Sneaks

A Story by stevedave4lyfe

Tale of the self-conscious glorified sneaker head.

He laced up his shoe's tightly, feeling the support that you only get out of a Nike basketball shoe. He always thought about how he put his sneakers on one at a time just like everyone else, which made him think of the faded blue jeans he had trademarked that often contrasted his fluorescent sneakers. If you could base your life off of one piece of wisdom, he had based his life off of that.
The greek goddess Nike had taken control of his entire life, pictures of Michael Jordan were plastered on all four walls of his room and the roof. In his dreams he saw Wilt the Stilt and Scotty Pippen gracefully letting go of the rim hot off of a slam dunk.

This was his livelihood.

Paycheck after paycheck he trekked to boutiques and deadstock resellers looking for the most exclusive Air Jordan basketball shoes. Concrete 3's, Phat 1's from 88, purple 5's with the little raptors on the tongue, they all satisfied his cravings but for a very short time.

His friends teased him because of his height. Only 5'3 and dreaming to be the next Jordan. He used to throw out names like Spud Webb and say that short people could play basketball too, but his friends laughed, and then laughed again when he was cut from the basketball team.

It didn't matter to him though. The next day when he walked in the school heads would turn. He had been saving up for 3 months to buy the Space Jam 11's. They reminded him of his childhood so much, and his first favorite basketball player; bugs bunny. He remembered thinking how surreal it was to see his two childhood heroes, one cartoon, one real, playing on the same team. He confessed to his mom every day after school that he would forgo the NBA when he grew up to play with the looney tunes.

His friends would say that was almost as ridiculous as him joining the NBA.

But still, he had saved up all year, and he even took the train to the city just to get these shoes. These magnificent sneakers. The shiny black layer on the outside perfectly contrasted the the white sole, and the blue tint on the bottom of the shoe made them look cold. Ice cold. He bragged to his friends and fellow sneaker heads, all of whom knew that the space jam 11 was a very sought after shoe, and had been since space jam came out in the 90's.

He walked into the store slowly as he always did, and pretended to be uninterested as he made his way to the glass case in the back. The store owners knew him and saw him the same way a hustler sees a trick, he was easy game; commission, and whoever served him was probably buying drinks for the group of a******s that ran the sneaker shop.

He looked through the glass display case in amazement.

"3rd row down, second in,"
He piped analytically

"oh the space jam Jordan's, payday or what?"

"more like the 3rd paycheck I've saved in a row"

"yeah, those Jordan's tend to kill the bank, but you'll be stylin none the less, did you wanna put these on a payment plan?" the ratty looking store clerk joked but his words had some truth; they do layaway on Jordan's.

"no, I've got the cash I think, what's the price tag, 450? Can you do 450 flat, no tax?"

"I know you're a good customer, but someone else Is gonna walk in and pay full price you feel me?"

"yeah I guess.. Ring em up then.."
He said to the store clerk, unimpressed.

500$ for shoes he thought. He clutched tightly to the box on the whole train ride home. Those were his, they defined who he was, and when he got to school no one else would have them. He got home and anxiously modeled them for his mother, who obviously wondered why and 16 year old would spend 500$ on shoes.
"don't you think you should buy a car? Ms vink's boy from the other block just bought a nice little Honda, you should stop with those sneakers and buy yourself a Honda"

Her words fell to deaf ears though, when he got to school the next day the 500$ would be well spent. Spent on the gasps and awes his friends would display at his marvelous sneakers.

He tossed and turned throughout the night, he had a weird feeling, but chalked it up as the excitement anyone who just bought the space jam Jordan's would get. He pictured celebrities and all star basketball players approaching him in shock, congratulating him on his new Nikes. The morning would follow a similar suit, he thought, with a few less celebrity appearances.

He woke up at 6 the next morning, partly because he was anxious, and partly because he had to walk to school today on the count of his mom was headed to work early. The walk was Long, and the only short cut took him though a part of town that his mother warned him about time and time again. He excitedly made his way towards downtown, ignoring his mothers warning simply because he needed to get to school as quick as possible.

The part of town where he lived was not so bad. It was a block lined with the kind of apartments you see surrounding a suburb area, not those big sky rises, but those little 3 level ones, with one bedroom and one bathroom. That's where he lived, it was home as he put it, and it could have been worse too, he knew that.

If his part of town was 'alright' then the part of town he was now in might be labelled hell by some. It was 'the ghetto' to his friends at school, and the rising gang rates in the area made walking to school alone very dangerous. His walk through went very pleasantly until a peculiar group of guys on a stoop across the street hollered at him.

"eh nice sneakers little man, I'm about a size nine too, you got an extra pair"

He chuckled and waved back at the mans deceptively friendly advances, but thought nothing of it because his mind was elsewhere.

The sidewalk on the way up to the school was not the sidewalk you would see in the typical north American town. He always thought there was a lot you could tell about a town and it's people by stuff you see on the ground and the condition of the sidewalk. Since he spent a lot of time staring at his sneakers and 'scoping out the competition' as he would have referred to it, he could tell you the detail in each crack on the oblong concrete slabs that his new sneakers pressed onto. The objects on the ground were typical; lighters, roaches, cigarette butts, and sometimes those little glass tubes that he had assumed people smoked crack through. He always hoped people at his school didn't do that kind of thing, but he was conditioned to turn a blind eye inevitably as he watched the culture envelop his friends.

The blocks seemed to get narrower as you approached the high school, and they didn't have those little border lines surrounding them that looked tidy, they just edged off to the yellow grass that had long since died on either side. The fences on each side of the road ended just before the block the school was on, which always gave him a feeling of openness as he approached the long, low staircase to the school doors.

The reactions at school weren't immediate, as he put it. A few of the seniors said 'nice sneakers', and his friends, who by then heard all about them, all had differing reactions, some preferring 'the three model' or 'the flywire', pointing at their shiny Nike's.
"Whatever man," he would reply, "these were 5 bills", as if that meant anything.

He had managed to catch the attention of a girl he had always liked, and he knew it had to have been the shoes. They gave him the confidence to ask for her number. They were the reason she wrote it on his hand. And now he sat there with her name highlighted on his phone. He pondered the things he could say to her in a text message but subsequently erased everything he had typed before hitting send.

Ring Ring

The bell rang, he looked to the clock which, to his dismay, read three on the dot.
"damn" he muttered at the end of his breath, "it's three.." he said, pointing out the obvious, coming off a little less then smooth.

He slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and followed the crowd that had almost completely emptied out of the room. He made his way to the exit and lit a cigarette as he slipped down the front stairway. The concrete slabs greeted him warmly as he tip toed down the sidewalk to the start of the fence. The walk home was long, but he was in no rush to get home, so he took the 'safe route'.

About half-way home, he split apart from his group of friends because their houses were mostly in the suburban type culdesacs on the northern end of town. This was routine but when he hopped a fence to cut across a park he noticed someone following him.
He was a bit far off at first to tell for sure, but the further into the park he got the more he began to recognize the man behind him. He periodically glanced back trying not to arouse suspicion but noticed the guy approaching even more rapidly.

He took off through the park, hoping that his new Nikes wouldn't fail him now. He ran across the next street passed the general store his friends once stole Popsicles, and now beer from. Clear across the next block and behind some apartment buildings that fed into an alley. He ducked behind a dumpster for cover.

But there he stood. He knew the guy was familiar. It was the guy from his way to school that said nice shoes. For a second he wondered what the guy wanted, but when he smiled and looked down it became painfully clear. He grabbed him by his coat and pulled him close two quick times before dropping him to the ground and frantically removing his shoes.

He lay on the ground bleeding, touching the two small piercings 5 or 6 inches apart through his once white t-shirt. His vision became fuzzy and he heard a radio playing 'I believe I can fly' as the blood steadily streamed off his chest and pooled underneath him, soaking his jacket. It could have been a radio, he thought.

He saw a documentary about near death experiences, and how when you die a chemical stimulates the cells in your brain that hold your memories; that was the reason for having your life flash before your eyes. Maybe it was Space Jam, he thought. He envisioned his 8 year old self watching Michael Jordan soar across the screen to R. Kelly's nostalgic R'N'B dribble.

"It was Space Jam," he whispered with the last of his might.

The sun went down, shrouding the alley in darkness before anyone noticed him.

That kind of thing happens....