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Foot Fetish
by Katie Robbins
It’s taken me two years of living in New York to finally reconcile myself to that fact that in the summer, at the end of every day, the bottoms of my feet are going to be filthy. This is the kind of black-heeled, sweat encrusted, crevice filling filth with which one hopes never to be aligned. In the summers, I never get into bed without washing my feet for fear of sleeping all night with that kind of dirt mingling with my clean sheets. But before the scrubbing and pumicing can begin, I have to spend at least a few seconds examining the damage, in a state of utter disbelief that my feet, which seemed so innocuous that morning, could have through the course of the day become so toxic.
But after all, this whole situation
is my fault. I could avoid the caked on grime that my feet endure, if through
the summer (as well as parts of May and September) I wore closed-heel,
closed-toe shoes. For in the winter, fall and bits of spring, I can get into bed
after a long day of city travel without giving a second thought to the
cleanliness of my feet. (I’ll admit this was not true for a period when I was
wearing my sublimely cozy Uggs everyday, but then of course the problem was the
smell, not the dirt.) However, in the summer months, as the temperature
goes from mild and breezy to mild and humid and finally to hot, humid, and
disgusting, I cannot fathom the idea of wearing anything that involves socks or
any other covering of my toes, heels, and ankles. They say that in the winter
you lose forty percent of your body heat through your head; well it seems just
as likely that in the summer you retain forty percent of your body heat through
your feet. In the winter you wear a hat; in the
summer you wear sandals.
And so this is how my predicament
began. It was with a full intention of giving each puppy a good scrub later that
night, that on a particularly hot Wednesday, I wore a pair of those ubiquitous
four dollar, Chinese mesh slippers. I had just finished teaching an advisory
class for a group of sixth graders and was on my way to my other job by way of
the downtown C train.
I waited patiently for the train to
arrive and was pleasantly surprised when one arrived after only a few minutes. I
scoped out a car with some vacant seats and took one step onto the train with my
left foot, which is of note because I usually lead with my right foot. But no
matter, my right foot immediately came to join the rest of my body inside the
car. My right shoe unfortunately did not.
At first I assumed that it had just
fallen onto the platform behind me, but I quickly realized that I had not been
so lucky. The shoe had made its way through the small gap between the train and
the platform, onto the track below. Everyone in my car immediately noticed the
look on my face (or perhaps the fact that I was balanced on one foot) and all
reacted with great precision. A man sitting next to the doors, jumped out to see
if there was any hope of retrieving my one lost shoe. A woman sitting opposite
of the doors cleared a space for me to sit down and offered her hand so that I
could hop over and take it. And the rest of the passengers shook their heads in
disbelief and began offering suggestions, sort of.
“Lord, girl, what are you going to
do?”
“How did it fall right off your
foot?”
“Well at least they’re cheap shoes.”
I tried to laugh, but couldn’t stop
imagining my one-footed trek up the three flights of subway stairs, using the
banister that I ordinarily never touch as a crutch, pushing my body up hundreds
of steps as the people behind me groan and begin to shove. I could see myself
finally emerging into daylight and discovering that I am on the southwest corner
of Thirty-third Street and Eighth Avenue, seemingly miles away from the Payless
Shoe Store on the north side of Thirty-fourth Street. I would be forced to take
frequent breaks to give my weak left leg a rest, lest my unprotected right foot
touch the layers of food, spit, grease, dirt, and, dare I say it, poop, that
smarter New Yorkers had been tracking through the city for weeks. And what if
half-way across Eighth Avenue, with the Payless and its four dollar flip-flops
in sight, my left leg suddenly gave out? Drivers impatient to accelerate
as soon as the light turns green do not give amnesty to one-shoed misfits who
have to take breaks in the middle of major intersections.
And then in a flash, I realized I had
another pair of shoes in my bag.
“I have another pair of shoes in my
bag,” I said aloud. And everyone around began to laugh. As soon as
they no longer had to think of me as the poor girl with one shoe, they were
allowed to think of me as the dumb girl with one shoe, and this was funny.
“Boy, girl. You are lucky.”
“You only lost a cheap shoe AND you
have a back-up pair. Wow.”
“Why do you have an extra pair of
shoes with you anyway?” (A city girl is always prepared.)
I slipped on my back-up pair of
athletic looking Mary Janes, and for the first time during a summer in New York,
I felt fortunate to have my feet fully strapped in and covered. And the next day
I went and bought a new pair of Chinese slippers. After all, they’re cheap.
Katie Robbins graduated from Yale University in 2002 and has since been living in New York City. She has taught drama and creative writing and is currently involved in documentary production.