I Wrote a Kid's Play

THE PERFECT FIT

A shoe store. BERNIE, dressed in a white button down shirt and tie, paces in front of shoe boxes and shoe racks. There is a stopwatch around his neck.

In a nearby chair is JOEY, dressed in a similar outfit.

BERNIE
So…You think you got what it takes to be a shoe salesman?

JOEY
Yes, Sir! I’m a fast learner and hard worker-

BERNIE
Well, you better be! Because that’s what being a great shoe salesman is all about…hard work. It’s not just measuring feet and rubbing tired ankles.

JOEY
Ew.

BERNIE
What? Too much for you? This ain’t for the weak, Sonny. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe here.

JOEY
Oh, don’t worry, Sir, I’m no stranger to shoe stores! I was the floor manager of Sporty Sneakers back in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

BERNIE
Sporty Sneakers? Allentown…Pennsylvania? Sonny, you ain’t in Kansas anymore.

JOEY
You mean Allentown?

BERNIE
I mean any small town! This is New York City! The shoe capital of the world! And in this store we don’t sell “sporty sneakers”! We sell the best! A top of the line, cream of the crop, grade A place to take your feet!

Joey stands. He goes to a shoe rack and picks up a shoe, showing how good he is with it by tossing it in the air and catching it like a ball.

JOEY
Yes, Sir! That’s why I moved here! You see, shoe stores in Allentown were just holding me back! I needed a bigger place to spread my wings! And this is it! This is the perfect job for me, Sir!

Bernie takes the shoe from Joey mid air, catching it, clearly a bit nervous Joey will drop the shoe and break it.

BERNIE
Is that right…Well, let’s see how good you really are then, shall we. Test A!

Bernie points a remote to the back screen. A picture of a teenage girl appears… maybe a bit wacky looking.

BERNIE
When a customer walks in you need to know exactly what type of shoe they are. Loafers or sandals? High heel or boots? You need to feel their inner shoe…So tell me, Mr. Allentown, Pennsylvania, what does this customer need?

JOEY
Oh, um…um…easy…She’s looking for high tops! Something to use around the basketball court!

BERNIE
High tops? Basketball? WHAT?! This is clearly a young lady looking for prom shoes: high heels, blue, sheek, with a silk grey ribbon on the side.

Bernie hits the remote and the above shoe appears on the back screen.

JOEY
Oh, sure, of course, that’s what I meant to say, Sir!

BERNIE
So think you can find them?

JOEY
Those shoes? Right now?

BERNIE
What? Too hard for you, Sonny? Don’t have what it takes?!

JOEY
No, Sir! I was born for this job! I can do it!

Joey jumps up and down as if preparing for a race. Bernie looks at his stopwatch.

BERNIE
We’ll see…Ready, set…Find those shoes!

Joey runs and looks for the shoes in different racks and boxes. Bernie watches like a coach.

BERNIE
Faster! Every passing second means a lonely pair of feet! And lonely feet mean cold feet! And cold feet mean a lost customer!

JOEY
Got ‘em!

Joey throws the shoes in Bernie’s direction!

BERNIE
AHHH!!

Bernie catches them, but not with ease.

BERNIE
You can’t just throw shoes! These are new high heels: blue, sheek, with a silk grey ribbon on the side! What were you thinking?!

JOEY
That’s how we did it back in Allentown, Sir! You see, we were the fastest shoe store there was and-

BERNIE
Oh, never mind Allentown! Time for test B! Ready!?

Joey runs to Bernie’s side and jumps up and down again.

JOEY
Ready, Sir!

Bernie points the remote at the back screen. A picture of an old lady appears.

BERNIE
Now what does this customer need? Think hard…What’s her inner shoe?

JOEY
Um…Easy, looks like she, ah...she needs…Volleyball shoes! A nice pair of volleyball shoes for the big game!


BERNIE
Volleyball shoes?! Big game?! Come on! Focus! Inner shoe, remember? This is clearly someone looking for glass sandals: clear, cute, with extra back support for weak heals. Size 8, deep arc, with a flower pattern of daisies on the side!

Bernie hits the remote and the above glass sandal appears on the back screen. Joey looks at Bernie amazed.

JOEY
Wow…you…are…awesome!

BERNIE
Hard work, Sonny…it takes hard work to get where I’m standing. Now find those shoes!

Bernie starts the stopwatch.

BERNIE
Go! Go! Go!

Joey runs all around, much faster than before.

BERNIE
Hurry, hurry!…I hear sad feet. And nothing in this world makes me sadder than the sound of sad feet.

JOEY
What do sad feet sound like?

BERNIE
Just keep looking for those glass sandals, Cinderella! You want this job or not?!

JOEY
Found them!

Joey hikes a shoe box between his legs like you would a football. It falls to the ground short of reaching Bernie.

BERNIE
Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Bernie goes over to the box and examines the glass sandals. They’re broken due to the fall.

JOEY
There they are! Glass sandals, clear, cute, extra back support, size 8, deep arc. There’s even the daisy pattern on the side! Pretty good, huh?!

BERNIE
Pretty good? Pretty good?!?! They’re ruined. I told you not to throw anything!

JOEY
I didn’t throw them. I hiked them, just like we did in Allentown! The fastest shoe store there ever was-

BERNIE
We’re not in Allentown! Jeez! How many times do I have to tell you that?!

Bernie hits the remote, clearly upset. The screen goes back to normal.

JOEY
Oh, I’m sorry, Sir, let me try again-

BERNIE
No, you’re done here!

JOEY
But I can do better!

BERNIE
Listen, you want to know why I’m hiring someone? Because I need help, okay! Shoes ain’t selling like they used to! And I need the perfect salesmen to turn this place around!

JOEY
Well, that could be me! Maybe adding my moves could help your store!

Joey picks up a shoe and prepares to throw it. Bernie quickly stops him.

BERNIE
No, no, no! Nothing new! I need someone who knows shoes, not throws them! Someone who can find the perfect fit! And I’m sorry, but that’s not you. Now leave!

JOEY
But I can’t!…I left everything for this, okay. My family, my friends, my job. I left it all for the big city! To work here! The shoe capital of the world!…Please, Sir, just give me a chance. One chance!...I promise I won’t let you down...

Pause. Bernie looks at Joey with a bit of sympathy.

BERNIE
A chance? I’m sorry, Sonny…but I can’t give you a job based on a coin toss…

Bernie tries to leave but Joey gets in his way. Song starts…

The Perfect Team

Verse 1

JOEY
I’ll stack every box
Faster than a fox
I’ll tie all the laces
Make big happy faces

BERNIE
You’ll wash all the cleats?
It’s no easy feat
You’ll dust the loafers?
Can’t be no joker!

Chorus

JOEY
I’ll throw you high heels!
While you make all the deals!
We’ll be the best team in the world!

BERNIE
You toss the flip flops?!
While I put us on top?!

JOEY
We’ll be the best team in the world!

JOEY & BERNIE
Just hurl up some boots!
While we make all the loot!
We’ll be the best team in the world!

Verse 2

JOEY
I’ll pay my dues
To work in shoes
Just like Allentown
I’ll never slow town!

BERNIE
You’ll get every clog?
And never just jog
For shoes that tap
You always must clap!

Chorus

JOEY & BERNIE
Throw the high heels!
While we make all the deals!
We’ll be the best team in the world!

Toss the flip flops!
While we put us on top!
We’ll be the best team in the world!

Just hurl up some boots!
While we make all the loot!
We’ll be the best team in the world!
We’ll be the best team in the world!
We’ll be the best team in the world!

Song ends…

JOEY
See! We work great together! With your brains and my throwing arm, we could be the fastest shoe store in the history of shoes!

BERNIE
Faster than Allentown?!

JOEY
You bet! We’re gonna turn a top of the line, cream of the crop, grade A place to take your feet into something even better! The perfect team. What do you say?

BERNIE
The perfect team?

JOEY
The perfect fit.

Bernie thinks about hiring him. Suddenly, a group of old ladies enter.

OLD LADY
Excuse me? Do you gentlemen think you could help us out?

Bernie and Joey turn to each other.

BERNIE
Here’s the final test, Sonny. Get this one right and the job’s yours! Remember…find their inner shoe….

Bernie pats Joey on the back. Joey runs over to the ladies.

JOEY
I can help you ladies out! Let me guess, you’re looking for…um…

Bernie cheers Joey on from the side.

BERNIE
Inner shoe…You can do it!

JOEY
You’re looking...for…um…um…high heels: ½ inch high, pointed toe, turquoise with a pinch of glitter on the front?

The old ladies look at each other in amazement. Bernie and Joey wait for their response…

OLD LADY
Well…that sounds perfect!

BERNIE
You’re hired!

Joey jump up and cheers! Bernie hits his stopwatch.

BERNIE
Now get those shoes, Mr.! Pronto! Go! Go! Go!

Joey goes through boxes and throws shoes to Bernie. The old ladies laugh.

BLACK

Short Story

Clogged

By Sean Kenealy

Jake could feel it between his toes. The dirty water and the hair and the clumps of day old soap. He usually took his morning shower with Clair; both half asleep, soaping their naked bodies and waking up to the reality of life with the lust of a recurring dream. Their own 15 minute routine. Jake had been at it alone for the past week, however. Alone in a shower and ankle deep in filth.

“Is it clogged again?” Clair asked.

Jake stood in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was shaking, cut off from his bedroom and the warmth of his thick work day clothes. His feet dripped brown water.

“I thought you asked him to fix it,” Clair said.

“He did.”

“Well, clearly it didn’t work.”

“Okay, I’ll ask him again.”

“Don’t ask him, Jake. Tell him”

Jake nodded, and Clair made a huffing noise that said everything while saying nothing. She picked up two duffle bags, filled with clothes, makeup, and a hairdryer. Clair had been taking her showers at the gym for the past week.

“Hey,” Jake said. Clair turned from the front door and brushed away her greasy blond hair. Her eyes were puffy, half shut; awake but not ready for the start of the day. And her cheeks, which were usually round with a tint of red, were shapeless and white, a void no dimple could find home in. Jake would never say it, but Clair looked like an old lady in the morning. Nothing like a 26 year old should look. “I love you,” he said.

Clair sighed. She stared at a thin puddle surrounding Jake’s feet and adjusted her two bags. The filth was reaching towards her.


Downstairs Jake saw his landlord with his three young daughters.

“Jake!” the girls yelled. They ran to his side as if seeing a carnival ride in the distance.

“Show us another magic trick,” one of the girls said.

“Do the one with the three cups!” They laughed and jumped, scrunching up their small noses.

“Girls, please,” the landlord said. “Jake needs to go to work.” He smiled at his children and shook Jake’s hand, a greeting habit of men that the landlord never seemed to grow tired of.

They were an Indian family. They were beautiful. Small and stout, everything about them trying as hard as it could, and Jake knew they were proud of it.

“All good with the tub?” the landlord asked.

“Perfect.”

“Well, you just let me know if there are more problems.” He shook Jake’s hand, firmer than before, as if to reiterate their understanding and silent bond as men.

The girls stared up, eyes so petite and dark Jake could have mistaken them for music notes. They were still, all of them, all of them waiting for a laugh, a trick, or for Jake to do anything at all.

He only winked and was gone.


Jake called in sick that day. He’d called in sick the entire week. Instead of going to work, he’d spent his time at a toy store down the street from his office building. It was an old fashioned store, everything appearing handmade, having a magical feel that is often lost with mass production. The store was filled with children, and the children were always smiling. Jake watched it all, handing down puzzles, teddy bears, and games like a helpful employee would.

Today Jake saw a little boy crying. He faced a corner, blockaded by toys he could never reach, shaking his tiny shoulders.

“Why are you crying?” Jake asked him. An older woman stood in the distance, dressed in a business suit that didn’t quite fit her body. Jake wondered if she was his grandmother, though by her complete lack of interest he had his doubts.

“I want a toy,” the boy said.

“A toy?” Jake said. “I love toys.”

“Me too!”

Jake smiled. “Of course you do.”

What Jake loved about children was despite them often being upset, their problems and wants were easy to understand. Not easy to solve, necessarily, but anyone could relate to them. Wanting a toy for instance: who couldn’t sympathize with that? It was simple. It was beautiful. Aging didn’t make people more complex, Jake thought, it just gave them more time and material to convolute their lives, making problems Jake had difficulty sympathizing with, not like he could do with children.

“Well, why do you want a toy?” Jake asked.

“Because,” the boy whimpered.

“Because they’re fun?”

“Yeah, fun.”

The boy had stopped crying, as if too distracted by Jake’s questions to even remember why he was upset. The woman then walked closer, for despite her obvious lack of interest in the boy, the sight of a man seemed to gain her attention.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“We’re talking about toys,” Jake said. He smiled. She smiled back, seeping warmth into a face Jake would have assumed was as tangible as dry ice.

“I like toys with wheels,” the boy chimed in.

Jake knelt down, to the exact height of the boy. If handshakes were the bond of men, Jake knew size was the bond of children. Big meant grownups; small meant something else.

“But what about magic?” Jake asked.

He moved his hands in the air as if painting a sky with an invisible brush. He closed his eyes; he hummed, he then reached behind the boy’s ears with calm, steady movements. When he pulled his hand back there was a dollar in it. This was the magic.

The boy laughed, sincerely and innocent, the way only a child can do. Jake handed him the dollar.

“See, who needs toys when there’s magic everywhere.”

“Very impressive,” the woman said. “Your own kids must love that.”

“More, more, more!” the boy yelled.

Jake stood; quickly, as if not just standing, but ejecting from the child’s world.

“Not today,” Jake said. The boy stopped jumping; the woman frowned, both of them appearing let down by the end of this impromptu magic show. Jake then reached down and took the dollar from the boy’s hand, pulling it past the soft grip of his tiny fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He walked down the aisle, bordered by toys he’d spent the better part of the week helping children get down. Now he wasn’t even looking at them. In the background he heard cries.


Jake left the store running. He went twenty three blocks, steady breath, his body sweating evenly, as if used to this routine and knowing the most efficient way to cool itself down. Jake’s body was fit, something he took pride in. He often ran to just prove he could run.

He ended at a city building that looked just like the rest. It had hundreds of windows, it was the color white, it was one in a thousand. The building looked pretty from the outside, but Jake knew it was broken. He knew water leaked from its pipes, and that that past its polished shell were clogged drains.

Jake fell to his knees. He grabbed his legs and rocked like a child watching a movie at the edge of their bed. Dozens of people walked by, though no one stopped.

“What?” Jake yelled. “What?”

He moved his hands to his crotch and cupped his erect penis.


Clair came home earlier that day. She walked into her bathroom and screamed, pushing against a wall and knocking over a shelf filled with white towels. Jake was in the tub, immersed in the filthy water, his body pruned as if he’d been sitting there for hours.

“The tub is still clogged,” Jake said.

“Jake, what the hell are you doing?”

“I called in sick today.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I called in sick all week.”

Clair opened her lips, as if expecting to have a quick response like she always did. She said nothing, however, and slowly sat at the edge of the tub.

“Jake, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I tried donating sperm.” Jake was silent, waiting for Clair to digest his comment, knowing it was something she wasn’t expecting to hear.

“They give you a hundred dollars you know.”

“What?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“Jesus.” Clair could see his naked body in the tub, all of his curves and colors past streams of dirt and hair. “Why would you do that?”

“Because we need it.”

She stood from the tub. Their bathroom was comically small, though she still managed to pace. “You should have told me about this, Jake.”

“We need the money.”

“I don’t care what we need. You should have told me.”

Jake looked down. He sank deeper into the water and began to cry. He covered his face and sobbed, revealing veins on his forehead. Clair was silent, standing above him like a mother would a child.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said.

“Don’t cry, Jake. Jesus.”

And he cried harder. Clair rubbed her eyes and blinked over and over.

“Jake, we can ask our parents for money if we need to.”

“I’m 33.”

“Stop.”

He turned away, revealing lines of long hair from the bathwater strung across his back.

“I’m not mad at you,” Clair said. “I’m just.” She slowly sat back on the ledge. “I’m just-“

“They didn’t accept it,” Jake interrupted. He gasped for air, mixing his own saliva and snot into the bathwater. “My sperm. I went back three times. Used different names. They never accepted it. So I went and asked why. They usually don’t say, but I kept going and…” Jake leaned up. He wiped his tears and purposely stuck out his wide chest. “I know we’re not trying. Maybe we never will…But you should know this.”

Clair looked at the tub. Even in the filthy water she could see her reflection. She wore makeup, her cheeks were round with a tint of red, and a dimple was at the side of her mouth. She looked nothing like she did in the morning. Everyone told her she was beautiful.

“Get out of the tub, Jake. The water’s disgusting.”

She stood. Jake leaned forward, trying to hide any evidence that he had been crying. When he was about to stand he noticed a brown bag at the entrance of the bathroom.

“What’s in your bag?” Jake asked.

Clair continued to stare at her reflection, which was now broken in the water.

“Clair,” Jake said. “What’s in your bag?”

“A fucking plunger.” And she walked out of the room.

Jake hummed. He felt bubbles surface at his sides. He lifted his hands and moved them like a magician before his final trick. There was nothing to appear.

Jake then reached for the shower handle and turned the water back on.

Bizarre Ad

I saw a couple fighting on the side of the street today. They kept their voices low, doing their best to hid themselves, but by their body movements and mean, scrunched up faces, it was clear to me and every other onlooker that they were having a heated debate.

The man grabbed his hair. He moved his arms up and down, like a baby bird seeing a predator for the first time.

The woman just laughed. She turned in circles. She smiled. There was obviously nothing funny going on, anyone could tell you that, but she seemed to be having a grand old time.

But you know what? Who gives a shit! People fight. Right? And couples especially fight. But what I thought was interesting was that both the man and the woman were holding large paper bags that said, "Contain Yourself." And after a few minutes of their silent screams, the man tossed his bag down and dozens of Tupperware came pouring out; sprinkling the sidewalk like golf balls of hail. He then left, leaving the woman alone, laughing. I got up from my bench after that. I imagined the woman was going to cry soon, and honestly I didn't want to see it. But, naturally, curiosity got the best of me. I turned back halfway down the street. The woman wasn't alone anymore; she wasn't laughing either. The man was there. He was on his hands and knees, as if praying, picking up the Tupperware, and, as I imagined, the woman was in tears. I think the man was, too; slowly picking up the plastic containers and putting them back in the large paper bags.

That was that. I left, feeling like I just watched a bizarre TV ad:

Tupperware: save your leftovers, save your relationship.