BLUE LOUBOUTIN

The old man sat on the curb drinking from a wine bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. His clothes were ragged and dirty. He smelled of cabernet and urine. His grape-stained smile stretched from ear to ear when people passed. Most responded to his jovial greetings with rote acknowledgments and kept walking, afraid to truly connect.

Regina saw the man from thirty steps away. I should cross the street, she thought. She was on her way to meet her fiancé James and had spent hours choosing her outfit, putting on makeup, fixing her hair. She looked perfect, and the thought of coming too close to the imperfection of the old man was unbearable. Who knew what might possibly jump from him to her. Regina abhorred the dirty people on the streets. They polluted the landscape with their poverty, mental illness and addictions. How nice New York would be without them, she had often proclaimed.

She decided to cross the street, but the traffic was perilous and she was wearing her strappy blue Christian Louboutin shoes. So she forged ahead, picking up her pace as she approached him. The Louboutin’s clicking on the pavement came within the old man’s hearing range and he zeroed in on her.

“How you doin’ tonight?” he shouted.
Regina walked even brisker.
“How you doin’ tonight?!” he demanded.
Thinking the best way to dismiss him was to answer, she responded curtly, “I’m fine!”
The old man chuckled, “Who said you’re ‘fiiiiine?’ You are UG-LY!”

Regina stopped dead in her tracks, whipped around and stared at him in disbelief. Her face lightened and she giggled. The giggling ripened into laughter. The laughter grew louder and stronger, so strong that she doubled over, arms holding her gut.

Laughter trailed off as the sound blended and rose again as crying. Regina wept. She sobbed. She wailed with an intensity that surprised even her. Tears traveled over perfect eye makeup creating black rivers running down her face, falling off her chin and dripping onto blue Louboutin shoes.

The old man was right. She was ugly. She didn’t love James and was only marrying him for his money. She never spoke to her family; she hated their crass, unsophisticated ways. She was condescending to people. She gossiped. She lied. She cheated. This old man had repulsed her, but more significantly, she had repulsed him. He had seen straight through to the ugly blackness of her soul.

“Are you okay, lady?” asked the man who had just deconstructed her world.
“You’re right,” she confessed. “I am ugly, completely ugly.”
“Aww, that’s just the way I joke with people,” he explained. “I ask them how they’re doing and I see what they say. If they say they’re ‘fine,’ I tell them that they’re ugly. If they say they’re ‘great,’ I tell them they’re ‘grating’ on my nerves. If they say they’re ‘good,’ I tell ‘em they’re good for nothin’. It’s just playin’.”

Regina smiled. She couldn’t shoot the messenger, he was merely the catalyst for her moment of enlightenment. She wanted to hug him, but that was a grander gesture than she was ready for. She pulled the three karat diamond engagement ring off her finger and folded it into the old man’s hand.

“You take this,” she insisted. “Thank you!”

The old man watched until blue Louboutins clicked out of his hearing range. He held the ring up, admired its sparkle, then slipped it into his pocket. He started to call out after her, but he didn’t know what to say.

He had no joke for “Thank you.”