I was on my way to the mailbox when I was approached by Strang and an unfamiliar woman. She was a petite woman in her thirties. She actually looked a bit older, but I could tell that she was younger than she looked, placing her right back into her thirties. Strang was a bit affected by an undetermined substance or was otherwise incomprehensable. I could understand her no better. Strang was saying something about helping her out and she was saying, I think, "Come here." as she pulled me downstairs.
"Those people scare me," she said. "I mean, I hope they're not your friends."
"I wouldn't worry about that. Now, can you explain the problem again. Slowly, please?"
She kept talking, though I couldn't particularly understand a word that she said. She drove an extremely nice car with Maine license plates and windows conspicuously punched out. When I could finally understand her, she asked if I wanted to buy her husbands new boots.
"Excuse me?"
She asked me again, opening her trunk. Inside were a pair of rather nice-looking RedWing boots. She stopped, looked over at me, and then collapsed in to me. I could smell the whiskey that was slurring her speech. She apologized and said that the boots almost surely wouldn't fit. Did I want a toolbox instead.
It turned out that the boots were size 15. Exactly right.
I tried them on and sure enough, they fit. I put my shoes back on and went over to talk to her. "Where you headed?" I asked, trying to gauge exactly what was going on. Though I'd already more or less guessed it, she said that her husband had shot out the windows of her car. Okay, that last part was a surprise.
"Did you say 'shot?'"
"Yes."
Well, that did explain why she was so interested in selling his stuff. I wasn't sure how hip I was on wearing the shoes of a man that shot out some windows. "You probably shouldn't drive," I said.
"Yeah, but I got to keep going," she said.
"Well, take care."
"Do you want a drink?"
"Excuse me?"
"Do you want a drink? Hey, are you married?"
"I'm engaged."
"Oh, sorry."
"No problem."
"I gotta go," she said as she pulled out.
Tomorrow morning I might wonder if it's all a dream, but the RedWing boots she left behind will tell me that it wasn't.
I swear, R. Alex, you ought to put pen to paper and punch this up. Even if there's not enough color for a novel, surely there's the makings of a magazine article.
My jaw dropped and I walked from the computer for a while.
I now return to formally make this comment.
A fictional version would require a point, however, and I'm not sure this little series of events particularly had one.
Except for my landing a pretty good pair of boots, of course.
well i was listening to Tangents radio program that plays offbeat music and the song that was playing while i read this story sure put me in a state. take care there.
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