I was born in a sweatshop. A Chinese woman hawked and spat red phlegm into her handkerchief as she tanned and waterproofed my nubuck upper. Her supervisor yelled at her for putting my pieces down to catch her breath and massage her shoulders. If he suspected she was dying of lung cancer, he sure as shit didn’t show it. The old woman never smoked a cigarette, but she inhaled arsenic everyday. Her gnarled hands stamped me with a tree logo and passed me to a set of delicate palms. The small hands deftly maneuvered my wheat-colored dermis around the needle of an industrial sewing machine. The small hands sealed my seams together. A man injection molded my leather upper to my rubber sole, and I was fit for a mate. I met Left, my reflection, and as a pair, we were whole.
It’s nobody’s business what happened between Left and I, laces tied together in the box, on our way to America. The corner of the mall where we eventually landed was like Little Timberland. We mostly kept to ourselves, but the community of other boots helped us feel more integrated in the new world. Canihelpyousirs shifted our box around a lot, occasionally opening the lid to peek inside. We didn’t mind until Sirs started trying us on. How humiliating. Not only did foreign, funky feet penetrate me in front of my lover, but they insinuated themselves into her right before my fourteen eyes. The defilers proudly paraded us around Foot Locker and made us confront one another’s shame in a mirror. Then they’d simply take us off, dump us back in the box, and walk away. Apparently torturing Timberlands is free.
I didn’t expect the Sir we now know as Travis to be any different from the ones who came before. He audaciously stole into both of us and took us for a ride. But unlike the other Sirs, Travis said, “Yep, these are it.” He paid four hundred hours worth of sweatshop wages for us and brought us home. Travis couldn’t wait to put us on. He invited a friend over. Travis didn’t mention us outright to the man called Bro, but he kept setting Left up on the coffee table and crossing me on top of her. He rubbed my nubuck on hers. The friction of my leather unraveled Left’s virgin laces. Her knot unfurled like a rubber roll that has fallen off a work table. Travis seemed embarrassed and used me to try to hide Left’s loosened laces but waited until Bro left the room to tie her back up. Travis kept us on the floor after that. He took us off when Bro peaced out.
Travis took Left and I to many places—the tops of mountains, the bottoms of canyons—and often to the same places—the Garage, Jimmy John’s. Always, we took the aluminum-bodied vessel that required all three of us to move it forward. Travis shifted while Left locked the transmission input and engine shafts together. I applied the horsepower. Without touching, Left and I connected through the growl and vibrations of the machine in a dance that transported us through space and time. Left. Right. Right. Left. Right. Right. We went on these adventures several times daily in the months of cool temperatures. But when the days were long, Travis spent more time driving with the Birkenstocks. Left and I passed the summers hibernating in a closet corner, together but missing the travel device and just being out. We were always happy to be on. Fall was the best time, the season for work. Dirt filled my sole and Left’s. After a summer of uselessness, we felt good and honest again. The grit in our soles gave purpose to our very existence.
But eventually our soles wore out, as well-used soles always do. Travis started getting angry about his goddamn motherfucking back. He would get home from work, tear our laces loose, and throw us across the room. At the Garage, he talked about needing new Timberlands. The man called Cocksucker suggested Red Wings. Neither Left nor I worried much, never having been replaced before. But when Travis came home reeking of new leather, I knew our traveling days were up. The Red Wings were larger—eight inches to our six. They were stronger with steel toes and fiberglass shanks between insoles and out. The pair’s rich amber leather shined in the light. I felt ashamed to be wheat and matte. The Red Wings cost twice as much as we had. The American hands that assembled the pair were unionized and well-paid.
Travis shoved us under the bed where it was impossible to gauge time. Our life under the bed had to have been at least as long as our life as Travis’ favorite footwear. But one day he pulled us out of the darkness and threw us into a box with shabby clothes and an Adidas couple that looked riddled with fungal infection. For the first time since Travis brought us home, Left and I rode in, instead of drove, the aluminum machine. The machine stopped, and Travis forsook us. He handed the large box we were in over to a strange man who turned the box over and sent its contents spilling into a heap of unwanted clothing. Left and I tumbled down opposite sides of the refuse. We settled on facing walls of the bin. A mountain of junk obscured my vision of her, but I could always see Left. Her skin was now threadbare, her laces ragged, her heel punctured. She was still beautiful to me. We no longer mirrored one another’s image. Instead we reflected the asymmetry of Travis’ form, the imbalance of his posture. Rough hands examined us for usefulness. They rejected us. Thrown into another bin, we huddled close. Her tongue caressed my throat for the last time. No hands every worked at our disassembly. We died in a landfill.
Stefanie Brook Trout grew up in West Michigan but now lives and writes in Ames, Iowa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she concentrated in the environment and history. She received her Master of Arts in Teaching as an Indianapolis Teaching Fellow at Marian University. In Indianapolis, Stefanie taught high school English and middle school science. Stefanie is currently a candidate in Iowa State University's Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing and Environment. She teaches undergraduate writing and is apprenticing with the current nonfiction editor for Flyway: Journal for Writing and Environment before assuming the position next year.
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2013
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