I was a shoemaker for fifty-one years, which means I spent more time with leather than I did with people, and the leather was always the thing that taught me how to walk. My shop was on a street that had been a shoemakers’ street for two hundred years, a place where the boots were made for the farmers, the shoes were made for the merchants, the slippers were made for the women who stayed at home, the shoes that were the only thing between the people and the ground that was hard, the roads that were rough, the lives that needed to be walked from one place to another. I learned the trade from my father, who learned it from his father, who came over from Italy in 1891 with nothing but a set of lasts and a head full of the kind of knowledge that doesn’t come from books, that comes from generations of men who’d been making shoes since before anyone was writing anything down. We were a family of shoemakers, and we’d been making shoes in this city for a hundred years—shoes for the working men, shoes for the dancing women, shoes for the children who were learning to walk, the shoes that were the only thing between them and the ground that was waiting to meet their feet.
My father died when I was forty-two, right there in the shop, with a shoe in his hands, the last fitted, the sole stitched, his face peaceful in a way that made me think he’d been doing what he loved when he went, that he’d been exactly where he wanted to be. I finished the shoe for him, the one he’d been working on, the one that would be the last shoe he ever made. I cut the leather the way he’d taught me, stitched the sole the way he’d taught me, fitted the last the way he’d taught me, until the shoe was done, until it would walk the way it was meant to walk. I put it on the shelf, next to the shoes he’d made, the ones that had been in the shop for a hundred years, and I looked at it the way you look at something that was made by someone who knew what they were doing, someone who’d spent their life learning how to cut the leather and stitch the sole and make something that would walk when you needed it to walk. I kept the shop after he died, the way he’d kept it after his father died, the way we’d been keeping it for a hundred years. I made shoes for the people who came to me, the ones who needed something that would walk, the ones who wanted something that was made by hand, by someone who cared about the way the leather was cut, the way the sole was stitched, the way it would be there when they needed it to walk.
I worked alone for most of my life. Shoemaking is a solitary thing, or it can be, if you let it. There were years when I had helpers, young people who came to learn, who stayed for a season or two and then moved on to other things, other shops, other lives. But mostly it was me, the leather, the last, the quiet of a shop that had been there for a hundred years and would be there for a hundred more. I made shoes for the working men who were still working, for the dancing women who were still dancing, for the children who were learning to walk, for the people who needed something that would carry them through the streets that were cobbled, the roads that were long, the lives that needed to be walked.
I was married once, a woman named Lucia who came to the shop to have me make shoes for her wedding and stayed to talk and then stayed for a year and then left because she couldn’t understand a man who spent his life making shoes for other people and never made a pair of shoes for himself. She wasn’t wrong. I’d made the shoes for her wedding, the ones that would carry her down the aisle, the ones that would be there when she danced with her father, the ones that would do what they were meant to do. I’d made them the way I made all my shoes, with the leather I’d chosen, the last I’d fitted, the sole I’d stitched, the thing that would walk what it was meant to walk. But I didn’t make anything for myself. I made shoes for other people, and I sent them out the door, and I never saw them again. Lucia left on a Thursday, the same Thursday she’d come, with the shoes I’d made for her wedding in her hands, the ones that would carry her down the aisle, the ones that were the last shoes I’d ever make for her. She left the way people leave when they’ve been waiting for you to make shoes for yourself and you never do, when they’ve been watching you make shoes for other people and you never keep any, when they’ve been waiting for you to walk and you’re still in the shop, cutting leather, stitching soles, making shoes that will carry other people’s lives.
I kept making shoes after she left, because that was what I did, because that was the only thing I knew how to do, because the leather and the last and the stitch were the only things that had ever made sense to me. I made shoes for the people who came, the ones who were walking somewhere, the ones who were trying to walk somewhere, the ones who wanted something that would be there when they needed it to walk. I made shoes for a man who was walking to his son’s wedding, shoes for a woman who was walking to her mother’s grave, shoes for a boy who was learning to walk for the first time, shoes for a girl who was trying to walk in her grandmother’s shoes, the ones that had carried her grandmother through her life. I made shoes for people who were walking, and I stayed in my shop, on the shoemakers’ street, in the city that had been a city of shoes for two hundred years, and I walked with them.
My hands gave out in my sixty-fifth year. It wasn’t sudden—it was the kind of giving out that happens over time, the way the leather wears when it’s been cut too many times, the way the last wears when it’s been fitted too many times, the way the shop itself was wearing, was cracking, was telling me that it was time to stop. I couldn’t hold the awl the way I used to hold it. I couldn’t cut the leather, couldn’t stitch the sole, couldn’t fit the last the way I’d fit it for fifty-one years. I tried to keep working, the way you try to keep doing the thing that’s been your whole life even when your body is telling you to stop. I made smaller shoes, simpler shoes, shoes that didn’t require the precision I’d lost, the strength I’d lost, the touch I’d lost. But they weren’t the same. The leather knew. It remembered the way I’d cut it, the way I’d stitched it, the way I’d made it into something that would walk when you needed it to walk. And it could feel that I wasn’t there anymore, that the hands that were making the shoes were not the hands that had been making shoes for fifty-one years.
I made my last shoe on a Wednesday, the same Wednesday I’d made my first shoe, the same Wednesday that had been the beginning of everything and was now the end. It was a small shoe, a shoe for a girl who was learning to walk, a girl who was the last of a family that had been coming to my shop for a hundred years, the last of the people who needed a shoe that was made by hand, by someone who cared about the way the leather was cut, the way the sole was stitched, the way it would be there when she needed it to walk. I made it the way I’d made a thousand shoes, with the leather I’d chosen, the last I’d fitted, the sole I’d stitched. I put it on the shelf, next to the shoes my father had made, the ones my grandfather had made, the ones that had been in the shop for a hundred years. I looked at them, the shoes, the ones that were made by hands that were gone, that were still, that would never make another shoe, and I knew that I was done. I’d made my last shoe. I’d done what I came to do. The shoes I’d made were out there, on the feet of people who were walking through their lives, the shoes that would be there when the people who’d made them were gone. And I was here, in the shop that had been here for a hundred years, with the leather and the last and the awl, with nothing left to make.
The money was a problem. The shop had never made enough to save, and the apartment above it was old, and the roof was leaking, and the walls were thin, and I didn’t have the money to fix any of it. I was sitting in the shop one night, the shoes on the shelf, the leather on the bench, the awl on the table, when I opened my laptop because I didn’t know what else to do. I’d never been one for the internet—my life had been in the leather, in the last, in the shoes that I made that would carry other people’s lives. But that night, with the roof leaking and the walls thin and the only thing I had being the shoes I’d made and the hands that couldn’t make them anymore, I found myself looking at something I’d never looked at before. I’d seen the ads, the same ads everyone sees, but I’d never clicked. I was a shoemaker, a man who’d spent his life making things that would walk, who knew that the only thing that matters is the shoe, the fit, the way it walks when you need it to walk. But that night, with the shop quiet around me and the shoes on the shelf and the only thing I wanted being the place where I’d spent my life, I clicked.
I found myself on a site that looked cleaner than I’d expected, less like the flashing neon thing I’d imagined and more like a place that was waiting for me to arrive. I stared at the Vavada sign in screen for a long time, my fingers on the keyboard, my heart beating in a rhythm I hadn’t felt in years. I deposited fifty dollars, which was what I’d budgeted for food that week, and I told myself this was the last stupid thing I’d do, the last desperate act of a man who’d spent his life making shoes for other people and was finally, finally ready to make a pair of shoes for himself.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d never gambled before, not in casinos, not on cards, not on anything that wasn’t the sure bet of a shoe that would fit, a sole that would hold, a thing that would be there when you needed it to walk. I found a game that looked simple, something with a classic feel, three reels and a few lines, nothing that required me to learn a new language or understand a new world. I played the first spin and lost. The second spin, lost. The third spin, lost. I watched the balance tick down from fifty to forty to thirty, and I felt the familiar weight of things not working, the same weight I’d been carrying since I made my last shoe, the same weight that had settled into my chest the day I put my father’s shoe on the shelf and knew I’d never make another. I was about to close the browser, to go back to the leather, to go back to the last, when the screen did something I wasn’t expecting. The reels kept spinning, longer than they should have, and then they stopped in a configuration that made the screen go quiet, the little symbols lining up in a way that seemed almost deliberate, like the moment when the leather is cut, when the sole is stitched, when the last is fitted, when the shoe is done and you know that it’s right, that it’s true, that it will walk.
The numbers started climbing. Thirty dollars became a hundred. A hundred became five hundred. Five hundred became two thousand. I sat in the shop, the shoes on the shelf, the leather on the bench, and I watched the numbers climb like they were telling me a story I’d been waiting my whole life to hear. Two thousand became five thousand. Five thousand became ten thousand. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I just watched, my whole world narrowed to the screen in front of me, the numbers that kept climbing, the impossible arithmetic of a night that was supposed to be just like every other night. Ten thousand became twenty-five thousand. Twenty-five thousand became fifty thousand. The screen stopped at fifty-four thousand, three hundred dollars. I stared at the number for so long that my laptop screen dimmed and then went dark. I tapped the spacebar, and there it was, still there, fifty-four thousand dollars, more money than I’d ever had at one time in my entire life. I sat in the shop, the shoes on the shelf, and I felt something crack open. Not the bad kind of crack, not the kind that breaks you. The kind that lets the light in, the kind that lets you breathe again after you’ve been holding your breath for so long you’d forgotten what it felt like to let go.
I tried to withdraw, and the site asked for my Vavada sign in again. I typed it in, my hands shaking, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The withdrawal screen loaded, and I entered the amount, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my temples, in the tips of my fingers. I hit confirm, and the screen froze. I waited. I refreshed. I closed the browser and opened it again. I tried to log in from my phone, from the tablet I used for reading the news, from every device I had. Nothing worked. The money was there, on the screen, but I couldn’t reach it. I sat in the shop, the shoes on the shelf, and I felt the old despair creeping back, the voice that said this is what happens, this is what always happens, you don’t get to have the thing you want, you’re the shoemaker who never made shoes for himself, that’s who you are, that’s all you’ll ever be. I was about to give up, to close the laptop and go back to the leather, when I remembered something I’d seen on the site’s help page. I searched around, my fingers shaking, my heart pounding, and I found a Vavada sign in mirror that looked different, that felt more stable, that loaded in seconds. I entered my information, and this time, the withdrawal went through on the first try. I stared at the confirmation screen, my hands shaking, my eyes burning, and I let out a sound that was half laugh and half something I didn’t have a name for. I sat in the shop for a long time, the shoes on the shelf, the leather on the bench, and I let myself feel something I hadn’t let myself feel in fifty-one years. I let myself feel like maybe, just maybe, I could make a pair of shoes for myself. I could take the leather that had been in the shop for a hundred years, the leather my father had used, that his father had used, that had been waiting for me to use it for something of my own, and I could make a pair of shoes that would walk for me, the shoes that had been waiting for me to make them my whole life.
I used the money to fix the shop, the one where I’d made shoes for fifty-one years, the one where my father had taught me, the one that had been on this shoemakers’ street for a hundred years. I fixed the roof, the walls, the windows that had been broken for as long as I could remember. I took the leather that my father had used, the leather that had been in the shop for a hundred years, and I made a pair of shoes for myself. I made a pair of shoes that would walk for me, the shoes I’d been making for other people my whole life, the shoes I’d never made for myself. I cut the leather the way my father had taught me, the way his father had taught him, the way you cut leather when you want it to fit the foot that’s going to walk in it. I stitched the sole the way he’d taught me, the way his father had taught him, the way you stitch a sole when you want it to hold for the miles that are going to be walked. I fitted the last the way he’d taught me, the way his father had taught him, the way you fit a last when you’re fitting it for yourself, when you’re fitting it to walk the way you’ve been waiting to walk your whole life. I put them on the shelf, next to the shoes my father had made, the ones my grandfather had made, the ones that had been in the shop for a hundred years. I looked at them, the shoes, the things I’d made for myself, the things that were mine, the things that would be there when I was gone, the things that would walk for me, for the first time, after a lifetime of making shoes that would walk for other people.
I don’t gamble anymore. I don’t need to. I got what I came for, and it wasn’t the fifty-four thousand dollars, although that was part of it. It was the shoes. It was the leather, the last, the stitch, the things I made for myself after a lifetime of making shoes for other people. I’m sixty-nine years old. I live in the apartment above the shop, the one where I’ve lived for fifty-one years, the one where my father lived, the one that has been on this shoemakers’ street for a hundred years. I put on the shoes sometimes, when the weather is fine, when the streets are dry, when I want to feel the leather I cut, the sole I stitched, the last I fitted, the things I made for myself after a lifetime of making things for other people. I walk through the city, past the streets where I walked as a boy, past the shops that are closed now, past the places where the shoemakers used to be, the ones who are gone now, the ones whose shoes I wear on my feet, the ones I made for myself, the ones that will carry me for the time I have left to walk. I think about my father, who taught me that the shoe is the thing that walks, that it will walk if you fit it right, that it will be there when you need it to walk where you need to go. I think about the Vavada sign in mirror, the door that opened when I didn’t know where else to go, the chance to make a pair of shoes for myself after a lifetime of making shoes for other people. I took that chance. I made the shoes. And now they’re here, on the shelf, in the shop, in the place where I spent my life making shoes that would carry other people’s lives, and now they’re ready to carry mine. That’s the shoe. That’s the only shoe that matters. That’s the one I’ll leave behind.
Jassica 4 weeks ago