A love story
I’ve seen no one get in their 10,000 steps inside of ten square feet. But there he was, this gentleman in his seventies, who wore experience like vintage Italian leather.
We were in the footwear department at Macy’s in Manhattan. Ezra — that’s what we’ll call him — had the allure of a regular patron. He negotiated the floor hemmed in by the try-on chairs like he’d walked it a thousand times. Like this was his beat. He was trying on a pair of bulky brogues, the kind that didn’t mind sacrificing a little style for functionality. Street brogues, not runway dandies. He’d walk back and forth, around, across, then sit for a spell. Get back up and stroll some more. With a little imagination, you could picture the shoes auditioning for Ezra’s daily routine. Leave the apartment on 10th and 49th. Amble southeast to Amy’s Bread, order a chocolate twist and a latte, pull up a chair, sit, savour, sip, cross your ankles, slink them under your seat and have your toes sustain you for a little while. Get up, wish the English Lit major who cinnamon-sprinkled your latte just the way you like it a nice day, and meander on to the newsstand off 6th and 48th for a copy of The New York Times. Tuck the paper under your left arm, about-face right and head toward Bryant Park. Find a bench, sit, unfold the daily, stretch your legs and have your heels cushion the weight of the day’s news. Smile, frown, breathe in, breathe out, stand and round your way to the front steps of the New York Public Library. Go up, go in, borrow a book, walk out, walk past Patience and Fortitude (the lions), and who knows where to next.
I wonder if the brogues nailed the part. Was it love at first sight?
It was for me when I slipped on my first Johnston & Murphys.
Ever have Dickens read aloud to you on a winter’s day? By the fire? This is how the Macy’s salesman who introduced me to Johnston & Murphy communicated shoes.
We’ll call him Frank. The footwear department was his London, his magic lantern, and Tom Ford, Steve Madden, John Lobb were among the colourful characters that populated his tales of pedal wellness. In your wildest dreams, you couldn’t imagine a child declaring to his parents he wanted to sell dress shoes when he grows up. But there he was, this gentleman in his sixties, a lifelong student of shoes with enough oxfords under his belt to make up a lifetime of institutional memory.
Frank knew shoes, and if I may borrow a French turn of phrase, shoes knew Frank. Les souliers, ça le connaissait.
He was a matchmaker. A reflexologist in a previous life reincarnated as Cupid to join sole mates.
Upon meeting a pair of black Size 10 Johnston & Murphy Rollins Venetian Leather Loafers, my heart grew manifold that day. I slipped them on and they instantly felt made just for me. The sensation transcended fit or comfort — new but also strangely yet unmistakably familiar. The last stitch on an encounter preordained from the moment they left the shoemaker’s leathered hands. We’ve been happily coupled ever since.
Frank never mentioned Johnston & Murphy have been shoeing the feet of American presidents from Lincoln to Obama. I didn’t know that then, and he knew better than to let history mess with chemistry.
Frank was old-school. A man whose knowledge of footwear was only surpassed by his understanding of people. We both knew I’d be walking out with a new pair of shoes by the time we’d shake goodbye. But it was never about the sale. Not to Frank, not to me. Ours was a transaction of mutual transformation, a swap wherein we both gained value from the experience. He paired me with the perfect shoes, for which he earned his commission and my appreciation. I parted with my money and was the richer for it.
I was grateful for Ezra too that Saturday afternoon. He reminded me that Saturdays are meant for slow, deliberate, measured decisions. For stretching each moment like fine calfskin and extracting as much mileage as you can from every minute.
I’m thinking of Nietzsche, and how “those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” I wonder what Ezra looked like to the casual observer, to those among us who turn a deaf ear to Life. Ezra heard the music loud and clear. It was the sound of Life, and how much it is amplified by the miles we choose to walk in other people’s shoes.