The Sneaker Kings

by Eric McLauren

  Brandon sat silently and didn’t know what to say. “Just look at it this way, man. If you marry Jintana, you’ll have a beautiful wife that no one else has ever been with before. And that’s very special.”

  Simba asked, “Does it bother you that Natasha’s been with other people?”

  Brandon shrugged. “She’s only had two. And it only bothered me when her ex was trying to fight me that night,” he joked. “Other than that, no.”

  Simba laughed, reflecting on Brandon’s wild story. “It wouldn’t bother me if Jintana had exes either. I mean, that’s life. As long as she didn’t have like ten or something. But I could deal with less than five.”

  “So, what are you gonna do?” Brandon asked him. “I mean, I would hang in there if I were you, man. She’s a very nice girl.”

  “Yeah, I know, but … shit, man,” Simba snapped. “Why do I always have to be the nice guy?”

  “Because you are. So you have to be yourself. I mean, I’m pretty nice too.”

  Simba looked at his friend and chuckled. “Not when you want something, you’re not. You can be a real beast then.”

  “That’s why we’re The Beast Team,” he joked.

  Simba grinned and felt better after talking about it. “Maybe I need to be a beast sometimes. But thanks for talking with me, man. I can probably call her back now.”

  Brandon winced. “What, you’ve been ignoring her?”

  Simba paused to explain. “Not exactly. I just didn’t want to say anything while I was still angry, you know.”

  Brandon chuckled. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Sometimes you need to calm down first.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m much calmer now, so I can call her back.”

  WHAT THE ...

  WHEN PAUL ARRIVED back home in Glendale on Wednesday night, he went to put away his nephew’s new pairs of sneakers from New York and walked into an empty closet.

  “What the … FUCK?”

  Every box of fifty or more pairs of sneakers was gone, at a resale value of more than thirty thousand dollars. This had been Brandon’s private stash, many he would never sell including his pair of Air Yeezy 2s.

  Paul ran down the stairs and looked around for broken windows and doors, but he couldn’t find any. He had stopped making the monthly payments for the alarm system a while ago, trying to save money. But how would he now explain that to Brandon?

  “SHIT!” he cursed again. He had spoken in anger about his nephew creating bad karma, but now he wished he could take it back. Then he quickly thought of his next course of action.

  Reporting fifty boxes of stolen sneakers to the police would sound ridiculous, but that’s what Paul needed to do. Then he thought more about it.

  Who would break into the house and only steal Brandon’s shoes? he pondered. “MARCUS!” he concluded. “I don’t even have his number. And what’s his last name?”

  Paul scoured through Brandon’s bookcase, looking for his middle school yearbooks. Finding them, he flipped through the pages of old pictures. Once he found Marcus, he snapped his fingers. “Graham!”

  He then called the Scottsdale, Arizona police. The Graham family had moved out to Scottsdale years ago. He did remember that much.

  “Yes, I want to report a robbery committed by a Scottsdale resident …” Marcus as the culprit made perfect sense to Paul. He even remembered the kid asking him specifically about when he planned to fly back home to Arizona.

  He said he was flying out on Monday to my Wednesday, Paul reflected as he waited for a police officer to take his complaint.

  When the officer came on the line, Paul made his allegations and also told him Marcus attended ASU. After finishing up with the police, Paul left the house immediately to hunt the kid down at school.

  >>>

  Back in New York that Friday evening, Brandon and Simba enjoyed a double date in Times Square with Natasha and Jinni. It was Brandon’s idea to keep his friend active with fun dates and his mind off of sex. Brandon even flirted with the idea of attending a Broadway show.

  “You guys wanna go? Which one would you choose?” he asked.

  There were dozens of plays and musicals on Broadway.

  “You mean, just buy a ticket and walk?” Simba asked him.

  Brandon shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

  Natasha shook her head. “I think you have to be in the mood to go to a play. You don’t just walk in. But we could do a comedy club,” she suggested. “And it’s cheaper.”

  Brandon frowned. “Yeah, but then you might hear a bunch of amateurs.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Jintana. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

  “So, I’m the only one who wants to go to a play?” said Brandon.

  Simba smiled. “That’s what it sounds like. Maybe we could see a play another night when we’re actually in the mood for it.”

  Brandon pouted. “We’re in New York with all of these Broadway plays, and I’m the only one who wants to go.”

  “No, you’re the only one who wants to go tonight,” Jintana commented. “I think you do have to be in the mood for Broadway.”

  Brandon remained persistent. “I think you guys are making too much of it.”

  Natasha sighed and tugged on his arm. “No, Brandon, no Broadway tonight. We’d rather go to a fun comedy club.”

  >>>

  There was no comedy for Paul. The police had caught up with Marcus at ASU, only for him to deny everything. And when they couldn’t find any of Brandon’s sneakers in Marcus’s dorm room, his car, or at his parents’ house, there was nothing else they could do. The results drove Paul to drink that Friday, knowing that he had to tell his nephew. But imagine telling a sneaker fanatic that fifty pairs of his treasured shoes had been stolen out of his closet after you stopped paying for the home security system.

  “Shit!” Paul continued to curse himself. He felt as if he had the bad karma. Outside of his stolen shoes, Brandon had been doing great. And he was right—Paul needed to get his own life together and move on from his sour thoughts of not playing professional basketball anymore.

  “It’s time to move on and coach or something,” he admitted while sitting at his kitchen table with two empty beer bottles in front of him. He had stalled his decision to become a coach long enough, and he was now forced to think practically about everything.

  “Starting with right now,” he mumbled. He took a deep breath and called his nephew to deliver the bad news. It was time to get it over with. “At least it’ll be over the weekend now and not during the middle of classes,” Paul reasoned out loud as he waited for an answer.

  When Brandon didn’t pick up, Paul hung up and called again. There was no way in hell he could leave his nephew a message about it. He knew that he would have to tell Brandon every single detail … no matter how painful.

  >>>

  Leon’s mystery meeting with new business partners had finally been scheduled. He still had no idea who he was meeting up with that Friday, but it was all a part of the process of doing bigger business in New York.

  “This is crazy, man. They’re wasting my Friday night,” Leon complained to himself outside of his dorm. Whoever was meeting him there was late. So, he continued checking his phone messages to pass the time.

  “Are you Leon?” a middle-aged dark-brown man asked.

  Leon looked up. He hadn’t seen the man walk over to him, but he wasn’t what Leon expected. The man was clean-shaven and well-groomed, dressed in all black with a professional blazer like a limo driver.

  Leon frowned. Is this the guy they want me to meet? “Yeah, I’m Leon.”

  The man nodded. “He wants to meet you in the back.” He then pointed to a black stretch Hummer limo that was parked at the curb across the street.

  Leon looked and blurted, “Oh, shit.” The words just tumbled out of his mouth.

  The driver chuckled as he led him to the vehicle. He then opened the back door with only two passengers inside—Harlem-based hip-hop artist ASAP Rocky
and Victoria’s Secret model Chanel Iman. To Leon’s surprise, ASAP Rocky was wearing one of their new black and white TBT hats with his signature braids out the side.

  Leon climbed inside and sat down across from them as a line of neon lights changed colors on the ceiling above their heads. A bar with liquor, sodas and ice sat on the left. And the Harlem hip-hop artist smiled at him with gleaming white teeth and smooth ebony skin as he reached out his gold-ringed, dark-brown hand.

  “What’s up, Beast?” he addressed Leon with a thick, clear voice.

  Leon shook his hand and smiled back. He was honored. “Nice to meet you, man.”

  ASAP Rocky nodded. “I like y’all logo. But y’all gotta order a better hat.” He then took the hat off and replaced it with a black and white Harlem World hat of much better quality.

  “Yeah, we rushed those hats to get the new logo out. But we’ll make better ones next time,” Leon promised.

  Chanel Iman smiled at him, looking dazzling in her short fox-fur jacket paired with a black skirt, stockings and heels.

  “Hey,” she said. Her natural smile and bright caramel skin were stunning. And she was a real model. Leon could hardly believe it. They were two American superstars in their early twenties who had taken a minute of their Friday night to meet up with him.

  Leon nodded back and kept his cool. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

  ASAP Rocky clapped his hands together and got right down to business. He and Chanel had a Broadway show to catch. “Yeah, so all my li’l birds been chirping that y’all doing big things with sneaker promotions.”

  “We’re on our way, man,” Leon told him with a nod. “A couple more big events and we’ll get us a licensing deal. Adidas already offered us one, but it wasn’t enough money. But now Nike knows about us.”

  ASAP Rocky nodded, taking him seriously. “I want my own shoe deal—ASAP Rockys, of course.”

  Chanel Iman shook her head and grinned.

  Leon bragged. “We already got a skateboarder signed to a deal with Adidas. Look out for Splash and Skateboard Customs coming soon from Jay Stewart, promoted by The Beast Team. My boy Brandon came up with the name and designs for them.”

  “Do you know about the new Level Thirteen shoes from Antonio Brown?” Chanel asked him. “He just premiered them at New York Fashion Week.”

  “Do I? I ordered a pair online already, the red leather Leviticus. A few of our Beast Team models told me about them. So, I went online, checked them out. Then I ordered a pair to shock my team with before they get them.”

  “I heard he’s only producing three thousand pair worldwide,” Iman said.

  “I know, right? But I already made my first order, so I’m good.”

  ASAP Rocky listened. He was impressed with Leon. The Beast Team reminded him of his ASAP squad in Harlem. They were all young, fly and ready to get it!

  “I like y’all style, Beast. Y’all got a team. I got a team. Y’all gettin’ money. I’m gettin’ money. Y’all got models. I got a model.”

  Chanel playfully smacked his arm.

  “What?” he asked her, grinning. “You are a model. That’s what you do.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to say it like that. ‘I got a model,’ ” she mocked him.

  ASAP Rocky held up his hands in forgiveness. “I was just in my flow.”

  “Whatever.”

  Leon chuckled. They had great chemistry together.

  ASAP Rocky returned to his point. “Anyway, man, my people said I should meet y’all and do something, but we gotta get back together and work out the numbers for something bigger and better. I heard y’all wanted Montana too.”

  “French Montana? Yeah, and Ferg,” Leon added excitedly.

  “Well, you know Ferg come with me. That’s ASAP team. But I can’t count French Montana money. He makes his own decisions,” Rocky told him. “I can call him up on it though. Who else y’all want?”

  Leon inadvertently looked at Chanel Iman. ASAP Rocky responded to that immediately. “Oh, nah, y’all can’t have her. That’ll break your whole budget,” he joked.

  Chanel popped him even harder. But she didn’t deny it. With her Victoria’s Secret model status, her position in life was a real blessing.

  “Yo, we should do like, a Beast Team record though, man. BEAST TEEEAMMM!” ASAP Rocky yelled. “I like that shit, man. I saw ya’ll online. Oh, I do my research,” he told him. He held up his smartphone. “All it takes is one of these. These phones are amazing. Anything you say, I can look up. Y’all got a lot of hits too. And you know I can get y’all more.”

  Leon nearly fell off the seat with anxiety. He felt ready to hyperventilate. And their Hummer hadn’t even moved. They had been sitting there with the hazard lights on.

  “Man, with all due respect, you ’bout to turn me into a girl on American Idol, screaming, yelling and jumping up and down and shit,” Leon joked. “I mean, a Beast Team song from ASAP Rocky! Man, don’t play with my emotions like that.”

  Chanel Iman laughed, but ASAP Rocky remained serious.

  “Yo, if y’all help me get a sneaker endorsement deal, that record is made. And we’ll put y’all up in the video.”

  >>>

  Leon climbed out of ASAP Rocky’s limo on cloud nine! He could barely walk straight. He dialed Brandon so fast that his fingers twitched as he touched the screen.

  “SHIIITTT!” he screamed out his anxieties. As soon as Brandon answered, Leon told him, “Guess who I just met?”

  But Brandon had some shocking news of his own. “That fucking Marcus Graham stole all my shoes!”

  Leon paused and said, “What?”

  “HE FUCKING STOLE EVERY BOX IN MY CLOSET!”

  Brandon was so loud, Leon held the phone away from his ear. “Who told you that?”

  “MY FUCKING UNCLE! HE STOPPED PAYING FOR THE SECURITY SYSTEM AT THE HOUSE!”

  Oh, shit! This boy’s about to have a heart attack, right when I got this good news for him. “Yo, where are you, man? Calm down,” Leon said.

  “FUCK THAT! I’M GOING HOME TO GET MY SHOES BACK!”

  Brandon hung up as Leon looked down at his screen. He shook his head and mumbled softly, “My God … Brandon’s gonna kill that boy.”

  >>>

  Back in Times Square, Brandon was back on his phone, ordering a plane ticket to Phoenix as Natasha, Simba and Jinni followed behind him.

  “Well, what time is the next flight out?”

  Natasha continued to brainstorm, but there was no calming Brandon down. He had gone ballistic.

  I don’t BELIEVE this! she thought. Of all the things that could happen to him, this is probably the WORST! He is out of his MIND about those damn sneakers! And he’s gonna hurt himself or hurt somebody else!

  So in the heat of the moment, she made a decision. “Brandon, fly me out there with you. I’ll just buy some new clothes.”

  Brandon’s eyes flamed with surprise. “Okay,” he said with no argument. He wanted to hug her and cry into her shoulder right then and there, but he couldn’t. Not out in front of Simba, Jinni and the crowded streets of New York.

  But he told himself, God, I love Natasha! And he couldn’t wait to be alone with her again. He needed their privacy. And he wanted to hold her tightly in his arms.

  STAY TUNED FOR

  THE SNEAKER KINGS: PART 2