The Sneaker Kings

by Eric McLauren

  Brandon was speechless. How could an eighteen-year-old college freshman respond to that, especially after making nearly six thousand dollars onstage let alone the money they would make from the door and selling Beast Team paraphernalia? Brandon and his guys had just hit the lottery, with much more to come. Their future looked as bright as the sunshine at the beach. So nothing he could say at that moment would hold any weight with David’s uncle.

  “I’ll ah … talk to him about it. But I got a lot of people in here to deal with now,” Brandon stammered and quickly walked away. That’s gonna be a problem, he told himself. David and his uncle are gonna keep asking us for things that they can’t have. And it’s not my fault, but I don’t want to mess up the kid’s future.

  Marcus Graham watched Brandon move through the room while standing near Paul. And the tall Arizona native thought desperately of some ideas of his own.

  “I guess you can say this was a huge success,” Marcus told Paul.

  Paul grinned and remained low-key as usual. He hadn’t ventured near the spotlight at all. “They put in the hard work to make it happen. These guys have been working a long time towards something like this. You know how long Brandon’s been into shoes—since you guys were in middle school.”

  Marcus nodded and looked Paul over. He looked more ragged than he did the last time he had caught up to him in Glendale. “I guess you still haven’t found a new team yet.”

  Paul shrugged, tired of talking about it. “Either it’ll happen or it won’t.”

  “So, when do you fly back to Arizona? I’m not leaving until Monday,” Marcus mentioned.

  “I leave on Wednesday. We have unfinished business to take care of first,” Paul said.

  Marcus smirked. “Yeah, I guess so,” he quipped. And I don’t get a penny of it.

  There were hundreds of conversations going on around the room, including one between Danielle and her parents.

  “I think I might want to do this full time,” she told them.

  “What?” her mother responded with concern. She was not as supportive of the whole sneakerhead thing or her daughter modeling for a room full of ravenous boys as her husband had been, but she had gone along with it.

  “I mean, soccer has never made me feel this way. And I can make so much more money here,” Danielle argued.

  Her little sister cracked a smile. She could sense a dramatic debate about to happen.

  Their father said, “Of course you’re gonna feel that way after just stepping off of the stage. But give yourself a few weeks to settle down and think it over.”

  “Absolutely not,” her mother snapped. “We’ve put too much time and effort into your soccer career for you to do one modeling event and be ready to throw it all away. No! You didn’t even get to perform onstage there with the other girls.”

  “That’s because I wasn’t ready yet. They’ve all been practicing.”

  “And that’s my point, Danielle. You’ve been practicing soccer, not modeling. So to think you can just jump up there and compete with those girls is insane.”

  “Well, I’m already down with The Beast Team and they’re not. So, I already have a leg up on those girls,” Danielle boasted.

  Her mother looked insulted. “Danielle, they’re kids. You can’t bank on that. They can be hot today and not tomorrow. Then what?”

  Before Danielle could respond, a boy approached her with her sexy poster in one hand and a black permanent marker in the other. “Um, excuse me, can you sign my poster?” he asked her bashfully. He was as nervous as Danielle had been before she stepped onstage. She knew the feeling and empathized.

  “Sure, come here.” She led him over to a nearby table where she could sign her name against something stable. “Are you gonna hang it up on your wall?” she asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said, grinning.

  Danielle laughed. She was tickled. “And will your mom tell you to pull it down?”

  The boy paused and thought about that. “I hope not.”

  “Well, I hope not too. And I’ll be proud to be up on your wall.”

  “Okay,” the boy gushed before heading off.

  Danielle’s sister heard everything and loved it, but her mother hated it.

  “That’s just teaching more boys to idolize sex,” their mother barked. She had been waiting to say that for weeks, ever since she saw the pictures of her sixteen-year-old daughter’s private parts being covered by nothing but colorful sneakers.

  “Well, that’s gonna happen anyway, honey,” Mr. Lyles insisted. “There’s no getting around that. We have a gorgeous daughter. So you have to learn to get used to it and deal with it.”

  Not far from where the Lyles family stood, the Stewarts were having their own conversation. “Wow, we really chose the right guys, didn’t we?” Jay’s father commented. “Imagine if they hosted an entire skateboard event. I think these guys could pull that off.”

  “Yeah, they could probably pull off anything,” Jay agreed. “I can’t wait to see what they come up with to promote my shoes.”

  “Well, we can talk to them about it at breakfast tomorrow,” his mother suggested. Meanwhile, his sisters and brother continued to run around the room, enjoying all of the hyper sneaker activity. They had never seen so many people act that crazy about sneakers.

  >>>

  By eight thirty, most of the sneaker crowd had departed, leaving the nightclub staff to move around the few sneaker people who lingered as they cleaned up the mess from the day’s event.

  “Man, what a night, what a night, what a night,” Adrienne repeated from her chair.

  “You can say that again,” Tarun agreed. “I made a whole lot of contacts with the vendors and the basketball players to design new logos.” He even carried his long black sketchbook.

  “Can I see your sketches?” Jinni asked him, sitting next to Natasha.

  Tarun handed her his book while they all waited on Brandon and his team to handle their business in the back office with the club owner.

  “I think my arms are sore from counting money all day,” Natasha said.

  “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Adrienne retorted.

  Natasha grinned. “Definitely.”

  Marcus remained silent, peeking occasionally at the money box. He couldn’t help but wonder how much was in it.

  I helped him start this, he continued to remind himself. And I got nothing from it but an autographed pair of Melos. I wonder how much they would be worth if I sold them now.

  Meanwhile, Brandon, Simba and Leon stood in the back office with the club owner, security, Amar’e, Raymond and Paul. They were all counting the door money. A small money machine counted a table full of twenty dollar bills as they watched. Piles of ones, fives, tens and a smaller stack of fifties and hundreds waited. But the stack of twenties made the biggest pile.

  “You guys did some good business out there tonight,” Amar’e said.

  Paul grinned, satisfied with his strong recommendation. “I told you.”

  “So, you’ll let us do it again in November? You know they’re gonna be ready for the next one now,” Leon spoke up before Brandon.

  Amar’e paused. “I don’t do this every day, fellas. Y’all know how I make my money.”

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t hurt to back a new stream of it when it’s a good and honest hustle,” Raymond interjected. “These young guys just made a hell of an impression on New York, and the goal is to sign a Beast Team licensing deal that’s worth something. Remember how big Marc Eckō was when he first came out? Rocawear, FUBU, Sean John, Phat Farm, Baby Phat. The numbers are all there—Under Armour and more.”

  Amar’e spoke cautiously. “I’m not saying yes, but I’ll think about it.”

  “Yeah, you probably get people who ask you to do stuff every day,” Brandon added. “I understand. We just thank you for helping us out this first time.”

  “Especially with us thinking about having it at a place that only held a couple thousand people,”
Simba said with a chuckle.

  “A couple thousand people?” the security man repeated. “We sent more than a thousand away from the door tonight.”

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t want to do it at a place that small, unless nobody knows about it,” the club owner agreed. But he was more focused on counting the money. Once he finished, he gave them the total. “Sixty-seven thousand six hundred and eighty.”

  The room went silent for a second before Leon laughed. “Wow, we were that close to seventy.”

  “You want me to count it again?” the owner asked. It took him nearly thirty minutes to count it all up the first time. They had to sort the money out in the open first to keep it all honest.

  “Nah, I’m good with sixty-seven,” Leon quipped. He didn’t want to stand around for another thirty minutes just to check.

  The owner nodded. “So, Amar’e, you get fifteen of this, and that leaves you guys with fifty-two and six eighty. Is that good enough for you?”

  Simba smiled. “We’ll take that.”

  Everyone broke out laughing.

  The owner said, “Now surely you guys don’t want to walk around New York with fifty-two thousand dollars in cash on ya, so I’m gonna write you a check tonight, and we’ll walk it into the bank together on Monday morning.” He looked at Amar’e to approve the deal.

  “Yeah, I already told them. That’s why Paul is staying in town for a couple extra days until the money clears,” Amar’e stated.

  The owner nodded and pulled out a long black binder of business checks. “All right, who do I make the check out to?”

  “The Beast Team,” Brandon said.

  “You guys made more money at your table tonight, right?” he asked them before he wrote.

  “Fifty-six from our shoes and sixty-two something from our table,” Brandon answered.

  The owner stopped writing and looked up in surprise. “Fifty-six thousand?”

  Brandon smiled and chuckled at it. “Fifty-six hundred.”

  “Oh, and sixty-two hundred?” the owner clarified. “I was about to say, ‘What kind of fucking shoes are you selling?’ ”

  They all laughed again.

  “So, you’re fine with that eleven, twelve thousand on ya? That’s still a lot of money for sneakers. But I can add some of that to this check if you want.”

  Brandon shook it off. “Nah, we have to split it up anyway.”

  “Yeah, and then you have to pay the rest of your team, right? And the models and all of that shit?” the owner assumed.

  “Not the models,” Leon told him. “They get our promotion package.”

  “Promotion package? You hear this guy? You guys are that good, huh?” the owner joked.

  “No, if we promote them, then they’re good,” Simba boasted.

  The owner finished writing out the check and handed it to Brandon, who looked at it with Leon and Simba before he handed it to his uncle.

  “If my uncle loses it, you can write us another one on Monday, right?” Brandon asked.

  The owner paused. “You would need to call me first so I can cancel it.”

  Paul chuckled. “I’m not gonna lose it.”

  “Well, let me get back out here and get this floor cleaned up. So, you guys call me first thing Monday morning, and we’ll get this check taken care of.”

  >>>

  Before the guys walked back into the office hallway, they stopped to discuss how much they wanted to offer everyone for helping.

  “I mean, we can give them each three hundred dollars for the day. That’s good,” Leon suggested with a shrug.

  “I’ll give Jinni five hundred, with two hundred of my own.”

  “Yeah, five hundred is better for the girls,” Brandon agreed. “They did a lot more. And they helped us with the model rehearsals.”

  Leon nodded. “Okay, that’s true. But do we want to give Tarun and Marcus three hundred? Did they earn that? Tarun was walking around all night trying to find people to do logos for.”

  Brandon stuck to his decision. “It’s not gonna kill us to give them three hundred. Tarun did a great logo for us, and Marcus flew all the way out here from Arizona.”

  “We didn’t ask him to do that,” Leon argued.

  “Let’s just pay him anyway, man. Or I’ll pay him out of my own money,” Brandon suggested.

  “All right, you do that then,” Leon agreed.

  When the guys finally walked out and explained their breakdown of payments, everyone seemed to be fine with it.

  “We can’t make five hundred dollars anywhere else that easily,” Natasha quipped.

  Marcus smiled while keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “How ’bout this? If you guys are hungry, which you should be, we can all go out to eat and we’ll pay for that too. Then we can go to the movies if you want,” Brandon suggested.

  “But you’re buying your own popcorn at the movies, ’cause that shit is expensive,” Leon snapped. “Unless you get the kid pack. That’s the best deal they got.”

  >>>

  The gang stopped back at NYU’s campus to change clothes, drop off their things and hide their money. Then they headed out to eat at a Thai restaurant in Times Square and after that, to the movie district. By the time they left the movies, it was after one in the morning.

  “Are you guys okay taking the train back home this late?” Brandon asked Natasha and Adrienne. He really wished Natasha could stay over, but he didn’t want Adrienne traveling back to New Jersey by herself that late at night.

  Natasha grinned and shook her head. “Why do you keep asking us that? It’s Saturday night in New York, Brandon. There’s gonna be plenty of people on the train with us.”

  “I just ask you because I care.”

  “Awww,” Natasha cooed and kissed his lips.

  Adrienne smirked and turned away. “Mushy,” she mumbled.

  “What, you want one too, Adrienne?” Leon joked.

  Adrienne looked at him hard. “I’m not one of your models,” she huffed.

  “You could have been.”

  Once Natasha and Adrienne left, Marcus was ready to make his own exit. “Well, guys. My hotel is down here. I hear you’re doing a big breakfast tomorrow,” he mentioned.

  Brandon paused. He hadn’t invited Marcus. “Who told you that?” he asked him.

  “Your uncle.”

  “Yeah, well, we need to wrap up a few conversations with The Beast Team parents. They didn’t really get a chance to talk to us today. So, that’s for like, just us three,” Brandon told him. Marcus was not a part of their inner circle, so Brandon planned to tell his uncle not to share so much information with him. Obviously, Marcus was prying.

  Marcus got the point and backed off. “Well … if I don’t see you guys at all tomorrow, then … I’ll guess I’ll see you at Chapter Two,” he hinted.

  Brandon never responded to him. Instead, they headed back toward NYU’s campus.

  “So, he wants to be in with you guys pretty bad, huh?” Tarun commented as they walked.

  Brandon nodded. “Yeah, but … I was never really friends with him; we just went to middle school together. But since he bought my first pair of sneakers way back in the seventh grade, he kind of feels like he started The Beast Team or something. But I didn’t really start it until freshman year of high school. And a lot of people thought we were crazy. It wasn’t that cool at first. And he had already moved away by then.” And I just don’t trust him, Brandon thought.

  >>>

  When they made it back to campus, Brandon and Tarun returned to their room, Leon made a phone call, and Simba walked Jinni back to her dorm, wanting badly to talk to her in private.

  “So, ah … you’re going in to bed?” Simba asked Jintana out in front of her building.

  She frowned, as if it were obvious. “Yeah, it’s almost two o’clock.”

  “You’ve been out later than that with your girls before.”

  “Yeah, and when we get back, I go to bed.”

  “You
know my roommate went home this weekend,” Simba mentioned.

  “Yeah, you told me that several times already.”

  “Well, I was thinking you might want to stay over,” he stated boldly. He had been waiting all night to ask her that.

  “No, I don’t,” Jintana told him flat out.

  “Well, why not?”

  “You already know why.”

  “Well, we don’t have to do anything, Jinni; I just want your company, that’s all.”

  She looked in his eyes to read him and didn’t trust the feelings that she had. “Not tonight. You’re gonna be too tempted.”

  “I’m not,” he insisted.

  His sudden forcefulness made her more skeptical. “Have you been talking to Leon?”

  “Stop asking me that. No,” Simba snapped. “I have my own mind.”

  “I don’t like how you’re talking to me,” Jintana complained.

  Simba shook his head and exhaled. This is impossible! Why do I feel so lonely, even though I have a girlfriend?

  “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me.”

  “Why? I’ve only known you for a month. It’s not even October yet.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve been hanging out like, every day.”

  Jintana paused. “I didn’t know that was a problem for you.”

  “It’s not a problem. But I don’t want you to keep feeling like you need to stay away from me at certain times. I mean, you do this a lot.”

  “Because I know when things can happen, and I told you, I’m not gonna do that. And tonight is one of those times.”

  “Well, it’s also a time when I feel like I really want to be with you. I mean, that’s what going out is all about, so you don’t feel all alone, right?”

  “I don’t feel alone at all. I’ve had a good day today. A great one,” Jintana told him. “You’ve had a great day too. You made a bunch of money. You had a lot of people who came out to your event. We had a good Thai dinner. We all went out to the movies together. We did a lot of fun things today.”

  “All right, forget it,” Simba huffed. He didn’t even want a goodbye kiss anymore.

  Jintana was unmoved by his tantrum. He’ll get over it. I’ll just call him in the morning.

  “Good night,” she told him and walked into her dorm.