“Thanks, baby. I ‘preciate you holding them for me,” I said.
“What did you just say?” Ishmael asked.
“I said thanks for holdin’ them for me.”
“No, before that.”
“What, baby?”
Ishmael smiled, exposing those pearly whites.
“Sorry,” I announced, shyly looking down to the floor.
“It’s cool. I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s nice. Why don’t you try those on. I’m going to go out front and finish locking up.
I placed the boots on a nearby table and lifted the lid off the box. The scent of genuine leather awakened and rose like a ghost out of its tomb of cardboard. They looked identically like those from the catalog. Ishmael walked in on me taking a whiff of the new, black hide.
“Okay, in case you don’t know, we wear the shoes, not sniff them,” said Ishmael laughing.
I kicked off one of my tattered, beaten sneaks to try one on. I thought to myself, These are gonna go great with my black jeans. I attempted to move quickly to stuff my foot in the boot, cuz I didn’t want Ishmael to notice the hole in the big toe of my sock, but to no avail, he noticed.
“Damn, dog. Looks like you could use a new pair,” he stated.
“That’s what I get for buying the cheap K-mart brand. There’s a hole in every sock I bought from there.”
“How do the boots feel?” Ishmael asked.
“Like butta.” I pulled my pant legs over the leather and walked down the dimly lit hall to test them out like I was about to buy a new car.
“They look hot,” Ishmael said. “They’re genuine leather.”
“They smell like it,” I stated, joking.
“Really? Can I um…take a whiff?” he asked, as I admired them on my feet in the mirror.
“Wasn’t it you who said we wear them not smell them?”
“Come on, just one whiff.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yeah, come on.”
“Okay. Let me just take ‘em off.”
“No, don’t,” he said, objectively. “Give me your foot.”
Ishmael knelt like Prince Charming, lifting my booted foot to his face. He looked up at me as he sniffed along the squared toe. |
