Photography by Whitney Curtis
Shining Shoes
Levert Johnson’s been shining shoes at the airport for 27 years. He remembers the days people dressed up to travel. Now, his customer base is narrower, mainly suits, but cosmopolitan. “I’ve met people from Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Alaska—anywhere you can imagine. I just shine and let them initiate the conversation. Usually, it’s sports. I shine women’s shoes about 5 percent of the time. The secret to a good shine? This rag right here is a cloth rag. You need that—and a lot of experience. And the main thing? Like what you’re doing. You’ve gotta like it to be good. Some people just want to learn how to do it theirselves. They ask, ‘What’s best for this?’ and ‘What kind of brush do you use?’ The shoes come in looking pretty ratty. The biggest challenge? Elephant skin and stingray. Elephant, oo-weee! That skin is so tough. You basically aren’t really doing nothing but, like, conditioning it. But it’s gonna be around when you’re gone.”
Shuttling Passengers
Chris Doerhoff works at GO BEST Express, which shuttles hordes of conferencegoers downtown every day. “We’ve seen everything from the Turtle Survival Alliance and the Chihuahua Club of America to Dada Bhagwan Guru Purnima. COGIC was big—the Church of God in Christ. But our busiest was Nerium International—anti-aging stuff. We moved close to 1,800 people in one day. It’s a great job—we get paid to people-watch! Once, some guy dressed up as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean to pick up his family. We asked him why, and he said, ‘’Cause my family likes it.’ And we’re right next to oversize baggage, so we get to see all the cats and dogs. We keep a pair of scissors to clip the little zip ties on their crates, because their people want to pet them right away. And we let ’em run around back here behind the desk.”
Boosting Spirits
The James S. McDonnell USO—voted the nation’s best last year—is a lot of new recruits’ first experience in the military, and it offsets basic training nicely: a movie theater with cushy lounge chairs; a gaming area with an Xbox 360; a cyber café; a dark, quiet room lined with beds; free snacks (Slim Jims go fastest) and personal-care products. (“ChapStick!” exclaims a young man who’s heading to Fort Leonard Wood to study advanced weaponry.) Many of the volunteers are Gold Star mothers or fathers who lost their own sons or daughters, yet come in every week to pep up and encourage other young men and women. One soldier decided to propose to his girlfriend here—she was flying home from a deployment. “Did you bring her flowers?” the volunteers asked. He looked at them blankly, eyes glazed with panic. They ran to a gift shop for roses.
