Burn This House

Greed

54 Greed My first pair of boots was meant for snow, though we lived in a drought town in a dry season. Fat Velcro straps caught burrs, dust gathered in hearts punch-pressed in the nylon. I trod those boots over knotweed grown thick at the roadside, imagining myself a trekker of polar regions as I made my way to kindergarten. I wore them long into spring. The next came years after, my mother convinced I could no longer shove sausage toes into matted synthetic fleece. This new pair was a faux suede that rose to the ankle in what I thought was a jaunty line, elastic closures in a silhouette with pointed toes. In the grocery store, as my mother shopped for the best price on dried beans, I wore them with a turned-out walk and a duckish stance. I imagined people would notice toes pointing cardinal directions on a scuffed, linoleum floor. Pair three I bought at the ten-dollar sale when thirteen-year-old, too-long legs bred feet too wide to wear my sister’s treadless pass-downs. I chose a thick-laced pair with many eyes— boots that could curb the splaying balls of my feet when threaded tight enough. With a makeshift 55 foot-bind, my feet could be delicate—narrow at least. I pulled the round laces hard, until I could feel the vague tingle of capillaries gone dormant. The year I left home, I shopped for steel in the toe, enough metal to trigger detectors or stop a falling beam, and a rubber heel to support the heft of body two sizes bigger. I heaved my feet about city streets, knees going sore with effort of lift and step on such heels meant for kicking. Yesterday, I bought myself a new pair. Stretchy, with a high-piled wedge for a heel, the extra three inches push me just above my very average height. The legs’ shaft the color of scorched coffee, leather fits at my calf with the native snugness it must have had on the heifer. The price the sum of my other pairs’ combined, I take a small joy in wearing them out in rain, stamping them in puddles that form on the pavement of a rainy city where I still wait for snow. This page intentionally left blank. ...