My First Pair of Loafers

As I mentioned, loafers were the ultimate shoe I had wanted for years before I got my first pair.  I was wrongly told that a loafer offered no support to the foot. Such a lie! I loved the suede variety, the penny loafer with a penny in them, the ones with the tassels, I loved the reddish cordovan leather ones.  I would stare at them through the plate glass windows in the shoe store, I would look at each pair of loafers both on the men's side, women's side,children's section and fantasize about having a pair one day, quietly happy as the Trix Rabbit just to look at them.  I LOVED that fact that you could just slip them on.  I loved the name of them...loafers. If I saw somebody wearing them I would walk up to them and comment what a nice pair of shoes they were wearing...loafers..good choice.  Et tu Loafew??  I would stare at the photographs of them in the fat Sears catalog. Before I received my first pair I had to troll through years of hideous shoe ownership of some of the most ugly, orthopedic looking, vice grip oxfords ever made. Loafers were the happy medium and I knew instinctively that I would never get white patent leather GO GO boots, I also wanted,without causing some kind of heart attack.  Always..even before Michael Jackson made them famous, loafers were the quiet cool.

It was a sunny day, walking with my grandmother, my mom's mom, at an outdoor market selling everything from clothing to kitchen gadgets, fruits and vegetables.  Just the two of us enjoying the day.  She would push the old lady wire folding cart to keep her kitchen finds and bought groceries.  It was somewhat fun until I turned and low....before me were rows and rows of loafers....children's loafers. Not behind a plate glass window display but my size within my reach.  Beautiful, cheap, vinyl no name loafers, I could actually touch them, pick them up and if nobody was watching maybe I could try one on.  I was five feet off the ground, and if I had one of those ladders attached to the wall, as in a bookstore, I would be swinging from side to side with only one hand and foot on the ladder.  Bellyflop into these wonderful  rows of a standard, dark brown, thin metal buckle, children's....loafers.  They were put together with a cheap plastic ring that allowed you to try them on but not run too far.  They even had a heel, unlike the ugly flat oxfords. I loved them.  I loved every part of them.  Without thinking, I began talking about them to my grandmother telling her why I didn't own a pair. She told me to find my size. I just couldn't believe it, suddenly my sweet grandmother was about to commit a family felony.   She saw me, she saw what I had wanted, and she bought them for me.  If I remember right, they were about all of $4, she used her own money to buy them.  She was poised and she didn't get caught up in my self saving objections not to buy them.

As a child you know your shoe size readily like your phone number, address, favorite ice cream flavor, favorite color, all these captive self facts were at the ready in case anyone wanted to know, you could steer them in the right direction. We wandered through this outdoor market until we found the rack with my shoe size, I put them on and loved them from the first slip of my foot inside the vinyl, hollow heeled shoe. I put them on myself, a welcome change from having some shoe sales pervert put the shoe on your own foot, not tie them to the right feel, despite your capable hands.  I kept saying to my grandmother, that my mother "didn't allow" loafers because they didn't have any support.  I talked like a guilty accomplice being questioned at the station...BUT a loop hole came to my rescue of indecision.  I thought if I MUST obey MY MOTHER then logically MY MOTHER had to obey HER MOTHER.  This is all backed up by Catholic school and religion..and dogma..probably somewhere in the bible there was a scripture, the Catholic constitution...honor thy father and thy mother..it was even in the 10 commandments!!  I would win my court case.   A loop hole in my favor backed by all the right institutions, loafers now on my feet, I was armed for the possibility of an unfair ruling when we got home. I skipped all the way to my auntie's home where my mother was.  I was waiting, wondering, and praying...would my grandmother's decision be able to trump my mother?

I did and didn't care.  It's like finally getting to drive your favorite car, you've looked at and longed for, for years. Your first motorcycle ride after being over warned not to do it but feeling the wind in your hair. The first time on that "dangerous" roller coaster.  Yes, wearing loafers in my family was like disobeying the law or worse getting all the right signatures to pass the bill to change an unfair law.  I might as well enjoy them while I could.  Coming home, to my amazement, I was allowed to wear them only at play and keep them. Really?? They would be mine??  I turned into the Trix rabbit right after he names all the fruity flavors in Trix, he jumps up, blows his disguise, and his ears of happiness are exposed.  I actually owned my very first pair of loafers, I looked at them for years in store windows, wanting them and the pure joy of finally owning and wearing a pair.

I wore them everywhere.  Yes, they were slippery on pavement but I didn't tell anyone, for then they would be excommunicated.  The hollow heel made a cute little high heel sound, my foot looked good in them, finally I did get something I had wanted so badly for such a long time.  They soon bore the battle wounds of many games of tag and hide and go seek, the top of them would simply split but not too noticeably. The hollow heals wore two little holes in the bottom, but I loved them like the velveteen rabbit.   I was allowed to wear them to school every once in a while. 

One sunny day, I wore them to school and in running to the bus stop the hole in the right loafer heel attracted and captured a noisy small pebble and it made a rattling noise with each step.  This would only be funny until you lined up to walk into school, in Mrs. Parks second grade class after the morning school bell rang and you fell into rank.  I limped to mask this noticeable noise.  I don't know what it was about Catholic school and small noises, but let me tell you this;  "If the noise was unexpected or not allowed you paid a price."  No talking in the hall, no talking in the class, hands folded, head down.  It was only the beginning of the day and I had to hide this renegade pebble and it was like hiding a small puppy in my lap.  I didn't raise my hand to walk to the blackboard that day. When we lined up to go to lunch I limped trying to muffle it.  After lunch, we would always line up to use the bathroom before recess.  After coming out of the bathroom you would walk to the end of the line, down a long corridor, and you had to pass the teacher standing guard in the front of the line. I was hoping she would be busy or disciplining someone, anyone else, while I walked past.

In second grade I was NOT blessed with a teacher who was patient. She should have never been a teacher. "Edge" was her middle name and she was an ice cold shower of discipline in an already strict Catholic regime.  Mrs. Park was taller than she should have been, walked with huge, quick strides in quiet soft soled shoes and she always wore kelly green, coat, shoes, everything. I never saw green leather shoes before in my life before Mrs. Parks. To complement the ubiquitous green attire, she was always seen with super fuchsia lipstick across her common tight lipped expression.  Add a pair of large, thick, coke bottle glasses, she was the Catholic teacher cross dresser version of Cruella De Ville. 

I knew how to stay out of her way as I saw what she did with Phillip, the poor little ADHD kid who was ball and chained to her desk in the front of the class, everyday.  If his untamed energy got the best of him as it did when he was tired of constantly having to stare at a blank wall...all day...she would "get angry." When angered, she would tell him to stand facing the class, put out his hands, arms outstretched. and swing down a yardstick like a guillotine in front of the entire class and your would hear a loud crack.  He never screamed or cried, only quiet tears would flow freely. In this Catholic school, you managed to quickly observe a situation and assess it and work with its rules, fair or not. Even though it wasn't me, I shut my eyes when Phillip got slapped on his hand with a piece of wood. As her intention, the act frightened us all into heart beating submission.

The rules would not be fair to me that day.  As I walked down the hall from the lunchtime bathroom line up, I had to pass her, not looking up and praying she would be preoccupied with whatever. I tried to be quick and with each step.  It was no use, the pebble was not released and it echoed with each step taken on the waxed floor or a corridor that wouldn't end.  I wasn't sure if she was yelling at me to come back but logically I had to get to the end of the line so the noise would stop. This stepping produced unwelcome giggles from the others  they only giggled but did not dare move from their spot.  I turned the corner to take my place at the end of the line. 

They say the punch you don't see coming is the one with hits you the hardest. All of a sudden, there she was, grabbing me off the ground vice grip on my arms and in my face, glasses, lipstick and all inches from my face, unparalleled anger and frustration, yelling at me, "What was that noise?!!"  Horrified and simply unable to breathe I could not answer her as she shrilled the repeated command over and over again.  She stupefied all the girls into quiet paralysis around me. Not even thinking of being humiliated, I remember being truly frightened, I'll be embarrassed later.  I was thrown into her rage instantly without knowing or being able to avoid it, or sidestep it.  I was totally shocked and because I was unable to speak, not even to utter the word "loafer,"  I was to be punished and ordered back into the classroom and miss recess, an emotional and physical outlet one looked forward to right after lunch.  It didn't matter that I was a good kid, knowing not to talk or move unless I was supposed to, I was a decent student, I was smart enough not to cause any trouble especially with that one. One incident could send you into solitary confinement..do not pass "GO", do not collect $200.  I turned the second corner on my way back to the classroom to sit there by myself. I was at least glad she let go of her grip on me.

Low...God was with me and He offered a small solace of human compassion on the form of Mr. Medierous.  Mr. Medierous was the school janitor who always wore a red and gray, ombre ,plaid, flannel shirt, white hair, thinning on top, russet skin.  All the kids loved him as he would always smile at you even though he didn't say much.  We loved him because he loved us.  That was all. When I turned the second corner from being uplifted by this "monster" of a teacher, I saw him and burst into relief immediately.  All I remember is I fell into his waiting arms as he quickly put his mop aside and let me fall and bawl into all the red flannel, I cried heavily for just a minute, tyring to find words to tell him the fear, the unfairness, the embarrassment. He already knew as he was only around the corner when it all happened. However, the monster rounded the corner and would not have him undo any of her horror.  She chastised him but he went right back at her mostly in Portuguese, of her unfair and brutal attack.  I grabbed his shirt hard, hiding behind him, hoping that "as an adult" he could "save" me.  I didn't think of him as any less by his position, in fact to me all adults told me what to do.  This was a situation with no previous experience to draw on, pure instinct.  He walked me to the classroom where I was told to go and on the way I told him then what had happened. To this day, I figured he must not have known the English words but he had the compassion and love of a really good friend, the kind you never forget.  He listened to me with love and then sent me in the classroom as not to further "interfere." I don't remember what he said to comfort me but I remember the love he gave me.

I'll never forget him and what he did for me that day.  I never really knew the extent of how much he risked his job by standing up to that monster.  I only knew that I would never wear these loafers to school ever again, as in my childhood logic,  I would fix the problem and tell no one... a common childhood solution we overused to at least "Not make it worse."  To all those children who had to bear much darker secrets, I understand what you "had to do" at the time.  Logically, if you were punished at school, you were "bad" and logically if the teacher would not listen to you, your parents would most likely take her side so better not tell them anything to be on the safe side.   Cognitively,  I connected the dots that I must have done something really bad to get her that mad.  Even Phillip was never yelled at like that.  I was now alone in the classroom, on a warm sunny day, missing recess, humiliated, now labeled the "worst kid" in the class. I was glad the yelling and lift off the floor was over.  Now in sitting there alone, shame would set in, I would be ashamed to be in front of anyone. I wondered what would await me once she and everyone came back.

After missing most of recess, this teacher sent in one of my classmates to find out what had happened.  I told her, through new justified tears, wiped with my hand.  But I did not want the teacher coming back in.  This bipolar drag queen came back in and mildly said "Oh....you should have told me."  She even fixed my shoe out of guilt I hope she carried through the years.  I gave her the obligatory smile to appease her.  That sleeping crocodile would go off at anything out of order.  Smartly, I thought better smile than to tick her off.  In those days, you had to cope, you had to survive within rules set up to trip you up. On your toes all the time was an understatement, now learn the Palmer method of handwriting within the lines, neat and clean, forget what you saw, try not to pee in your pants for your nature calling came not within routine bathroom visits, you were horrified to ask to go, don't talk during class, and most importantly try to stay out of the way. I was "let out" for the last part of recess, to join my classmates.  I would have to answer the questions of the paparazzi as to what really happened.  I remember avoiding everyone that day, I didn't want to relive it.  When the school bell finally rang to let us inside again, I heaved that latent sob that controls you like a sneeze.  On the way in, I passed Mr. Medierous again in the hall, mopping the floor, his head down as I walked past but ever so quickly we exchanged grateful glances.

I still loved my loafers.  My mother probably wondered why I didn't beg her to let me wear them to school.  I made an excuse of the hole in the bottom of the heel but I would have worn them into the ground if that incident never happened. They were my first favorite pair of shoes, bought within a Catholic loophole, with love from my grandmother.  They were the light of my life as in wearing parochial uniforms, your shoes were your only style statement.  They had a story linked to them one of human anger and human compassion and always, no matter what, you have your story.  I still remember the way they felt on my foot and the joy I had while they lasted.