“Please, a year younger for a guy is like three to five years, especially coming out of high school,” Natasha argued.
“Mmm hmm,” Adrienne hummed skeptically.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m not gonna talk about him anymore,” Natasha declared.
“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts. We have a whole weekend out here with him.”
“Out here with who?”
Adrienne laughed and playfully pushed her friend into a skateboarder, who crashed off his board and fell to the ground.
“Oh, my God. I’m sorry,” Natasha apologized, helping him back up. “Look what you made me do,” she barked at Adrienne.
“He’s all right; he’s a skateboarder,” Adrienne insisted. “He’s used to falling down, just like you’re falling for Brandon.”
“Stop it!” Natasha repeated. “It’s not like that.”
>>>
The guys observed the skateboarders perform and honestly, from a style standpoint, had no idea what they were watching. They continued to ask the spectators in the crowd what the different skateboard moves were called. All they knew was that if a skater remained on his board after his jumps, hops, flips, twists, spins and slides, then it was a good thing. The more complicated their moves, the better.
“Guys, it’s time to bull our way to the front,” Leon advised an army of young spectators surrounding them. He, Brandon and Simba had all bonded with an enthusiastic crowd of followers whom they had given Adidas gear.
Once they moved up front near the action, Brandon turned and addressed them all with his plan. “Guys, if you want to be on ESPN, just follow our lead.”
“Yeah, man, let’s do it! Beast Teeeammm!” an overzealous teen yelled.
“Yeah, but that’s only for Jay Stewart, all right?” Brandon told them.
Simba smiled. Their plan was set. “I haven’t seen Jay Stewart yet,” he said, “but you know he’s about to pop up in here soon.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a good hand for Nyjah Huston, the two-time streetboard champ from California,” an announcer’s voice boomed.
“YEEAAAAHHH!!!” the crowd roared.
The California skateboarder smiled and waved before his first performance—a smooth practice run that excited everyone inside the arena.
Brandon immediately looked at his shoes, sponsored by DC. Nyjah also wore a black baseball cap with a diamond logo and a Monster Energy drink T-shirt featuring a giant green “M” down the front.
“Is he a big-time skater?” Brandon asked the young guys around him.
“Yeah, rapper Lil Wayne loves Nyjah. That’s why Weezy wants to skateboard now.”
Brandon nodded. “Okay.”
The announcer called the next popular skateboarder.
“Ladies and gentlemen, give a big hand for Ryan Sheckler, also from California. He’s another two-time streetboard champ, with a third championship in the skate park games.”
The short twenty-something skateboarder rolled out in Red Bull-sponsored gear as the crowd continued to roar at every announcement. Brandon couldn’t make out the shoes that he wore. Maybe they were simple black Vans.
The announcer went on, “Give a big hand for Haden McKenna.”
Haden, another teenager with long, straight blond hair wore a pair of canvas Nikes and a camouflage T-shirt with a diamond logo.
The announcer introduced five more popular skateboarders before he finally arrived at the hometown favorite. “Ladies and gentlemen, from down the road in Middletown, Ohio—”
The crowd began to make noise before the announcer could even finish his introduction.
That was Leon’s cue to hype up their young army of spectators. “BEAST TEEEEAM!”
The young crowd of spectators followed his lead as planned. “BEAST TEEEEAM!”
The announcer continued, “The new prince of skateboarding is here to challenge the pros!”
“YEEAAAAHHH!!!”
“It’s JAAAY STEWART!”
Jay skated out and smiled, waving to his hometown fans. He wore a black and orange Middletown hat and a plain black T-shirt with black Vans. He didn’t look sponsored at all. Adidas had apparently picked the right guy. The only thing that stood out about Jay was his lanky height and floppy curls that careened under his hat. The kid had the heartthrob looks for sure. The young girls in the crowd loved him.
“BEEEASSSTTT TEEEAMMM!” Brandon yelled with his hands cupped in a bullhorn.
Jay Stewart heard it and looked directly at the crowd to his right. He then grinned and nodded to them.
Simba smiled back and said, “We got ’im.”
JAY STEWART
AS THE POPULAR skateboarders made their way through their practice runs, the crowd followed. Meanwhile, Brandon and his guys sought a way to close in on Jay Stewart.
“There’s too many people in here to get to him,” Simba complained. They had security at the skate park to make sure no overzealous spectators got out of hand.
“Just keep making noise. We’ll get to him,” Brandon responded calmly.
However, the Ohio-bred favorite appeared far too focused on skating to be distracted, deciding to stick close to the other skaters. That forced Brandon to adjust his strategy.
I wonder if the ESPN guys are gonna interview him, he thought. So he looked for the camera crew and Cassie Morris.
“Hey, guys, just keep doing what you’re doing. I’m gonna try something else,” Brandon told Leon and Simba.
Leon grinned. “Go ahead, man. Do what you do.”
Brandon cut through the crowd and made a beeline for Cassie Morris to see when she planned to interview Jay Stewart.
“I guess as soon as he gets a break from all this,” she told him. But there was no urgency. They had two more days of competition to interview him.
Brandon said, “It may be good to get some early comments from him in case he wins this thing, right? I mean, I could go get him for you. I just wanna make sure I can meet him.”
“You would do that?” Cassie asked in surprise.
Brandon wanted to meet the skateboarder immediately, before he could leave the building. “Sure, I can do that, as long as you guys are behind me with the cameras.”
The cameraman nodded. “You lead the way.” They all liked the kid. And with his Beast Team army, Brandon and his friends had made their day a lot more interesting.
“Cameras coming through,” Brandon yelled as they made their way into the crowd toward Jay Stewart and the other skateboarders.
>>>
“Hey, guys, ESPN wants statements from you all before the real events start tomorrow,” Brandon told the skateboarders as the camera crew stood next to him.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Nyjah Huston answered for everyone.
Brandon said, “We just need everyone to state your names before you speak.”
The ESPN cameraman chuckled. “You want an internship with us too now, kid?”
Brandon smiled and didn’t answer. All he thought about was getting next to Jay Stewart. And when Nyjah Huston stepped up first to be interviewed, Brandon seized his opportunity.
He stuck out his hand to Jay and introduced himself. “Brandon Jenkins from The Beast Team.”
Jay grinned. “Yeah, you guys were screaming like crazy. What is that?”
“That’s my group. We’re sneakerheads,” Brandon answered.
“Yeah, didn’t ESPN do a special on you guys before?” Ryan Sheckler asked.
“Yeah, that was us.”
Ryan nodded and shook his hand. “Cool.” Then he looked down at Brandon’s feet. “Man, what are they?”
“The new Derrick Roses. They’re not even out yet in stores.”
“So, how’d you get ’em?” asked one of the other skateboarders.
Brandon smiled. “I got my inside connections.”
“So, you’re working with ESPN?” Jay Stewart asked.
Aw, that’s perfect, Brandon thought. He bent the truth with his answer. “No, they
just wanted to make sure I met with you. And we have T-shirts to give you guys later.” He then pulled out his cell phone and passed it quickly to Ryan Sheckler. “Can you take a picture?”
Brandon posed with Jay Stewart, who was slightly taller, as Ryan snapped their photo.
“Let me get one with you guys too,” Brandon told Ryan and the others.
By the time he had taken five or six pictures with the skateboarders, Cassie Morris was finally ready to interview Jay Stewart.
“And here we have the hometown kid, Jay Stewart from Middletown, Ohio.”
Working his opportunity like a marketing veteran, Brandon stepped up beside Jay during his interview with Cassie, who plugged him right in.
“In case you’re all wondering what The Beast Team chants are all about, Brandon Jenkins is here with Adidas—all in support of the hometown kid from Ohio.”
Cassie pushed the microphone toward Brandon. He knew exactly what to do with it. “That’s right. Me and The Beast Team flew all the way out from Phoenix and Glendale to put Jay Stewart on our team, because he’s a beast. And we got T-shirts, hats and, of course, sneakers from Adidas. Any kind he wants.”
“Well, how about that?” asked Cassie, pushing her microphone into Jay Stewart’s face.
He was nearly speechless. He mumbled, “Yeah, thanks. Wow, The Beast Team. I don’t know what to say.”
Brandon shook his hand again on camera. “It’s all cool, man. We’ll catch up later, hang out, eat pizza and talk all about sneakers and skateboarding.” Then he flashed his shirt for the camera. “BEAST TEEEEAM!” he yelled and pumped his fist to his army.
“BEAST TEEEEAM!” the army roared back.
>>>
By the end of the first day of practice runs, everyone inside Flow Skate Park was familiar with Brandon Jenkins and The Beast Team, and plenty of kids wanted to hang out with them for pizza. So Brandon asked Michael and Daniel if they could set something up.
“You guys think we can take over a pizza joint close by and have a big skateboard party out in the parking lot?”
Daniel looked out at the teenagers swarming with excitement and anticipation and realized that there was only one answer to give. “Let’s go find a place where we can do it.”
Brandon faced the crowd. “All right, who knows of a good pizza place around here?”
Natasha looked at Adrienne and didn’t say a word. She just started laughing.
>>>
The Adidas staff followed a Columbus native to a nearby pizza shop with a caravan of cars behind them. They arrived and ordered a dozen pizzas for more than sixty people. Brandon then called Jay Stewart on his cell phone to see if he could meet them there for a special guest appearance. He had gotten the number from him earlier after taking pictures.
“Just stop in and say hi. We know you have to get ready for tomorrow, so we’re not gonna hold you too long. We just figured it’d be great if you could show up for a few minutes,” Brandon suggested.
“All right. What’s the address?”
Brandon gave him the info and announced the news: “Jay Stewart is on his way, guys!”
“YEEAAAAHHH! BEAST TEEEEAM!”
Natasha shook her head and kept grinning. It had been close to impossible for her not to talk about Brandon all day, but she had been victorious. However, that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking about him. They were all thinking about Brandon that night. How could anyone not be? He was the reason why Adidas reps had ordered nearly a hundred dollars’ worth of pizza for a crowded shop of young strangers. And they were happy to do it.
“Go ahead, Natasha, talk about him,” Adrienne teased her friend inside the pizza shop.
“Nope. I’m not gonna do it.”
“Why not? Everybody else is talking about him.”
“Talking about who?” Natasha joked again.
“Girl, you’re crazy. But all right then.”
“This kid has definitely made this trip interesting,” Daniel told Michael at their table. “And we’re only on day one.”
Michael smiled and bit into his loaded supreme. “Now we have to see what he can do with Jay Stewart, right?” he mumbled through munching his food.
Outside the pizza shop, Brandon stood with Leon, Simba and some of the other young skateboarders, all who waited anxiously for Jay Stewart’s arrival. Some of them performed skateboard tricks in the parking lot.
“You really did it today, man. Look at all of this,” Simba told his friend.
“Yeah, ESPN really came in handy,” Leon added.
Brandon heard every word, but at the moment he was more focused on Jay’s arrival. He said, “I had to do it today before everything gets serious tomorrow. They won’t let us do as much on camera tomorrow. They’ll be covering the competition. But I’m glad they let me do it today.”
“So, what’s the plan when you talk to Jay Stewart?” Leon asked him.
Brandon continued to smile. “I have a few ideas. But first I want him to feel comfortable around us.”
Speaking of feeling comfortable, Natasha felt comfortable enough to give up her day-long silence. She walked out of the pizza shop by herself and told Brandon, “You did really good today. All of you did.”
“Thanks,” the guys responded.
Brandon had figured she watched him that day, but he had no time to gloat—he had a job to do. But he was certain that he was on her mind, and he felt great about it.
Just keep doing what you’re doing, he told himself.
“How’d your day go? Did people like the giveaways?” he asked, trying some small talk.
“Of course. People always like free stuff.”
“And did they talk about your golden shoes?”
“I mean, a few girls did, but it was nothing like your shoes. You looked like a walking safari out there,” she quipped with a chuckle.
Brandon smiled. “Oh, so you were watching me.”
“I told you I would be watching you. I wanna see if you’re serious about Adidas.”
“So, how am I doing so far?”
“Like I said, you’re doing good. But we’ll see.”
Leon and Simba smiled, but stayed out of it. They saw what Adrienne saw—an obvious entanglement waiting to happen. Just then, Jay Stewart pulled up in his parents’ dark-blue Kia Sedona minivan and hopped out of the back to the crowd’s delight.
“Thanks for coming out, man,” Brandon greeted him. “These are my guys, Simba and Leon.”
They all shook hands as Natasha stood there behind them.
“Oh, yeah, and this is Natasha,” Brandon introduced her awkwardly. “She’s from Adidas.”
Natasha felt slighted. She wanted to be more significant than just some girl from Adidas. But at the moment, that’s who she was.
“And these are the crazy Beast Team fans,” Brandon introduced everyone else.
“BEAST TEEEEAM!” the crowd of skateboard fanatics roared again.
The folks inside the pizza shop, along with Michael, Daniel, Adrienne and the Adidas staff, heard all of the commotion and made their way out of the store.
“We just want to take some more pictures, Jay, and we’ll let you go home and get some rest. Then we’ll all see you later,” said Brandon.
Jay shrugged. He took dozens of pictures, shook hands and met all of the Adidas team, who spoke to his parents about sponsoring him.
“Adidas would really like to work with you guys,” Daniel explained to Jay’s parents before he and the other reps took a few pictures with them. Jay then headed back to the vehicle with his family.
“Well, good luck tomorrow, man. I’ll call you,” Brandon told him at the van.
“All right. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Jay sat inside the back of the van with his family of six. He was the oldest of two girls and one other boy.
As the Stewart family drove off, Jay’s mother said, “I really like that kid. He has a lot of spunk about him.”
Her husband nodded toward her from
the wheel. “Yeah, he does. I like him too. That’s the only reason I spoke to the Adidas guys. I’m still trying to take this all slowly and make all the right decisions for Jay.”
“So, Jay, does Brandon actually work for Adidas?” Jay’s mother asked him from her front seat. “How old is he?”
“Umm, I don’t know how old he is, but he said they’re doing an internship with Adidas.”
“That means he could be with another company next year,” his father mentioned.
Jay chuckled. “Yeah, the people at ESPN joked about him doing an internship for them.”
“Really?” his mother asked.
“Yeah, everybody seems to like him. He shared phone numbers with a lot of the skateboarders today.”
His father nodded again. “Yeah, that kid’ll be someone to watch. That’s why Adidas brought him out here. They know what they’re doing. That kid went up there and stole the show today.”
“Okay, one, two, three: BEAST TEEEAMMM!” Jay’s little sisters and brother screamed from the back.
>>>
Outside the pizza shop, the crowd was still abuzz over Jay Stewart’s brief appearance. Everyone enjoyed themselves and had something to talk about. Brandon had made it a fun day for all of them, including the pizza shop owners, who were surprised and delighted by the unexpected business.
“So, you guys like, wear different sneakers every day?” a skateboarder asked.
“Definitely. We’re sneakerheads,” Brandon answered. “Every day is a different outfit, so you have to coordinate.”
“And we can all buy Beast Team T-shirts and hats straight from you guys?”
“Yeah, Instagram us, Tweet us, Facebook us, whatever,” Leon said. He had been giving out their Beast Team information all day, despite their work for Adidas.
Simba saw Daniel walking toward them and warned, “Guys, here comes Danny.”
Leon quickly changed the subject. “Yeah, so we’ll have more Adidas gear to give out to you guys tomorrow.”
Daniel overheard that and nodded. He felt positive about his decision to take the guys on. He also understood Brandon holding his ground earlier. So he pulled him aside to talk to him in private.
The Sneaker Kings Page 9