father’s fatal accident was discovered, he had harshly struck this foot against a sharp edge, opening a wound in his new gear. It appeared as a sorrowful slit, exposing the vulnerable Achilles.
 

The son didn’t breathe, didn’t speak, didn’t clench his fist or swallow his spit to dampen the dryness of his throat. He looked forward. He blinked.

 

This gash in the boot proved to be significantly more frustrating than he had anticipated. In all that had transpired recently, the state of his shoes was but an afterthought; however, fearing that the hole would only continue to widen, he decided upon attempting a fix. It was not until an hour after the funeral that he would at last trundle into his father’s shop to begin his struggles.
 

The yellow, flickering lights from the ceiling felt cold and haunted: it was as if there was no more spirit, no more life in this little shack in absence of its affectionate owner. Hunched over a large desk, needle and twine in hand, he spent the better portion of that afternoon figuring out how to sew a messy stitch into the hard leather, drawing the slit closed. At last he gave up on hopes of perfecting it. It was a truly pathetic sight, but barely noticeable due to its minute length.
 

The loud creak of the wooden door informed him of the entrance of his mother. Standing in the aperture, a shriveled lady garbed in black, she appeared nothing like the sprightly woman she had been a week prior. Emotion washed over the young man: he saw the bloodstain on the floor as he scrubbed it, saw his sisters standing paralyzed around the casket, saw the gifts left upon their doorstep by empathetic townsfolk, and now, he saw the contrast between that forgotten energetic wife in her colorful church dresses, and this shrunken widow who knew no smile, no quip of tongue, no encouraging embrace. She held something out to him as she drew near. A keyring.
 

His brows furrowed, lips pursed tightly, blinking with effort. The jingle of these keys echoed like a thousand tiny gunshots in his ears. The house key; the shop key; the vault key; the key of their beautifully maintained ‘87 Chevrolet C/K Crew Cab; the responsibility of everything his father ever owned, in his possession. His responsibility.
 

“The last commission he finished is ready for delivery today. John’s house.” His mother’s voice was so faint, he momentarily questioned if he was only hearing things. After all, the statement sounded so delirious, so insignificant, so casual, that a wretched anger flared up inside of his lungs, held at bay by the absurdity of the whole situation. Like the idea of the world continuing to spin against the tide of his emotional anguish was a personal assault.
 

Footsteps echoed with an empty resonance as she exited the shop. The reverberations hung amongst the raw wooden rafters above, then died down to make room for the most absolute quietude he had ever experienced— a silence so loud it encompassed his ears, flooded his senses, and with a grand contraction of his chest, he understood that he was interminably, irrevocably isolated.
 

What an innocent, naive notion. That he was ready for independence. That he was ready to face the world. That a boy must be alone to become a man.
 

The fibers of the twine in his boot strained hard against the stretch of his heel.

* * *

“When are you finally going to get a new pair of shoes?”
 

The slurred words of his friend were barely audible over the roar of the nighttime bar scene, but he could not have missed them even if they had been whispered. His shoulder twitched, jaw clenching for a moment, and he averted his blurry stare.
 

“Nothin’ wrong with these boots,” he grunted irritably. Foamy, golden drink lapped over the edges of his glass as he fidgeted with hazardous abandon. He faintly registered a few drops rolling down his unkempt beard to land upon the collar of a wrinkled gray flannel.
 

“Don’t… don’t play with me, man,” the companion laughed, shaking his head mournfully. “That string always pulls apart quick-like… you’re always tripping everywhere! Don’t it fill up with… with dirt when you walk?”
 

The son slammed his glass down on the wooden counter, waving his other arm wildly in the air. “My old man made me these boots! I can’t get rid of ‘em!”
 

“Can’t you— can’t you fix ‘em up with your tools an’ such? Ain’t you been workin’ his shop since?”
 

“I…” Calloused fingers raked rows of agitation through his messy hair. He realized he had nothing to say to that. He knew he couldn’t publicly admit his failure— failure, after failure, after failure, resulting in the guilt associated with any purchase or expenditure of money save the necessary as of late. He should have listened to his dad and studied the ways of leather sooner. Learned the skill directly from the master. Maybe he would have been better equipped to run the business. Maybe his mama wouldn’t have gained reason to berate him heatedly every time he returned from his frequent nights of drinking, dehydrated and needy. Void of manly independence. Maybe the bills wouldn’t seem so high now, as they stacked like rectangular monoliths upon the desk in that putrid, hateful shop…
 

Is there ever a convenient time for a person to die?
 

If his friend spoke further, he was unable to detect it. The shouts, the merriment, the quarrels and conversation around him converged into a single, unending roar: a sky-high wave of noise that never crashed, never rolled down to meet the crimson-red sea again, just continued to amass, building as a fiery orchestra rises in crescendo but with no reprieve; an aggressively vermillion monsoon. His eyes darted around, bloodshot and aghast, like twin rings of mania, unable to find anchor in any point of vision. The sudden presence of excessive sweat itched at his skin; the texture of his flannel abruptly felt coarse and rough; he found himself lacking breath and space, his ribs pressing tight against the organs within.
 

“Let’s get you home, young’n—”

A brilliant flare of pain shot through his knuckles, and he realized he was standing now, looking down upon an older fellow who was stretched out on the floor, clutching a fist to his nose as deep carmine dribbled down his face. Did he just punch someone?
 

Hands reached around to grip his shoulders, his arms, his back; struggling weakly, he made an effort to protest, but the words never came. Upon reaching the exit, with a great shrug and a garbled string of profanity, he pushed away his escorts, feeling around his belt for his keyring. It was pouring outside, he noticed, as rainwater began to seep into his right boot, entering through that accursed slit in the leather, a wide opening that now stretched across the entirety of his heel, shredded twine hanging loosely. Within moments his sock was drenched. Foot squelching with each wobbly step, he groaned furiously, lifting his leg to attempt to shake the unwanted excess out. He fell face-first into the muddy earth.
 

Gravel scuffed his skin raw; mud filled his mouth; water beat down on his miserable, inchoate form. A guttural howl of frustration ripped from his throat as he rolled around, clawing at his hairline, dragging dirt-caked fingertips down his cheeks. Hot tears began to well, and he allowed himself to lay there, paralyzed in his emotion, for an indeterminate amount of time.
 

It took him a couple minutes to make it inside his vehicle, and another to remember how to start it up and get it moving. He didn’t need help. He could get home on his own. He never needed help, he mused disgruntledly, as the headlight beams of surrounding traffic shot lasers of pain through his throbbing skull.
 

Wincing groggily, he put his hands up to shield his eyes from the assault, from the streaks of agony that blinded his vision, leaving the steering wheel unattended in his cognitive disorientation. The swerving truck met the telephone pole with a tremendous crunch!

 

A new sun began to peek over the horizon, outlining the sorrowful figure of the young man, illuminating him as he pulled himself from the passenger seat of his mother’s van, shuffling towards the house. His mom took longer to hop out of the car; inhaling deeply, fidgeting with the lonely ring on her left hand, she slammed the door with gusto, walking defeatedly behind her son.
 

He braced himself as he stalked through the entrance into the living room: he was ready to be screeched at, to be criticized fervently, to be assaulted with scathing words, words he would thoroughly deserve. Humiliation crept between the discs of his spine and up his neck in bright red blemishes. Breathing with considerable effort, he screwed his eyes shut, coming to a halt in the aperture of the kitchen. He waited.
 

She brushed right past him. Silence.
 

He blinked, bewildered. Her movements were sluggish: it appeared as though a great pile of stones was laid upon her shoulders. His self-pity immediately dissipated, replaced by a deep-seated concern— the kind so impassioned it could only be felt by a boy about his mother, he who, laden with the manly expectation of responsibility and maturity, would experience the most bottomless shame at the prospect of having failed his familial purpose to support her and relieve her stresses in her old age.
 

In spite of this heartfelt surge of emotion, however, he could not find the words to speak. The swelling regret in his chest did not make it past the heart; it died inchoate in his lungs, the echoes of a fruitless lament sealed in the lump of the Adam’s apple, a testament to the chokehold of his human nature, wrapping an arrest around his expression in his time of vulnerability. Abashed, he moved sheepishly forward. He inwardly implored his mother to begin her tirade, to raise her voice in disgust to deliver unto him the wrath he desperately needed to receive backlash for. He wished she would beat him if it meant breaking the building tension.
 

At length, she spoke, without quiver or tremble, but softly, slowly, and level with acceptance.
 

“The repairs to the truck will cost too much. And your medical expenses after last night are almost as bad. The bills are already pressing enough. This will send us into bankruptcy.”
 

His voice instantly returned. “I’m sorry, mama, I don’t know why—”
 

“I’m selling my wedding ring today,” she interjected quietly, sparing him no eye contact. “I’m taking it to the pawnshop. That should clear most of our present expenses. And I’m going to search for a job to keep us afloat. The grocery had some hiring signs posted last week…”
 

A crushing silence filled the house. Through the windows streamed pale, withered rays of cold sunrise, filtered by the deep gray clouds of early Spring, pervading the air with an oppressive, chilly moisture— the sort of which that only settles the morning after a chaotic and stormy evening, imparting a vague atmosphere of gloom upon the earth below. As he stood, transfixed in his mortification, in his uncomfortably damp clothes, in a pair of shoes that belonged to the demeaning nurse who had yanked his hardly-conscious body out of the wrecked truck, a sensation of gripping emptiness seized him. Not panic, not fear, not anger, not depression, but something so altogether void and colorless, like a painter’s canvas discarded in the dumpster, splattered in faded monochrome, or a building abandoned and unkempt, yet with no vines or other greenery crawling up to reclaim its space in nature. Uninhabited and purposeless.
 

Knock-knock-knock.
 

The sound of a casual rapping upon the front door pierced his ruminations, and he took advantage of the interruption to escape the mournful suffocation of the kitchen, opening the entrance to greet the weary face of a police officer.
 

In his arms were those boots.

The right shoe was almost completely torn in two, the twine pulled from the widened holes encompassing the gap, and for the first time in a long while, he was shocked by their appearance— since when had the injury gotten so large? How had he not noticed before? How could he have wondered why it caused him to trip so constantly, why the shoe filled up so easily with dirt and mud and rainwater?

“These were left at the station,” the officer grunted, offering forth the mucky, filthy objects. He tilted the brim of his hat politely. “Have a good morn’.”
 

The visitor was gone as abruptly as he’d arrived, leaving the son standing dumbfounded in the doorway, captivated in disgust by the twin obscenities in his arms. Without second thought, he dropped them onto the deck with a loud clunk. Something new began to materialize within him.
 

“Uh, mama…” he began slowly, receding backwards, trepidation thick in his tone. “I’m… I’m gonna go down the road to the Meyers’ farm today…”
 

Why had he thought he needed to keep wearing those broken shoes all this time? How could he have thought twine would fix it? Had he really thought that they made him any more like his dad? Any more like a man?
 

He was no leather-worker, but nor was he this useless.
 

“…Don’t get rid of your ring. And don’t worry about the bills. I’m gonna take care of it. I’ll fix this, mama. I promise.”

* * *

Slam!
 

“Is that door fully shut, girls?” he called back to his two sisters in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t hear a click.”
 

The older one reached over her seatbelt, re-opening and pulling back the truck door, flashing a quick thumbs-up at her brother. “All set. Let’s go.”
 

The shiny vehicle began its leisurely pace down the drive and into the road. Bright auburn sunlight reflected off of its polished exterior, giving it the impression of a sparkling jewel as it traveled through the Autumn countryside, surrounded by vast fields of crops almost ready for collection. Tires rumbled heavily against the gravel; soft bluegrass streamed from the radio; the man’s mother tapped with gentle volume at the armrest of the passenger seat. Very little conversation arose, until the younger of the sisters suddenly thrust her finger forward at the window.
 

“That's where your field starts!” she called excitedly.
 

Tall stalks of wheat, stirring in the breeze like a vast, tame ocean of dusty gold, occupied the large section of land to the right of the truck, a block of property correctly identified as her big brother’s. He nodded approval, grinning wide. “That’s right, that’s my field. Good job.”
 

“How’s the lot coming along?” his mother inquired, staring with admiration across the ample ochre blur.

“It’ll be ready to harvest in about a week,” he proudly declared. “Mr. Meyers is going to lend me his combine again this year, but with the money we’ll get from this, I should be able to start purchasing my own equipment for next season.”

“Atta boy. Mr. Meyers has always been so kind to us.”

“What’s that on the fence, there?” the younger sister piped up again. She motioned towards a small nondescript block of red-brown stuck on the top of a fence post, made clearer to their vision as they slowed for a stop sign.
 

The man laughed, a loud, booming laugh. “That’ll be an old pair of boots of mine. The damaged ones I used to trip all over.”
 

“Why are they stuck there?”

He exhaled deeply, but the smile did not depart his clean-shaven face. “Mr. Meyers told me when I first started working for him that folks put boots on their fence posts as a sign of respect. Dad made me those shoes. Figured I couldn’t wear ‘em anymore.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

He chuckled, amused at the quickness of his sibling to accept such random traditions as sensible. Girls her age were apt to do that. In a few more years, he knew she’d start to question everything, just as her older sister had begun to do recently.

Their destination rolled up on the horizon swifter than he’d expected. As the Chevy began to slow, approaching the cemetery, his mother reached for the small potted flower placed on the floor below her.

“Three years,” she mused quietly, shaking her head in disbelief. “It feels like yesterday and a century ago at the same time.”

He pursed his lips, inhaling deeply. For a moment, a rush of emotion gripped him, and he leaned forward, putting his forehead against the steering wheel— but as he opened his eyes, he found himself staring down at the sleek, ornate black boots on his feet, well-cared for and snug around his dry feet. One-hundred-and-fifty dollars, from a shop in the city that smelled of warm musk and copper-shaded bourbon. Firmly constructed and in good shape.

“Yeah,” he sighed, blinking away the tears that formed in his eyes. “But we’re doing just fine.”