Five years before, Harry Becker had shut the door to his shoe repair shop for the last time. It was completely empty at that point. All his inventory; all his tools; the huge mechanical shoe repair finishing machine, a byzantine contraption of belts and nibblers and sanders and brushes and buffers that commandeered almost an entire wall and had been there as long as he had; the big brass filigreed National Cash Register that stood like a centurion on the counter near the entrance and dwarfed Harry behind it—everything had been sold or junked.
Still, with the shop as bone-bare as a nursery rhyme cupboard, Harry went through his ritual door-locking routine, shutting the door tightly, inserting his key and turning the bolt until he heard it click, then pulling and pushing the door with everything he had, as if trying to thwart his own efforts and, when failing to do so, doing it again. And again. Shaking and rattling the hinges until, spent and short of breath, he was finally satisfied that the empty space inside was safe from potential thieves.
Then, knowing he would never return, Harry had put up the handwritten sign he always put up when he closed for lunch, or to run an errand, or to bowl a game or two with his friend Meyer, or to leave for urgent personal business that could well take the rest of the day: Back in 20 minutes. It was an inside joke, for which he was the only insider who would see it.
How things had changed since...
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