The Secret Wisdom of DSW

Last year Moms’s health started to decline. First there were stomach aches—then fevers, diarrhea, dizziness, coughing. Her body was breaking down, disintegrating into the little pieces of dust and dirt from which it came.

She was old enough that I should not have been as upset as I was. But Moms was unique. She was a lifelong reader and certified intellectual force. It was hard to get her to speak freely about those hidden things, the secret truths that meant the most to her, but when she did, I was always left the wiser. I went into her final days at the hospital expecting this kind of enlightenment. Surely she would divulge the furtive depths of her wisdom now, only hours from the afterlife.

One morning the doctors pulled me aside to deliver the latest prognosis. Moms’s condition had worsened significantly overnight. She was not able to eat or drink. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. If there was anything I wanted to say to her, this would be the time.

She was asleep when I went into the room, and I woke her with a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. At first I was choked up and had trouble speaking, but when I recovered we exchanged our final I love you and goodbye. She was brave and compassionate in the face of death. The important thing to her, I could tell, was that her dying not be too hard on me.

As I stood to fetch the nurse, Moms started to say something else, which I could barely make out.

“Great delight…” she began. “Always loved…”

“What is it?” I asked, rubbing her hand.

“Profound…my favorite…”

“What is?”

“DS—W,” she said finally.

“DSW?” I asked.

“Yes…” she said. “DS—W…”

She took one more breath and died.

I sat in my apartment that night and wondered what Moms could have meant by her final words. In my mind there was only one meaning for DSW. It was the name of a chain of shoe stores that I had seen in California and across the United States. Naturally I assumed that Moms was referring to something else. I opened my laptop and typed the three letters into my web browser. The results were straightforward.

Designer Shoe Warehouse. All things shoes.

My reaction was measured, logical. There must have been some kind of mistake. Maybe she was referring to something more elusive, offering up a riddle that only I, with our unique personal history, could solve.

I adjusted my search. DSW meaning.

The consensus was simple: Designer Shoe Warehouse.

I tried again. DSW hidden meaning.

There was only an inane blog: Today, it’s all about the hidden meaning behind the seemingly mundane.

I closed my laptop and put DSW out of mind.

In the weeks that followed, the logistics of Moms’s cremation and funeral made me forget about her final words. But when I was cleaning out her attic and discovered a discarded DSW shoebox, I started to wonder again. Could it be true? Did Moms have some strange attachment to this apparently run-of-the-mill chain? Was the basis of her unspoken intellectual weight a measly shoe store?

From then on, whenever I thought of Moms, I thought of the mystery surrounding her death. I told myself that it was insignificant, that a few dying words were nothing compared to the years of happiness and love we had shared. But behind my rationalizations there lingered a specter of guilt and neglect. How could I, a loving and dedicated son, ignore Moms’s final utterance? And how did it reflect on me that this last idea she chose to express, this poignant little message, was something that I could not understand?

I decided to take action, to investigate the matter once and for all. My only physical evidence was the pair of shoes from the attic. They were purple clogs that Moms hadn’t worn for at least fifteen years. Back then we lived in Fresno, and knowing that there were no DSWs in Bakersfield, I surmised that her preferred location must have been up there. A simple search confirmed this. There was a DSW three blocks from my childhood home.

As I packed my car, I despaired a little at the stupidity of my mission. DSW was a simple corporation. It was an ugly set of buildings staffed by an ugly set of people, stuffed to the brim with ugly pairs of shoes. There was nothing really to be found there, no insights or epiphanies or moments of inner peace.

But if Moms believed in it, maybe I should go.

I got on the highway one immaculate afternoon in July, my car packed with an overnight bag and a few other essentials. The sun was glaring, but through my sunglasses all things were coated in a pleasant arctic blue. I sensed a special energy on the road that day. There were no drivers honking or inserting themselves into small gaps in the lanes. We were patient and united in our small mission of vehicular travel. Everyone was headed to the same place.

As my tank neared empty, we came to an unexpected stop. I flipped through local radio stations for the first time in ten years, trying to discern the cause of the slowdown. There had been an accident northbound at the 289 mile-marker, only a ways up from me. I was trapped in the right lane, and when we finally came upon the wreck, I could see everything clearly. A red sedan had run off the road and into the thin edge of a sound-retaining wall. The car had been crushed up the middle and the driver ejected onto the hood, where he remained still, bloody and contorted. Thirty feet above him, perched on the dusty rocks, was a vulture with black wings and pimply neck.

The paramedics threw a sheet over the man and traffic began to accelerate. As I returned to cruising speed, the image of the crash weighed heavily on me. It seemed to have a similar effect on my fellow drivers. For a long time no one changed lanes or sped off ahead. We drove as one synchronized unit, silent participants in an unplanned tribute to the tragedy we had beheld. Eventually new cars came on and merged and we all forgot about the accident. It was not until later that night, as I lingered on the terrace of my rental, that I reflected again upon the crash and realized that it was this serendipitous spectacle—this still corpse and that great, haunting bird—that had lent my quest to DSW its epic character.

I woke up the following morning with a peculiar feeling. Instead of going straight to the store, I dallied in town, drinking coffee and people-watching. I suppose I was sad. I must have sensed that, in some small way, the mystery of Moms’s final words was the only thing keeping her alive. Once I saw the store and confirmed that it was ordinary, her last wisp of novelty would flutter and die.

At four o’clock I came to my senses and drove to the small plaza where the DSW resided. I was relieved to find that there was something slightly interesting about the facade. It was generic, pale stucco but the DSW lettering had been painted an idyllic sky blue.

Inside one of the workers approached me. He was a scrawny teenager dressed in a collared shirt and bow tie.

“Are you looking for something?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose that I am.”

He rubbed his chin and considered my unorthodox reply. His expression was calm, perceptive. I thought maybe he saw something in me, something commonly felt but rarely understood, a far-off and ill-defined longing that strikes us only when our mothers die. Or maybe I was just like his other customers, one of many shipwrecked souls deposited on DSW’s virgin shores, barefoot—yes—but in need of more than simple footwear.

He tilted his head and squinted at me inquiringly.

“What is it, exactly, that you’re looking for?”

My eyes drifted up, to the white lights that loomed above.

“I couldn’t say.”

He decided to begin with a brief tour of their inventory. We covered the men’s but stopped in women’s and children’s for good measure. My host was well-spoken and professional, precocious beyond his years. It was as if the founder of DSW at large had died and been recalled to the body of a small teenage boy, to sell shoes and create his legacy anew.

“It’s a good thing you got here now,” he said when the tour was finished. “We were just about to close.”

I nodded and placed my chosen footwear on the counter. “How fortuitous.”

He rang up the shoes and asked why I was in Fresno. I told him I used to live there.

“Have you ever been to the hill next to the In-N-Out?” he asked.

I shook my head, no.

“You should go,” he said. “The sunset there is beautiful.”

We left together, just after close. He wanted to show me the view from the hill and I was hard-pressed to deny him. On the way we stopped at a food court and I bought us two extra-large vanilla ice cream cones. While we waited for the ice cream, he offered me the story of his life. His name was Felipe and he was the most entrepreneurial student at his high school. He had recently been dumped by his first girlfriend, a controlling type from two towns over.

On the hill we sat and licked our ice cream, watching the sun descend. It was indeed beautiful. The sky was pink and blue. Before us a sprawl of retailers, specialty shops, and restaurants evoked timelessness and ruin. We felt as though we had been sent back in time to bear witness to a people who no longer existed.

Felipe turned to me, ice cream all over his face.

“Do you think it’s true what they say about the human spirit?” he asked.

“What’s that?” I replied.

“That it is vast, intrepid, indefatigable.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Do you think it’s true what they say about people?”

“What’s that?”

“That they’re small, mean, weak.”

“Possibly.”

“Do you think it’s true what they say about God?”

“What do they say about God?”

“That he tortures people for fun.”

I made a grunting sound, a middle-aged harrumph. “Where did you hear that?”

“My brother told me.”

“What could your brother possibly know about God?”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Moms believed in God,” I said.

“Who is Moms?”

“My mom.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just glad I found out what she wanted.”

“How do you mean?”

“It was she who first introduced me to DSW. I think, maybe, we were destined to be here.”

Felipe kept his eyes forward. He was smiling a little, basking in the glory of it all.

“Maybe she can see us now,” he said.

“I hope so.”

When it got dark, we wiped our sticky hands in the grass and walked back to the empty lot where both of our cars were parked.

Felipe lingered by his car door. “Sorry again about your mom,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said, looking down. “I’ll be all right.”

When I got back to Bakersfield, I parked and walked up the stairs to my apartment. I had almost reached the door when a small girl accompanied by her parents accosted me.

“Where’d you get those shoes?” she asked.

I stopped and shifted my weight, demonstrating the expert design and craftsmanship of the shoes. They were smooth, taut, slightly waxen.

“DSW,” I said casually.

“I like them,” she said, hopping forward along the carpet.

“No hopping in the hall,” her father said from behind her.

She hopped once more. “Hop.”

“No hopping!” he cried.

In my room I opened a beer and sat down on the couch. I was still marveling at the brilliance of Moms’s final lesson. In the pale stucco and nondescript aisles of a Fresnoan shoe store she had managed to uncover some distant semblance of God. As I surveyed the contents of my living room, I felt that I could revive a kernel of her insight. The television, the window, my cactus. Everything was colored in divine light.

I finished the beer, went to my room, got into bed. My body was totally relaxed. As I looked out the window, I thought about what a steaming pile of shit the world was, and I was grateful to Moms for still believing in it. My eyelids grew heavy, and I slept for a long time.

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Scott John Murray

Scott John Murray is an author based in New York. His debut short story recently appeared in Prairie Schooner. He was also shortlisted for New Letters’ Robert Day Award for Fiction. He is currently working on a novel. You can find his other work on his website, scottjohnmurray.com.