The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [18]
All I could muster was, “I’m sorry.”
“You can keep that too!”
I sat at the table, trying to escape his gaze.
“Can’t a man just get a meal here?” he bellowed. “I gotta get preached to before I can eat so I started comin’ late. Now, I gotta listen to your bullshit about how great your life is?”
I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out his meal ticket as ordered. As I plucked it free, the entirety of my pocket’s contents poured forth. Baseball cards and meal tickets splattered on the floor. Cards, worthless cards, with glossy pictures of an inconsequential idiot littered the space at our feet along with precious meal tickets written with a ballpoint pen on nothing more than shards of scrap printer paper.
I bent down on one knee and picked up the mess as fast as I could. The ragged man watched me labor at his feet. He wore black workman’s boots that were falling apart. One boot had duct tape wrapped around it and both soles looked like blown-out tire treads.
“Looks like those shoes have had it?” My voice was back to normal. I must have found my natural tone somewhere in the mess on the floor.
The ragged man kicked out one shoe. “These pieces of shit? Bought ’em at the Super Walmart just a month ago. One month! They’s already fallin’ apart.”
“Why didn’t you take them back?”
“Won’t let me. Didn’t believe me, and I didn’t keep the receipt neither—I finally got enough money to buy me some decent shoes and this is what I got.” He mumbled curses, looking down at his feet.
This time of year in Ohio, the cold weather turns from snow to rain almost every other day. The ragged man’s feet had to be wet; there was no way, with so many standing puddles of slush-filled water, he was keeping his feet dry.
I looked to my feet. I was wearing Bass Company boots, fancy leather workman’s boots but not for working—they were too dressy. I got them a few years back with some extra Christmas money and kept them in fine condition, only wearing them when the weather necessitated.
“What size are your boots?” I asked.
“They’re a ten.”
It was in my brain. Something was pulling at me. Maybe it was always there, and I just did my best to tune it out. My mouth started talking, “You wanna switch?”
“What?”
“I’m asking you if you wanna swap shoes?”
The ragged man frowned at me as if I were playing a cruel joke. Then as if this was a bet he couldn’t afford not to take, he wiped his face, tugged his matted beard, and said, “I’ll switch, but you’re the one getting the raw end of the deal here, pal.”
“I’ll be alright.”
“Okay then,” he said, and he wasted no time kicking off his mangled boots. I unlaced mine, slipped them off, grabbed the pair together gently above the tongue, and handed them to him. He kicked his across the floor to me to complete the trade. He placed my boots on his feet and tied them up.
“How do they fit you?”
“Real good, these are real good, and”—he took some steps—“fit perfect, like they was made for me.” Reaching down, he pressed the tip of the boot to indicate where his toe snugly stopped. Then he almost began to smile, but stopped himself and eyed me with suspicion.
“Enjoy man. They’re all yours.”
His eyes and face changed, almost softening. The wildness left his countenance. He seemed like a person, like a man, a broken