The Pedicure

,

.

Perhaps it was for him, then, hoping to revive that long-neglected

garden of our early love, that I ascended a seat so elevated

it seemed a throne, on the morning of my fiftieth birthday,

at Womanly Illusions: A Day Spa for Modern Women. Gingerly,

I thrust my feet into the waiting hands (so warm and soft!)

of the white-garbed girl who crouched beneath me—a gesture

so unconsciously imperious I cringed inside to do it. Behind my eyes

flickered tiny images of my mother on her knees, scrubbing floors

in empty offices, evenings after work for extra pay. Whole legions

of my family crowded in behind her: some of them also on their knees

in torn jeans and dirty aprons, in the garish colors of the easy-launder

polyester uniforms of the service class. Some of them were cudgeled

by the bastards who pocketed the profits of their labors. And some

had turned to cudgelling, themselves, whipping without satisfaction

or self-understanding those they claimed to love. Yet here I was

with my sympathy for the workers, my love of Marx, my hatred

and fear of the bourgeoisie, the robber barons, the planter class,

all kings and queens, the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcoses, the Richard

Nixons and George Bushes of the world. Here I was, swooning

(not too strong a word) at the pricey ministrations directed at my feet.

Despite myself, I let go of the past and succumbed to pleasure.

I could feel my consciousness slipping. Then the gate was torn

from its hinges and the workers surged through. Suddenly,

they were lying down on the job! Stripping off their coveralls

and safety goggles, untying the leather laces of their steel-toed

safety boots, and giving up their rage in the long, slow flush

of warmth and pressure swooshing up my body from heel to head.

Then there was an internal collapsing. A long-unactivated part

of me unwound helplessly and manifested as a full-size tantric sob

inhabiting my body. Calmly, the girl gathered up my feet. Undaunted

by their ugliness, she held them tenderly as nursing infants,

lifted them to her breasts, massaging and caressing

while she looked them over. After awhile, she was somewhat less

gentle: perhaps she held them then as the sous chef charged

with murdering the baby quail hardens himself for the task ahead.

She gasped a little, horrified, I imagined, by the thick rinds of calluses,

the cracked and blackened nails, the custard-colored orbs of dead skin

she would have to overcome. I think I even heard her moan—alarmed

by the extensive renovation that lay ahead, or anguished at my sacrifice:

my desecration of the gift of soft and polished feminine feet.

The soul moves when the soul moves, the ancients all admonished.

Just so, enlightenment comes as it will, when it will, as unembarrassed

by squalor as unmoved by glamour. Thus, when my battered feet

were plunged inside a bowl of melted paraffin and left

to bubble there deliciously, something ratcheted into place.

The moment shaped itself into a needle, and there I hung:

impaled on the epiphany. A massive ur-sound, subterranean

and private as a fart, emerged unbidden from my throat . . .