On my way home from school with a gang of friends I would see him outside one of the bars or diners near the Journal Square station: my uncle, rasping the price of a shine to the passing crowd, if he wasn’t already on his knees rubbing color into the grain of some suit’s scuffed wingtips, reaching around the stiff back of the heel with his stained fingers to massage the polish deep into the threads of the seam. One day, when I thought he’d caught me turning my head to pass by without a word, my cheeks burned, while the guy he worked on lit up a smoke and blew rings over my uncle — still kneeling as he snapped a torn strip of felt, buffing and slapping that shine until it was so bright you could see your face in it.
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