McDonald's and Burger King have pretty much wiped out the mom and pop diners; the new owners of the three factories drove the unions out when they took over; and Wal-Mart chased away all the department stores.

If you wanted to shop now, you likely went out to the mall. A lot of storefronts downtown were either boarded up or draped in pigeon droppings.

I had two and a half months to go before I started community college so I had to do something. I saw an ad for Schroeder's in the paper and decided to take the job. Josh prepped me. He made me get that haircut he wanted, the one with the sideburns cut straight across near the top of the ear with enough left in back for a fussy little ponytail, and he bought me those clothes he'd promised. I had to admit, I looked better. I'd never have Josh's good looks but at least I had a little style.

Schroeder's turned out to be a depressing place to work. Most of the clerks didn't like me because they were being forced into early retirement with about half the benefits they'd been promised. Old man Schroeder was able to hire me for minimum wage and no benefits whatsoever. I guess they saw me as a kind of scab.

The other thing that was depressing was the store itself. Schroeder hadn't repainted in years. In memory, Schroeder's was this really neat place where Mom and Dad would take me to pick out birthday and Christmas gifts. Every bicycle, every atomic ray gun, every rock and roll alb.u.m you ever wanted could be found at Schroeder's. It was a magical place.

But not anymore.

Now it was just this old dusty building where the paint was scaling off the walls, and where some of the mannequins had the wrong arms and legs screwed on them, and where the toilets didn't flush so good, and where everybody who worked there seemed old and slow and sad and resentful.

Time crawled in Schroeder's and I was always hoping I could find another job, but I never did.

I was working in the shoe department the first day Cindy Brasher came into the store.

My customer at the moment was a middle-aged guy who was trying to decide if he wanted cordovan or black wing-tips.

Despite what you may hear, men are generally harder to sell than women. Women buy shoes all the time so one more pair isn't a big deal. But men buy shoes only once every few years or so, so they take their time. This guy had been there nearly an hour now. He'd try on the black ones then the cordovan ones then the black ones again, then he'd tell me the colors of his three suits and ask me to help him decide which shoes would be most useful to him.

After I saw Cindy, I didn't give a d.a.m.n about the guy or his fashion decision.

These days Josh was always kidding me at the dinner table about Cindy. He'd told Mom and Dad that he thought I was in love because every chance I got I managed to ask him a question about her. A lot of the times, I got embarra.s.sed, and Mom would pat my hand and tell Josh to quit picking on me like that. Dad just kept saying, "But she's only eighteen, and you're practically a man."

I hadn't seen her since that night at the kegger.

This afternoon, she wore a fawn-colored winter coat, and her dark hair was tied back with a red ribbon, and she just broke my f.u.c.king heart. There's no other way to say it. When I saw her there I felt love, fear, l.u.s.t, sorrow, joy. I wanted to laugh and come and cry all at the same time. Her fading shiner made me feel protective of her.

"Maybe the cordovans would be better," the man was saying.

I wanted to get rid of him. Fast.

"I'll tell you what," I said. "Why don't I charge these both to you then you take them home and try them on with your different suits. You keep one pair and bring the other one back."

"Hey, that's a great idea."

I got him up to the cash register, and had his shoes sacked and his charge slip all made up in under a minute. Then I handed him the shoes and walked over to the edge of the department where Cindy was looking at a pair of Capezio flats.

I got right up behind her but then I didn't know what to say. I just sort of froze there.

She smelled beautiful. Some kind of perfume or something. It made me dizzy and h.o.r.n.y and melancholy. I was overwhelmed. I had to will my hands not to grab her.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she said.

She didn't turn around. She just knew I was there.

"Uh, hi."

Then she turned around and she was smiling and she broke my heart for the second time that day.

"I guess I need some new flats."

"Great. We've sure got flats. A lot of them."

I was grinning. I was babbling.

"Would you like me to go over and sit down?"

She could see where she had me and she was nice enough to be sweet about it.

"Yeah," I said. "That's a great idea."

I can't tell you about the next few minutes because I can't remember much about them. Somehow I was able to control myself enough to measure her foot, note the three different styles she wanted to try on, and find my way back to the stockroom. I remember watching my hand take down a Capezio box. It was trembling visibly, like a junkie's hand in a bad movie. Then I realized that my whole body was trembling. And that I was covered in this icy sweat. I wondered if I smelled. G.o.d, what if I smelled, or my breath was killer-bad, the way it sometimes got?

I did a Shemp on the way out, tripping over a s...o...b..x I'd carelessly left in the aisle.

I stumbled forward, the three boxes flying out of my hands and skidding down the floor.

I imagined that she heard it, was sitting out there when this explosion came from the stockroom, and she thought, "What a dweeb this guy is."

But if she did, she didn't let on.

I came out and sat on my little stool and took the first flat from the first box.

She offered her slender ankle and small foot almost daintily, and when I touched her ankle, I almost broke into tears. I know that sounds phoney and fake but it was true. When I touched her ankle, thin and vulnerable as the ankle of a scrawny colt, I felt I'd never touched anything more precious or sacred in my life.

I slipped the shoe on and she got up and walked around in it and looked at it in the foot mirror and then came back and said, "Would you mind if I tried on the other pair?"

"No problem."

I slipped on a shoe from the next pair.

I was bent over, just taking my horn from the back of her shoe, when she said, "I forgot how gentle your hands are."

I didn't know what to say.

She got up and walked around in the shoe.

I couldn't stop watching her. She'd taken her coat off. She wore a fawn colored sweater, almost the color of her coat, and a chocolate brown skirt. Her legs were unimaginably beautiful. Her wrists were just as delicate as her ankles. Her smile was girl and woman at the same time.

"I think I'll take these but I guess I should probably try on that other pair. You're not in a hurry, are you?"

"No hurry at all."

She'd just sat down again, and I was just taking the top off the third box, when I saw her look up and let out a short sigh.

She didn't say anything but I knew something had disturbed her.

"Hey, now there's a real macho job," David Myles said. "Selling ladies' shoes."

She looked fl.u.s.tered and embarra.s.sed as Myles plopped himself down in the chair next to hers.

Myles smirked. "You probably take home some high heels and wear them around the house yourself, don't you, lover boy?"

"If you say one more word, David, I'm really going to get angry. Do you understand me?"

I expected him to say something. No big swaggering football hero was going to let a slender girl talk him down.

But suddenly he looked whipped, silent, and even a little bit afraid of her.

I wondered about the dynamics of their relationship. He wasn't adverse to punching her. Yet she could silence him with just a few sharp words.

"Now I'd like to try on the third one," she said.

I nodded.

I slipped the shoe on.

Before, I'd let my fingers linger on her artful ankle. But not now. Myles was watching me. I hated him, but hated myself more for being a dweeb and a coward. It was sort of like with Josh. With three years in the Army behind me, I should have been the tough, confident one. But I wasn't.

She got up and walked around and we both watched her.

He caught me watching her and I looked away from her.

She was his, not mine.

At least, that was his feeling.

She came back and sat down and said, "I think I still like the second ones I tried on better."

"Great."

"Will you take a check?"

I wanted to make a joke about not knowing if I could trust her but when I saw Myles glaring at me, I knew better.

I got her written up and sacked up and handed the shoes over to her.

"If they're a little tight, may I bring them back and have you put them on the stretching machine?'

"Be glad to."

"I really appreciate you being so patient and all."

"My pleasure."

This time, I glared right back at Myles when I spoke.

"Well, take care of yourself," she said, then picked up the shoes and walked out of the department.

They disappeared around the corner. I saw them again when they were outside, walking past the front window.

They were arguing.

She looked very angry.

He looked whipped.

My fingers still burned from touching her ankle. I had never held anything so dear in my life.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The next day, I was sitting in a chair in the shoe department waiting for customers to show up.

I sensed somebody behind me suddenly and then a male voice said, "Mirrors are the world, Kull. Gaze into my mirrors, and be wise."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Only one guy I knew would be crazy enough to quote from a Robert E. Howard story this way. I mentioned that in my high school days the only people who asked me to hang out with them were the kids out at the mall who spent most of their time playing video games and reading comic books. The only kid I liked especially was Mike Garrett. Like me, he was a dweeb who didn't want to be a dweeb. All the others pretended to be arrogantly proud of being a dweeb, as if it had been a choice they'd made. One other thing Garrett and I shared was a stone fanaticism for Robert E. Howard stories. We practically memorized the d.a.m.ned things. The pa.s.sage about the mirrors was from "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune." Garrett always argued that Kull was a greater Howard creation than even Conan.

I knew I was going to see Garrett when I stood up and turned around.

What I didn't know was that I was going to see Garrett in a policeman's dark uniform.

I guess my first reaction was that it was a gag, that he was all got up to go to a costume party or something.

But then I took more careful note of his Sam Browne belt and the Magnum riding his hip. If this was a joke, it was a d.a.m.ned elaborate one.

I guess the big thing was he was so young. He looked like a kid in his dad's uniform.

"I heard you were back from the Army," Garrett said. "I just got back to town myself yesterday. I called your mom and she said you'd be here."

"Wow, you're really a cop?"

He grinned. He had a kid face except for solemn gray eyes. He was a lousy poker player because you could read him so easily. Right now, his face showed pride.

"Just got out of the police academy in the state capitol," he said. "Graduation was two days ago."

"Wow."

"Even managed to get myself a black belt in karate."