The Sneaker Kings Read online

  That’s just how The Beast Team liked it. They loved to dazzle a jam-packed crowd of fellow sneakerheads. So Brandon and his guys would show up late on purpose and with a plan.

  By request and a twenty dollar tip, the deejay played Kanye West’s hit rap song Power, featuring a dramatic, opera-like introduction. And as the song blasted through the surround-sound speakers, Brandon, Leon and Simba entered the store carrying nine boxes of shoes between them. They were led to the center of the room by two beefy bodyguards carrying clear plastic bags stuffed with colored T-shirts.

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!”

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!”

  “BEAST TEEEAMMM!” the three teens yelled out in succession.

  Still in their light-blue T-shirts and TBT baseball caps with thick white initials, they stacked their boxes of sneakers on top of each other in the middle of the showcase floor. Instantly, everyone pushed their way to the center of the room to get a good look at them.

  “Yo, that’s The Beast Team, for real?” someone yelled. “I saw them on an ESPN special.”

  At six foot two, Leon Carter was the tallest member of the team. He was a light-brown complexioned mixed kid and all athletic. But he liked to travel and collect shoes more than he liked playing sports. Ditto for Simba Kim, minus the athletic abilities. Simba was light-brown as well, but Asian. He was the second recruit behind Leon. And he loved sneakers just as much if not more. But Brandon Jenkins—the slim and fluid white kid who carried himself like a pop star—was the ringleader. He had a smooth, blemish-free face and a conquer-the-world air about him. And not only that, he wore a pair of off-white Air Yeezy 2s, which were rumored to have once sold on eBay for a whopping ninety thousand dollars!

  “Oh, my God, he got on a pair of Yeezys!” someone else yelled from the crowd.

  The legendary Nike shoes looked more like a pair of moonboots than sneakers. They featured a ski strap across the instep and laces. The hard-to-get shoes validated Brandon’s superstar status amongst sneakerheads. But he was hardly alone in his top-shelf kicks—Simba wore a pair of yellow and white Tokyo 5 Jordans, while Leon wore a pair of MVP LeBron 10s in red, white, black and gold. As a group, their shoe game was official.

  Brandon told the astonished crowd of gawkers, “We got a pair of OG Georgetown Questions in size eleven, signed by Allen Iverson.”

  Leon held one of A.I.’s Reebok shoes up high in the air, spotlighting his black permanent ink signature on the side.

  Simba started the auction for them. “Anybody got three hundred?”

  “I got three hundred,” a nineteen-year-old college student yelled.

  “I got three twenty,” another college student countered.

  “I got three forty,” said another.

  “That’s it for an A.I. signature?” Simba challenged them. “Anybody got four hundred?”

  “I got four hundred,” one of the Tarheels answered, with money in hand. “I always loved A.I.’s game.”

  Simba took the money and gave him the box of shoes without asking for the next bidder. He knew they had eight more boxes to go that were more valuable. So Leon pulled out the next pair of shoes to auction—a custom pair of LeBron James.

  Brandon looked and said, “We got a pair of custom LeBron Lions in size ten.”

  The multicolored shoes featured LeBron’s signature lion head across the toes.

  Simba started the bidding at three hundred again.

  “I got three fifty. Give me those,” an older sneakerhead yelled with his money out.

  “How much for them Yeezys on your feet? That’s what I want to know,” another older head asked. He was in his early twenties.

  Brandon grinned and brushed the question aside. “Nobody has ten thousand in cash for these. That’s illegal.” It was his clever way of saying the shoes were not for sale.

  “You don’t have any smaller sizes for anything? I wear an eight,” the crafty preteen asked from the front. He had fought his way through the crowd.

  Brandon sized the kid up and remembered his own start-up days of collecting shoes. He said, “We got a small Beast Team T-shirt just for you. Forty dollars.”

  The bodyguards handed Simba the two plastic bags of colored T-shirts as several forty dollar payments began to rush into his hands from every direction.

  “If you give me one for free, I can help you to promote ’em,” the kid offered Brandon.

  Brandon smiled. “We don’t need the promotion. It’s forty dollars or nothing. Nice try though.”

  In just minutes, they sold dozens of Beast Team T-shirts to everyone in the room, including some of the older guys. The T-shirts were of great quality, made with thick cotton and their own TBT tags stitched across the bottom right hem.

  “Dad, I have to get one of those T-shirts,” Jon-Jon begged his father. He had only brought twenty dollars with him, and he hadn’t sold anything yet to make more. But he didn’t have to beg his father long. His dad watched the TBT crew work the room. He was inspired. They had burst into the store and commanded attention and money. So he figured his son could learn from their example.

  “Okay, we’ll get you one.” He quickly dug into his wallet and pulled out forty dollars. He then moved into position to buy a small T-shirt.

  As The Beast Team continued to promote and sell their brand, Leon pulled out the next box of Nikes. The group of Tarheels went crazy before Brandon could even announce the shoe.

  “We got a pair of Air Jordan—”

  “I got three hundred right now!” a Tarheel shouted.

  “I got three fifty,” someone countered.

  “Four hundred!” another barked.

  >>>

  Brandon’s uncle walked into the store with a grin. His nephew and his friends were at it again, auctioning a pair of light-blue and white North Carolina Tarheels Air Jordans. The sneakers eventually sold to a UNC fanatic for eight hundred dollars!

  Paul shook his head, still amazed by it all. Who would ever imagine an innocent hobby of collecting autographed sneakers after basketball games could lead to a kid becoming a national legend? Paul was even embarrassed by it sometimes. His nephew was becoming more popular than he was without ever having played organized basketball. Brandon and his guys were better with money too. And their shoe fetishes were adding up to help pay their college tuitions while they traveled the country for national sneaker conventions, AAU basketball tournaments and music concerts.

  Paul was embarrassed his nephew helped him to pay some of his bills each month as well. His retirement from the NBA had not been a cakewalk, so Paul was in no position to argue against his nephew’s fixation on shoes and travel. The sneaker convention continued to make dollars and sense. And Paul could not complain about it.

  When their furious work was done, The Beast Team walked out of the Greensboro Sneakers Galore Convention with three thousand dollars in hand in slightly more than an hour’s worth of hustle, and the building was still buzzing about them like crazy after they had left.

  “Did you see that, Dad? I told you,” Jon-Jon piped to his father. They were walking out of the strip mall storefront after about five o’clock. There was no sense in remaining there until seven. Jon-Jon still hadn’t sold anything, but he was sure glad that they stayed long enough to witness Brandon Jenkins and his Beast Team.

  “That was something else,” his father admitted as they walked through the parking lot toward their car. “BEAST TEEEEAMMM!” he yelled, mocking Brandon’s crew. “Jon-Jon,” he said, “you’re going to have to buy more shoes if you plan to make any money. You can’t just sell any kinds of shoes. They want the good ones.”

  “I know that already, Dad. But you always complain about how much they cost. So you’ll let me order them online now?”

  His dad nodded reluctantly as they reached their car, a silver Saab. “It looks like I have no choice,” he replied. “But if you get involved while you’re young, you can really make some money in this business.”

  Jon-Jon nodded and smiled aga
in. “I know.”

  As they drove out of the parking lot and headed home for dinner, his father asked, “So, what are you gonna call your team?”

  Jon-Jon shook it off and frowned. He continued to inspect his red Beast Team T-shirt with a thick white font and clawed beast letters. “Dad, everybody’s not gonna be like Brandon. That’s like saying I can be the next LeBron James. Those guys are like amazing, and they’re still teenagers.”

  His father grimaced. “Jon-Jon, you can do anything you put your mind to. You only have to do some research now to find out how they did it. And you can be just as big as them.”

  Aw, man. Why does he have to turn everything I do into a homework assignment?

  Jon-Jon pouted. His dad’s overzealousness was ruining his good mood. Nevertheless, Jon-Jon agreed that his father had a good point. Doing research on someone you wanted to emulate was not a bad idea. So the young, developing sneakerhead made a note to Google Brandon Jenkins and The Beast Team to read up on how they did it—receiving national popularity for sneakers.

  MALL RATS

  JON-JON WAS just one of the legions of sneakerheads who aspired to be like Brandon Jenkins and his crew, but kids like him could only fantasize about what it was like to be at the top of the sneaker world. They had a lot of misconceptions, like the idea that The Beast Team probably ordered a lot of their sneakers online. They didn’t. They shopped for them the old-fashioned way—inside of sneaker stores. They hunted through the malls, sports apparel outlets and at local neighborhood shops. And it helped that Brandon and his crew were well traveled.

  Growing up in Arizona, where his uncle had played seven years of professional basketball for the Phoenix Suns, Brandon had been to all of the big basketball cities—Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Detroit, Philly, Boston, Miami, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Washington and Toronto. He even traveled with his uncle to the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, in 2008. And at every stop, he would beg his Uncle P to visit the shopping malls in search of new sneakers that no one in his neighborhood had.

  And there he was again, all the way out in Greensboro with his two Beast Team partners as they planned to scrounge the local malls before catching a few AAU basketball games in Durham, followed by a J. Cole concert in Raleigh.

  Paul drove a black Ford Explorer rental into the parking lot of Greensboro’s Friendly Center.

  “We got an hour to eat and to check out their sneaker stores before we head out to Durham,” Brandon told his guys in the back.

  “Yeah, let’s see how many new followers we can get in Greensboro,” Leon suggested. He unfastened his seatbelt and added, “Shaq has like eight million followers now.”

  Paul took the keys from the ignition. “Yeah, everyone follows Shaq. Now he’s on TNT with Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie for more love.”

  Leon boasted, “We can get there one day.”

  Simba frowned as he climbed out of the SUV. “Remember, we only have an hour, Leon, so don’t talk too much in here.”

  With the build and charm of a star athlete, Leon loved flirting with the girls. Brandon didn’t mind it, but Simba liked to remain focused.

  “We’ll just let him talk while we check out the shoes,” Brandon reasoned.

  “And I’ll take care of the security,” said Uncle P.

  As the guys headed toward the mall, Paul walked over to pay the security guards, who had followed them into the parking lot. He peeled them two hundred dollars for a couple of hours of work.

  “You sure you don’t need us for later? We like being around you guys,” one of the guards said. “It’s inspiring to see young guys making money like that—legally.”

  Paul grinned and turned him down. “Nah, I think we can handle it from here.”

  “What about at the J. Cole concert in Raleigh tonight? That Durham and Raleigh crowd is a little rougher than Greensboro,” his beefy partner warned him from the passenger seat.

  “Yeah, I don’t know if you want them wearing them expensive shoes in there,” the first guard added.

  Paul continued to smile. They were obviously playing a scare tactic to make more money. “Well, I still have your number, right? So we’ll call you if we need you.”

  >>>

  There was only one sneaker store at the Friendly Center—a Foot Locker. So the guys walked in to see what they could find.

  “I guess this hour won’t take long,” Leon joked.

  Brandon shrugged. “Yeah, they’re probably no sneakerheads in this area.”

  Simba grinned and imagined a golden opportunity. “We could do our own sneaker convention in a place like this,” he said.

  “There you go with your big ideas again,” Leon teased him. “You’re greedy, man, greedy.”

  “I’m serious,” Simba insisted. “In an area like this, we could make ten thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah, and then we’d have to pay for the space, the tables, chairs and the promotions,” Leon argued.

  Simba barked, “So? That’s the price of doing business. Everyone has to pay for the space and promotion.”

  “What do you think, Brandon?” Leon asked as they approached the store.

  Brandon shrugged. “We could try one in college this year and rent out a campus activity room or something. That would probably be cheaper for us. And we’d have students right there on campus to help us promote.”

  Leon nodded. He liked the idea. “Hey, that’s it, man. Then we’d be popular with all the sneakerheads at school.”

  Simba smiled. “And the basketball players.”

  Leon smiled too. “And the girls,” he added.

  Brandon grinned and shook his head. “Come on, man, not that many girls are into sneakers. They like wearing fifty dollar kicks—K-Swiss, L.A. Gear and New Balance,” he joked.

  “That’s not true,” Simba argued. “Girls wear Jordans.”

  “Some of them do,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah, well, girls are into money. And if they see us making plenty of it, they’ll know who we are,” Leon predicted.

  Simba laughed. “You’re always talking about girls.”

  “Yeah, and you’re always avoiding them. What, they make you nervous?” Leon teased as they walked up the pavement toward Foot Locker.

  “Whatever.”

  As they walked into Foot Locker, Brandon started groping an imaginary girl, teasing Simba, right as a saleswoman approached them in her black and white referee-striped uniform.

  “May I help you?” The saleswoman was short, brown, athletic and in her early twenties. She didn’t appear happy to help them. The three young guys seemed ready to goof off more than buy shoes. And she was not eager to waste her time on playful teenagers who she figured were only there to look.

  “What do you have new in size ten and eleven?” Brandon asked her. He walked over to the Foot Locker wall, looking for something new and different.

  The saleswoman ran them all off in a bored monotone. “We have some new Kevin Durants in lime-green, the old-school Jordans with the gold Nike Swoosh, new Scottie Pippen Foamposites and Detroit Questions from Allen Iverson. We also have the new LeBron MVPs, Kobes and Carmelo Anthonys.”

  The guys had not seen a few of the shoes on the market yet, so they were foaming at the mouth to buy them. But Brandon had told his guys to always keep their cool. It was the way of professional dealmakers—you never show your hand with too much excitement.

  Brandon picked up the new Jordans and nodded with composure. “So, it’s the same Chicago Bulls colors with a gold Nike Swoosh instead of white. You have these in a size eleven?”

  The saleswoman nodded. “Yeah, we have them.” But she refused to move toward the storage room unless they were buying.

  “What about the Kevin Durants in green? You have those in eleven too?” Leon asked.

  She still didn’t budge. “Yeah, we have them.”

  “And the Allen Iversons in ten?” Simba added.

  “We have them all. They just came in.”

  I
have one more hour in here, and then I’m off to run ball in the gym, the saleswoman thought. A group of young knuckleheads wasting her time was the last thing she needed. But then she looked down at their feet—Air Yeezy 2s, Jordan Tokyo 5s and LeBron MVPs.

  “Oh, shit, y’all not from around here,” she blurted. Then she caught her language. “Oh, my bad, I’ve just never seen a pair of Air Yeezy 2s before, or with somebody actually wearing them. I’ve never seen those Jordans before either,” she noted of Simba’s Tokyo 5s. “But I’ve seen the LeBron MVPs.”

  With respect for their sneakers, the saleswoman asked, “So, where y’all from?” She smiled.

  “Arizona,” Simba answered.

  “That’s a long ways.” Then she eyed their matching hats and T-shirts. “What’s TBT stand for?”

  Leon spun around to show her the back of his shirt.

  “The Beast Team? Y’all play ball?”

  “No, but we watch it,” Brandon joked.

  “Yeah, we don’t want to scuff up our kicks,” Simba added.

  “Did y’all order all those shoes, or do they have them in Arizona?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we had to order these, but we buy a lot of shoes from the stores too,” Brandon answered.

  “Yeah, I bet,” the saleswoman said. She figured they may have been serious after all. “So, are you just looking at shoes today, or are you trying to buy any?”

  “Oh, we’re definitely buying,” Brandon told her. “We just wanted to see what kind of group discount we can get for four or five pair. I have a Foot Locker Club card.”

  The saleswoman smiled and pointed to the small nameplate on her uniform. “My name is Priscilla. Let me go talk to my manager.”

  As she quickly walked off, the guys grinned knowingly at each other. Getting the best prices was the art of their business, and it was much harder to do online.

  A stout manager in his forties walked over wearing the same black and white striped uniform. He noticed the three teenagers immediately and piped, “Hey, The Beast Team. I saw you guys on an ESPN special.”

  Excitedly, he reached out his hand to greet them. “So, what are you guys doing in Greensboro? You’re hunting down more pairs of shoes?”