The old man in the Army Veterans cap turned his boot over on the tablecloth and pointed to the sole, where, stitched into the new leather in thread, were the words Thank you for your service, and a small set of initials.
Brett, he said, you said somebody has to smell like shoe polish. These boots are the reason my feet made it through last winter.
In December, the old man said, I was living at the shelter on Smithfield Street, and my boots had holes clean through, and the first snow was coming. A cobbler came to the shelter and resoled every pair of boots for every homeless veteran there. Forty-three pairs. For free. He worked two days straight. And in mine, he stitched a thank-you into the sole, where only I would ever see it, so every step I took all winter I would know somebody was grateful. I have worn these every day since.
The table had gone silent. Stan had put down his fork.
Brett wore six-hundred-dollar sneakers and mocked the man who gave forty-three homeless veterans dry boots before the snow.
The old man was the grandfather of Bretts girlfriend, and she had brought him to Christmas Eve, and none of us had known he was one of the forty-three until he leaned down and untied his boot.
I am Stans mother. He passed the pierogies and said merry Christmas, Brett, and took the joke, because a man who resoles a veterans boots on his own time does not need a software engineer to tell him what he is worth. Brett looked at the thread stitched into that old mans sole, and he looked down at his own expensive sneakers, and he did not have a joke left in him.