The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken

Author:Elizabeth McCracken [McCracken, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780613163569
Publisher: Bt Bound
Published: 1996-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Meet the Tallest Boy in the World

With the money the shoe store advanced, James commissioned a new pair of pants and a shirt. The Portuguese tailor from the next town came to the cottage to take his measurements.

“Yes,” he said, looking at James. “This is the biggest challenge of my career.” His accent gave the words a jaunty pessimism. But he did good work, though he called several times to make sure that he’d got it right, that the collar would really have to be that expansive, the legs that long. “I saw him but I forget. Remind me again.”

The shoe store people were beside themselves. They took out ads in several local papers, geared toward children and their parents. MEET THE WORLD’S TALLEST BOY, 10 AM–12 PM, HYANNIS SHOES.

I offered to let him drive, but he said he was too distracted. Not distracted enough, however, that he could not criticize with his newfound knowledge of the road. I was a careful driver. Still I could hear him sputter in the back.

We got there at nine, an hour before the store opened, so that James could get settled and get his feet measured for a new pair of shoes; the old ones, he said, were hard to get on in the morning. That was the only way he could tell he’d outgrown them: the difficulty in getting them on first thing, off at night. Sometimes he slept in his shoes, he told me. Between the size of his feet and the distance they were from his arms, it was easier that way.

“Get Oscar to come over,” I said.

“Too much trouble.”

They’d decorated the front of the store with balloons, streamers. A huge shoe took up most of the window display; just like James’s, though made years before, so smaller. A middle-aged man in a suit leaned on the short brick wall that held up the shop windows.

“Jim,” he said, standing up, holding out his hand. “Hugh Peters. President of the chain.” True enough, he was wearing beautiful shoes, rich and red as porterhouse steaks. “Glad we finally coaxed you out here.”

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

You could see Hugh Peters trying his best not to notice James’s height. He shook his head and laughed. “How tall are you, exactly?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve checked,” said James. He smoothed his new shirt.

“About?”

“Eight feet two, last time I was measured.”

“But still growing?”

“So far,” said James.

“So you must be the tallest in the world by now. I mean, nobody’s eight feet tall. Am I right? Basketball players aren’t eight feet tall.”

“I don’t know,” said James. “I don’t follow basketball.”

“Well, come on in,” said Hugh Peters.

The shoe store had two doors: regular-sized and child-sized, right next to each other. “Play your cards right,” Hugh Peters said, “and we’ll put in another one for you.”

It looked just like the shoe stores of my youth: boxes stacked along the walls like a puzzle whose point was to extract what you wanted without disturbing the whole pile; slanted stools; gray metal slide measures.

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