WALKING SHOES

I am wandering away from home. There is someone who is nice to me. We disrobe. Then I notice she has other interests. Another guy is with her, and here I am. She slowly casts more and more of her ministrations toward the other one. She smiles at me, wanly, with regret, like a good-hearted blackjack dealer when you draw a queen holding 16.

I will not stand for this. I will leave immediately. But it would be less dignified and dramatic were I to sort around in the apartment for my shoes. That's no way to stage an exit, rummaging for shoes on the floor while your lover has a fling with another.

I just grab a pair and leave.

I notice that one shoe is a small house.

I exchange them. It's all right now.

I am home again. There's company. Hi, company! I sit with my wife and company. I can relax now. I put my feet up.

"Man, I think you could afford a better pair of shoes."

I look at them. My feet are in the light of the TV, crossed at the ankles. My wife knows my shoes, and these ain't them. They are dark and ripped, one of those perforated styles of the twenties.

I try and think of an explanation for why it is I wear strange shoes.