The Christmas Boots

 

The lone boot lay abandoned in the median of the busy intersection. Few people spared it a glance as they hurried about their day; the holiday was approaching. Homelessness was rampant in the city. No doubt it was just the cast off of one of the many vagrants who occupied that slender piece of concrete hour after hour, day after day.

One man cursed under his breath as he cut the turn too close and the boot caught under his tire, dragging along for a moment before breaking free and bouncing into the center lane. The next car swerved around it and then traffic resumed it's steady pace as cars sped over it.

It was so covered in dirt and filth it was impossible to tell what color it might have formerly been. Even before being run over, it was almost unwearable. The uppers were clearly pulling away from the sole in many places, the laces were completely gone and it was essentially held together with strips of dirty duct tape.

But when it was brand new, it was a handsome, handcrafted piece of leather work in a rich brown, one of a pair, a Christmas gift from a homemaking wife to her hardworking husband. They had delighted her husband whose manual labor job kept him on his feet throughout the day. They served him well for months, through cold and snow and into the slightly rainier spring and then through the dry, hot summer. But as the cool autumn began to descend on them, his wife's health took a sudden turn. Before Christmas came again, they had a diagnosis: cancer. Those same boots took him to and from innumerable hospital and chemotherapy appointments and late the following spring, they took him to and from his wife's grave.

His wife's death dealt him a tremendous blow. They'd married young and he found himself having to fend for himself in ways that he'd never had to previously. He'd worked and she'd kept the home. He'd never had to cook for himself, wash the dishes or do a load of laundry. He missed her happy chatter as she bustled about the kitchen or her quiet presence as they read the paper together. He struggled to fall asleep without her next to him. They'd never had children or even any pets and the loneliness of his existence pressed in on him.

He became easily distracted as depression set in and eventually it led to an accident at work and he was injured, severely enough that his doctor hesitantly prescribed him OxyContin. Drug abuse was a significant issue in their state, but this was not a man who had ever been diagnosed with substance abuse nor did he seem likely to be, so the doctor felt more at ease. But the man soon found that the opioid did more than just alleviate his pain. 

The first time he got high was an accident, a chain of events that he could not have planned for or known to prevent. He'd been talking to his mother in law on the phone as he took one of the tablets and belatedly realized he'd left his glass of water in the other room. He'd still been talking when he'd accidentally bitten down on the tablet, crushing it. Frustrated with the conversation and with having crushed the pill, he finished the call and simply dry swallowed the remains. His doctor had given him explicit instructions on how to take the medication and if he'd remembered, he'd know that crushed was one of the ways he should NOT be taking it, but he didn't really care because for the first time since his wife's cancer diagnosis, he felt, not happy, exactly, but content. From then on, he only took his medication crushed. The feeling was never as good as that first time, but it was better than nothing and he was quickly addicted.

Soon he was at war with himself. He knew the feeling came from the medication and if he took a bit more, he might be able to make that feeling last longer or achieve it more often, but if he needed more frequent refills, his doctor would become suspicious. Eventually though the need for the high overcame the need for caution and he was requesting refills more and more frequently. His doctor quickly became suspicious and switched him to a non-opioid prescription, so he turned to other avenues. He knew that at least a few of the guys he worked with did drugs, so he quietly reached out to them. They were more than a little surprised, but they were able to get him what he wanted, though not as much as he wanted.

As the months passed though, his addiction began to spiral out of control. He needed more and more of it to get high and soon he was selling things around the house to afford it. He stopped paying the electric and water bills. He began drinking to help get high, though he'd never been a drinker before. His boss and co-workers noted the change quickly. He'd always been a quiet man, but quiet in the sense the he was observing and when he said something, it was worth noting what he said. He'd been well dressed and proud of his appearance. Now he was quiet because he simply wasn't paying attention and didn't care. His appearance couldn't be more different, unkempt with an air of extreme apathy. It was clear he hadn't showered or changed his clothes in days and frankly no one knew what to do with him. It wasn't until one of the higher ups somehow got a whiff that there might be drug dealing going on and a random drug test was ordered that everything came to a head. He, of course, tested positive and was immediately fired, not that he cared at that point. He kept up his habit of selling his possessions and buying more of his drug of choice.

Eventually he bought himself a nice tent with a sleeping bag and a few other necessities and sold his house. He kept a few things though: his and his wife's wedding rings, a few pieces of his wife's jewelry, and the boots his wife had given him. Throughout everything he'd worn those boots nearly every single day.

He took to living on the streets. It was a hard life, harder than anything he'd ever experienced, but the temporary relief the drugs gave him was almost worth it. He was a smart man, he knew they were killing him, knew there was a chance the police might catch him, but damn if he could see a way out either. Living had simply become a fight to survive. Every day he took his piece of cardboard with the message he'd written and stood at one of the intersections in the city and panhandled, asking people for money. He saw the judgmental looks. Some people mocked him, he'd even had people spit or throw things at him. He wondered if they'd fare better under the same set of circumstances. And then there were the kind people who gave him cash or gift cards or food or drinks. 

The boots his wife had given him took him all over the city. As time passed they slowly fell apart, but he patched them up as best he could with bits of duct tape, string and rope. The rich brown leather turned muddy and eventually an indistinguishable combination of greys and browns. The laces on the one boot were repeatedly broken and repaired until they had to be discarded. And the separating soles and uppers were glued together again and again until he just gave up and let them flap about.

He was standing at one of his regular medians when the seizure suddenly struck. Somehow, he didn't roll into oncoming traffic and one of the drivers waiting at the light was a nurse's assistant and she was able to jump out of her car and prevent him from doing so as she quickly dialed 911. However, the seizure had loosened one of his boots, the one with no laces, leaving it half off of his foot. Several minutes later as he was loaded onto the ambulance, precariously perched as it was, it fell to the ground next to the median.

"My boot," he muttered, barely conscious.

But no one heard him as the doors were quickly closed and he was rushed to the hospital. In the ER, none of the nurses had any idea what he was talking about as he kept muttering the same words over and over again. And they were his last words when he passed several hours later.

When he met his wife in heaven, as beautiful as the day he first saw her, a smile broke across his face. In her hands were the treasured pair of boots.