Mr. Ramsey’s Shoe
(Dec 20/05)
Mr. Ramsey had one of those orthopedic shoes with the extra heel that looks more like a boot than a shoe. It was black, shiny black with equally black laces that he tied in a double bow around the top of his ankle. He generally dragged his bad leg to one side, like he was off balance or trying to make a quick getaway. He hung around the public swimming pool, and wore boxer shorts that you could see creeping up the crack of his ass and up the small of his back. He was always sweating, his handkerchief always at the ready to mop his forehead or wipe the white mint crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He always carried a pocketful of those white mints that are hard on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Every time he fished in his pocket for a mint, he’d end up pulling out a mint tacked with tissue paper and pocket lint. He would suck on one for a while, then crunch down on it cracking it in two fairly equal half-moons, like a Joe Louis, but without the cream inside.
Mr. Ramsey had one of those orthopedic shoes with the extra heel that looks more like a boot than a shoe. It was black, shiny black with equally black laces that he tied in a double bow around the top of his ankle. He generally dragged his bad leg to one side, like he was off balance or trying to make a quick getaway. He hung around the public swimming pool, and wore boxer shorts that you could see creeping up the crack of his ass and up the small of his back. He was always sweating, his handkerchief always at the ready to mop his forehead or wipe the white mint crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He always carried a pocketful of those white mints that are hard on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Every time he fished in his pocket for a mint, he’d end up pulling out a mint tacked with tissue paper and pocket lint. He would suck on one for a while, then crunch down on it cracking it in two fairly equal half-moons, like a Joe Louis, but without the cream inside.
He helped out the scoutmaster’s with his troop of young men, and taught us how to knot our kerchiefs without cutting off the air to our lungs. I always seemed to cinch mine up too close to my Adam’s apple, or get the woggle snap snagged in a buttonhole or on my shirt pocket flap. He also taught us how to do the three fingered salute without wavering our hands, and how to tie a sheep-shank or a figure eight, the best one for keeping something in place. I never did use the sheepshank, never really understanding what it was used for or why it was called a sheepshank to begin with. Mr. Ramsey got caught tugging a boy’s swimming trunks down in the Pointe Claire pool, the indoors one, and was put on 18 months probation along with a restraining order ordering him to stay clear away from anyone under the age of eighteen. The scoutmaster, who lived five houses down from Rupert’s house, found another assistant scoutmaster to help him with the young men, this one with bad breath and a tiny malformed arm with two fingers and what looked more like a monkey’s thumb than a human one.
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