Insole

You can tell an awful lot about a person by their shoes. 

I barely did much wrong, just a bit of lifting here and there but enough to put me in trouble. Grey never was my colour. And yet here I am, shivering on the bottom of a bunk bed with my toe poking out of a hole in my right sock. 

Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash

A pair of Jordans snore above me. A white base with red and black streaks across the tongue and midsole. No one knows what he did – no one’s brave enough to ask. But he’s been here that long you might call the great dent in his mattress ‘memory foam’. A couple of white Nikes follow him around, occasionally punching spider web cracks on a wall that looked at them the wrong way. They’re alright, really, once you get over the low glances. 

Six doors down, a pair of muddied, navy trainers with no name. He doesn’t say much, just mumbles to his game of solitaire and whispers when he needs a hit of china white.

Fila is in next doors cell, plain white except for a small logo stitched on at the heel. Always shined to perfection and meticulously placed just so, poking out from underneath the bed. Size 10½. He doesn’t even leave the room any more when visiting day rears its head, saves the trouble of looking like a fool when no one turns up. He swears he doesn’t care. Instead, another polish with a paper towel and a throw to the belly if you so much as tread on his laces. Always avoiding fresh cut grass like it’s wet lead paint, and he’ll be damned if he’s going out in the rain. 

A new pair of oxfords saunters in, passing by me on his way to the greenie’s new humble abode. He’ll have just got off the block and won’t have had a clothes package just yet. Reckon it’ll be a long night of heckles and hoots in his direction. You’ve got to laugh at the sight though, really: posh black shoes with the itchy grey tracksuit. 

I swing my legs off the edge of the bed into a sitting position as I watch him pass and jerk my head in an upward nod. Better get someone in this place on side, and he doesn’t have a clue yet, so it’s probably a safe enough bet.

My own shoes stare at me from across the room, heavily abused.

A thick layer of wet mud still clings to the canvas, exaggerating the newly formed holes and scuffs and plastering down the tattered laces. They even got the glue off the sole, and now the two pieces just peel apart when I try to slip my foot in. The only bit of my own clothing that I get to wear anymore and look at what they’ve done to them. No better than the sight of Friday night’s sloppy excuse for a sausage casserole.

I didn’t plan what I did. I didn’t mean what I said. Well, I suppose I did, but I don’t anymore. It just gets in your head, and there’s no way you can be the person you were outside of the gates. You say the wrong thing to the wrong person in this place and as quick as that the smell of revenge batters the air.

Then they hit you where it hurts most. 

___


*This short story is inspired by real experiences whereby convicts are only allowed to wear their own shoes (usually trainers) with their given prison clothing. As a result these shoes become of exceptional worth to the individual (particularly when there is a lack of family or friends on the outside) and a prison hierarchy is often then established.