“Well, I learned one today.”

“Oh, I forgot to add retards to that, too.”

Raphie made his way to the door.

“So what lesson did you learn then?” the boy asked quickly, and Raphie could sense in his voice that he didn’t want to be left alone.

Raphie stopped and turned, feeling sad, looking sad.

“It must have been a pretty shit lesson,” the boy said.

“You’ll find that most lessons are.”

The Turkey Boy sat slumped over the table, his unzipped hoodie hanging off one shoulder, his small pink ears peeping out from his greasy shoulder-length hair, his cheeks covered in pimples, his eyes a crystal blue. He was only a child.

Raphie sighed. Surely he’d be forced into early retirement for telling this story. He walked back to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

“Just for the record,” Raphie said, “you asked me to tell you this.”

The Shoe Watcher

LOU SUFFERN ALWAYS HAD TWO places to be at one time. When asleep, he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of the previous day while making plans for the next, so when he was awakened by his alarm at six a.m. every day, he never felt very rested. When in the shower, he rehearsed presentations, often while responding, one hand outside the shower curtain, to e-mails on his BlackBerry. While eating breakfast he read the newspaper, and when being told rambling stories by his five-year-old daughter, he listened to the morning news. When his thirteen-month-old son demonstrated a new skill each day, Lou’s face displayed interest, his mind feeling the exact opposite. When kissing his wife good-bye, he was usually thinking of someone else altogether.

Every action, movement, appointment, doing, or thought of any kind was layered by another. Driving to work was also a conference call by speakerphone. Breakfasts ran into lunches, lunches into pre-dinner drinks, drinks into dinners, dinners into after-dinner drinks, after-dinner drinks into…well, that depended on how lucky he got. On those lucky nights when he felt himself appreciating his luck and the company of another, he, of course, would convince those who wouldn’t share his appreciation—namely his wife—that he was in another place. To them, he was stuck in a meeting or at an airport, finishing up some important paperwork, or buried in the maddening traffic. Two places, quite magically, at once.

Everything overlapped, and he was always moving, always had someplace else to be, always wished that he was elsewhere, or that, thanks to some divine intervention, he could be in both places at the same time. He spent as little time as possible with each person during his day, but always left them feeling that it was enough. He wasn’t a tardy man; he was precise, always on time. In his personal life he may have been a broken pocket watch, but in business he was a master timekeeper. He strove for perfection and possessed boundless energy in his quest for success. However, it was these bounds—so eager to attain his ever-growing list of desires, so full of ambition to reach new dizzying heights—that caused him to soar above the heads of the people who mattered most in life. Nothing, and no one, could lift him higher than a new deal at work.

On one particularly cold Tuesday morning, along the continuously developing dockland of Dublin city, Lou’s black leather shoes, polished to perfection, strolled confidently across the sight line of one particular man. This man watched the shoes in movement that morning, as he had yesterday and as, he assumed, he would tomorrow. There was no best foot forward for this man; for both feet were equal in their abilities. Each stride was equal in length, the heel-to-toe combination so precise; his shoes always pointing forward, heels striking first and then pushing off from the big toe, flexing at the ankle. Perfect each time. The footsteps rhythmic, almost magical as they hit the pavement. There was no rushing or heavy pounding with this man, as was the case with the seemingly decapitated others who raced by at this hour, their heads still back at home on their pillows. No, his shoes made a tapping sound as intrusive and unwelcome as the patter of raindrops against a windowpane, the hem of his trousers flapping slightly like a flag in a light breeze on the eighteenth hole.

The watcher half expected the slabs of pavement to light up as the man stepped on each one, and for him to break out into a tap dance about how swell and dandy the day was turning out to be. And as the watcher was soon to find out, a swell and dandy day it was most certainly going to be.

Usually these shiny black shoes beneath the impeccable black suit would float stylishly by the watcher, through the revolving doors, and into the grand marble entrance of this latest modern glass building to be squeezed through the cracks of the quays and launched up into the Dublin sky. But this morning the shoes stopped directly before the watcher. And then they turned, making a gravelly noise as they pivoted on the cold concrete. The watcher had no choice but to lift his gaze from the shoes.

“Here you go,” Lou said, handing him a coffee. “It’s an Americano; hope you don’t mind, they were having problems with the machine, so they couldn’t make a latte.”

“Take it back then,” the watcher said, turning his nose up at the cup of steaming coffee being offered to him.

This was greeted by a stunned silence.

“Only joking.” The watcher laughed at the man’s startled look, and very quickly—in case the joke was unappreciated and the gesture was rethought and withdrawn—reached for the cup and cradled it with his numb fingers. “Do I look like I care about steamed milk?” The watcher grinned, before his expression changed to a look of pure ecstasy. “Mmmm.” He pushed his nose up against the rim of the cup to smell the coffee. He closed his eyes and savored it, not wanting the sense of sight to take away from this divine smell. The cardboard cup was so hot, or his hands so cold, that the liquid burned right through to his fingers, sending torpedoes of heat and shivers through his body. He hadn’t known how cold he was until he’d felt this heat.

“Thanks very much indeed,” he said to the man.

“No problem. I heard on the radio that today’s going to be the coldest day of the year.” The shiny shoes stamped the concrete slabs, and the man’s leather gloves rubbed together as proof of his word.

“Well, I’d believe them, all right. Never mind the brass monkeys, it’s cold enough to freeze my own balls off. But this will help.” The watcher blew on the drink slightly, preparing to take his first sip.

“There’s no sugar in it,” Lou apologized.

“Ah, well then.” The watcher rolled his eyes and quickly pulled the cup away from his lips. “I can let you off for the steamed milk, but forgetting to add sugar is a step too far.” He offered it back to Lou.

Getting the joke this time, Lou laughed. “Okay, okay, I get the point.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, isn’t that what they say? Though is that to say choosers can be beggars?” The watcher raised an eyebrow and smiled and finally took his first sip. So engrossed in the sensation of heat and caffeine traveling through his cold body, he hadn’t noticed that suddenly he, the watcher, became the watched.

“Oh. I’m Gabe.” He stuck out his hand. “Gabriel, but everyone who knows me calls me Gabe.”

Lou reached down and shook his hand. Warm leather to cold skin. “I’m Lou, but everyone who knows me calls me a prick.”

Gabe laughed. “Well, that’s honesty for you. How’s about I call you Lou until I get to know you better.”

They smiled at each other and then were quiet in the sudden awkwardness. Two little boys trying to make friends in a school yard. The shiny shoes began to fidget slightly, tip-tap, tap-tip, Lou’s side-to-side steps a combination of trying to keep warm and trying to figure out whether to leave or stay.