The Sneaker Kings

by Eric McLauren

  “Okay, here we go,” he said, prepping himself. Not only were the models beginning to show up—which was a good thing—but Leon spotted Eduardo Suarez and Joseph Minsky with a whole crew of New Yorkers, who had all paid their twenty dollars to get in.

  “Shit!” Leon mumbled. He wanted no part of their business.

  THE SNEAKER KINGS ARRIVE

  BY FIVE THIRTY, the crowd had already reached the club’s capacity, and all of the fashionably late people who planned to arrive after DJ Funkmaster Flex and the NBA players were about to be gravely disappointed.

  “All right, guys, that’s it. Shut the doors,” the club owner told security. “The only people getting in now are the special-invited guests. So unless a couple hundred people leave, we’re sold out. And they can plan to do something else now.”

  Natasha read Brandon’s concern and pulled him aside again. “There’s nothing you can do about it, Brandon. Whenever you do events with limited capacity, that’s what happens. You have to get there early. The serious people know that. But trust me, you’re gonna be very satisfied with the results. We’ve sold out of nearly everything,” she informed him with a smile. “People are now buying anything left with The Beast Team name on it.”

  Speaking of which, that reminded Brandon to sell their own shoes. He snapped, “Aw, man, we need to sell our stuff before six.”

  “Well, go do it then,” Natasha said with a shove.

  Brandon grabbed Simba from their sales table, which was nearly empty. “Let’s go, man. It’s time to sell our shoes onstage.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Simba responded hastily. He kissed Jinni on her forehead and left. The guys had stashed their nine pairs of shoes inside the deejay booth so they would remember to pump up the volume for their sales show.

  “Leon, let’s go, man! It’s Beast Team showtime!” Brandon yelled into a backroom. The models were getting dressed as Leon gave them a last-minute pep talk.

  Leon turned to Brandon. “I’ll be out in a minute.” He needed to finish his talk with the models, including Adrienne and Danielle. “If anybody thinks we’re playing because we’re young, then that’s on you. Young people are getting money now. That’s what we’ve been doing at sneaker shows all over the country—Miami, D.C., Chicago, Houston, Detroit. But you guys didn’t know us then. Now you do.

  “But some people still want us to prove it. And that’s what we plan to do,” he said. “So this is an opportunity for all of you. And we’re gonna be our own company with a budget soon. So if you don’t sign with anyone else, you can sign right here with us to model. Right, Danielle?”

  All eyes flashed to the youngest beauty in the room as Danielle grinned nervously. Her heart nearly jumped into her throat, but it was too late to back down. Leon had put her on the spot, like a lead scorer facing a penalty kick to win the game in overtime. So, Danielle stepped up and kicked the ball into the net.

  She pointed to her baby T-shirt with her thumbs and said, “Yeah, it’s The Beast Team.”

  “And she’s just a baby with a national name in soccer already,” Leon told them. “She even designed our T-shirts. She’s a beast right now at sixteen.” He paused for a minute to let the models think about it. “If you don’t believe me, then get her poster—if they haven’t sold out. Now let me go sell my sneakers while you get ready.”

  As soon as he stepped out of the room, Adrienne chuckled. “Well, y’all heard that. So just do it then.”

  He almost got me ready to jump up onstage, Adrienne admitted to herself.

  Danielle stood there, terrified. She had never felt that nervous before in her life. Soccer had been easy for her. But listening to Leon putting her on the spot like that—in front of a whole room of beautiful college girls—had turned her into a nervous wreck. Nevertheless, she accepted the challenge and didn’t want to disappoint the team.

  >>>

  Leon walked out from the backroom and into the deejay booth to help carry out their nine boxes of sneakers as the deejay played the NBA game song That Power by Will.I.Am.

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!”

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!”

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!” the guys screamed in succession to get everyone’s attention.

  They hit the center stage right as Amar’e Stoudemire, J.R. Smith and Raymond House walked in.

  The deejay announced, “It’s about that time for The Beast Team to do their thing with nine pairs of classic kicks. Are ya’ll ready for that?”

  “YEEAAH! BRING IT ON! WHAT THEY GOT?” a fan yelled from the crowd.

  Leon stepped up front and pulled out the first shoe from a Jordan box.

  “We got a pair of Jordan Bin 7s, size eleven!” Simba yelled.

  “Who got five hundred on it?” Brandon asked.

  “I got six hundred!” Eduardo Suarez hollered from their right, waving money.

  Oh, shit! Leon panicked. What is he doing? If they buy all our sneakers up, I’m giving them all their money back. He’s not even a true sneakerhead!

  Leon couldn’t concentrate after seeing that.

  Someone else yelled from the back of the crowd, “I got six fifty!”

  Okay, what if they’re just running up the price? Leon thought. But then they’ll say they helped us make more money. SHIT!

  Then it was Joseph’s turn. He screamed out from their left side, “I got seven!”

  FUCK ME! Leon panicked. They were definitely strategizing.

  Brandon and Simba had no idea what was going on.

  “Seven hundred it is. Sold!” Leon yelled. He wanted to keep the price down in case they had to give the money back. He even tried to put the shoe back inside the box.

  “I got seven twenty-five!” someone yelled from the middle of the crowd.

  “Let me see the money!” Leon yelled back.

  “What are you doing?” Brandon whispered to him. “Let them keep bidding.”

  Leon ignored him and pressed the issue. “Let us see the money.”

  They had the security guards to pass the money forward. Leon counted out seven hundred and twenty-five dollars onstage.

  “All right. Sold!” He passed their first box of sneakers to the security guard to hand them to the buyer. But Leon had no idea if the guy was with Eduardo and the rest of them. There were too many people inside the room to know who was who.

  Natasha and Jinni watched and listened from their sales table near the entrance and couldn’t believe it. Neither one of them had ever seen the guys selling sneakers before. The trade appeared more lucrative than a lot of people in the room could imagine. And the younger sneakerheads were loving it! They imagined themselves making that kind of money one day, but some of the parents thought it was irrational.

  “Are you kidding me?” a middle-aged mother questioned from the side. “They don’t have anything better to do with their money?”

  Leon opened up two boxes of Jordans and pulled out a white shoe and a black shoe, both with gold trim.

  “We got a Jordan GMP pack, size twelve!” Simba announced.

  “Who got six hundred on these?” Brandon asked.

  Heads and eyes bounced around the room to see who would bid first.

  “For both of them?” a tall man asked from the back. He looked like a baller himself. Leon was happy Eduardo and Joseph had left it alone.

  “It’s a pack,” Brandon answered.

  “Aw’ight, I got six hundred for that,” the tall man responded.

  “I got six fifty, right here,” a short guy up front countered.

  Aw, here we go again, Leon thought. He still couldn’t tell if they were all working together with Eduardo to raise the prices.

  As soon as the short guy gave his money to the security guard, another guy hollered from the left, “I got seven right here! Box ’em up!”

  “We already got the six fifty, man. Bid on the next one,” Leon said.

  “Wait a minute, this is an auction, right? I had to count my money out to make sure. What, y’all don’t want no money?” />
  Brandon stepped up and said, “Yeah, he’s right. He’s the highest bidder, Leon. So he gets the shoes. That’s our rules.”

  Leon told himself, Aw’ight, to hell with it! If they wanna play that game, then watch this.

  He shrugged and asked the crowd, “Anybody got seven fifty? I was trying to keep it nice in here. But if y’all wanna spend money like that, then let’s spend money.”

  “Aw’ight, I got eight hundred then. Wrap ’em up for my little cousin,” a big man on the right offered.

  A mom in the audience screamed, “Oh, my God! This is ridiculous! I could pay my rent with that.”

  Paul smiled at the mom and said, “It’s New York. Everything is inflated here.”

  Marcus stood there and became more envious by the second. He mumbled, “Those shoes aren’t worth that much. What are they doing?”

  The true sneakerheads in the room realized that something was amiss, but there was nothing they could do about it. It was The Beast Team’s event, and they ran the show. So when the better sneakers came out, the prices got even higher, eliciting shrieks of disbelief and groans from the crowd as the individual bids climbed higher than a thousand dollars a pair.

  Leon looked into the crowd with expectations of having to pay back a heavy bill as Eduardo Suarez continued to smile at him.

  Shit! They got me! Leon thought to himself. I’m gonna have to figure this out.

  >>>

  In the backroom with the models, Brandon and Simba were jumping up and down.

  “Man, that was crazy! We made almost six thousand dollars!” Simba shouted.

  Brandon was more thoughtful of the models, who were not making anything. They were all doing it for fun and the exposure. So he wasn’t as boastful about the money part, though he was excited.

  “Yeah, that was ah … something special,” he agreed with Simba.

  Leon was uncharacteristically mum. Their normal shoe auction had been rigged. But the show had to go on, so he took a deep breath and said, “All right, let’s get it popping. Everybody’s here now—Amar’e, J.R., Kyrie, Kemba and DJ Funkmaster Flex just walked in. So let’s go!”

  The models started buzzing and perking up while taking deep breaths to calm their nerves. With so much energy and money being spent, they knew they had to perform their best.

  “All right, so DJ Flex got the list of names and teams, and he’s gonna call each one of you to walk out,” Leon instructed. “Then you hit your spots on the left and right sides of the stage during your introductions. Once we finish with that, you’ll walk back out each time with a new pair of sneakers. Simba, you got the sneaker list to read. And we’ll update the list as we go along.”

  Leon then looked at Adrienne. “We have to keep them moving—left, right, left, right, in height order. And Simba, make sure you see the shoes before you announce anything. You got that? So get the microphone from the deejay booth.”

  Brandon listened to all of that and was stunned. Leon was running the models like a ten-year pro. But Brandon had no idea what else was on his friend’s plate.

  He asked Leon, “So, what do you want me to do?”

  “Go talk to the sneaker companies,” Leon said. “We haven’t spent enough time with them today. So, make sure you let them know that we appreciate them and look forward to working with them again—soon.”

  Brandon nodded. “That’s a good idea. Let me go do that now before the music gets too loud.” And off he went.

  Danielle eyed Leon again inside the room and was definitely smitten. He looked older and more attractive with his hair grown out. And she couldn’t tell who was in charge anymore— Leon or Brandon. But she knew it wasn’t Simba.

  Leon took a deep breath and looked right at her. “Danielle, I want you to walk the NBA players onstage when they introduce them. That’s all I want you to do.”

  Danielle looked confused. “You mean, you don’t want me to walk out with any shoes? I was looking forward to that.”

  “Well, now you can look forward to walking out with ballers,” Leon told her. “We had an even number of ten girls practicing all week, and I don’t want confusion out there. So, we’re gonna set you up at your own table to sign your posters again—the sexy one.”

  Danielle was speechless. She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t prepared like the other girls. She had been nervous about modeling anyway, and Leon was essentially letting her off the hook.

  “All right,” she groaned.

  DJ Funkmaster Flex made introductions.

  “This is the one and only DJ Funkmaster Flex in the house. Y’all know what it is. I’m coming to you live and direct at The Sneaker Kings of New York City Jump Off, Chapter One—a Beast Team Promotion. Are y’all ready for this?”

  “YEEAAHH!” the crowd roared.

  “First of all, is Harlem World in the building?”

  “YEEAAHH!”

  “Is the Boogie Down Bronx in the building?

  “YEEAAHH!”

  “Is Brooklyn in the house?”

  “YEEAAHH!”

  On and on he went, hyping up the crowd before he finally called out the models as he played Drake’s catchy song Fancy.

  “From Queens, New York, wearing Brooklyn Nets black and white, welcome to the stage, Meah Ashford—”

  “YEEAAHH!”

  The walk-outs continued, with one model after the next, as the crowd continued to go crazy and get their money’s worth.

  WRAPPING UP

  THE SNEAKER COMPANIES and NBA stars got the last word of the evening with their shoes being showcased by sexy young women onstage, while the crowd lost their minds for each pair. And Danielle Lyles cheered up significantly after walking Amar’e Stoudemire, J.R. Smith, Kyrie Irving and Kemba Walker onstage as young guys hooted, hollered and begged her to sign her Lady Gaga-flavored posters.

  As expected, Jacqueline Fernandez earned her superstar status, showing off the biggest smile, the best moves and the most swagger. She forced Leon to consider locking her down with a payment for their next show, as long as she didn’t brag about it to the other girls.

  After the model showcase and featured shoes, the open floor became a madhouse of final sales activity, as everyone tried to pull off their last-minute deals.

  “How much you want for these?”

  “I’ll give you three hundred.”

  “What would you trade me for these?

  Without an endorsement deal of his own, J.R. Smith felt left out of the action. “Man, I need to find me a shoe deal. I should have done a shoe deal like D-Wade when I was in China. You ready to be my agent, Ray?” J.R. joked to Raymond House.

  Raymond smiled and kept his cool. “Just let me know when.”

  Not far from the signing tables, the Nike rep at the corner booth made Brandon a promise. “We’ll definitely be in touch with you guys. I loved everything you guys did here today. It’s cutting edge and fabulous. And I’m gonna call our corporate offices first thing Monday morning to let them know we have some new young friends in New York.”

  Brandon smiled and said, “We can take this on the road too. It’s not just New York. We’re not even from here. We’re from Arizona.”

  The Nike rep took him seriously. “Okay. I’ll let them know.”

  Back at the Beast Team sales table, Jinni and Natasha were overwhelmed with the final sales of Beast Team gear. Simba had rejoined them to help out.

  Jinni looked at her college boyfriend with new respect. “Wow, you guys were great up there.”

  Natasha grinned. Jintana had no idea who and what she was dealing with.

  As Leon moved toward them at the sales table, there was no way he could avoid Eduardo and Joseph. So he sought them out.

  “All right, what you want back from me?” he asked them directly.

  Eduardo shook his head and waved him off. There were far too many people in the room for that kind of discussion. “Hey, man, we’ll talk to you about it. Just enjoy yourself. Congratulations!”


  Leon was ready to argue his point, but Eduardo faded into the crowd with his crew of New Yorkers surrounding him. So Leon backed off.

  “Shit,” he grumbled again as Eduardo headed for the door. Like he had guessed, they weren’t interested in buying sneakers. Only three of them carried new shoe boxes.

  Meanwhile, Brandon walked into a conflict of his own.

  David Terry asked, “Hey, man, you think you can get me and my cousins a pair of shoes and a couple of T-shirts?”

  “You should have asked me that earlier,” Brandon replied. “I think we may have sold out of all our T-shirts.”

  “I mean, from Nike and Adidas and them. Just ask them if you can have a couple,” David suggested casually.

  “They’re selling those. They’re not giving them away.”

  “Well, how ’bout giving us some sneakers then?” David persisted. He obviously wanted to come away with something.

  Brandon didn’t have any sneakers left to offer. He didn’t know what sizes David’s cousins wore or what kind of sneakers they would want. And he would have to buy them all. So he said, “I’ll tell you what. Write down what you want and what sizes, and I’ll see what I can do when we wrap things up. But I still have too much to do right now to think about that.”

  David grinned and extended his hand for a shake. “My man,” he told Brandon.

  Brandon smiled and said, “No problem.”

  Brandon took a few steps away and bumped into David’s Uncle Rudolf, a middle-aged and bearded man of medium height and build.

  “Damn, all this for sneakers. And my nephew can’t make a dime? This shit ain’t right.”

  Brandon didn’t know how to respond. It was frustrating for those who hadn’t made any money. But that’s how it always went at sneaker events.

  “Well, at least he got to meet and talk to the NBA guys. Now he knows what he can look forward to in four years. He just has to stay focused on it.”

  “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say. You can stay focused while making money,” David’s uncle argued. “But my nephew can’t make a dime,” he repeated. He was stuck on his point.