Those shoes, they were huaraches, the leather thongs wrapped several times around her ankles. They were desperately ragged huaraches; the woven leather had become unravelled. When I saw them I was very grateful, for it was a defect about her that deserved criticism. She was tall and straight-shouldered, a girl of perhaps twenty, faultless in her way, except for her tattered huaraches.
And so I fastened my stare on them, watched them intently and deliberately, even turning in my chair and twisting my neck to glare at them, sneering and chuckling to myself. Plainly I was getting as much enjoyment out of this as she got from my face, or whatever it was that amused her.
John Fante
[From: Ask The Dust, 1939]
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| Not original HUARACHES, but they fit the description Source: samsvojmajstor.com |
I was in rags the day that check arrived. My nondescript Colorado clothes hung from me in shreds, and my first thought was a new wardrobe. I had to be frugal but in good taste, and so I descended Bunker Hill to Second and Broadway, and the Goodwill store. I made my way to the better quality section and found an excellent blue business suit with a white pinstripe.
The pants were too long and so were the sleeves, and the whole thing was ten dollars. For another dollar I had the suit altered, and while this was being taken care of, I buzzed around in the shirt department. Shirts were fifty cents apiece, of excellent quality and all manner of styles. Next I purchased a pair of shoes - fine thick-soled oxfords of pure leather, shoes that would carry me over the streets of Los Angeles for months to come.
John Fante
[From: Dreams Of Bunker Hill - Black Sparrow Press, 1982]
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| 1949 | Nunn Bush Ankle Fashioned Oxfords |
... John, you’re big time now.
you’ve entered the Books of Forever
right there with Dostoevsky,
Tolstoy, and your boy
Sherwood Anderson.
I told you.
and you said, “you wouldn’t
shit an old blind man,
would you?” ah, no need for that,
bulldog.
Charles Bukowski
From: "Fante" (Betting On The Muse - Black Sparrow Press, 1996)
SHOES & BOOKS
[FEAT. HEMINGWAY, SHAKESPEARE, SARAMAGO, RANKIN, GALEANO ...]
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| April 8, 1909 - May 8, 1983 John Fante and his dog Rocco Source: Librofilia |
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1940 | Huaraches from Old Santa Fe
Source: Esquire Magazine, December 1940
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