Bootstraps II
Pulling Yourself Up
Part II of a III Part Story
For only the third time in his life Lawrence Edward Betterman V felt like the world had been pulled out from under him. The first time was when his father abruptly withdrew him from Columbia Business School in his sophomore year for failing grades and enrolled him in the Citadel Military Academy thinking he needed more discipline. The second was when he over-extended himself in a Manhattan real estate purchase his father didn’t approve of. His father refused to bail him out which caused him to default on a 3-billion-dollar loan. It spiraled into a humiliating personal financial restructure to avoid bankruptcy. He almost sued his father in that moment but later was glad he didn’t. His father, using his connections and wanting to preserve the family reputation, later helped Lawrence land on his feet.
Today, this third time, felt different. Lawrence, always a rule breaker, didn’t quite know what the rules were in this place, nor did he have anyone here to help him. If only he could find Paulo. He might be able to help Lawrence sort this out and help him get his shoes back. It must all be a misunderstanding somehow. Lawrence picked himself up from the sidewalk and once again tried to walk back into the glass building where he woke up this morning. Still, his shoes wouldn’t take him there. His plain brown, ankle high, jodhpur riding boots seemed to make him climb into the driver’s seat of the horse-drawn carriage that stood waiting for him at the curb.
The horse started off without Lawrence even taking the reins. They traveled the length of the next block and turned left. There, Lawrence saw a man about the same age as him standing on the sidewalk wearing a pale blue cotton oxford shirt under a khaki linen sports coat with matching Bermuda shorts. He wore dark brown, knee-high socks and on his feet were shoes that looked just like Lawrence Betterman’s deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles. Yes! They were Lawrence Betterman’s deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles! The horse came to a stop where the man stood, waiting. Lawrence jumped off the carriage and exclaimed to the man, “Give me back my shoes!”
Startled, the man replied, “What are you talking about?”
“Those are my shoes!” exclaimed Lawrence, pointing at the alligator shoes on the man’s feet.
“You are certainly mistaken,” the man calmly replied. “These are my shoes. They are on my feet.” Then pointing to Lawrence’s feet he added, “Those are your shoes as they are clearly on your feet.”
Then without missing a beat, the man effortlessly climbed into the carriage to take his seat as Lawrence’s passenger.
“Let’s hurry boy! I’ve work to do!” exclaimed the man in the carriage.
Lawrence tried to reach for the man’s shoes, his shoes, but the horse shuffled, rocking the carriage and causing Lawrence to lose his balance. He stumbled back onto the sidewalk. The horse let out a short whinny, and Lawrence could only climb back into the driver’s seat as the horse led the carriage away from the curb.
The horse pulled the carriage around the block and returned to the glass office building. The horse stopped the carriage as a woman in her early 30’s met them along the sidewalk. She was wearing a loose fitting, sleeveless silk blouse with a complementary linen skirt. Her shoes were the same lavender pumps that Paulo wore yesterday!
She assisted the man in the alligator shoes down from the carriage with grace and ease. Together they walked toward the entrance of the building as she handed the man in the alligator shoes a leather-bound folio.
“Hey, wait!” Lawrence shouted at them. They didn’t respond. The horse pulled the carriage away from the curb to make another round of the village for their next passenger.
Lawrence took his lunch at a café located on a street corner near the center of the village. The floor-to-ceiling windows of the café’s exterior were retracted, leaving the entire establishment open to the sidewalk under a fabric canopy. Lawrence took a seat at a small table just inside the café. This gave him a view onto the street so he could observe the activity of the village. He kept his eye out for the man wearing his shoes. In fact, Lawrence was now looking at people not into their face but at their shoes. A waiter approached Lawrence. He noticed the waiter wore plain white canvas flat bottomed sneakers. Lawrence then looked up to discover the person in the shoes was Paulo!
“Paulo!” exclaimed Lawrence.
“Yes! Good morning, Larry. How is your island purchase coming along?” asked Paulo.
“I’ve lost my shoes! You promised that my shoes would remain safe!” said Lawrence angrily.
Paulo smiled without verifying what type of shoes Lawrence was wearing and said without hesitation, “But your shoes are quite safe Larry, just as I told you they would.”
“But someone else is wearing them!” Lawrence shouted.
“Yes. Just as you are wearing someone else’s shoes today,” replied Paulo calmly.
“But these are not my shoes!”
“They are on your feet. So, they are your shoes today,” stated Paulo plainly.
“I want my shoes back, my family heirloom alligator loafers. Those are my shoes!”
Paulo frowned as if considering the problem, then looked down at Lawrence’s feet and said matter-of-factly, “Well, I see that your shoes have bootstraps. It shouldn’t be too hard for you to pull yourself up with them like you did before.”
Lawrence stormed out of the café in disgust and stomped down the street. The horse followed him pulling the empty carriage behind.
Lawrence woke early the next morning from a fitful night’s sleep on a cobbled bunch of straw bales in the carriage house. He sat up on his makeshift mattress and surveyed his surroundings. The horse stood quietly in her stall where Lawrence had put her at the end of the day yesterday. His equestrian training at a young age thankfully returned to him with help from his shoes. “His shoes!” Lawrence thought. He rushed to the door of the carriage house hoping to find his alligator shoes properly returned to him in place of the plain brown boots he wore yesterday. To his surprise and disappointment the pair of smart, lavender colored women’s pumps sat on his doorstep waiting for him.
“How am I supposed to fit into these?” Lawrence mumbled to himself. He picked up the pumps and studied them closely. They were well made with a fine calf-skin upper and a solid leather sole which narrowed to a blunt toe box. The heel was sturdy yet stylishly sculptured, but at about 3” Lawrence doubted his ability to walk in them especially on the sandy soil of the island - if he could even get them on his feet in the first place.
He carried the shoes inside and sat on the straw bales. After removing his socks, he placed his right foot into the first pump. It slid in effortlessly. He did the same with his left foot and found them both to hug his feet like a second skin. “How is this possible?” he thought, then stood. Unsteady at first, he walked across the carriage house to the door with only a couple of wobbly steps. After he exited the carriage house, the shoes walked him toward the downtown center of the mini city toward the steel and glass office building where Paulo first brought him.
Lawrence walked into the lobby of the building where a female security guard greeted him with a welcoming smile.
“Good morning, Lawrence,” said the guard. “You’ll find everything ready for you in your office.”
Lawrence felt a bit of relief at the thought of returning to his penthouse office even if he didn’t yet have his own shoes back. He approached the bank of elevators and pushed the call button. After a moment, the elevator in the middle opened. This elevator was different from the one Lawrence rode with Paulo two days ago. Lawrence stepped in and looked at the bank of buttons. This building had six floors. This elevator had five buttons. Lawrence pressed the button for the top floor and was rewarded with the glow of a modern LED ring around the button. The door closed, and the elevator lifted Lawrence to the 5th floor.
When the doors opened, Lawrence exited to a small foyer which was decorated with a modern two-seat couch bookended by two floor-to-ceiling banana plants and a generic abstract painting. Two short hallways extended to either side of the foyer. Lawrence turned right and found an open door to a corner office with a view on two sides and a plain desk facing the door from the corner of windows. A wooden bookcase and filing cabinet stood along the wall to the right of the door. To the left was a matching credenza with another generic abstract painting above it. There was no sign of his alligator shoes.
Lawrence walked to the desk and found a leather-bound folio which contained an agenda for the day. The agenda contained only one meeting with names of people Lawrence didn’t recognize. Titles like: Supreme President, Minister King, Prime Assemblyman, and Senator General accompanied their names. The topic of the meeting: Purchase of the Island. Lawrence scratched his head. He didn’t know any of the people on the agenda, or what authority they had to negotiate the purchase of the island - his purchase of the island. He wondered who was negotiating on his behalf. The phone on the desk buzzed, and after a beat, Lawrence picked up the handset.
A women’s voice on the other end said with abrupt insistence, “Come up at once.” Then hung up. Lawrence was puzzled for a moment, then became excited at the prospect of returning to his office upstairs. “The elevator didn’t go any higher,” Lawrence thought. Then he noticed a spiral staircase to the left of the bookcase at the back of the office. He climbed up.
At the top of the stairs Lawrence saw the same office he had occupied two days earlier. Today, there was a woman in her late 60’s with long, wavy, salt and pepper colored hair which hung nearly to her waist. She stood behind the desk with her back toward Lawrence and was looking out the window overlooking the island. She wore a knee length cotton dress with a tropical print. Lawrence approached the desk and saw her shoes. She was wearing his shoes. His deep brown, exotic alligator loafers with horse-bit buckles. She turned to him and with a stern look studied him closely. Her expression dissolved into a half smile when she said, “You’ll do.”
“What do you mean ‘I’ll do’?” Lawrence asked angrily. “I’m buying this island!”
She looked down at his lavender pumps, smirked, and said mockingly, “With those shoes, you’re not buying anything, honey.” She walked to the desk chair and sat down.
“That’s why you’re going to give them back to me right now!” declared Lawrence.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because they’re mine! I came to this island wearing them. They are a family heirloom that is part of my family history. That’s why!”
“That’s meaningless here, sugar,” she replied casually and reached her hand out for the folio that Lawrence still carried. He gave it to her. She opened it and laid it on the desk to review.
“I want my shoes back!” exclaimed Lawrence.
“Is demanding the only tactic in your negotiation strategy? I thought you were the master at dealmaking,” she scoffed.
“Whatever is going on here on this island, whatever game you all are playing with me. It’s not fair!” he shouted.
She looked up at him, then smiled.
“I’ll tell you what. You want some power and control back? You want me to give you these shoes back? I’ll consider it. But what are you going to give me in return?” she said with a suggestive voice as she swiveled her chair around to face him directly.
“What? What do you mean?” stammered Lawrence.
“What I mean is….” she said as she spread her knees wide and hiked up her dress revealing nearly the entire length of her thighs.
“Ugh,” responded Lawrence as he turned away in disgust toward the elevator.
She laughed at him and said, “It’s all part of the game, baby.”
Lawrence descended the elevator to the lobby where the Supreme President, Minister King, Prime Assemblyman, and Senator General were waiting.
“Gentlemen!” Lawrence called out to them as he walked as confidently as he could in his lavender pumps. All four men stood and shook Lawrence’s hand.
“Gentlemen, there must have been some miscommunication. Let me assure you that I, Lawrence E. Betterman V, am the one who has negotiated with all the appropriate officials to purchase this island. There seems to be this strange custom here where people are treated differently by the kind of shoes they wear - and they change shoes every morning! I don’t get it quite honestly, but it has confounded my efforts in making this deal happen. I’m just waiting for my assistant to return by helicopter with the final arrangements.”
The four men looked at each other with some confusion then back at Lawrence. They all simultaneously broke into a huge belly laugh. When they finally calmed themselves down, the Minister King said with a smile, “Shall we go upstairs now?”
Recognizing the impasse, Lawrence decided to yield and abide their request. He led them to the elevator.
Lawrence learned upon his return that the woman in the penthouse office who was wearing his shoes was named Madame Zee. He watched Madame Zee in deep conversation with the four men Lawrence met in the lobby. Lawrence could only watch them in isolation from the couch at the far end of the office where he sat. He was relegated to remain outside the glass walled conference room standing by in case they might need something. At times the five of them appeared in deep conversation with careful consideration of the speaker. At other times they all appeared agitated with all of them making dramatic gestures at each other and at the same time. Finally, they seemed to come to some agreement of sorts as they all shook hands, and Madame Zee produced a box of cigars from which each man helped themselves. They all lit up and sat back in their chairs. This infuriated Lawrence who bolted up from the couch and barged into the conference room. But before he could say anything, Madame Zee spoke. “Lawrence, bring us brandy immediately!”
“But…!?” stammered Lawrence.
“It’s right there on the credenza,” she said as she waved her hand at him.
Emasculated, Lawrence walked back to the credenza to retrieve the tray of brandy and five glasses. Madame Zee poured a generous amount of brandy in each of the glasses. She raised hers as did the four visitors. Lawrence could only watch.
“To us!” she declared.
“To us!” they all replied in unison, then downed their brandy in a couple of large gulps.
The men each proclaimed their delight and satisfaction in their own way as the group exited the conference room.
“Lawrence will show you out,” said Madame Zee.
“No need. We can do it on our own,” replied the Senator General.
The elevator doors opened, and the men stepped inside as they continued to talk and laugh amongst themselves. The elevator doors closed, and they were whisked away to the ground floor.
“I love these shoes!” exclaimed Madame Zee. “I’m considering changing the island custom of daily shoe exchanges. I want these to remain my shoes!”
Lawrence was about to remind her again that they were his shoes, but he changed his strategy. If he wanted his shoes back, he figured he would have to stoop low enough to get them himself. He decided he would give Madame Zee what she wanted. Lawrence gently brushed up against her and whispered in her ear, “Yes, they do fit you well. And you were amazing in dealing with those slimy politicians. I was very impressed.”
“Don’t you know it,” she hissed back as she firmly grabbed Lawrence by his crotch.
He returned her advance by pressing himself up against her and guided her onto the glass desk. Madame Zee leaned back on the desk’s edge. Lawrence lowered himself to his knees.
“Yes, that’s what I’m talking about,” she said alluringly.
But Lawrence had a different plan. He wrapped his arm around her right calf and attempted to pry off her shoe, his shoe, from her right foot. It didn’t budge.
“That’s not the way it works, sweetie,” she said coldly and pulled her right leg free. She placed her foot on Lawrence’s shoulder, and with a decisive push knocked Lawrence to the floor. Lawrence, caught off guard, muttered and landed on his back.
Madame Zee stood over Lawrence and lowered herself on top of him.
“We’re following my agenda today,” she declared.
Her full weight now bearing down, she hiked up her skirt and had her way with him with her shoes on.
…to be concluded next week in Part III.
