Nice People
I’m afraid it was another busy night without sleep at my public shoelick stand – lots of late-night, drunken revellers from the nearby clubs and bars, all of them requiring a lick and a shine to their shoes and boots whilst they enjoyed a nocturnal cigarette break.
I am feeling very tired – my brain is tired; my face is tired; my tongue is tired. Still, at least my customers this morning seem like nice people, and not the sort to take advantage of my fatigue and vulnerability by either whipping or kicking me in the face.
They are:
· A beautiful, young punk woman with piercings and a tattoo. Her sneakers are truly filthy and her purple-striped socks are slovenly and creased around the ankles – but that just adds to my sense of awe and humility before her. I’m guessing that, like me, she has been up all night – though, unlike me, he won’t have been licking lots of dirty shoes and boots.
· A black master-sir with dreadlocks. His waiting, brown suede shoes look decidedly musty tasting, but are also, nominally at any rate, the cleanest of the three pairs of footwear awaiting my tongue’s attention. Of the three customers before me the master-sir also appears the least patient, so I shall have to afford his shoes the same admiration and respect that I would any female customer’s shoes. They are, after all, still the shoes of my better – belonging to, and being worn by, a superior free male. I regret I cannot, yet, observe the master’s socks, but hopefully I will catch a glimpse of them when he raises his manly foot onto the wooden footblock beneath my face.
· A pretty, Chinese girl who is texting away on her phone. I most certainly can see her socks, even from a distance, as she is wearing capris-style pants above her camouflage-themed ankleboots. Her socks appear to be plain black, though I can, of course, only observe the tops of them from where I am kneeling. What an honour it will be to lickshine her dirty boots and to have her socktops towering over me as she converses with her boyfriend by text-messaging high above me!
To be clear, each and every one of my customers is better than me. Every scintilla of dirt stuck to the surfaces of their shoes; every particle of sweat on their socks; every hidden bunion, verruca or fungal nail infection on their feet – all are worthy of my footslavish admiration and respect. As I see the array of footwear to be cleaned in front of me, I suddenly start to feel invigorated again. For a public footslave can never have too many dirty feet to clean – especially when they are the dirty feet of such nice people!
