Bootstraps III
The self-made man
Part III of a III Part Story
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Lawrence woke the next morning in his own bed. That is, he woke in the bed that was home to the person who wore the smart, lavender women’s pumps for the day. Yesterday, that person was him. Yesterday, he got so close to retrieving his own shoes but at such a cost. He fell for the rudimental deception he learned to play in the school yard. He allowed himself to be manipulated, walked on by Madame Zee with only the promise that she’d consider giving him the alligator shoes. His shoes. Only after he got screwed, did he realize that she never really intended to let go of the shoes. And if she did, he’d have to give them up the next day anyway. Or did he? He resolved that if he could get his deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles, he would never let them out of his sight again while on this island.
He shook his head and thought, “This island is crazy. I’m not sure I even want it anymore.” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at his surroundings. It was an ample sized home built in the style of a circular bohío hut. It had an open floor plan similar to a studio apartment with a high thatched roof. Plus, it had every modern convenience that would make it suitable for one of those Property Hunters TV shows - the island getaway episode. However, the bed was only full-size. “Not even a queen,” Lawrence thought. But it was more comfortable than the straw bales he slept on the night before. Barely. He flopped down onto his back and stared at the ceiling fan suspended from the roof beams.
“Why are these people being so unreasonable?” he thought. He failed to see any angle that would explain their actions. He’d come in good faith and was willing to pay a fair price for the island.
“I’m wasting my time on these imbeciles!” he said out loud, then got up and dressed himself.
At the front door, he paused. The door to the hut was a full panel of wooded louvers which let in the morning sunlight and the ocean breeze. It was secured with a simple latch type lever on the inside and a handle with a thumb release on the outside. Lawrence closed his eyes and mumbled a quiet prayer to anything that would hear. It was a wish, really. A wish to just have his shoes back. A wish that, when he opened the door, the lavender pumps would be replaced by his deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles. He took a deep breath, opened the door, then opened his eyes. His shoes were gone! There were no shoes at all! No lavender pumps, no brown jodhpur riding boots, and certainly no alligator loafers. He looked out the door and in his obsession with his shoes failed to recognize the beauty of the beachfront location of his hut. His only thought was, “Maybe today’s shoes were simply misplaced.” He stepped outside the hut in his bare feet to look further. He stepped off the small, covered porch and walked around the entire perimeter of the hut. No shoes.
The beachside hut was located away from the downtown part of the village. The suburbs. He looked up and down the beach in front of the hut. No shoes. In fact, there was no human activity in any of the neighboring huts that he could see. He looked down at his bare feet and shouted, “Shit!”
A pang of hunger stung his belly. He turned back toward the hut to look for some food inside. He stepped onto the porch, reached for the thumb lever of the door handle, and pressed down. But it didn’t give. He jiggled the handle and tried again. No luck. The door was locked!
“What the…!” he blurted and pushed on the door harder with no success. He stepped back and with his bare right foot kicked the door hard. This only produced a throbbing pain on the sole of his foot. The door stood solid.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed in pain as he fell backward off the porch, but not before his pant leg caught on the door handle opening a long tear in the fabric all the way up to his mid-calf. He fell back onto the hard, damp sand. His only cushion: a small lump of wet seaweed.
Lawrence hobbled into the downtown village with his pant leg torn, his backside and shirt smeared with seaweed, and his feet: shoeless. Most of the villagers were already busily engaged in their morning routines which made Lawrence feel late to the scene as if he had missed an important meeting or missed the headline news. A young woman wearing beach sandals, a pair of shorts, and a bathing top was walking with a school-aged girl who wore a pair of patent leather Mary Janes, knee high socks, and a plaid school dress over a white collared button-down shirt. The woman smiled nervously at Lawrence as she guided the child away from him. They passed as quickly as they could.
A bare-chested man wearing a pair of white tennis shorts and cordovan cowboy boots approached Lawrence and said, “Good morning! Have you had breakfast yet today?”
“No,” Lawrence said, shaking his head with some confusion.
The cowboy produced a banana from his back pocket and handed it to Lawrence. “Here’s something for you!” the man said compassionately.
Lawrence swatted away his hand and stormed off in anger. The cowboy shrugged, peeled the banana, and took a bite for himself.
With his hunger growing, Lawrence made his way to the café. Wading through the other pedestrians, he studied each of their shoes before looking up at their faces. They either offered a polite smile or tried to engage him with a sympathetic offer of food. He dismissed all of them and trudged forward. The café was busy; busier than he experienced the day before. He found an open table and sat himself down with a sigh of relief. A pair of plain white canvas flat bottomed sneakers approached him. “The waiter,” Lawrence thought, and he felt a sense of calm come over him. Paulo? Lawrence looked up and saw the face of a waitress. The shoes today were worn by a woman in her late 50’s who wore her hair tied back into a bun behind her head. She smiled at Lawrence politely.
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she told him.
“What? I just want some coffee and breakfast,” Lawrence protested.
She shook her head slightly then pointed to a sign on the side wall of the café which read No shoes. No service.
“It’s our policy, sir. I’m sorry,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous!” Lawrence shouted. “I ate here yesterday! I am entitled to eat here today as well!”
The customers at the other tables shuffled with unease. Some looked toward Lawrence but avoided eye contact.
“I’m sure that was true, yesterday,” she said then pointed to Lawrence’s bare feet and shrugged.
“I want to speak with the manager!” Lawrence demanded.
The waitress backed away as a man wearing a pair of brown and white brogue wingtips approached in her place. Lawrence looked up and recognized the man immediately. He wore a beige bucket hat. It was the man who was shoeless himself when Lawrence first arrived on the island!
“What seems to be the problem?” the man with the bucket hat asked.
“I just want some coffee and breakfast!” Lawrence demanded a little louder than necessary.
“I’m happy to help you with that,” the man said quietly. He smiled politely and reached down to support Lawrence by the elbow. “Come. Let’s get you some breakfast,” he said.
The man in the bucket hat helped Lawrence to his feet and guided him out of the café toward the sidewalk. There, Lawrence began to struggle in protest.
“I want to eat inside!” Lawrence complained.
“I’m sorry sir. It’s our policy.”
“But you promised me breakfast!”
“Indeed, I did,” the man said and produced a ripe mango from his pocket and placed it into Lawrence’s hand. “Here. Take this.”
Lawrence looked at the mango then up to the face of the man in the bucket hat who simply smiled back. Lawrence turned away and walked down the sidewalk.
He found a place to sit on a wooden bench in front of a small hotel. Before he could settle himself, a doorman wearing highly polished, black, whole-cut balmoral shoes with felt spats forced him off. Lawrence scuttled away and instead found a quiet street corner in front of a building displaying a sign: Public Library. He sat on the street curb and studied the mango in his hand. Then he took a small bite through the skin and into the buttery, sweet flesh. He chewed and swallowed, then took another larger bite. Yellow juice ran down his hands and arms, but Lawrence no longer cared.
At about that time a horse pulling a carriage approached and stopped in the street in front of him.
“Hello friend!” shouted a familiar voice.
Lawrence looked up slowly to see Paulo climbing down from the carriage. He wore the plain brown jodhpur riding boots. Paulo sat down on the curb next to Lawrence.
“I see you’ve found something to eat,” Paulo said.
Lawrence responded with a muffled grunt.
Paulo looked out across the intersecting streets and at several villagers actively milling about their business. Then Paulo turned to Lawrence.
“I was wondering if you could help me with a problem that’s been troubling me.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Lawrence asked.
“When we first met you told me that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps without help from anyone else.”
Lawrence looked at him with a flash of anger. “What’s your point?”
“Well, these shoes...,” Paulo said looking down at his plain brown jodhpur riding boots, “…have bootstraps. And I’ve been trying all morning to pull myself up by them. I can’t do it. Here let me show you.” Paulo stood and walked over to the carriage.
“I’ve been trying to pull myself up onto the carriage,” he said.
Paulo bent over and inserted his left index finger through the bootstrap of his left shoe and his right index finger through the one on his right shoe. With a grunt he pulled up sharply, simultaneously on both shoes, only to lose his balance and fall to his knees.
“Do you see what I mean? I keep falling!” Paulo said, then looked at Lawrence innocently. “Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
Lawrence looked at Paulo then burst out laughing. After he caught his breath he asked, “You’re kidding me, right?”
Paulo looked slightly offended but pressed on, “No! Certainly not! You were able to do it, and I want to know what that is like. How does one pull themselves up by their bootstraps?”
Lawrence, unwilling to consider the implications of Paulo’s question, stood up and scowled, “It’s just a figure of speech. You just don’t get it!”
At that very moment a small group of 2nd grade school children erupted from the front door of the public library and out onto the sidewalk. They were in a state of excitement that bordered on agitation. That’s when Lawrence noticed that one boy, who was taller and chubbier than the rest, was wearing a pair of deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles. Lawrence Edward Betterman V’s shoes! Lawrence wiped his hands on his pants and walked quickly after the children, forgetting Paulo who remained alone on the curb pondering his bootstraps.
When Lawrence caught up to the children, they were in a public park standing in a group. Their behavior gave Lawrence the impression that an argument was about to break out. The children were isolating one child, the taller child, who was wearing the alligator shoes. Lawrence kept to the sidewalk a short distance away. One girl, the girl in the patent leather Mary Janes, knee high socks, and plaid school dress, was cornering the boy in the alligator shoes.
“You’re not playing fair!” she shouted to the boy.
“How could you be so cruel?” asked another boy who, although shorter, stepped in and poked the taller boy in the chest.
“Yeah! You’re not very nice! What’s come over you today?” said another boy.
“We don’t want to play with you anymore!” declared another girl who then turned and walked away. The rest of the group followed her leaving the taller boy standing alone in the alligator shoes. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes, but he quickly wiped them away before anyone noticed. But Lawrence saw it, and a bitter knot formed in the pit of his stomach. A memory? Lawrence wasn’t sure. He shoved the sensation down and called out to the boy.
“Hey, Boy! Over here!”
The boy looked at Lawrence, then turned and ran down a dirt path into a forested area away from town.
“Wait!” shouted Lawrence as he ran to catch up with the boy.
He struggled in his bare feet on the rough path, but his strides were longer than the boy’s. When he caught up, Lawrence grabbed the boy by his shoulder and spun him around.
“Stop!” exclaimed Lawrence.
But the boy swatted Lawrence’s hand away and started running again. Lawrence lunged for the boy and tackled him to the ground with an “Oomph!” from the boy.
“What are you doing?!” shouted the boy as he tried to squirm away.
Lawrence grabbed the boy’s feet and tried to pry loose one of the shoes with no success.
“These are my shoes!” exclaimed Lawrence as he rose up onto his knees.
The boy spun onto his back and began kicking violently at Lawrence. One kick landed solidly into Lawrence’s gut, knocking him back and knocking the wind out of him. Then the boy scrambled away, rose to his feet, and continued running down the path.
Lawrence caught his breath then staggered after the boy. The path ended at a small clearing on top of the island’s solitary cliff which dropped at least sixty feet to the rocky shoreline below. The boy, unaware of Lawrence, fitfully paced along the cliff’s edge. He aggressively stomped then glared down at his feet.
“I hate you, shoes!” the boy shouted, tears streaming down his face. “You’ve made me lose my friends! They all hate me now! You’ve ruined my day!”
The boy kicked his left foot out toward the ocean flinging the shoe into the air and over the cliff.
“No!” shouted Lawrence who ran forward toward the boy.
The boy, startled by Lawrence’s shout, turned toward him with rage on his face. Then he understood.
“You want these shoes? Here!” the boy shouted as he kicked the right shoe into the air toward the cliff edge.
Lawrence watched in slow motion as the shoe rose high in the air, tumbled out over the cliff edge, and snagged on an upper limb of a withered, dead tree which was clinging to the top edge of the cliff.
“What did you do?!” shouted Lawrence. “Go and get them! Now!”
The boy took a deep breath of relief and replied calmly, “I’d rather be barefoot.” He turned and walked back into the forest which happily embraced him. Lawrence was now alone on the cliff’s edge.
He looked down to the waves crashing onto the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. He could see one shoe lodged between two large, jagged rocks above the waterline. “Shit!” he shouted into the wind.
Lawrence looked up at the other shoe dangling from the dead tree over the precipice. It was out of his reach by a good five feet. He looked around and found a dead palm frond which he thought might be long and sturdy enough to work for him.
Inching slowly toward the edge of the cliff and the base of the snag, he extended the palm frond up and out. It hung limply about a foot short from the shoe. Lawrence tried again aiming a little higher but not wanting to knock the shoe into the surf below. He leaned against the dead tree and stretched farther out beyond the cliff’s edge over the rocky surf. The snag creaked in protest against his weight, but Lawrence ignored it. He did hear what he thought was the unmistakable chop of a helicopter in the distance.
“Matrona?” Lawrence thought. A teasing flash of sunlight glittered off the horse-bit buckle of the alligator shoe hanging in the wind and recaptured Lawrence’s attention. With a single-minded obsession he said, “So close. A few more inches and I’ve got this! Then I get to go home.”
The dangling shoe swayed in the ocean breeze defying him. Without thought and with a loud “Humph!” he pushed himself up higher. He put nearly all his weight onto the dead tree trunk which gave way at the same time the frond knocked the shoe loose from the branch. The shoe, the snag, and Lawrence all fell together. Down. Down onto the jagged rocks below.
The shoe lodged into the rocks barely three feet away from the other while Lawrence’s body bounced, tumbled, and twisted into the water. The ocean surf swallowed him whole.
Matrona called for a search of the island once Lawrence failed to show up on the beach two hours after the helicopter landed. Over the course of nearly a week, the search party turned up nothing. They found no evidence of any inhabitants or settlement. Nor did they find any evidence that Lawrence had been on the island at all. The search was declared over, and Lawrence was officially pronounced missing. As she departed, Matrona looked down at the island from the helicopter as it circled the beaches one last time. When they passed the island’s sole cliff, a flash of reflected sunlight caught Matrona’s eye from one of the rocks along the surf. She didn’t think anything of it.
