Darnell sat at the guard desk in his borrowed Security Guard uniform as he surveyed the women and quickly selected the best of the approaching group. She was not really hot looking, but she had that look, sort of severe, yet attractive in an arrogant way. Darnell thought she looked like an older version of that "Buffy" chick on TV, understated, but ready to lay out some whoop ass on the next vampire that comes by. Gray wool jacket with matching skirt, white silk blouse with a single strand of pearls peeking from inside the collar. Confident, walking around like she owns the place.
"Check out those shoes," he says under his breath. Darnell has learned a lot about women's shoes in the last month, and he sees that these are some big money kicks Buffy is pushing around the Art Institute this morning. Medium heel, steely gray, with a little bow held together by a gold dog tag. Salvador Ferragamo, about a buck ninety-five a pair he guesses correctly. These are going to look nice with his own collection of ladies shoes, currently parked in front of the oak step leading into the exhibit hall. Darnell knows that it is important to use expensive shoes for bait, because if the ladies see the wrong kind of shoes there, they may not leave their own behind. He has neatly arranged eight pairs of expensive pumps this morning, and has installed some vaguely oriental wall hangings in order to enhance the subtle temple motif of the area. The group of women stops directly in front of the exhibit and they look at the entrance with uncertainty, eying the empty shoes by the step.
"Excuse me," one of the ladies says, and asks, "Is this the Ingochat exhibit?" Darnell smiles broadly and indicates that it is. "Ing Go Shay" he repeats to himself, trying not to laugh. Before becoming an artist, folks in his neighborhood always called him DingoCat, or D-Cat. On one of the first paintings he had done, he had signed it "D. Ingochat" because his girl had told him "chat" was the French word for cat, and it would sound more artistic.
The ladies hesitated briefly before finally, one of them took off her shoes and placed them in the row that Darnell had set out this morning. After some nervous shuffling around, the other ladies removed their shoes until only "Buffy" remained shod.
"Why should I take my shoes off?" she asked the others, clearly irritated. "I mean, there's no sign or anything." Some of the others looked doubtfully at their own shoes, lined up against the wall beside the step.
"Oh come on Christina!" one of them said, and stepped up onto the exhibit floor, the rest of the ladies following. Darnell watched in disappointment as Christina/Buffy looked around nervously, failed to remove her shoes, and then stepped out onto the polished oak floor. The sound of her heels was startlingly loud in the otherwise silent hall, and she immediately stopped after the second step, momentarily frozen. She turned back toward the main hall and her eyes met with Darnell, and his rent a cop outfit. She sheepishly removed her shoes, placed them with the others, and scurried off to join the group. Darnell smiled, pleased again that his initial pick had been a good one.
Christina had never felt comfortable taking her shoes off in public. Even shoe stores made her uneasy if they were too crowded. Walking in her stockings through the Chicago Art Institute was very disconcerting, and had she not been with a group, she probably would have avoided this entire gallery. Truthfully, she didn't really care much for modern art, but she didn't want to be left out of the next cocktail party conversation about art. She suspected that her friends were also mostly interested in the controversy over the artist. A gang member, she had read in the newspaper, from the Cabrini Green Projects. At any rate, the exhibit had received a mountain of bad press, so naturally, her friends couldn't wait to see it.
The exhibit was called "CRIME" but she was completely unprepared for the exhibition once she had entered. The space was a long meandering hallway lined with large canvases that were painted in dark browns and blood reds, most with neon colored angular writing that resembled graffiti she had seen on trains coming into the city. Black and white police photos were glued onto the paintings showing horrific crime scenes with gruesome details circled in yellow grease pencil. The look on her face must have told said it all, because Julia said, " I know. This stuff is pretty bad. Still it's better than last month when they had a crucifixion made out of dog poop." Christina looked at her watch for the eighth time in two minutes, and wondered how much farther to the end of the exhibit. She also wondered if the artist had participated in any of the crimes that were depicted. She shuddered involuntarily, and backed away from the canvas until her stockinged heel stepped on something. She wheeled about to find herself flustered and standing face to chest with the security guard from out front, a pleasant looking African American young man with a gold name tag that said "Darnell" at her eye level.
"Scary stuff" Darnell says, smiling pleasantly. Christina steps back, nodding in agreement.
"Really disturbing," she says. As she turns away she adds, " I'd hate to meet the artist."
You just did, Darnell thinks, knowing he has made an outstanding choice in Christina. Returning to the exhibit entrance he picks the gray Ferragamo shoes from the end of the row and carries them to the guard desk. They are size eight as he had initially guessed, and have not been worn much from the look of them. He deposits the shoes in the bottom drawer and locks it with a key from the giant key ring on his belt. "Mission accomplished," he says, and heads back into the exhibit.
Christina looks down at her watch, and then at her stockinged feet again. The floor is cold and hard. She would rather sit down and have a coffee or something, but her friends are parked in front of a large canvas having a pretentious argument about social commentary. "At least my stockings haven't snagged," she thinks, looking for anything to be happy about this morning. Arms folded in front of her, she leans against a doorway standing on one foot, and rubbing her arch over the top of her ankle. Her head tilts to the side resting on the doorjamb as she stares at nothing in particular.
Darnell stands close to the exit so that he can hear the ladies talking about his paintings, crediting him with all manner of social insights that are conveyed to the viewer of the paintings. He is amused because he knows the primary goal of his artwork has always been to get money and buy really cool stuff. He is equally amused that the ladies ignore him in his security guard uniform, while expounding on the virtues of the genius he must be. He notices that Christina/Buffy is standing away from the group, looking like a bored and petulant child waiting for her mother to finish shopping at the mall. "This is gonna be good," he tells himself. The ladies start to move in no particular direction. "Please exit this way ladies," Darnell says, in a practiced radio announcer voice.
"What about our shoes?" one asks him.
"You have to exit this way so they can sell you stuff from the gift shop," he says in a conspiratorial tone. "The entrance is just around the corner to your left." The group of ladies exits and a straggling Christina/Buffy passes without looking at him. "Have a nice day ma'am," he says. Smooth a silk. The heavy door closes behind them.
"I don't want to buy any of this junk," Christina announces to the gift shop. "What are we going to do about lunch?" Several of the ladies purchase trinkets, and they head out into the museum. Christina notices that people they pass are looking at them, probably staring at her feet, and she is certain that they are talking about her. After a forced march through several more galleries, they arrive back at the entrance of the "CRIME" exhibit. The group of ladies bunch together, holding each others arms as they struggle to get their shoes back on. When they spread out again, a confused and angry Christina stands in the center of them still in her stockinged feet.
"Where are my goddamn shoes?" she snarls. Several of the ladies gasp as her voice carries through the marble hall like a bullhorn.
Darnell makes a mental note not to leave the camera in the desk, as he watches the scene from across the hall. This would be a world class photo, he thinks, a furious woman who has had her shoes stolen, standing in her stockinged feet under a giant banner the says "CRIME". This could be the cover of his book he thinks. Darnell has learned that coffee table books are the biggest sellers at the museum, and often cost a hundred dollars or more. He has a lot of material for the book so far, and he's about to get some more. He strolls toward the security desk purposefully ignoring the scene that is unfolding. Christina/Buffy storms across the room, her stockinged heels pounding the terrazzo floor, and stands in front of him, smoldering on the edge of igniting.
"Someone has stolen my shoes," she says, her eyes boring into his.
"Are you sure?" he asks, throwing gasoline onto the building inferno.
"Look at my goddamn feet!" she shouts, and then realizes that everyone within earshot is already looking at her feet.
"Nice feet," he says, being cool. He bends at the waist until his face is a yard away from her stocking clad toes, "But I see what you mean about the missing shoes."
"I have to find my shoes," she says tersely. "My friends and I rode the train down from Lake Forest, and we have a lot of things to do this afternoon. I am not leaving here barefoot." She sounds commanding and confident, but Darnell can see the uncertainty in her eyes.
"Let me see now," he says, and pulls out an absurdly large ring binder he has made that says PROCEDURE MANUAL on it in block letters. With a flourish, Darnell produces a form he has made that is eight and a half inches wide, but is easily seven feet long. He produces a ballpoint pen and asks her for her full name as the bottom of the form reaches the floor.
"Christina Frost," she barks.
Perfect. Darnell stokes the fire by printing in neat block letters at a rate of one every ten seconds or so. "Address?" he asks, without looking up.
"I want somebody to find my goddamn shoes right now," she says, fully ablaze.
"Ma'am, I'll need a description in order to do that." Smooth. Calm. Paternal.
"Gray pumps with satin bows and a gold plate on top that says Ferragamo".
Darnell picks up the phone on the desk and speaks to the dial tone. "Charlie, we have a report of some stolen shoes, gray with bows on 'em, and they say Fernando." She corrects him and he spells out F-E-R-R-A-G-A-M-O to the imaginary Charlie. Darnell hangs up and consults the procedure manual again.
"Can you show me the precise location where you discovered your property was missing?" he asks. He pulls the camera from under the security desk and follows her the twenty steps over to the exhibit entrance while asking her several official sounding questions. While she talks, he takes about ten flash pictures, before moving in for some close-ups. She is beautiful. A little hard-edged maybe, but stunning, as she stands in the central corridor of the museum in her stockinged feet.
"What are you doing?" she snarls, as Darnell crouches down with the camera. A decent crowd has formed now, and he is careful not to show his delight at the public spectacle she is making for both of them.
"Hold still," he tells her in his best authority-type voice. "I'll need this information for the official report." He snaps several more flash photos of her stockinged feet. From a distance of a yard or so, he can see that her stockings are very expensive, tan, but with a shimmering quality that gives a silvery cast to her shapely legs. The stockings have reinforced toes, but very sheer so that her toes are nicely displayed. Darnell was not really a foot guy he had decided, but he could certainly appreciate beauty and form. She stood like a catalogue model, the leg closest to him bent slightly at the knee. He studied the curve of the back of her calf sweeping down to her ankle before rounding out her silken heel, held several inches from the floor. The instep descended gracefully forward, a silken incline ending at her curved toes. Aligned in a perfect arc, her toes were polished red, which appeared as a satin pink through the stockings. As he looked through the view finder of the camera for one last close-up, he thought he saw her toes flex ever so slightly, moving in a slow rhythm, hypnotic as if to cast a spell, a spell compelled him, a spell that was drawing him in, a spell that was...
"Is this bullshit really necessary?" She stared down at him looking impatient.
A spell that was broken, he thought to himself. "Almost done," he said, sounding sincere, but pulling out a tape measure. After measuring the distance to the door, to the step, to the wall, he held the tape vertical and noticed her heels come up off the floor when she thought he was checking her height. He bent over and placed the tape on the floor next to her stockinged foot. His thumb actually touched her toe as he marked the place on the tape and made some notations on a pad of paper. The look on her face told him clearly that she thought he was an idiot, and that she had lost any confidence in the investigation. It was time for the grand finale. Darnell pulled out a roll of masking tape, got down on both knees, and started to make an outline on the floor in the shape of her foot. It was a perfect parody of the chalk lines the police draw around the bodies shown in the exhibit photographs.
"That's it!" she screamed at him. "That's the last straw dammit! I'm not the criminal here. Somebody is out walking around with my goddamn shoes and I'm the one being penalized, being held up with all this bullshit. She looked at her watch and began to pace around in tight circles, her stockings slipping on the polished floor. "I'll never see those shoes again, and your report is just going to sit in a drawer somewhere." She stopped pacing and stood still, her eyes smoldering as she looked at the ridiculous masking tape outline of her foot on the floor.
Suddenly, she burst into spontaneous laughter. "If this is one of those hidden camera TV shows, you are a dead man."
"Actually," Darnell said, laughing with her while getting to his feet again, "It's like one of those shows in a way." He turned and walked back to the desk, knowing she would follow. She sat down in a chair along side the desk and crossed her legs, offering her exquisite foot for more viewing. "Actually, I am Ingochat, the artist featured this month, and as a follow up to the exhibit you saw today, I'm making a photo book. I trick women into leaving their shoes behind, and while they look at a cold impersonal gallery of terrible crimes, I steal their shoes, and see how they react to a petty crime that is much closer to home, so to speak.
Darnell could not read her reaction as she took this in. Finally, she asked, "Why did you pick me?"
"I look for someone that will have a dramatic reaction." Someone uptight, he wanted to add, but didn't. He could see that she was not placated by his answer. "Also, I look for someone that is striking, or photogenic," he offered.
She was obviously very pleased with this. "So I'm going to be in a book by a famous artist!"
"Indeed you are, if you will just sign this photo release for me. Also, I would like to shoot a few extra photos if you wouldn't mind." He had been glancing at her foot hanging in midair near his thigh, and had decided a few extra shots might be required.
Christina Frost could hardly wait to tell her friends the news. She signed the release and Darnell snapped a few more shots of her legs and feet. She was posing now, but delightful in her desire to please.
Finally, he had run the camera out of film. He stood to shake her hand but she threw her arms around his neck instead. "Thank you for everything," she said.
Hell of a world he thought to himself. He had done time for selling controlled substances to willing people that wanted to buy them. Years later, he was here making twice as much money, and rich women thanked him for stealing their shoes and tormenting them in public. "I'll get you an autographed copy as soon as the book is done," he promised.
He watched her as she walked away from the desk. After ten steps, she turned to him. "If you took my shoes, then can I have them back now?"
"I would like to do that," he said, smiling broadly, "But I have my artistic integrity to consider."
She waved over her shoulder and continued on in the direction of her friends. He followed a safe distance behind and watched her walk down the front steps, and head out onto Michigan Avenue into the crisp fall afternoon.
Snowman
