 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
"Two Minutes!" "Shine ’em up, two minutes! Don’t look down, sit down!” All day long the man with the gray-flecked beard and sparkling eyes calls out from his perch, a rolling office chair parked on Broadway, in front of the Trinity Church cemetery. There, he scans the thousands of feet that pass before him, waiting for a dusty oxford or scuffed loafer in need of a shine. On one recent frigid morning, Klaus Rehkopff, a sailor from Denmark, put his mud-splattered leather boots on Harris’ beat-up box. “How much?” he asked. “Four dollars,” said Harris, “but you give me whatever you want.” (Harris says he has only raised his prices once in over two decades.) Harris wrapped two fingers in a rag, dipped them into a can of black paste, and began to work circles into the leather. “This is just to get the dirt off,” he said. He attacked the boot with a brush, and rubbed in another layer of paste, working his fingers into the crevices. “This is for the shine,” he said. One more brush-off, and out came the towel. He snapped it rapidly over the leather, unveiling a bright black boot.
“Works for me!” Harris said, with a shy grin. It’s a phrase he uses a lot. Despite constant exposure to the elements and the often slim returns on his time (on a good warm day, he makes $65), Harris is a man with a knack for contentment. A dependable source of warmth and cheer on the block, he seems to know just about everyone. A wave here, a high five there, his day is filled with greetings amid the hectic flow of passersby. “People down here, they’re all right,” says Harris. “I’ve got people that come by and will just give me money.” On a recent slow morning, he stood chatting with his friend Joe, a fruit juice vendor. A man in a khaki trench coat strode by. Barely pausing, he gripped Harris’ hand. “How you doing, baby?” asked Harris. When the man walked away, Harris opened his hand. A neatly folded $5 bill lay in his palm. “That guy never gets a shine,” he said, shaking his head. When he first came to this block, there were dozens of shoeshine men, including several of his brothers. The ranks dwindled over the years as the other men moved indoors or to Midtown, where the money is said to be better. Now Harris is the only steady shiner left on the block. His commute, from a housing project in the South Bronx where he lives with his daughter and four grandchildren, takes an hour.
There is a rhythm to the shoeshine business. Mondays and Fridays, for instance, are usually bad. “Nobody wants to be here those days,” Harris says. “They don’t care about their shoes.” Thursdays in the summer are no good either, he says, since it tends to be “casual day” at the office. The vacation exodus makes July slow, too. But for three weeks in early summer, the annual crop of Wall Street interns—eager to make a polished impression—provide steady business. Harris also benefits from a New York Stock Exchange tradition. The shoes of interns are doused with talcum powder, while floor traders chant, “It’s snowing in New York.” “Works for me!” says Harris. And when the sky opens up, so do wallets. “I be clapping when it starts raining or snowing,” Harris says. “I ain’t gonna make no money today, but I know I’ll make it the next two days.” He breaks off to talk to a mother and son who’ve paused by his shoeshine post. “How much?” asks Christine Schuebel, a German tourist. “Him? I’ll do him for free,” says Harris, and sets to work on the tiny leather sneakers of 6-year-old Simon-Wilhelm. Minutes later, two shiny feet patter away down the pavement. “Say thank you to the wonderful man,” Schuebel calls out, tucking $5 into Harris’ hand.
|
