Shine, sir?

We were drinking draft beer at an old bar downtown. That part of town was called Crackland, due to the main business that used to proliferate around that corner. We were standing on the sidewalk, as prescribed by the local tradition.
By those times, the beer still matched the reputation of the place,
despite other particularly interesting stimuli.
From across the street came the aroma of grilled meat from a shack.
Dust on the ground, bits of dirt the size of a tv set.
Loud to the limit, a pirate CD seller was diputing the soundscape with another professional (one of those services by wich someone pays for a love declaration expressed by means of a huge soundbox placed over a vehicle,
all decorated with lips and hearts).
Not far, an in loco burnt beetle was rusting silently in front of a police station.
Fingerless pigeons were beaking smashed fries powdered with black.

My shoe called the attention of a shoe-shiner, who grasped my elbow.
I turned, and saw no one. After a while I realize he is about 3 ft tall.
I declined the offer,
even being aware that maybe a little shine would be becoming indeed.
He insisted, I refused again. When I looked the other way,
he stepped on my shoe and scrubbed it.

This would never take place at a mall. That’s why I do not habitually go to such places.I mean, malls.

Barbecue Suede Shoes

Up to then, the barbecue evening was quite ordinary. A small crowd was having an argument so fiercely that I judged necessary to distract my mind from such a situation. Looking at random, I saw someone washing something at the sink beside the pit. At a glance, it looked like a piece of beef.
I felt sorry, for that would probably spoil any meat.

With closer attention, I observed that the performer was not wearing one of his shoes, and the piece of meat was his boot. Then, he would tremble the boot over the cutting table, that supported some sausages. Filthy baptism.

At that point, I stop eating any meat that comes to the table. Directly protest to the the creature is my first will, but it is untimely. The guy is taller and stronger than me, and now he holds a knife. Outraged, but not for solidarity, I share my exclusive information. Among the people around me, none mind at all.
Some try, more than honestly, to convince me that it would be some sort of exotic condiment. The others relate any condemnation to the nature of the dirt that was to be removed. Isolated on my viewpoint, I kept indifferent to the fact that he would had stepped on either truffles with caviar, or shit with cockroaches.

Not much later, he was going away. A purest repulse allies to a purest curiosity, and while shaking his hand I asked. I know myself, silencing under so favourable circumstances would have mared me for times to come. I managed to make myself slightly loud so the others who had not believed me could be witnesses.

This is how he exposed his reasons. As he was manipulating the food over the grill (with some food he had previously moisted with a little spit while blowing the fire), a drop of grease fell over his suede boots. Shoe-concious cook, explained me that only a prompt washing would keep the leather unspotted.
On the rush of emergency, the sink appeared with no concorrence.

There was no sign of embarassment on neither the question, nor on the answer. The act in itself jeopardised the guts of innocent people, but the motive seemed perfectly silly and stupid, to a point that it justified the whole thing.
On the dried boot, remained no stigma.