The narrator feels haunted by a pair of combat boots that were left behind after a boy committed suicide. The boots remain where the boy last left them and have begun angrily yelling at the narrator. Through reading news reports, the narrator learns that the boy jumped from a railroad trestle into the river after changing his mind too late. The boots accuse the narrator of being the one who was supposed to die by suicide instead. Now, the narrator is wearing the boots and being led to the railroad trestle to jump into the river, hoping this will silence the angry boots.

1. The Dead Boy’s Boots
I am being haunted by the dead boy’s boots. They just won’t shut up and leave me
alone. The boy himself is dead and gone and he sure as hell doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t
care about me or the boots or anything else that has gone unwanted or unclaimed.
Still, the boots keep yelling. I am not at all surprised that they’re angry. They are combat
boots, after all. They don’t have any strange ethereal quality, either. They are decidedly dull,
and quite boringly real. They are a rough, black leather, permanently fixed in the shape of his
feet, with worn treads.
They started yelling at me from the spot where he had last left them, in that scrub
wasted parking lot, under the railroad trestle that spans the river. I passed by his things every
day. He left his backpack, socks, boots, and a half-empty can of Coke.
At the time I had no idea of who owned them, or why they were there. The police tape
was a grimy, dirty yellow. It flapped in the dusty wind like a triumphant banner. For the first few
days his things went untouched. They reminded me of listless, lonesome sentinels. I got the
feeling that they were trying to get used to the idea of being abandoned by someone they
loved.
I took the Coke can first. I dumped the last of it into the curling grapevine that twisted
itself amongst the rubble. I turned it in for a nickel deposit. No one cared.
As the days went on, I noticed that some daring soul had gone through his backpack. It
was opened, violently upended, spare socks strewn over the debris of cigarette butts and
broken glass. Oddly, the boots remained stolid and silent for three more days.
It seemed that they were accusing me of some horrible transgression of which I was
wholly unaware. They seethed at me. They glared. The next time I saw them, those damned
boots had crossed the lot, tucking themselves into the shadow of a delicately arched abutment
which ran parallel to the outdated metal support beams of the trestle. They were staring at the
whickering plastice tape below the column that led to the top of the railroad tracks. That’s
when they started yelling.
By then I knew who the dead boy was. I read about him in the papers. It was a sad death
by suicide. He had left his few possessions on the ground before he went up and out over the
turgid water and jumped. The only problem was at the end. He screamed to be saved while the
swirling current was drowning him. He was carried to the nexus of the Chenango and
Susquehanna Rivers, where he was caught under the clotted reeds. He had changed his mind at
the very last, and by then it was too late.
The socks became soaked, moldy from the rain. I took the backpack home. No one
seemed to mind. No family member came to claimthem. No police took his few meager things
away as evidence. I became petrified of the godforsaken boots. They were so loud that I had to
muster my courage to touch them. They wanted my attention. They shamed me.

2. I know now why they turned their harsh hatred toward me. It was supposed to have
been me. I was the one who had been suicidal. I was always fascinated with the idea of
drowning myself. It was me who was supposed to die. They told me so. Over and over again,
they accused me.
I’m wearing them right now. The heavy, dead weight of them are crunching on the fallen
leaves. These rugged boots are walking me down the wasted path toward the pylons. They told
me to climb.
I will cut my hands on that crumbling, rusty ironwork bridge. I will jump into that brown,
murky water. I will leave his boots on. The combat boots will finally stop their incessant wailing
when they are finally reunited with the dead boy whom they love and miss so much.