Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a small boy with a wicked sense of humour. One of his favourite party tricks was to steal his dad’s shoes and fill them with cigarette butts. He’d leave them out in the rain so the stench of wet fag greeted his dad after work. The boy thought this was a fair trade for his dad was an arse. Instead of showering the boy with attention, he left him Post It notes. The notes weren’t usually more than a few cursory pointers to the day ahead. ‘Remember your hat’ or ‘We need bread’.
EVERY DAY WAS odd shoe day in the Barry household. With 12 kids and one mum there wasn’t much hope of matching footwear. Their greatest party trick was to throw all the shoes in the dryer and see which ones survived the hottest setting. On the odd occasion that fate smiled and Sam got two of the same sneakers on sports day, he knew that life was going to work out okay.
ONE DAY Sam overheard a phone call that he didn’t understand but made him strangely hopeful. “This isn’t one of your party tricks is it”, his mum asked the caller.
BECAUSE OF THAT weird boy who carries around shoes he finds dropped outside the Vinnies bins. That’s why I’m never having children. My friends think it’s a party trick I use to provoke conversation when dinner gets dull. But there is a reason and he walk past my kitchen window every day. Like a boy in search of a path.
AND BECAUSE OF THAT fraying shoelace we ended up explaining to police how a world class, YouTube worth party trick had got us into so much trouble. Of course, I blamed the boy with the shiny black shoes which were obviously too big for him.
UNTIL FINALLY the boy could slip quietly out the front door, turn his face to the sun, and thank his lucky stars that dad had left behind his best shoes. For, even though he’d disappeared like the magic coin in his favourite party trick, those treasured shoes were black and white proof that he’d be back.