On Sunday mornings, I'm typically working. Recently, regular Sunday morning customers have felt more comfortable with seeing my mug, and strike up small talks. Many are surprised that I would wear a tie to work, since it is not required of me. I explain that on Sunday mornings, I like to "shine my shoes for the Fat Lady." I also mention that I am referencing J.D. Salinger's Franny & Zooey.
After weeks and weeks of folks asking me what the hell I'm talking about, I finally put something together for one customer to read, explaining my odd reference. I'll share it with all of you. Thanks for reading.
-HVC
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"Franny was now sitting with the flat of her free hand pressed against the side of her face, like someone with an excruciating toothache.
'One other thing. And that's all. I promise you. But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right--God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection on his own terms, not anyone else's. You have no right to think about those things, I swear to you. Not in any real sense, anyway. You know what I mean?'
There was a silence. Both saw it through without any seeming impatience or awkwardness. Franny still appeared to have some considerable pain on one side of her face, and continued to keep her hand on it, but her expression was markedly uncomplaining.
The voice at the other end came through again. 'I remember about the fifth time I ever went on 'Wise Child.' I subbed for Walt a few times when he was in a cast--remember when he was in that cast? Anyways, I started bitching one night before the broadcast. Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again--all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and--I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.'
Franny was standing. She had taken her hand away from her face to hold the phone with two hands. 'He told me, too,' she said into the phone. 'He told me to be funny for the Fat Lady, once.' She released one hand from the phone and placed it, very briefly, on the crown of her head, then went back to holding the phone with both hands. 'I didn't ever picture her on a porch, but with very--you know--very thick legs, very veiny. I had her in an awful wicker chair. She had cancer, too, though, and she had the radio going full-blast all day! Mine did, too!'
'Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Let me tell you something now, buddy. . . . Are you listening?'
Franny, looking extremely tense, nodded.
'I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret--Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that yet? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me, now--don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.'
For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands.
For a fullish half minute or so, there were no other words, no further speech. Then: 'I can't talk any more, buddy.' The sound of a phone being replaced in its catch followed.
Franny took in her breath slightly but continued to hold the phone to her ear. A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, rather as if it were the best possible substitute for the primordial silence itself. But she seemed to know, too, when to stop listening to it, as if all of what little or much wisdom there is in the world were suddenly hers. When she had replaced the phone, she seemed to know just what to do next, too. She cleared away the smoking things, then drew back the cotton bedspread from the bed she had been sitting on, took off her slippers, and got into the bed. For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling."
-J.D. Salinger
(Franny & Zooey)
Up until this point in the novel, Franny & Zooey Glass have been very aloof and somewhat annoyed with each other. The youngest of a large and very bright family of children, they incur many pressures and insecurities that they feel their elder siblings did not have the challenge of enduring. Their eldest, Seymour, is the model for all the Glass children, and in a somewhat morbidly perfect turn, committed suicide while on holiday with his wife. Seymour remains the voice of conscience, reason, and faith in the lives of the entire Glass family. Franny had been unwittingly searching for Seymour's voice all throughout this novel (which only really seems to span a couple of days), and Zooey (the actor-cynic) would have been the last place we would have expected to hear echoes of Seymour's sentiments. When these last 3 pages of the novel turn though, it is just as beautiful for the reader as it seems to be for Franny.
I interpret the "Fat Lady" in many ways, but the interpretation that I think fits best with why Salinger used a Fat Lady is: I think Seymour was attempting to invoke an image of someone who would be most easily cast aside by children/folk in the circles that the Glass family ran in. The Glass children all appeared on the 'Wise Child' TV program, were extremely developed spiritually, intellectually, if not socially. A Fat Lady with cancer, sitting alone on her porch, unhygienic, with radio blaring, would surely be the hardest for the Glass children to see Christ Himself in. So Seymour reminds his siblings to do things they find patronizing for this Fat Lady--the last person they would ordinarily patronize themselves for.
In all my time as a young adult, and especially in my time with Starbucks, I have found myself most disgusted with some attitudes that often (though not necessarily) accompany embedded wealth. The sense of Entitlement, the Condescension, the Smugness, the Perpetual Adolescence, the lifestyle of Small Indulgences. I see both employee and customer actively and shamelessly engaging in these attributes. So to me, the "Fat Lady" is perhaps upper-middle class, white, overbearing, uptight, in khakis and oxfords (ladies, maybe a nice pantsuit...), on the Bluetooth, with too much discretionary money, bored with life, and subsequently patronizing every one around them, because they have been conditioned to be either incapable or unwilling to engage sincerely or authentically with their fellow man. The insincerity, posturing, and artificiality now controls their interactions, and they are unhappy when one who serves them does not enable them.
I spent my first two years with Starbucks loathing these types, making cleverly snide remarks about them behind their back, casting them out as hopeless souls I wanted nothing to do with. I wrote and wrote about why I considered them them the most needy and poor of all our fellow man, and how I could never serve them, because I was too disgusted by their oblivious nature. Well, it turns out that I was the oblivious one. This excerpt from Zooey's thoughts reminds us of a universal connectivity through Christ's universal presence. So the Fat Lady, the professor that Franny hates, the audience that Zooey hates, the upper-crust folks that disgusted me, they're all Seymour's Fat Lady, and thereby....also Christ Himself. In turn, I/We may also be another's Fat Lady--not a cross to bear, but difficult to love.
It turns out that Sundays are the days that Starbucks stores are crowded to the brim with the same folks I described earlier. Them and their families who are just like them ("...all his goddam cousins by the dozens..."). They attend their "big-box" church service, and make a post-church/pre-shopping pit stop at Starbucks. Somehow I am scheduled to work every Sunday morning/mid-day, and for a short while this frustrated me. As the only Christian Supervisor who would perhaps rather attend church, I felt I had legitimate reason to not be scheduled Sundays (see that sense of Entitlement at work?), but there I was. At some point in the last year, I recalled these words from Franny & Zooey, and they haunted me as I refused to "shine my shoes" for people I felt did not deserve it. It wasn't until I came to a class early this Spring where my instructor was dressed unusually formal. He was wearing dress slacks and a tie, as opposed to his typical cotton shorts and hawaiian shirt. He explained that he was on a hiring board, and wore slacks and tie (which, arbitrary as they are alone, were in this case symbols of status) for an interview session out of respect to the applicant. We asked him why he couldn't just be "himself." He chuckled knowingly, reminding us that one's style of dress is not a summary of one's self, and it is not patronizing nor disrespectful to wear symbols of status in certain contexts, especially when those symbols will put your fellow man at ease, and comfortable to be themselves. He reminded us that if he were instructing at a University, depending on its status, he would not be permitted to wear the cotton shorts--he would be expected to live up to particular codes of dress. And those codes of dress for instructors are designed to respect the integrity of the learning environment, the University, and of course: the student. In that moment in class, the words from Franny & Zooey came together! Mr. Watters was shining his shoes for the Fat Lady. And a moment later, it came together for me, also. I needed to shine my shoes for my Fat Lady.
So on Sundays, I wear the dress shirts & ties. And the folks who I would have ordinarily cast out as "Fat Ladies" see that I have worn a symbol out of respect for my position, for my company, and of course: for them. You wouldn't probably think so, but Sundays are much different since I have begun wearing the ties. Perhaps I have also been wearing a different attitude, but I have seen the Christ I was oblivious of before. I have seen sincerity and authenticity in folks who I had cast out as completely oblivious and artificial. And it not patronizing of them, it does not patronize me, but as a symbol (arbitrary though it is), it works to connect us in a way that we didn't have before. And as I see the Christ in them, hopefully they see Christ in me, and that is how Love & Joy are cultivated. And if part of that cultivation begins with donning a tie on Sunday mornings, then wearing that tie becomes an act of worship--something I never would have foreseen. So the ways in which we do small things to connect with who we are surrounded by, and not distract or deter them, are our ways of shining our shoes for the Fat Lady. And certainly our worship and our love would not end with the shining of our shoes; indeed, that is where our worship and our love would begin.
