Dead Baby Shoes by Hanover

You know how sometimes you go to the store for just milk, but you come home with a car load of groceries? Or maybe you go to the pet store to buy some dog treats and you come home with a cat and your wife is like “why do you have that cat?” and you’re like, I’m not married, so maybe I walked into the wrong house. Well, anyway, I was going to pick up an old tennis racket that I saw on Craigslist from this guy, and I saw in the corner of his shanty an old raggedy baby. I asked to take a look at it, and it seemed docile enough, so I made an offer. The man was like not real sure about all this, but he didn’t want to lose a buck, so he went ahead and took my money and watched as I toted the damn baby out the door and into my car.

I first thought of naming the baby “Windshield” because that was the first thing I saw as I drove off, but I later changed its name to “Roadside” because that was the next thing I saw. I then ventured out into the wild blue yonder with my new rug rat, not a care in the world, until it dawned on me that this thing might need to eat. I had some mints and shit in the console that I offered up, but the thing wouldn’t eat one to save his life He just tightened his lips when I tried to push them in. From that I figured I was going to have to buy Little Lord Fauntleroy a proper meal at some point. Not now because I didn’t feel like it, but at some point. So now my little raggedy ass baby and I were off on our journey, but it didn’t look like we were off to a terribly great start.

For reasons I’d really not wish to explain, I did need to buy me some kerosene and I saw some for sale out the windshield off the roadside. I pulled over to purchase a few ounces, but I lacked anywhere to store it other than the old baby bottle I happened to have on my floorboard. Why I already had a baby bottle with me and why I needed kerosene, well, those are just a couple of things that are going to remain mysteries to my dear readers. At any rate, I marked the bottle “BABY” to remind me it wasn’t to be given to the baby. I thought if babies didn’t like mints and shit, perhaps they wouldn’t like kerosene either.

With all this rigamarole out the way, I was now all lined up to be a top notch father. I got to thinking about what else a little one might also need to get along in the world, and I decided it’d probably be good thing for it to also have a mother. I do believe children have an affection towards mothers so that’s one reason I wanted to get him one (and I think it is a him, but, at this point, I haven’t taken a look see). My other reason for hunting the kid down a mother was that if someone might ask about why I was hauling around a baby, it’d probably give me some cover to have a mother nearby because sometimes the authorities have problems with black market babies in cars with kerosene milk bottles marked “BABY.”

The tension of having a baby all this time finally overwhelmed me. I was a single father trying to raise this child and the weight of the world was bearing down on me as you might imagine. I was almost an hour into this new life and having this level of responsibility thrust upon me was much. Realizing I could kill two birds with one stone, I pulled into a massage parlor. That would provide me some much needed relaxation and it would provide me a varied assortment of potential mothers to choose from for Roadside.

One of the fine massage women caught my attention almost immediately. This beauty was strong and virile, with an Adam’s apple that assured me she had a strong voice and likely wouldn’t let Roadside be taken advantage of. During my massage, she pushed and prodded me vigorously and I felt my tension release suddenly, almost as if in a burst. I was now certain she was the one to begin my adventure with. After cleaning up a bit, I built up the courage and walked right up to this precious petunia and asked her if she’d be so kind as to help me raise my child. She looked at me up and down, paying a little too long attention to the down part I thought, and she said in her deep baritone voice, “yepper pepper.” A bit casual for the gravity of the request I did believe, but, good enough. It was done, and now this journey might get a bit more interesting.

She shook my hand with her right hand and the other one wandered all about. She told me her name was Tank and that she was glad to more properly meet me. She lit up a cigarette and smoked it down in a single breath, taking the entire cigarette down her throat. She didn’t flinch. This was the woman of my dreams, who would raise my child and make me a home with her brawny arms and razor stubbled chin.

We embarked on our journey, the sort you read about where someone takes their thoughts on the road, seeing new things and gaining new perspectives, having no attachments to place or object, just mind and space, out in the great wide open. And this was my journey, fully free, no restraint, other than my light luggage in the form of an internet bought baby named Roadside and a woman of sorts named Tank. Together we would see new sights and playfully slap and tickle one another as we drove forward. Slap. Tickle. Slap. Tickle. It sounded like rain on the rooftop, only different.

POW! Hunger. Gut wrenching hunger. It came upon me more quickly than I would have thought. I shouldn’t have put it off so long. It was not the sort of hunger one has for intellectual pursuits, surely not that, but the sort one has when one hasn’t eaten in a little while. The only thing remotely looking like food was the bottle marked “BABY,” but I remembered that I had reserved that just for my sweet baby, or maybe not, it was hard to remember exactly.

So, now that laborious search for food. That painful task that has enslaved mankind for before I can even remember. I looked to Tank and with my pouty sad lips, and I asked her for money, any money, maybe to buy us a burger. I bent to my knees, down on the floor, totally humbling myself before her like the royal lady she was. She was like “sure, whatever.” I jumped back to my right position, full of joy, and relieved that all this bending and bowing didn’t cause me to drive the car straight off the road.

And so we found a place to dine, our little three person family, and dine we did, like kings and queens. She the queen, me the king, just to be clear. Roadside bit ravenously into the burger with an aggression that defied his (or her, still not sure) age. Thoughts began to dart through me. How fucking old is this “baby” I began to wonder. Roadside grabbed some fries and asked for a napkin.

And there we were. I looked down and embarrassment hit me like when embarrassment hits you hard. That’s really the best metaphor I can think of. Roadside had no shoes. Baby needs a pair of shoes! What kind of father am I? What kind of person am I? What kind of mother is Tank? Who is Tank and why is she in my car? Why did I buy a baby that might not be a baby from a guy selling a tennis racket? So many philosophical thoughts running through my mind. We’ve all been there. Here the reader identifies with me no doubt, thinking, yes, yes, why did I buy a child in that way? Is this really where babies ought come from one may wonder.

So, I’ve gone through this whole meandering talk to get to the big question: How’s it I’m supposed to get this baby a pair of shoes? I did what anyone else would have done in this situation. I checked the Real Yellow Pages, put out by the phone company, that age old compendium of the whos and wheres to get all you need. I flipped through the pages, looking for shoes, when it dawned on me that I should be checking the newpaper want ads, an even better source of all that world has to offer. And so I did, and there it was, staring me in the face like a prison search light, not just AN ad, but THE ad: “Baby shoes for sale: Never worn.” So poignant, could have been written by Hemmingway himself.

I took a picture of the ad on my android and Googled it so that I could locate the phone number. I called it immediately. I must have dialed the wrong number because I got a fax number that went “bleeeeeeeep.” That sound reminded me of my youth when everyone used to say “bleep” to each other while playing slap and tickle. Slap. Tickle. Slap. Tickle. . I hung up the phone and called back, this time dialing correctly. A mopey lady answered the phone, like something was amiss. I asked if I could come over to shoe my baby. She said come soon because she planned to spend the end of the day crying, so now would be best. I came right away. I drove as fast as I could, right, left, another left, right, stop, start, back up, U-turn, honk horn, flash lights, left, downshift, upshift, lickadee split I was there!

The shoes were nice-ish. I wasn’t really thrilled to tell you the truth. This lady handed the shoes to me all melancholy and crybaby like. I could instantly feel those shoes were weighted down with sadness. I stuck my outstretched tongue into the shoe to taste the sadness. The sadness tasted like a missed goal kick, an unreturned phone call, or a spot on your brand new shirt. I licked the inside of the shoe again to gather another taste of the sadness. This lady stared intently as I licked her departed baby’s shoe. The scene seemed to last forever as I spent the next 45 minutes licking, looking up, and then dropping back down for another lick of this sadness. Often she would begin to speak, but I would put my finger to her lips and hush her. “Shush, shush, you now childless mother” I would say. Tank picked at her fingernails, oblivious to the standoff. God I loved that woman.

I asked her how much for these “waaah waaah I’m so sad my baby will never live to walk in these shoes” shoes. The wench said she bought them for $20, but would sell them for $10. I made a “pfft” sound, spitting a warm mist about the room, and offered her a shiny quarter I magically produced from behind her ear. She said she thought the shoes were worth more than that. I told her that I doubted even her forgotten baby was worth $20. With that, I then demanded she show me a picture of her baby and prove to me she never wore those shoes. I wanted to see every documented instance of that baby to be sure that prior to its untimely death it never wore those shoes. I mean fuck her if she’s false advertising. Feel me?

She refused to comply, probably because she was a lying ass charlatan, and then asked that I should leave. How’s that? She’s a damn liar and I’m being asked to leave and my baby still had no shoes? What is more important than my baby getting some shoes? How could she be so cold, so uncaring. My baby stood there quietly, I’m sure feeling the pain of how this woman had been treating him (or her). Roadside stared at me and mommy Tank, looking for any sort of comfort. My hate raged at this shoe selling mourner for not caring about my baby. I reached out to my baby Roadside, but she was too far away, and so my hands stuck out in an awkward Frankenstein like stance desperately trying to grasp at her. That scene was the saddest thing anyone could imagine, even sadder than having had a child, having bought it shoes, having had the baby die before wearing the shoes, and then having to sell the shoes on the second hand market. I’m telling you, I was dealing with sad ass shit, bitch.

And so now I left without the shoes. Roadside got back in the car and finished his (or her) burger and then bolted, telling me that he (or she) would catch me on the flip flop, whatever that meant. Tank called someone on her phone and then I couldn’t find her later. And where am I? I sit here knowing that some lady sits in her house selling overpriced sad shoes, and I go on, still needing a tennis racket.

I looked into my back seat, looking for something to sell to make a buck. I typed out what were the six saddest words I ever had to write: “For Sale: Baby bottle: Never used.” I now brace for the person who might come by to purchase that bottle. He will perhaps arrive at my door also with a stranger baby in his car, having started out the day only meaning to buy a simple item to pass his day, but instead found himself in a whirlwind of responsibility he doesn’t understand, surrounded by seemingly disconnected moments, who is as incompetent as everyone around him. Maybe he’ll take a moment and look around him and realize that everyone seems to have made their way perfectly, none worse for the wear, just as it had been meant to be. Sunrise, sunset.