Soles: The Quest for Feet

By George Putnam and Diana Bosna

It is three oclock in the morning when five pairs of abandoned shoes awaken inside Enzos repair shop. Prima is an Italian-made pair of ice skates. Her pals are Di, distressed leather boots; Brody, high-top basketball sneakers; Dallas, a fifty-year-old pair of cowboy boots; and Looie, orange-suede walking shoes. Although all five pairs are different, they all have the same wish: to find their original owners. But in order to accomplish their mission, they need a miracle.

While the determined group creates a song-and-dance routine they hope to perform on late-night television to attract the attention of their former owners, they have no idea that a seventy-year-old pair of shoes named Gum Shu is on a stakeout outside the shop. He is running down a rumor for his owner who wants to possess the talented shoes so he can become wealthy and famous. But when Prima decides it is her destiny to escape the shop, everything changes for the other pairs as well.

In this entertaining tale, five pairs of shoes abandoned in a repair shop come up with a creative solution to their dilemma that leads them down an adventurous path to a new future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532056437

George Putnam

George Putnam is a screenwriter, author, and ghostwriter living in Los Angeles. His produced credits include television ("NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood") and film ("Unlawful Entry" and "To Kill For"). His first novel, "The Honey Bubble," is an Editor's Choice selection by its publisher. Putnam is also a musician and composer. For his Master's Thesis at U.C. Riverside, he wrote a symphony ("Symphony for Twenty Minutes"), and at the University of Redlands, he gave master classes in piano. Though Putnam's literary interest is crime fiction, his collaboration with Jewel Grutman on a work of historical fiction, "Redfish Oak," was inspired by her passion for the plight of Native Americans.

Book preview

1

T he only sound in the three-story shopping mall was a motorized floor buffer the size of a small tractor. Its operator drove up and down the walkways until every tile shined.

It was three o’clock in the morning. The buffer was loud, but not enough to wake up Prima. She was already awake. Restlessness and boredom kept her from sleep.

Her body was stiff. She needed to move around, to stretch, to bend. For seven months, she had been in Enzo’s Shoe Repair and never taken a step outside the door.

Enzo’s was no bigger than most bedrooms. It consisted of a workbench, a sales counter, and two shoe racks.

Shoes that had been repaired but not yet claimed by their owners sat on a display shelf in the front window. Under each shoe was a price tag visible to shoppers walking through the mall.

Finally, Prima couldn’t stand it anymore. She blurted out, I was not’a meant to be boxed in!

Oh dear, said Di, who sat next to her on the shelf.

Prima formed her full red lips into a pout. Her big black Italian eyelets were teary. She was Italian-made, midcalf, leather-booted ice skates with long tassels in front.

Why you’a say, ‘Oh dear?’ she asked Di.

Because you woke me up to tell me for the millionth time you hate being boxed in, said Di. I had no idea.

How can’a you stand it? said Prima.

I have no choice, said Di. Be patient. Miracles do happen.

"Where’sa your miracle? asked Prima. You been’a here four years. I want out."

Di was distressed-leather boots with a link-chain diamond charm displaying a D. She spoke like a loving but strong mother. Would you rather be out there getting run over? Or chewed up by a dog? Or stepped on in crowds?

Of course not, said Prima. She hit the shelf with her skates, like a stern Italian grandfather pounding his fist on the dinner table to get everyone’s attention. "But I’ma sick of just sit in here."

We all are, unless you’ve got a better idea.

I got an idea, said Prima. We make a sign that say, ‘Come in and’a buy us.’

A sign like that’d give Enzo a heart attack, said Brody.

Oh dear, said Di. You woke up Bro.

Brody was size-17 high-top court sneakers. Enzo had stitched new soles onto him after patching up frayed ends at the toes and heels. And there ain’t no miracles, he added.

Don’t say that, Bro, snapped Di. If we can’t believe in miracles, we can’t believe in anything.

Brody puffed out his chest. "I believes in basketball!"

Di and Prima had not expected Brody to speak, even if Prima’s skates woke him up. His habit was to sleep all night. It came from daily exhaustion, after his owner had worn him on and off for seven years, sometimes playing basketball for hours at a time.

Then one day, four years ago, his owner had brought him into Enzo’s and said, Make these look like new.

That was the last time Brody had seen his owner.

I don’t need a miracle, Prima told Brody. My owner will’a come and’a get me. She wants’a me. She loves’a me. She’a treat me like li’l sister.

Then why ain’t she come back for you? said Brody.

She’a li’l bit absentminded, said Prima.

That’s some big sister, shouted Brody. Let’s all give a trophy to Big Sis!

All right, you two, said Di. Don’t fight over it.

Why not? said Dallas.

Oh dear, said Di. You woke up Dallas.

Dallas was fifty-year-old charcoal-leather calf-high cowboy boots with hand-carved wings at the ankles and straps at the top. I ain’t seen a fight since a coupla fellas at a country dance was arguing over a purdy gal.

Who won? said Looie.

That’s just great, Prima! said Di. "You woke them all up!"

Looie, orange-suede lace-up walking shoes, wore a beret. Enzo had found a beret in an antique store many decades ago when he and his then-girlfriend, Gina, used to window-shop on Melrose Avenue.

Later, when Looie’s owner brought him in for a wax and polish but never came back to claim him, Enzo remembered the beret he’d bought. Like other keepsakes that reminded him of Gina, he had stored it in a hope chest that once had belonged to his mother.

Enzo thought that if he put the beret on Looie, customers might ask why this particular pair of used shoes had a hat on them. Enzo would explain that Looie’s owner had worked for the French consulate. He hoped this would spark conversation about Looie and perhaps some of the other unclaimed shoes, but no one asked about the beret. Even so, Enzo got used to seeing it on Looie, so it stayed on him. Looie had been at Enzo’s the longest, seven years. The shoes loved him, but his French accent sometimes made him hard to understand. They also thought he was a little slow in the head.

Di faced the others. You know what? she said with pep in her voice.

Oh no, grumbled Dallas. He knew what was coming.

As long as we’re all awake, let’s rehearse, she said.

I’m down, said Brody.

Rehearse what, Mademoiselle? said Looie.

The others groaned and threw up their laces.

"What’a you think, Looie?" said Prima.

Man, don’cha member nothin’? Brody said.

Di did not like complaining to or about Looie. He was always cheerful and never had an unkind thing to say. In a patient tone, she said, Looie, I meant rehearse our routine, our song-and-dance act.

Looie brightened. Oh! he said. I loff zee cabaret!

Do we got to? Dallas asked. That’s all Willie done the whole time he owned me, square dancing Saturday nights after a plate of beans and corn bread. Between the hot lights and them beans, he didn’t smell too good when we got home.

My owner, he loff cologne, said Looie.

Singin’ to folks just ain’t manly, said Dallas.

"Well, I want’a rehearse, said Prima. A ballerina dances, and I’m as much a ballerina as Francesca."

Let’s rehearse, said Di. You know the routine.

Despite more groans from Dallas, the shoes jumped from the display rack and headed to Enzo’s workbench.

The workbench was as long as the back wall, except for a space leading to a narrow door marked private. The door was to Enzo’s back room, where he kept his supplies.

The shoes got busy with their preassigned tasks. Brody leaped up to Enzo’s stool and then, using his laces as hands and arms, climbed to the bench and turned on a light switch on the wall. Two ceiling lights lit up the workbench.

Dallas and Prima moved a chair to the workbench, climbed onto it, and pulled themselves up and over. To work with objects, they used the upper portion of their boots to bend and fold and sometimes encircle items.

Looie waltzed to a shelf behind the sales counter to a CD player and turned it on by using his lace as a hand. He started to press Play but stopped and asked, Which one should I put in?

The others answered together: The same one as always!

Looie said, Aha. He located a CD on top of a stack of CDs next to the player and inserted it.

Di moved a footstool to the workbench. The stool was the platform each shoe stood on when singing solo. Prima, Dallas, and Brody lined up at the edge of the workbench and faced Di with their elbows locked.

Di turned to face the front of the store as if it were an audience and prepared to belt out a song.

But nothing happened. The other shoes looked at Looie, who was staring back with a blank face.

Looie, press’a Play! shouted Prima.

Looie pressed the Play button. On came an instrumental introduction with a Broadway flavor. Looie shuffled across the floor to join the others in a four-shoe chorus line.

Di raised her arms higher and proclaimed, The purpose of a shoe is to protect and to serve!

The chorus answered, Protect and to serve what?

Feet, sang Di.

What kindsa feet? answered the chorus.

Di sang the opening number: Happy feet, angry feet / frightfully coarse or soft as mink. / Overly large or sweetly petite, / even those horrible feet full of stink.

The chorus responded with, And whose feet would they be?

Di kicked along with the lyrics: A king’s or a queen’s / or even their servants’. / A banker’s, a waiter’s, / a short-order cook’s. / People who sit or overworked merchants. / We’re even good with feet owned by crooks.

The chorus sang, And where would you most like to work?

Di answered, Ballrooms and treadmills / and rich people’s homes. / Cruise ships that greet you / with champagne and lobsters. / Castles where royalty reign from their thrones. / But mostly those venues that give out the Oscars.

The chorus sang, "And where would you least like to