Title: Five Times Larry Got New Shoes (And One Time He Didn't)
Warnings: eventual character death, mention of alcoholism
Summary: Self-explanatory. Larry gets five new pairs of shoes, and one pair that wasn't for him.
Length: ~ 2,500 words
Notes: Third person point of view, past tense. Genre is a five things story.
Five Times Larry Got New Shoes (And One Time He Didn’t)
1.
It was Larry’s first birthday, and his parents, Margaret and Stewart, threw a rather low-key party. Stewart didn’t see much point in celebrating a birthday before the birthday boy could remember it, and Margaret didn’t want to spend a lot of money or invite many people. So they just invited Uncle Jerry and Grandma and Grandpa and hung a sign on their living room that said, “Happy First Birthday Larry!”
After munching on cheese and talking for about half an hour, everyone gathered around the table. Stewart brought out Larry and put him on a high chair. Everyone cooed about how cute he is.
“Soon he’ll have almost as much hair as me!” Said balding Grandpa.
“He has the most adorable smile!” Cooed Grandma.
“You just want to pick him up and tickle him!” Explained Uncle Jerry.
“He is pretty cute, isn’t he?” Margaret said proudly. Larry was being quite well-behaved, and Margaret felt her heart rate start to settle. This was one of the only times she got to show off Larry to most of the family (at least the ones who mattered), and she needed it to go well.
“Alright, time for Larry’s present!” Stewart announced, coming in from the small kitchen carrying a wrapped box. Margaret caught Grandpa exchanging a look with Grandma.
“Were we supposed to bring presents?” Grandma asked.
Well, it would’ve been nice, Margaret almost said. Instead, she said, “No, of course not!”
“One-year-olds only need one present,” Stewart added. “Next year we’ll get him two. By the time he’s twenty he’ll have twenty presents!”
“Good one,” Uncle Jerry chuckled. Margaret laughed, too, but she had a feeling Stewart wasn’t kidding. She’d have to lay the rules down pretty soon. No matching presents with age. Yes to matching presents with income.
Margaret’s palms were starting to sweat. She hoped Larry liked his present. Everyone gathered closer to watch as Stewart attempted to get Larry to unwrap the box.
“Just pull on it, like this,” Stewart demonstrated. Larry reached out a pudgy hand and tore off a bit of paper. He waved it around happily, and then tried to stick it in his mouth. Margaret reached over to pull it away.
“Babies,” she laughed. “Always chewing on things.”
Grandma and Grandpa nodded understandingly. Uncle Jerry frowned.
“Let’s see that present!” Margaret exclaimed. Everyone turned their attention back to the present, which was now entirely unwrapped. It was a shoe box.
“He’s been needing new shoes for a while,” Stewart explained. He opened to box and showed the shoes to the guests. They were impossibly tiny white sneakers with Velcro straps and a small Nike logo.
“Only the best for our Larry.” Margaret smiled. Stewart brought the shoes to Larry, who grabbed them eagerly. He was just wearing little white socks at the moment – his other shoes had fallen apart. Larry lifted the shoes clumsily and tried to eat them. Margaret once again stopped him.
“Babies,” she laughed. “Always chewing on things.”
That was the first significant pair of shoes Larry received. They lasted him for a few months until he outgrew them. But his parents always kept them, to remind themselves of how far they’d all come. Larry from a tiny, mouthy baby, Margaret from a nervous wreck, and Stewart from… well… Stewart was a whole other matter.
2.
The second significant pair of shoes that Larry got was his soccer cleats. They were also Nike, and were black and white, baring a slight resemblance to a soccer ball. Margaret gave them to him right before his first soccer practice.
“They’ll help you run and kick better,” she explained. “I think they require them, too. I just thought it’d be a good idea.”
Larry, who was twelve at the time, thanked his mom and tried them on. He could tie his own shoelaces by now, which was a relief – he had been an embarrassingly slow learner.
Once he had laced them on, he stood up and looked at the mirror. There he was, wearing his soccer uniform and his new cleats. He looked ready to face the world.
“Mom, can you take a picture and bring it to Dad next time you visit him?” Larry asked. He looked away from the mirror to avoid seeing the hope in his eyes.
“Sure, honey,” Margaret said, her voice gentle. “Let me just run and get the camera – it’s in the kitchen for some reason. I must have been taking a picture of that pie I baked the other day.”
They only had a disposable camera at that time. Back then, the digital cameras were way too expensive, especially with Stewart no longer supporting the family. Their insurance covered his rehab, but Margaret still had to support herself and Larry.
“I’ve got it.” Margaret returned with the camera. Larry struck a noble pose, making sure to show off his shiny new cleats. He wanted Stewart to know that he had a son who played soccer. It seemed like an important detail. Larry hoped that instead of drinking alcohol, his dad would think about how well his son must be doing in those awesome cleats.
Margaret snapped the picture, and then took a few more for good measure. “I’ll get them developed as soon as I can.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Margaret smiled. “Of course,” she said.
Larry’s cleats lasted for two whole years. He scored many goals with those cleats. And when Stewart came back from rehab, ready to embrace life again, he watched Larry make some of those goals. Larry kept those shoes, too – they reminded him of his love of soccer and his dad, and the surprisingly strength of his mom.
3.
Larry’s third pair of important shoes was shiny black business shoes. They were the kind of shoes you’d wear at black tie events or a business trip. In this case, Larry was wearing them for a job interview. But this wasn’t any job interview – it was his first job after getting out of rehab.
His phone rang as Larry was adjusting his tie. He picked it up after the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, tiger. It’s Mary.”
Mary. Larry smiled just thinking her name. She had been one of the reasons he had found the strength to stop drinking. They’d been together for two years now.
“Oh, hey, Mary! What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to check up on you. How are you doing?”
“A little nervous,” Larry admitted. He glanced down at his new shiny shoes. “Determined, though. And not drinking.”
“I wasn’t even going to ask.”
Larry glanced at himself in the mirror. He was clean-shaven, well-groomed, and his teeth were white. We wore a black suit that matched his shoes and his belt. You could hardly tell that a few months ago he’d been nearly at rock bottom.
“I wish Dad could see me now,” Larry muttered, almost too low for Mary to hear.
“He can,” Mary said. “He’s up there somewhere. And he’s happy you’ve stopped going down the road he went down.”
“It wasn’t alcohol that killed him, though,” Larry said. He felt Mary sigh on the other end of the line.
“I know,” she interrupted. “It was a car crash. But are you sure it wasn’t a drunk driving accident?”
“I don’t want to go into this again right now.” Larry had to stay strong. His dad had sober for over fifteen years. He didn’t want to believe that Stewart had fallen off the wagon. His dad’s death had been what caused Larry to start drinking heavily, but his dad’s life and triumph had been one of the reasons he’d stopped. Larry needed to believe the best of his dad, like he needed to believe the best in himself. That was part of the reason he’d bought his new dress shoes. If he looked good, he felt good, and then he’d act good.
“Sorry, honey. I know you’ve been through a lot lately. Let’s drop it. Are you ready for the interview?”
Larry felt inches taller in his new shoes, even though they really only added a few centimeters to his height. “I’m ready,” he said.
Larry didn’t keep those shoes. They got old and fell apart, and Mary insisted on getting rid of them. But Larry never forgot how they made him feel strong when he needed to be. And whenever he walked into work, he thanked those shoes for getting him that job.
4.
Larry’s next pair of shoes was white slippers with bunny ears on them. He bought them when the kids had both gone off to college and he was working less and lying around the house more. Mary said they were because his feet had stopped circulating well in his old age. (She was 57, a year older than him, so her old age jokes always turned around on her.)
Truthfully, Larry got them because he could. They were on sale and looked comfortable and cute, and it was true, his feet got cold often nowadays – he hadn’t been circulating well.
He liked sitting on the couch with his slippered feet lying on the table. Larry and Mary had always yelled at their kids if they had their feet up on the table, but now that the kids were gone those rules didn’t apply. They hadn’t ever really applied to the parents anyway.
Larry liked watching TV in his slippers with his feet up. Sometimes Mary would join him, wearing her own pair of slippers.
“Circulation not working so well in your old age?” Larry would quip, and his wife would smack him playfully.
“At least my slippers don’t have bunny ears on them,” she’d say. As if that was a positive thing, instead of a tragedy that affirmed how amazing Larry’s bunny slippers were.
“Touché,” Mary would always mutter, and Larry would smile and pull her close.
Larry wore those bunny slippers until they fell apart five years later. They always kept his feet warm, but more importantly, they reminded him of how much he loved his wife. He always remembered the nights sitting on the couch with her whenever he wore them. Even after the bunny ears fell off and the white was more of a gray color, he kept them just so he could hear Mary’s smart-aleck comments. They never failed to bring a smile to his face.
5.
Larry didn’t buy his last pair of shoes. He didn’t even ever put them on himself. Technically, he didn’t even own them. But they were his.
Larry’s daughter, Sandra, bought him new shoes for his funeral. He had requested to be buried, and to have an open-casket funeral, and Sandra wanted him to wear nice clothes. He wore a brown suit, so Sandra found some nice brown leather dress shoes. Mary helped her put them on. Both of them couldn’t help but think how it looked as if Larry was sleeping, and was ready to go to work the next day. But both of them knew he wouldn’t ever go to work again.
It wasn’t a car accident, drunken or not, that killed Larry. It was simply old age, that vice that all people succumb too. He had lived a good life, overall.
His funeral was almost as small as his first birthday party had been. Uncle Jerry, Grandma, Grandpa, Stewart, and Margaret were all already up in heaven. There weren’t many other people important to Larry.
Marry attended, of course, and so did her and Larry’s kids, Sandra and Ryan. A few of Larry’s work friends came, and some of the in-laws. The priest said a few words, as did the family members. Then people walked by to pay their last respects.
Several people admired the shoes. They knew how important shoes were when it came to Larry. Sandra accepted the compliments with an inclined head and a wintry smile. She was just glad to have done her best for her dad.
Larry literally took those shoes to his grave. They represented himself: tough and strong, made of good quality but still able to be weathered and worn. But they could also bend to fit someone’s needs, just like Larry bent to help his children or his wife. The last pair of shoes that Larry would ever wear was the best. And when Mary died a year after, Sandra buried her with brown leather shoes, too. So lay Larry and Mary, in matching shoes, just like their matching souls.
(+1.)
Larry once received a pair of shoes, but they were not his. This was at the baby shower for Larry and Mary’s first baby, who would grow up to become Sandra.
The baby shower was probably the biggest party Larry had ever thrown. Lots of people came, even ones Larry didn’t even know – a coworker’s friend, or Mary’s cousin twice removed, or even the mailman. Best of all, they all came bearing gifts. Margaret was so happy.
“This is how it should be,” she said when Larry and Mary were practically drowned in gifts.
They got a lot of baby clothes. They got a crib, and toys, and books. They got diapers and food. But Larry’s favorite present came from his mom.
“This is similar to what we got you when you were just one year old,” Margaret explained. Larry opened the box (he didn’t try to eat the wrapping paper this time) to unveil a minuscule pair of shoes. They were pink Nike sneakers.
“They’re adorable!” Mary exclaimed.
“I love them,” Larry said, giving his mom a hug. “I’m sure our baby girl will love them too. Thank you, Mom.”
Margaret beamed. Everyone cheered. Larry put the shoes away for a few months, until Sandra was born. Once she started wearing shoes, they could hardly get her out of them. She’d crawl around and start fussing if someone tried to take them off.
“Your entire family is obsessed with shoes,” Mary said once. Larry laughed, and Mary pulled him in for a kiss. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she finished.
Larry was proud of Sandra for many reasons. But one of the reasons he held close to his heart was that she shared his love of shoes. He knew that when he died, Sandra would find a good pair of shoes to bury him in. And she did.
Sandra kept her baby shoes because Larry and Mary kept them. When she went through the box of their old things, she came around the shoes and smiled through her tears. She had the best parents in the world, and the best shoes. Her baby shoes were old and worn now. But she could imagine what they had been like in her prime, and she promised to get her own child shoes just like them.
It was important to start and end life with a good pair of shoes, and Sandra and Larry (and maybe even Mary) realized that.
THE END! J
Very enjoyable! Not knowing the five things format, I didn't know what to expect. I liked how you linked everything through the shoes and across the years and generations. Not sure if that is part of this genre or what you did to enhance it, but it adds a lot!
ReplyDeleteThis was a different story, but good. You try to tell a whole life in few words, which is not easy, but you use the shoes to tie it together. I love how we get hints of troubles in life but don’t have to suffer through them.
ReplyDeleteStewart brought out Larry and put him on a high chair. Everyone cooed about how cute he is – funny + real.
“Soon he’ll have almost as much hair as me!” Said balding Grandpa. – very funny!
oopsie? Are the Said’s etc. supposed to be capitalised?
Margaret caught Grandpa exchanging a look with Grandma. – funny! I feel kind of bad for them. Must be akward.
Margaret laughed, too, but she had a feeling Stewart wasn’t kidding. She’d have to lay the rules down pretty soon. No matching presents with age. Yes to matching presents with income. – I love these little details!
Margaret from a nervous wreck, and Stewart from… well… Stewart was a whole other matter. – I love how at the end you hint at a difficult past. It contrasts well with the funny tone.
Larry, who was twelve at the time – love how you skip around and only hint at the troubles in between.
he had been an embarrassingly slow learner. – nice character detail.
“Mom, can you take a picture and bring it to Dad next time you visit him?” – you throw this unexpectedly! It fits well and makes the story much bigger.
He looked away from the mirror to avoid seeing the hope in his eyes. – so sad.
He wanted Stewart to know that he had a son who played soccer. It seemed like an important detail. – Larry has been forced to grow up too fast, and you show this.
they reminded him of his love of soccer and his dad, and the surprisingly strength of his mom. – love this.
it was his first job after getting out of rehab. – I like how you show the difficulties he had by not going through them. It seems real, especially considering his past.
“Hi, tiger. It’s Mary.” – like the personality here, hints at a close relationship.
You could hardly tell that a few months ago he’d been nearly at rock bottom. – I like the pace of the story. It is challenging but works well.
And whenever he walked into work, he thanked those shoes for getting him that job. – like the summaries at the end. They tie it together.
white slippers with bunny ears on them. – love the detail.
As if that was a positive thing… I really like this conversation.
Even after the bunny ears fell off and the white was more of a gray color, he kept them just so he could hear Mary’s smart-aleck comments. – great!
Several people admired the shoes. – I like how this incorporates the shoes and his life.
tough and strong, made of good quality but still able to be weathered and worn. – good description.
“This is similar to what we got you when you were just one year old,” Margaret explained. – I love how you go back and add more detail that fits