'Dead man' finally walking in boots fit for his sole

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Karen Ashley truly cares about the customers who frequent her Wannabees Diner.

It was about 10:30 last Friday morning when a thread-thin, dishevelled man -- who had died three months ago on the floor of Wannabees Diner -- walked back into the same place.

Dragging his coat.

Later, John Shantz, a witness to what was about to become an even more remarkable event than the man's resurrection, wrote in an email: "It was hard not to notice him because his wrinkled pair of dress trousers fell off as he reached up to hang his coat."

It was the coat with the broken zipper that Wannabees owner Karen Ashley usually helps him on and off with at the diner because his hands can't work the hooks that keep it closed to the winds of winter.

But this isn't a story about a coat.

It's a story about a boot without a sole, and what it tells us about our own souls.

-- -- --

Karen isn't only the owner of the Broadway at Langside eatery, she's its only cook and server, too.

And every Monday and Friday for years, Karen has served and watched over the thread-thin man. Although during the last year, Karen has noticed to her dismay that the man -- Martin is his name -- and other men she sees from the same group home where Martin lives, aren't being cared for the way they used to be. And then last September, something happened at Wannabees. Martin choked on food and, despite attempts by a patron and a physician to dislodge the piece, Martin finally slumped to the floor. His heart had stopped.

Karen would later recall that Martin was clinically dead nine minutes before paramedics were able to pump and jolt his heart, and him, back to life.

But now, on this mid-December morning, Martin looked at her, pointed at his boots and implored: "Karen, Karen, Karen."

At first what he was trying to tell her didn't register. Then one of the customers told her.

"He has no sole in that boot."

Karen's first response was anger.

Anger at a situation where Martin had to walk the streets of Winnipeg with a bottomless boot. And anger at the people at the group home who were supposed to look after him.

"I don't care who you are, or what you're being paid," Karen told me Monday as we sat at the diner's counter. "How could you possibly send a man out with no sole on his shoe?"

But Karen also was angry at her customers' first response that morning.

"Everyone's eyes -- 20 sets of eyes -- were on me."

Karen, who has spent 20 years quietly helping neighbourhood people who walk through the door, snapped as she addressed the full house: " 'OK, everyone. Look at yourself. What are you going to do?' "

As it turned out, there was at least one customer who looked at himself -- and then looked at his breakfast -- and spoke up.

"He said, 'I can't sit here and eat my breakfast knowing this man has these boots.' "

The man's name is Steve, and he works for the city.

Karen promptly made him an offer.

If he'd go out and buy Martin a pair of new boots, she'd pay half.

Then she asked Martin what size his feet are.

"Ten or 11," Martin said.

Karen decided she better make sure. She grabbed a newspaper and traced his foot. Martin needed a size 13.

"And when he brought back the boots," Karen said, "Martin had the biggest smile."

They were a perfect fit.

While Steve the city worker was buying the boots, some customers chipped in to share the cost.

But Steve wouldn't take money.

Not even from Karen.

-- -- --

John Shantz, the man who was so moved by what he'd witnessed that he wanted others to share the feeling, had this to say in summary.

"Karen is a no-nonsense woman, one 'tough broad' if that's what the occasion demands, but every day at her business she demonstrates true compassion and community involvement in its purest, non-political sense."

Then John added something that brought tears to Karen's eyes when I read it to her.

"This Friday, in her care for a friendless and forgotten individual, she gave each of us observing, a Christmas present which won't be matched by anything that comes from under the tree."

And isn't that the way it should always be?

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 20, 2011 B1