The Emperor of Shoes

by Spencer Wise

  Don’t think about the future, I told myself. Just focus on what’s in your hands. What’s in front of you. What you’re doing. Snipping and weaving. A little glue pot beside me with an old toothbrush that I used to brush the bottom of the Strobel board to glue down the elastic.

  And as I saw the shape of the shoe slowly emerge, the lines and contours of the upper, I couldn’t help imagining the brand taking off. We were doing twenty thousand pairs the first season. Then twenty-five thousand. Then fifty thousand. A shoe got hot.

  This is you, that other voice said, not some revolution. I looked up over the top of my glasses at the family last sitting across from me on the table, whispering again: Now don’t go all soft, Alex. Don’t turn to mush. Pull me closer. Here’s the chance to make your mark. You want to be a shitbum for the rest of your life?

  I leaned an elbow on the table and reached across to bring the old last closer.

  I shouldn’t have shoved it away. This thing was a part of my body. Might as well have been.

  You just needed to sell the shit out of these shoes for the biggest profit, so you could buy all the Royal Doulton chinaware, so your mother could hold a crystal salad plate on Shabbat like it was the fucking Hope Diamond, and say out loud to everyone, “My son, the big macher.”

  See? Any schnook could sell shoes; you wanted a brand. You wanted immortality. No skirting it. The point was profit. Ivy didn’t change that. At the end of the day you were a goat. Just like Bernie and Dad. Goats eating people’s shirts right off their clotheslines. Three goats way down yonder in the pawpaw patch.

  You knew this, dummy. The minute you scribbled your name on the paperwork in the hotel, you knew you weren’t just joining the company, you were signing over your soul, the blood that ran deep, that treated this last like an oracle bone.

  But you could also take less, I told myself. For Ivy. For the good of China. A fair and democratic China. Starting with a good factory. That was making your mark too. That was a legacy. Could those two people coexist? Or did one have to grab the other by the throat and suffocate him? That’s what Dad would do. Ruthless. Don’t give me excuses.

  I could hear Dad slapping my mother hard across the face. I saw her in a rabbit fur hat loading suet into the green plastic cage in the snowy garden, the tree rustling alive with grackles swirling, their wings flapping frantically around her head. I remembered her holding a fist of snow to her cheek.

  This business destroyed their marriage. But it didn’t have to, did it? These were all choices, not destinies. There were no oracles.

  I was sick from these voices battering. Two people tussling in me and this pressure on my chest. Stop now. Focus. No machines. No noise.

  Just snip the strands, weave them through the Strobel.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and let my hands move on their own. Inside me everything was real quiet but on fire too. My hands floating over this shoe. What did I have here? What was taking shape? More than a shoe; a lifestyle brand. For the woman who was thirty-five and knew who the hell she was. The woman who had wants not needs.

  Ralph Lauren made a lifestyle brand. Beautiful blonde shiksas running around the pool of a French mansion. The dream of goy. Back when he was Ralph Lifshitz. Before he changed his name to seal the deal, to become the man on the inside. He had to. Trotsky too. Every Bronstein had a Trotsky ready to burst through his chest. Every grubby little Lifshitz had a Lauren living inside them. Everyone was a mustache away from reinventing himself. One goyish name from glory.

  Yes, that’s where it was all moving. I was going to become the Ralph Lauren of fucking China.

  I shook out my wrists. Forget what time it was; forget sleep. All this adrenaline sloshing around in my veins, my fingers moving nimbly now, tight rows, no buckling, braiding one row at a time, plaiting them, over and under, over and under, weft and warp, back and forth, and in this rhythm I almost forgot the heat, the sweat streaking down my temple, my flushed cheeks, the sweet cement hardening in my nail beds, and I almost forgot I was in a seat, no less a factory, or one in China for that matter—that was how far out I’d let myself drift.

  I decided I’d put a driving bottom on one style—for this customer I was seeing in my head. Seeing her real clear now, almost like she was sitting right here whispering to me. She’s got a heavy foot, I imagine, ever since that Yugo she drove fast during a semester abroad in Ravello studying art history, when some local boy carried her to the open window facing the cobblestone street, set her waist over the windowsill and made love to her with her head hanging out the window, and she could see villagers looking up at her; it was the one time in her life she didn’t care, didn’t mind her nakedness. She wanted the whole world to be hung out the window to see what she saw. That was thirty years ago. Her Italian boyfriend is all grown. Where is he now? she thinks when she hits the open highway, rolling through the dark in my driving shoes. Black-and-silver, sleek, polished, a bit dressier but still casual.

  I was seeing this customer clearly now. Her hair’s done up and she’s driving her husband to their once-a-month dinner, and he asks, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she says. She can’t shape other words. All she knows is that the highway is good for her. She likes riding. She raised horses growing up. She’s forgotten everything she once knew about Italian art, but she knows how to put a horse down. She presses hard on the gas pedal.

  And she was more than willing to pay an extra two bucks for her shoes because it was fair. That was the beauty of the vision. Everyone would have to compromise a little.

  The patterns scribbled down my arms and I was weaving faster: a simple chessboard design. A herringbone. All for different customers I saw as clearly as the first.

  Then I brushed all the elastic scraps, tools and coffee cups aside to clear room on the table and I lined up the three shoes in their lasts, side by side, making sure the toe lines were flush with the edge of the table. I lined them up just right, and then I squatted down with my hands on my knees like a football coach, legs staked wide, my nose only inches from the toes, and the room seemed to fall away, no Bernies, no Zhangs. I was not hearing them anymore. I could picture only the cushiony footbed silk-screened with the name Alex & Ivy.

  That was what the foot rested on. Her sole nestled against the footbed, this delicate part of her pressed to my name, as though part of me was in the shoe bought by some woman in Des Moines, in Dothan, in Methuen. Who, upon stepping into the store, saw the display tree and saw herself, saw me, and we were one, her and me, my name right up against her skin, this secret part of a woman, and if she went to Ravello, Italy, I’d go too, wherever she went, I’d see the places she saw, and the fact that I’d never meet the woman or know her name made it that much better.

  I stared at the shoes with my head cocked to the side like I was listening to them, like we were having a private conversation, and then, without warning, I suddenly switched the order of the shoes, so the all-gray was on the right and the checkered in the middle and the herringbone on the left, and then I backed up five feet to take in the collection. Three or four times I rearranged the order until it was right. I could see these were something special.

  These were the damn Cohain of shoes.

  And now staring at all three styles on the table, I understood what my father and grandfather and great-grandfather already knew: that making shoes was not just practical or stylish. The right shoes gave you a coherence, a purpose. The secret hand moving inside a puppet. They animated you, not the other way around. I got that now.

  If I sold only a single pair of these, it’d be enough.

  Which was why it was okay for me to take nothing on them because it wasn’t about profit, it was about me. My name silk-screened on the insole, embossed on the footbed, pressed right up against the arch of a woman as she slipped over me. No longer subsumed by one of Abelson’s private labels—Halogen, St. John’s Bay. No, I am remade e
ach time the iron mold opens, the heat plate lifts and the ink cures with a swizzle of smoke, and I’m burned into the suede, the shammy footbed, I’m in every elastic fiber and rubber molecule. My real b’rit milah ceremony on the eighth day. When Alex became not just some name I had to bear, but who I am.

  The sun was rising pink through the window. The shoes on the table simmering like mirages over asphalt. Everything looked odd. Slowly coming back. The way a subway car suddenly rattled aboveground with a fading horn blast and the sun was too bright, as if you forgot what real light and sky looked like. That was how I felt now. Like I’d just come up out of the ground.

  I still needed to get Dad on board. If Dad was willing to cut out his own profit on this line for the first few seasons, we could make these shoes for maybe four dollars cheaper than normal. Much more competitive. Then it would retail for a better price. And it would grow. Slowly. We’d start building in a profit after a few successful seasons. But we couldn’t keep making Dad’s cheapies. We were drowning. The brand had to drive the business going forward.

  Of course Dad was going to tell me I was wrong and we should stick with private label and take our normal profits. But what was right was owning this thing. For me at least. Dad was happy behind the curtain. Not me. No future in that for me. It had to be branded. For my name to be on it. Which meant we had to make it for no profit. Dad wasn’t going to like that, but there was no other way.

  Of course I needed his expertise too and I’d better make that clear. I needed him. Puff him up a little first. That always worked on him. Then I’d say, I’m doing a mitzvah by bringing you this brand. Present it like that. I’m doing you a favor.

  And now at 6:00 a.m., delirious from an all-nighter, I heard music from outside. I went to the window and the workers were doing jumping jacks in the yard. Chinese music piped into the courtyard through loudspeakers. Mandatory morning calisthenics. Production manager Shen led them from an elevated platform, barking orders into a microphone. Tight rows and columns. But this music was different. Different from anything they’d played before. I heard the high strings and brass. I was swaying a little in the window, the tune moving back and forth inside me. This was a marching tune. Maybe an old Mao song. Maybe Shen was one of Zhang’s secret two dozen and he was playing this as some coded message for the demonstrators. I bent to the glass, listening—the sun warm on my face, the movement rising now—and I was aching to know what it meant.

  Then I tried to picture myself standing in the yard with a microphone speaking to the demonstrators, but I didn’t know what I’d say. No. It couldn’t work. But then I closed my eyes to the sound of cheering, and I got this other vision of the future where I was living in a dusty hot village with the old fish-scale roofs. Ivy was beside me in a beautiful red silk qipao, wearing my sandals. I pictured myself at peace, in a place where I stood out so goddamn bad that I finally fit in.

  15

  NO WORD THAT afternoon from Ivy or Zhang about the demonstration date, but plenty of bad news from the Abelson’s headquarters. Esme called to tell me they were dropping our winter boot program. The third program they’d cut in the last two years. A big hit for us. Before hanging up, Esme said she’d tried Dad’s office first but no one answered. She was lying. That was sort of chickenshit and understandable of her. To put it all on me to tell him.

  I knocked on his office door and there was no answer, even though I could hear the hunt-and-peck typing and the phlegmy—Ach!—as he bungled some email. He obviously didn’t want to be bothered. I turned to leave, but then I caught myself in those little lies. I was afraid to tell him. Scared to pitch the brand idea too. Well, tough, I told myself. Get in there and say it.

  So I turned the handle, pushed the door open and found him at his desk two-finger typing on his laptop.

  “I need a minute,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. I’ve always envied people who can stonewall a person like that. I guess that was Dad’s genius, blocking out the obvious things right in front of him.

  “Abelson’s cut our winter program,” I blurted out, and the typing stopped.

  His head came up slow from behind the screen. Mouth pursed tight, face ashen.

  “The Snow Lite?” he asked.

  “Got a call from Esme an hour ago,” I said.

  His face slackened.

  “I’ve been here all day,” he said.

  He meant, Why the hell did she call you?

  I didn’t answer.

  “This is bad,” he said, rubbing the back of his wrist over his lips in overdrive. “They’re pulling the fucking plug?”

  “They want a new feeling,” I told him. “They don’t want Snow—”

  “Oh, fuck them,” he said, sitting up in his chair. “With this new feeling.” He slammed his laptop closed. “We did 1.8 million the second year of Snow Lite and the minute we hit a slump, they get a new feeling. See, there’s no loyalty. Only scum in this business. Who got our orders? Gold Valley I bet you. There’s a crook. That owner. Loves to screw people.”

  Dad picked up a leather sample swatch and slapped it against the corner of the table.

  “Know what? I bet it’s a kickback to Esme,” he continued. “I bet they’re buddies—she and the liar.”

  “Well,” I said, “they got some fancy state-of-the-art tech over there and—”

  “Bullshit. Their shoes are made with a hacksaw. All action leather. Corrected leather—oh, hoho, you got that look on your face. Don’t tell me not to yell, ’cause I yell, okay? When you own the factory outright everyone can whisper, or pass around a goddamn Speak and Spell. Now, tell me as she said exactly.”

  “She needs fresh direction.”

  “She needs her fucking head examined. From handbags. You know that? Esme came from handbags. She’s going to tell me about direction in footwear.”

  “Everything’s changing,” I said.

  He flung the leather swatch behind his shoulder and it slid down the wall. “Don’t start. I’ve suffered enough, haven’t I?”

  He waited for the correct answer I never seemed to give. By now you’d think I knew the script. What was I supposed to say? You’re dried up, your styles are outdated and plain. Midwest America wasn’t going to stay in the ’90s forever. In so many words, that was what Esme said. Why she called me and not him.

  “Dad, I think we need to find a new angle. We’re almost dead. We’re on life support here.”

  Up came his pointer finger, but no words. For once, silence. Now was the time. I took a deep breath.

  “I want to show you something,” I said.

  Nothing. His face was TV snow.

  “You heard me?” I asked. “If she wants fresh, I’ve been working on something. Me and Bernie. I want to show you. I’d like to. In my office. If you think it’s any good, maybe we pitch it to the buyers. I don’t know. I want you to keep an open mind. You do that?”

  He slowly brought his eyes down level with mine. “I’m always open.”

  “When Yong bought us double-layer milk curd off a food cart you were not open. You sang your ‘It’s not for me’ song.”

  “Off the street, Alex. I said open, not crazy. I should stand on death’s doorstep for milk curd?”

  He followed me into my office where I’d arranged the styles on a sample table in the order I had them the previous night.

  Dad walked over to the table and looked down. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. He didn’t touch anything yet. After a few moments, he reached down and picked the first one up—this picnic-basket weave of light gray and black. He felt the shape of the shoe with his fingers. Then along the insole and back seams like he was a blind man reading a face and the only way to know it was to touch every part.

  “You and Bernie cooked this up?” he asked.

  I nodded, watching him closely, having seen him handle thousands of shoes and
knowing that he’d already made up his mind about the design and style, but his hands had to feel it for a while to understand the construction. A lot of high-minded designs never could translate to an assembly line. I was bouncing on my toes waiting for his answer.

  “Can we talk about something important?” he said finally. Off came his glasses. “What’s for lunch?”

  My heels sank. I wanted to grab him by the throat and choke him. I shouldn’t let it get to me, but this jolted me. I stared straight through him.

  “Oh, you’re serious about this?” he said, putting on his glasses again and picking the shoe back up.

  “Well?” I said.

  “I’m looking.”

  “At quality,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you do an all-over black?”

  “I wanted younger, peppier. I don’t think we offer enough color. I believe in color blocking.”

  “Oh, that’s a good name for your autobiography,” he said. “I Believe in Color Blocking: How I Became Such an Authority by Alex Von Dickweed.”

  When he saw I wasn’t biting, he leaned against the table. “Okay, okay. It’s not nothing. The Strobel, molded bottom, elastic upper—clever.”

  “That’s it?” I said, squeezing my fists. “All you got for me?”

  “You’re no Saul Katz,” he said and that really got under my skin too, but I also noticed he hadn’t put the shoe down this whole time, in fact he was cradling the shoe like a bunny and petting it. So I couldn’t let his stupid little jabs get to me. Had to stay calm.

  “These are special,” I said. “You see that, don’t you, and you’re just putting me on. Right? You see the quality. How different they are. These are the Cohains of shoes.”

  I said that just for him, and he couldn’t resist a smile.

  “Ha,” he said, still holding the shoe. If he hated it, he’d have put it down by now. I’d seen him turn his seat around at meetings so as not to offend his eyes with bad styles on the table. It meant I had a little opening here.