FIND THE GOOD GUYS, CARRY THE FIRE

     by Jim Bodeen

	--for Cormac McCarthy

That’s all he had to do he told himself.
That’s what the novelist says.
Find the good guys. Nothing else mattered.
Fitting the children with shoes hadn’t disturbed him.
That was easy. It was slipping cotton socks
Over skin that had never felt anything this soft
That caused him to lose his balance.
On the last day in country they gave out shoes
To children in two country schools.
Later he heard the conversations in the van.
Shoes as toys. The kind of charity 
That got in the way of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. 
What bootstraps? He asked himself.
A father and his 13-year old son accompanied them.
The son had purchased four full-sized machetes,
With leather scabbards to take home as souvenirs. 
The machete is what campesinos use
To keep the jungle at bay.the boy had bought the machetes 
For he and his friends. There were blackberry
Bushes in their back yard, he says.
The man looking for the good guys
He watched them run, awkwardly
In their first steps, so unlike athletes on television.
Each child in the country school 
Received a pair of shoes, two pair of socks,
And a pair of shorts or panties.
Afterwards the conversation in the van
Circled around ideas of charity and giving.
Was it feel good money. 
Would it make any difference in the long run.
There was one teacher for 40-some students.
Not one bookshelf for books.
He had the photographs in his camera.
He carried all of this home along with dolls
Made of corn husks dyed in primary colors.
His grandchildren ran to him in greeting.
They wore new shoes too. Both of them under two.
Both of them knew the meaning of new shoes.
They already knew they were entitled.