bandolino angel...

Her name, oddly enough, was Michelle.

Pretty name for a pretty French girl...the name of a young, blonde Homecoming Queen in the American 1980s, perhaps...but not for her.

Michelle was no one’s queen, and her high school days – if indeed she had any – came two decades earlier.

She was punctual and predictable. Each morning, as the front gate of the shoe store was lifted, Michelle materialized, feet first.

Once-black shoes, reinforced with electrical tape, then loose, torn nylons, then cherry-red polyester pants. Tightly folded hands, a shirt that matched pants in hue and fabric, and didn't quite cover her vigorously rocking torso. Her wide, tense smile in the middle of a round face, framed by peppery, greasy hair.

Gate fully open, Michelle fully revealed, she gave me a ceremonious nod, rose from her bench, and began to pace. Normally ten laps across the main floor of Calhoun Square. A surprisingly sprightly, proud, erect gait for a borderline obese woman in her mid 40s.

Walk completed, she entered the store, and I began the ritual. Bandolinos. Sensible, two-inch pumps, size nine. Red...of course. Though I had shoes in hand, she invariably went to the shelf, pointed, and giggled softly, “Those.”

Shoes on both feet, back and forth, back and forth across the carpet. And then she handed them back without a word, and I’d thank her for coming in.

This went on for the better part of a year. Michelle rocking, pacing, trying on the red Bandolinos. And as she got more comfortable with me, she requested additional pairs, never extending her monologue past “those.” Sometimes five or ten pairs in a sitting. I never minded, though. Her toenails were easily the longest I had ever seen; her body odor was, at times, unbearable; she undoubtedly suffered from schizophrenia. But she, unlike so many of my patrons, was constant in her softness and pleasantness.

Some of my best patrons, you see, were also my rudest. One, upon finding she could not return a pair of worn, year-old open-toes, actually called mall security on me. From my phone. Another hurled a stiletto at me from across the store just to get my attention. And a third – the wife of a prominent, Minneapolis attorney – had me hold her poodle (a fashion accessory, no doubt) while she tried on the metallics of the season.

But Michelle and I had a relationship of mutual respect. She knew that I would bring out the shoes and place them on her feet, and I knew that she would always be gracious and thankful in return.

Rumor had it she lived in a halfway house three blocks south of the mall. She was undoubtedly without work, but she must have had some source of income. I’d see her occasionally downing a can of Coke or devouring a Baby Ruth. But the unchanged shirt, pants, and shoes she wore summer and winter told me that there must not have been much in the bank.

Twelve months in, retail was taking its toll; the commissions were nice, but the work served no more purpose than to get me through college, and so I gave notice. I had landed a research position at the U of M that would teach me something useful as well as provide income. It wouldn’t hurt my graduate school chances, either.

So I quit selling shoes, knowing I’d soon miss the crowds of beautiful people with money, the smells of the restaurants, and the stores to visit and patronize on break. Half vacant now, the mall was much different, then.

About a week before I left, the unthinkable happened. Michelle and I did the customary Bandolino dance, but this time, instead of asking to see another pair or leaving, she walked to the counter, smiling wider than usual. Coins of every denomination, along with a few crumpled bills, were pulled from her pockets. Over the course of ten minutes I counted as she watched attentively. The shoes cost $55, and she had the exact amount. She wore them home.

It was THE story for the rest of that Saturday. “Can you fucking believe it? She actually bought them.” A great victory had been won – for her of course; for me and my coworkers as well.

I wasn’t at all surprised when she returned the very next day, set the shoes back on the counter, and shook her head. It wasn’t policy to give cash back on returns; I did. It wasn’t policy to take back obviously worn shoes; I did. Michelle couldn’t afford them, and it would have been wrong for me to do anything else.

She was far from pretty, young, or queenly; she was anything but a commission-generating customer. She was but one of thousands of de-institutionalized schizophrenics whom life and law had dealt a poor hand. Yet she was a sweet distraction who, paradoxically, brought sanity to my often insane, retail-riddled world.

What gave rise to Michelle’s demeanor? Was it conscious action on her part, or was it just delivered blindly from deep within her brain? It didn’t really matter. The point is not her “goodness.” Rather, it is simply that she existed.

She struck me, during my tenure at the shoe store, as the epitome of a walking paradox. But was she? She had the same wants as the sea of wealthy shoppers who kept my store afloat. And in the end, she bought shoes, just like my best customers; and in the end, she returned shoes, just like my best customers.

Michelle wanted to be them – the proud, who spent money, who spent their time in Calhoun Square, who wore red.

And so she was.

16-December 2002