Shoeshine
Flash Fiction
Peter placed the camera toward the boulevard. Once he opened the lens, it would take several minutes for what was exposed to be transferred to the silver plate. Anything that moved would be rendered a blur, or invisible. The leaves on the trees — a blur; the ladies walking along the shade trees — invisible; the passing carriage — a blur, if that. He waited until the street was empty and removed the lens and began counting.
Franklin raised a foot to the boy’s box and waited. “Here, boy, shine my shoes.” After a “Yes, sir,” the boy went to work, rubbed bootblack over the leather while Franklin looked into the shop window before him. Leather gloves in all colors and sizes for both men and ladies. Long, cotton lady’s gloves in peach and mauve and white and black and lemon yellow. Franklin’s wife loved yellow, especially pale, lemon yellow. He could see her in his arms, his white gloved hand barely touching his wife’s in pale lemon. His other hand at her waist, hard corset, the feel of whalebone stays and thick laces through yellow silk. An hourglass of a figure. Hair dressed with sparkling diamonds amid small white flowers. A hint of lemon. Her smile only for him.
Antoine smiled at the man, relieved that a customer had stopped. Competition for clients was fierce here on the avenue. But, that was because the men who walked here, who shopped here, who passed here were wealthy. Out buying hats and gloves and suits and stationary; stepping away from the office, or the brokerage, or the counting house, or the bank, or their lawyers. They had money; they wanted to look good to impress, to fit in. He knew, if he did an exceptionally good job, they would give him more than the coin requested. If he did well, they would asked his name, seek him out the next time they walked the avenue. Antoine had made up his name, he felt it sounded nicer than William. Everyone was a William, or Billy. Antoine, he’d overheard it somewhere, a name that resonated with a foreign destination, a name that made him seem special, exotic. That helped those men remember him and those men gave him the coins; coins that bought bread and even meat for his lonely, widowed, sickly mother. It seemed all the mothers were widowed and sickly and lonely. And, so, Antoine worked the bootblack deep into the supple leather while the man stood motionless.
“No, no,” Peter said as he watched the man stop and stand. Now, his picture would be ruined. That boy, older than the others on the avenue, with box and brush and rag, working furiously at the man’s boot. Rubbing in the stuff, brushing it in, buffing up a high shine. His flurry of activity would render him barely visible, would create a blur of shadow. Peter had tried several times to capture the avenue, but always, under the best light conditions, people would roam and stop and move and thus create shadows and blurs in the pictures. He looked to the leaves in the trees, stirred by the wind. More blurred shadows on the plate. Imagine, being able to capture a scene and show it to another. Not a painter’s rendition, but an actual replication of a moment in time. There were some who laughed and made fun of this; called it childish and worse. Peter championed it as an art, the future. If only they’d stand still.
