Fran Ross - Oreo

The frieze unstuck. Five women came forward, leaving metopes among the glyphs — a majority decision in the absence of the working whore, who still had not reappeared. Oreo blindfolded Parnell with the scarf of one of the five so that he could not see which of his bootblacks were scuffers, which (by abstention) still buffers. She turned him around with a semi -ul-na-brāc . As she did so, she looked around for Kirk. He was standing in a corner asleep, his legs crossed, his hands cupping a gathering of gonads, a tear runnel glistening on one cheek of his hanging head. “Poor thing,” Oreo double-entendred.

All the gristle had gone out of Parnell too. He seemed depressed. His proud, swanlike carriage was gone. In its place was a manifestly terminal droop. Swan’s down, Oreo punned to herself. He stood quietly until the first of the five laid a dulling toe on his blue-black boots, then a tremor went through him.

Of the two women Oreo knew by name, Cecelia was a buffer, Lil a scuffer. If loyalty to Parnell had to be judged by this b-s choice, then Oreo had better use Lil as her intermediary for her final task in this house.

After the laying on of feet, Oreo called Lil over.

Oreo at Kropotkin’s Shoe Store

While the manager, a Sidney, was on the phone, Oreo idly twirled her walking stick. Her dress was wrinkled from sleeping on the floor of Mr. Soundman, Inc. She had left Parnell’s triumphant but weary. When she saw the slightly open window of the studio, she knew she could go no further that night. She pried the sash up with her cane and ducked in. (She left Slim Jackson a didactic balloon about carelessness.) Before she dropped off to sleep, she briefly considered how Parnell’s ménage à douze might be affected by her little visit. She did not really care too much — except that it was the place where she had finally learned her father’s address. As she had judged, Lil had been willing to help her. While Samuel was otherwise engaged, Lil had skillfully pilfered his ID.

Now that Oreo knew where Samuel was, she was in no hurry to get there. First things first. She needed new sandals. Hence her appearance, in the early bright, at the first shoe store she had found open — Kropotkin’s. She tuned in to the young manager on the phone.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. This is a terrible location. It’s depressing, especially on a rainy day. The people up here want fashion, but they don’t want to pay for it, what can I tell you? You should see my store. It’s immaculate. You could eat off the floor. All my stores are like that. I tell you one thing, I’m glad for the experience… Yeah, yeah, but now I know how to do all that stuff. I just want him to take me with him is all. I’m ready for bigger and better. I’m telling you, one store on Thirty-fourth Street would be better than two here. We did three thousand here last week, and we’re happy to do it. I’m used to doing forty-three, maybe forty-six hundred. .. So when are you getting your promotion?… Oh, I hear things, you know. I hear that maybe they’re going to move Herbie Manstein and put you in his place… No, I’m not kidding you. I’m not guaranteeing that’s what’s going to happen, but that’s what I hear, anyway… Yeah, for a small store I’m not doing so bad, but now I’m ready for bigger and better.”

He turned to look as a worried-looking woman who had been waiting for some time tapped impatiently on the glass of the glove counter. “Listen, I have to go. The natives are restless. But have you heard the one about the eight A’s? You know the old joke about the five A’s, yeah?… Well, this one is the eight A’s. Take a guess, go on… No, that’s pretty good. I’ll have to remember that one, but that isn’t it. It’s an alcoholic who belongs to the automobile club and — get this — has narrow feet.” His laugh was like elm blight — very Dutch.

He finally got off the phone and went to the counter.

“Please, schnell ,” said the woman.

“Yeah, mach schnell .” He looked over his shoulder at Oreo, then said to the woman, “You mean you’re in a hurry, right? You should say, ‘I am in a hurry,’” he prompted in a slow, you-are-a-dummy voice.

The woman nodded as if to say, “I’ll agree to anything as long as you hurry up and wait on me.” She pointed to a pair of black kid gloves under the glass.

Sidney shook his head. “Those are not for you. You want my advice? Try a slightly larger glove.” He took a pair of dark-blue woolen gloves from the case. He helped the woman put the left glove on. To Oreo, the fingers looked too long, like the woolly blue ape’s. “See,” Sidney said, “you’ll be able to wiggle your fingers around in them. You don’t want a glove too tight.”

The woman shook her head, but she was desperate. She paid for the gloves and walked out.

“Do you have these in seven and a half?” Oreo asked, waving a pair of sandals that would do until she could get back to Philadelphia and buy a new pair of her special style (two simple crosspieces representing Chestnut and Market streets, which don’t cross).

The manager took two pairs of sandals from a shelf behind the cash register and came over. “You want my advice? It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care which pair you take. But if you take my advice, you’ll take the pair that fits tighter.”

“Why, do they stretch?”

“Yeah, it’s Greek leather — stretches a lot. Now, American leather, that’s another story.” He didn’t say what the other story was. He pointed to the sole. “You see this number here?”

Oreo looked at a 37. “That’s a European size,” she said.

He was obviously surprised that she knew. “Yeah, but see in here, it says seven and a half. We mark it ourselves. But take my advice — try the seven.”

“Okay.”

He knelt to help Oreo try one on. It was too small. Her big toe jammed against the strap, which had the give of an iron bar.

“Push, push,” Sidney insisted. “It’ll go, it’ll go.” He shoved the sandal further onto her foot.

“Stop, stop, you’re humping my hallux,” said Oreo, drawing back her foot. “What are you— meshugge ?”

“Look, who’s the expert here?”

“I’ll take the seven and a half,” Oreo said firmly.

He shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”

“No skin off my toes,” Oreo said. She changed into the new sandals and put the old ones in a box to throw away in the nearest wastebasket. She winced at the prospect of throwing away one perfectly good sandal.

When she paid Sidney, she said, “You know why business is bad? You give people the wrong sizes.”

“Please, no lectures,” he said, holding up his hand. “From you I don’t need it, oytser .”

She was tempted to denounce him in cha-key-key-wah. “You know what I wish on you?” she said, imitating his inflections. “Part one, may you have a long bed and a short bed, and on the long bed may you have shortness of breath, and on the short bed may you long for the day when I release you from the following curse, which is part two: three weeks of every four you shouldn’t make three thousand, you shouldn’t make two thousand, you shouldn’t make even one thousand. You should make, give or take a little here and there, bubkes ! And the fourth week of every four, you should have the worst business of the month!”

She left in a huff, a snit, and high dudgeon, which many people believe to be automobiles but are actually states of mind. She heard Sidney mumble, “The trouble with the shvartzes today is they are beginning to learn about insurance.”

Oreo at Woolworth’s