The Sneaker Kings

by Eric McLauren

  Simba took a deep breath and stood there for a minute.

  “It’s one of those nights, huh?” a student asked him on her way inside.

  Simba looked at her and shook it off without comment. It was time for him to walk away and get over it. And that’s what he did.

  >>>

  That next morning at a West Village restaurant, the guys sat with the Lyles family, the Stewart family and Paul. Brandon didn’t expect David Terry to show up with his uncle and his two cousins. It cost too much money to drive back and forth to New York, and he still couldn’t give them any. But he did score them a few pairs of sneakers to send.

  Everyone was still excited and talkative about the successful event on Saturday, except for Simba, Danielle’s mother and Paul, who rarely seemed excited about anything anymore. But the Stewarts and Lyleses seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Danielle even sat next to Jay at the table.

  “So, you guys had a big night last night. We’re already thinking about the launch of Jay’s Splash shoes from Adidas. You guys have any ideas for that yet?” Jay’s mother pressed them.

  “We’ll have some ideas to share with you guys as soon as we get a couple days rest,” Brandon answered with a grin as a waitress placed his order in front of him.

  “Yeah, I can only imagine how much work you guys put into last night. We’re just excited right now, that’s all,” she admitted. “But you take your time.”

  Brandon nodded as he began to eat his food. “Thanks.”

  Leon looked over at Danielle, who was sitting next to Jay Stewart, and he grinned. He figured they looked like a good couple. And Danielle noticed it.

  “So, my daughter thinks you guys are pretty serious about the modeling component,” her mother asked on cue. She wanted to hear their concrete plans. But Danielle looked disturbed by the question.

  Brandon eyed Leon, who took the lead to answer.

  “As soon as we get a good Beast Team licensing deal, we’ll need people to wear our clothes in advertisements. But instead of us hiring an agency to pick the models—like a lot of companies do—we figure it’s another opportunity to promote the people that we want to promote … including Danielle,” he added.

  Danielle fought to control her smile. She felt like a ray of sunshine had hit her.

  Paul chimed in, “Yeah, but what if the licensing company already has their own relationships? You can’t tell Nike or Adidas who or who not to use in their advertisements.”

  Leon stood firm. “That’ll be a part of our deal then. We have an image that we want to promote, and we want them to stay in sync with it.”

  “And what if they said no?” Danielle’s mother instigated.

  Leon shrugged, defiantly. “We walk.”

  “And you would walk away from thousands of dollars?”

  “They would be walking away from us,” Brandon responded.

  Mr. Lyles noticed their battle of wits and interjected with a light chuckle, “It sounds like he has a plan to me.”

  However, his wife wasn’t finished. “And where does Danielle fit into all that? Because I noticed you didn’t have her perform last night with the older girls.”

  Danielle huffed at her mom. “I told you why. I hadn’t practiced.”

  “Let him answer,” her mother argued. She felt that Leon was pulling her daughter’s strings. She didn’t trust him.

  Leon said, “We like her. And since she plays soccer, she’s extra. She’s a double threat with sports and modeling. And if we get young guys to look at her as being sexy—like they did last night—she can also do sexy stuff. So who wouldn’t want her as a model?”

  Jay’s little brother started to giggle at the sexy talk.

  Leon noticed that and apologized. “Sorry about that, little man.”

  Smartass, Danielle’s mother thought of Leon. But she had nothing else to say. Even Jay’s mom came to Danielle’s defense.

  “Well, that makes sense to me. Danielle is gorgeous. My daughters think so too.”

  The two Stewart girls, ages thirteen and eleven, nodded in agreement.

  “Yeah, she is.” They had told their mother that Saturday, watching Danielle sign autographs.

  Simba listened to it all in silence. He didn’t even feel like being there that morning. And all of the girl talk only made him feel worse. What’s the use in having a pretty girl if you can’t even be with her when you want to?

  Brandon noticed Simba’s silence and nudged him. “What’s up with you, man?”

  Simba shrugged. “I’ll talk to you about it later,” he mumbled.

  Brandon immediately figured it had something to do with Jintana. Everything else had been awesome.

  “Okay, later then.”

  LOOSE ENDS

  PAUL AND BRANDON met up with Bill, the club owner, to take care of their big check that Monday morning in downtown Manhattan. After the check was deposited, they asked Bill if he would be willing work with them in November if Amar’e chose not to. They spoke to the man in private at a coffee shop down the street from the bank.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I would have to think about that and wait and see what Amar’e says. I did this as a favor to him. Amar’e only paid me ten grand to rent the club. But you guys scored like fifty, sixty grand. I don’t usually let this much money walk out of my club without me having a piece of it. You know what I mean? That’s not the kind of thing I want to get in the habit of doing.”

  “But you made your money, ten grand,” Brandon brought up. The club owner looked at Brandon and then at Paul.

  Paul understood the insult and apologized to him immediately. He shook his head and said, “He’s just an eager kid, that’s all. Brandon, you never talk about other people’s money.”

  “I like you, kid. Okay?” Bill said. “But what you just did—making fifty thousand dollars in my club and I only get ten—it will never happen again. So, there’s no sense in us even talking about a deal like that anymore. You understand?

  “I thought maybe you guys would make twenty, twenty-five or something,” he continued. “Maybe even thirty with the people you invited. But fifty? Sixty? In my club? And all I did was count it? You see where I’m coming from, kid? I couldn’t even serve drinks in there, because most of your crowd was underage. So, if I did anything again with you guys, I would have to take at least forty percent, and I would give you guys the sixty to be generous. And even that deal is nice.”

  He stopped his passionate explanation there. It wasn’t the kind of thing he liked to talk about in public, but the kid had instigated it.

  Brandon thought it over and nodded. “We can go over a new budget and see what we come up with.”

  Bill shook his head. “This kid is something else, isn’t he? But I need to talk to Amar’e before I say or do anything. All right? Nice talking to ya.” Just like that, he got up and left with his coffee and a bagel.

  Paul turned to his nephew. “What the hell is wrong with you, Brandon? That’s a grown property-owning man you’re talking to. He’s not a kid. And this is New York! People take their money very seriously here.”

  “I take money seriously too. And so should you,” Brandon shot back.

  Paul looked around, embarrassed by his implication. “Look, Brandon, I don’t want you up here acting desperate, worried about my situation,” he whispered. “I’ll be just fine. Okay?”

  “You don’t look like it,” Brandon countered. “Why would you come up here looking like that? I mean, you’re like a walking billboard right now that says you need help. And I’m not supposed to notice? Anyone can see that.”

  Paul held his tongue as customers passed them by. He still hoped that no one would recognize him, but it was hard not to with his obvious height and build.

  “And stop telling Marcus all of our business,” Brandon added. “I keep forgetting to tell you that. I don’t trust him. He’s always asking too many questions.”

  Paul shook his head and couldn’t believe the little monster
his nephew was becoming. It was always in him, but as Brandon began to grow into an adult, Paul could already see the direction he was headed in.

  “That’s because you never tell him anything, so he asks me.”

  “Well, I don’t tell him things for a reason. It’s not his business,” Brandon snapped.

  “What, like you just brought up the club owner’s business a few minutes ago?” Paul reminded him. “You just did the exact same thing.”

  Brandon said, “No, that actually was our business. We had to pay fifteen thousand dollars for that ten. So, essentially, that was our money.”

  Paul couldn’t believe how atrocious Brandon was acting off of one big event. “You know what, Brandon? If this is how you’re gonna act with your success, then you’re gonna create a lot of bad karma for yourself. And yeah, I may not have been that great with money, but I never treated people disrespectfully because of it. I just didn’t. And all I can do is pray that you won’t be that way either. But right now ... I’m not liking what I’m seeing from you. So you enjoy the rest of your day.”

  With that, Paul got up and walked out of the coffee shop.

  Brandon watched him, thinking, Shit, I went too hard on him. But he embarrassed me coming up here looking like that. It looks like he’s begging for people to pity him, and nobody cares about that. But still … I need to call him up and apologize. He’s my uncle.

  >>>

  By mid-week, Eduardo Suarez requested a follow-up meeting with Leon. Although he didn’t want to go, Leon figured it was best to get it out of the way. So, he showed up at Eduardo’s lower Manhattan apartment that Wednesday afternoon with a full plate of humility. He was ready to listen with patience and poise to whatever ideas they had to pitch to him.

  “So, when are you doing the next one?” Eduardo asked.

  Leon sat in a lone chair again, but this time he wasn’t smoking anything that could distort his reality. “We gotta find a new location first,” he answered. “We might not be able to use the same club again.” Brandon had already told the guys about the steep price tag at the West Village nightclub, and Leon and Simba didn’t want to pay it.

  “We can help you out with that,” Joseph commented from the right. There were two young black guys in the room who Leon didn’t recognize from school. He hadn’t noticed them at their event either.

  “So, what spot are you talking about? What’s the capacity?” Leon asked.

  “We’ll let you know later on this week,” Joseph answered. “We’re still talking to people.”

  Leon smiled. “Seeing is believing, man. You saw what we did.”

  “Yeah, we did see it. And we helped you too,” Eduardo mentioned.

  Leon was expecting that. “And how much are you asking for that?” he asked. He didn’t want to overreact until they gave him a solid figure, which they still had not done.

  Eduardo shook the price off again. “Like we told you, man, we just want to help make you guys successful at what you’re doing. So, we were just showing you what we could do. Seeing is believing, right? Well, you saw what we did too. And we don’t expect anything from that. We just want to be a part of the next one.”

  Leon sighed. “Yeah, well, to be honest with you guys, man, if we can’t get the NBA players involved, we don’t really know how successful the next one is gonna be. We might have to downsize it. And you know the NBA season starts in November, so we may have gotten a little lucky with our timing.”

  Although the guys hated to do it, downsizing the second event was a viable option to discuss. But Eduardo smiled at the idea, as if he had another trick card up his sleeve.

  “That’s why you need us, man,” he insisted. He looked at the two strangers in the room and said, “Basketball players aren’t the only guys who can make something big happen.”

  Leon followed Eduardo’s eyes to the two silent strangers. “Who are they?”

  One of the guys spoke up. “We’ll let you know. Just remember our faces. You’re Leon, right?”

  Leon nodded. “But I can’t know who you are?”

  “We checked you out online,” his partner answered. “Brandon is y’all main boy, right?”

  Leon didn’t like the question. “We all have our different roles.” He no longer viewed himself playing second fiddle to Brandon. Whether Brandon started up The Beast Team or not, all three of them had helped it to grow into what it now was. And Leon figured he would have a much bigger role in where their popular brand could go.

  “But he is the most popular, right?” the stranger pressed him.

  Eduardo laughed, reading Leon’s body language. “Not anymore. Leon’s the king now. He fits better in New York. Brandon can’t do anything up here without him. Ain’t that right, Leon?”

  Leon paused. He didn’t want to go that far with it either. “I really wouldn’t say that,” he commented. “He still knows people.”

  “Why, because his uncle played ball with Amar’e in Phoenix?” Joseph interjected. “That’s about it, right? We don’t see Brandon making moves in New York like you could.”

  Obviously, they had done their homework. “I mean, you have to come up with something real and not just talk,” he challenged them. “And yeah, Brandon does know NBA players. I don’t know them like that. I meet them through him.”

  “So, you need to have your own people then,” Joseph suggested.

  Leon held his tongue. He couldn’t argue.

  The first stranger nodded. “All right, we’ll be in touch.” And they walked out the door.

  Leon turned to Eduardo and Joseph. “Who were those guys?”

  “You’ll find out when they tell you,” Eduardo repeated.

  In frustration, Leon shook his head. “We still haven’t talked any real numbers or anything. I mean, where are you guys going with all this? We can’t do business off of mysteries.”

  “We can’t give you any concrete numbers because we don’t know yet,” Eduardo said. “We have to see what everybody wants first. So we come to the table, you come to the table and they come to the table for us to find that out.”

  Leon looked back at Joseph, who nodded in agreement.

  “All right. Well, we’ll see,” Leon responded. He stood up to leave. He had heard enough riddles for one day.

  “We’ll be in touch, man. Seeing is believing, right?” Eduardo repeated as Leon walked to the door.

  “Exactly.”

  Eduardo nodded. “We’re just trying to make money like you guys, man. And the way I see it, if we help to make you a King, and you make money from it, then we all make money. So, just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  Leon smirked and was tired of going back and forth with it all. “Yeah, right!” he mumbled as he walked out the door.

  >>>

  Once he left Eduardo’s building and returned to the sidewalks of lower Manhattan, Leon looked through his phone messages and texts and stopped. Danielle Lyles had sent him a text.

  —Thanks for having my back at breakfast the other day.—

  Leon smiled and sent her a response. —No problemo! You’re our girl!—

  He started walking back to campus and didn’t think much of it. But Danielle sent him a second text.

  —Lol. Yeah, I’m your girl. And proud of it!—

  Leon read her second message and shook his head, grinning. She was obviously psyched. They all were. It had been a great weekend. Everyone had had a chance to shine.

  A few minutes later, she sent him a third text. —So you really like me that much?—

  That one raised an eyebrow. Leon shook his head and mumbled, “Some girls will always be insecure.” He thought about Danielle’s mother beating her down at the breakfast table as if she were ugly. So, he texted her back again.

  —Of course I like you. Don’t let your mother get you down.—

  A few beats later, Danielle sent him this: —Yeah, she can be a real B sometimes! I don’t let it bother me though. And I like you too. A lot!—She signed off with a happy f
ace.

  That one made Leon pause. Whoa, wait a minute. Is this girl … “Oh, shit,” he muttered. He wasn’t even thinking about Danielle that way. There were too many beautiful college girls that he was now after in New York. And at sixteen, Danielle was the same age as his little sister.

  “Nah, leave that alone,” he told himself as he reached campus. He didn’t want to respond to her again. He even thought about what to say to cool her off. But Danielle wouldn’t let it rest.

  —I’m sorry. I had to say that. It was just on my mind.—

  Leon shook his head and mumbled, “What the fuck?” She had totally blindsided him. And as much as he tried to ignore her, he was still curious. “Is she sending texts out to all of us?” he wondered out loud.

  He sent her another one to investigate. —It’s cool. We all like you too.—

  That one took a minute for Danielle to respond to. —Oh, okay.—

  A few beats later, she followed up with another text. —You know that was just for you, right?—

  Leon read it and chuckled. The crush was confirmed.

  “Leave it alone, man. Leave it alone,” he repeated. And he walked into his dorm.

  >>>

  Up in Brandon’s room, Simba dropped by to visit and to talk about his own girl problems. Where Leon had the girls all hot, Simba felt nothing but a cold shoulder from Jintana.

  “I mean, she still calls you every day, so she obviously likes you a lot,” Brandon reasoned.

  Simba sat on his bed, while Brandon leaned back in his desk chair. Tarun was out at a late design class.

  “Yeah, she calls me all the time, but that’s not helping me, man. Do you know how many times my roommate has had his girl over? So I get up and leave the room a lot to study in the library and to go for long walks,” Simba told him.

  Brandon frowned. “You’re in a tough situation, man.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. In the room next to ours, I can hear the guy and his girlfriend through the walls sometimes,” Simba said.

  Brandon couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? That’s crazy. But I haven’t had that much sex with Natasha.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve done it. And you guys have an excuse. She’s down at Seton Hall in New Jersey.”