Sneakers

SNEAKERS

By Angelique Jurd

Those sneakers. Those god awful sneakers. How I hated them. I was always tripping over them and damn if they didn’t stink. Every time I threatened to throw them out, you’d swat my ass and give me that lopsided grin of yours, knowing I’d do no such thing. As long as you grinned at me that way, you were safe.

And so were they.

I can’t find them. I’ve been hunting all day; been through every cupboard, closet, and carton in this place. I’ve found scraps of you here and there; little snippets of you tucked away in corners and boxes but no sneakers. I don’t even know why I want them, except that maybe if I can find them, you won’t be gone. You’ll still be here. Our little stretch of forever will still be happening.

They’re not even a matching pair. I never did understand that.

“How can you wear mismatching shoes?” I asked. You looked down at your feet and studied the offending footwear for a moment. The skin between your eyes folded itself into a crease – it usually appeared when you were trying to figure out a particularly difficult piece of music – and the tip of your tongue flickered out the corner of your mouth. It was as though you had just noticed the difference in them yourself and were intrigued by it. As though I hadn’t asked you that question a dozen times or more already. You were so intent on them, I looked at them too; wondering as I did so if was wrong and in fact today you were wearing matching ones. But no – both high top, one bright red, the other a darker, more sinister shade that seemed, now that I think about it, to herald things to come. A ripple shuddered through the left one – the bright one.   You were wriggling your toes. I sighed and looked back up. You were watching me, your eyes glittering with amusement. The crease was gone and you were grinning at me.

“I don’t see why you’re so uptight about them,” you said at last. “They’re both red. You’re the only person who notices anyway.”

Tossing your keys in the air and whistling that Adele song that drove me nuts – the one about setting the rain on fire – you walked out the door. I was left alone with my irritated frown and my protest already dead in my thoughts. I slammed the door shut behind me and joined you in the car, determined to win this battle but you had moved on to other things and weren’t interested in fighting. The truth was, you just didn’t care about things like that.

And I realise now, I cared too much.

I know you don’t have them, because the last time I saw you, I glanced at your feet, at the polished leather lace ups you were wearing and thought how good they looked.  The suit you wore looked good too. Heavy grey linen and a starched white shirt. It seemed so out of place on you – and yet so perfect. That’s when I got really angry. You were finally wearing some decent clothes and a decent pair of matching shoes. Not once, in all our time together, had you ever worn anything but battered boots and those fucking scruffy sneakers. 

Later sitting at the bar of the pub, I realised that wasn’t quite true.

We met at the beach. My friend Jaye and your sister Karen – oh good god, could that be any more of a cliché? My friend, your sister – if it was a movie, I’d be throwing popcorn at the screen and you’d be telling me to chill, baby. Well you would if you were here. I remember making my way across the sand toward the group, and wondering why in the name of all that is holy anyone would want to hold a birthday party at the beach in the middle of summer. The sand was so hot it was like walking on razor blades – the heat sliced through the soles of my feet, unused to being out of my usual six inch pumps. In a moment of wild abandon – or what passes for such a thing in my world – I had stuffed my flip flops in my bag with my towel, the Tupperware of potato salad, and the bottle of Sauvignon. I didn’t need to look, to know they were at the bottom and that if I stopped to find them I was going to look like a complete idiot. So I tried to skate my way across the sand until I was able to take refuge on the island that was Jaye’s towel. Jaye flung her arms around me and began the introductions, oblivious to my discomfort; I was already wondering how long I had to stay to not be considered rude. You were barefoot too, your jeans rolled up to mid-calf, and the heat didn’t seem to bother you one bit. Above the jeans a thin cream tee-shirt, damp with sweat and sea water, stretched across your chest. Anybody else would have been impressed by the muscles it didn’t hide at all. Not me. I was distracted by something else altogether. When Jaye introduced you I didn’t even catch your name because I was too busy frowning at the huge orange stain splattered across your chest.  You said something but I didn’t hear it either and before I could stop myself I spoke.

“That tee shirt is beyond saving,” I said. Even at the time I knew how I sounded and in that moment considered braving the molten sand to just retreat to the safety of my ordered, neat, world free of orange stains.

Then you grinned at me and I was the one beyond saving.

Max is stretched out on the sofa. For the first hour of this madness, he followed me around, sticking his nose in the cartons and snuffling through your clothes, tail wagging each time he thought he’d found you. Then when the scent failed to turn into you, his tail would droop and he’d whine at me; only to begin again in the next box. Eventually he got tired of not finding you – or maybe of my madness, who knows? – plodded to the sofa and closed me out by going to sleep.

I think if you had asked me I would have said I didn’t want a dog. They’re messy. They leave hair and paw prints and poop everywhere. They drool. And they can’t eat without sending food across the entire kitchen. That’s probably why you didn’t ask me. You just came home with a squirming little thing that seemed to be all paws and ears and tail and slurpy tongue. And helpless. I couldn’t bear how helpless it seemed.

And now he’s here with me – both of us longing for you to return.

“I enrolled us in training classes on Tuesday nights,” you said. Max was padding in circles, on the mat and snuffling up bits of pale blue fluff, intent on capturing something only he knew about. I listened to you with one eye on the track-and-retrieve scene playing out on the expensive shag pile I had bought the month before. “It will be fun. And he’ll be a good guard dog.”

At that moment your cell phone gave its high pitched scream and our future protector fired a jet of bright yellow urine into the centre of the rug. With a yell, you grabbed him and swung him out over the lino. You told me he was just a puppy; that you’d get the rug shampooed. The stain would come out. Everything would be just fine.

You were wrong.

Half an hour ago, it occurred to me they were tied around the neck of your guitar.

 “Why are your sneakers tied to your guitar?” I asked, the first time I saw them like that. We were moving in to the apartment we’d just got together - the one before this one, before Max - and were imprisoned by cartons filled with our previous lives. You lifted a finger – wait – and scrabbled around in a box. After a moment you emerged waving a magazine that you were already flipping through as you straightened.

“See?” You pointed to a photo of a young Bruce Springsteen in a leather jacket and holding a guitar. A pair of sneakers hung nonchalantly from the neck.

“If it works for The Boss,” you said, “it works for me.”

I rolled my eyes. Springsteen was too raw, too sweaty, too… sexy, for my taste but you loved him. Laughing, you unknotted the sneakers and let them slither into the open carton then pulled the guitar on to your lap and began to tease a melody from the strings.  The music wound around me and I couldn’t take my eyes from your hands. From your fingers moving across the strings, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough – caressing the notes from it. Finally you looked up at me, your eyes dark and still; humming you reached for me. As always, I lost myself first in your music making and then in your love making.

You, you were always there to find me.

Even so, seeing them, tied by the laces and just resting against the strings, made me uncomfortable. For all my conservatism and my need for order, I understood that music let you make sense of the world, the way neat columns of figures did mine.  Seeing your grubby shoes tied to your tool of trade just seemed like a mistake. As if I had been taken by the urge to dispense with balance sheets and tell my clients they could figure out their worth themselves.   

I don’t know how or why it came about but somehow, that’s where they usually ended up when you thought I was running out of patience and it was prudent to not wear them for a few days. And I just knew that’s where they would be. Laces tied in a bow so neat it was absurd even to my mind. But no, the guitar was just leaning against the wall. Lost in its own loneliness. Looking at it, it occurred to me you would have liked to have taken it with you but of course it’s too late now.

I’m scared that if I don’t find them, I’ll never find you again. That if they’re lost, you too will be lost to me forever. That when I close my eyes, I will see only darkness instead of your smile or your hand reaching for mine.  That the void between us will stretch on and on with no end and I’ll never hear the music again.

I have to find them.

You weren’t supposed to go away; that wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t in the script or the score or the chapters or the director’s notes. It was supposed to be happy ever after. It was supposed to be Sinatra at sunset and champagne and confetti.  Guitar playing and love making and rose bush planting. We were meant to make midnight dashes to the maternity ward, soothe teething cries, and kiss grazed knees.  I was going to be the sensible one who read fine print and cooked chicken properly and made sure the insurance was paid. You were going to jump in puddles and cook hamburgers on the beach in autumn and make patterns in the stars.

All while wearing those stupid sneakers.

There was no warning. Just some stupid asshole who drank too much. And blood. Little rivers of it on the fading paint of the pedestrian crossing; the same somber red as your right sneaker.  It leaked away from you, carrying you with it. Leaving me to fold our dreams away in boxes, layering them with tissue paper that was spattered with tears, and pretend I had never unpacked them.

It isn’t fair.

You once wore them to a wedding. The sneakers. You came out of the bathroom and for a moment I couldn’t catch my breath. Your hair was slicked back and your eyes mirrored the inky fabric of the tux you were wearing. Then I looked down and there they were.  I was mortified.

“Oh come on babe,” you said and snatched at my waist but I pulled out of reach. “She’s wearing electric pink and he’s got dreadlocks. I’m going to look fine.”

“It’s a wedding,” I snapped. Fury crashed through me; could we not, just once do something normal? My taffeta dress was just the right length and clung in just the right places and gave just the right hint of cleavage. My nose-bleed-inducing heels were the exact same shade of peach.  And you, you, were wearing a tux that made you look like an extra from a Hollywood movie and those damned red, mismatching sneakers.  It didn’t matter that you were right, that they were more appropriate. I just hated them all the more. And, I’m ashamed to say, I even hated you a little bit in that moment. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.

Everything always seemed so easy for you. Nothing was ever a problem. All you had to do was smile and everything would be okay again. I loved that.  But now, I think it hate it too. Because now you’re gone and I can’t make everything alright. Nothing will be easy again. And I want it to be. I think I had an idea that if I could just find them I’d find that thing that you had and then I’d have it and everything would okay. Max and I could stop wandering around looking for your ghost. Stupid dog. Stupid me.

But you’re gone.

And I can’t find your fucking sneakers.