All I could hear was screaming. If it had been any other day, I might've screamed myself, letting it all loose on the two demons sitting in the backseat of Mom's minivan. But today was different. Today, I wouldn't let the Devil Twins ruin my mood. I took a deep breath, and let the smell of new waft into my nose. Everything was strange here, strange and beautiful and exciting and new.
Mom had announced the move two months in advance. While most kids would've broken down and cried, I leapt for joy. I couldn't wait to get out of the cursed place that I had lived for my entire life. Radnor, Ohio. A tiny, awful, godforsaken town with a population of a mere 201 people. It was like living in a tiny, stuffed cardboard box with the same people everywhere you looked. It was the worst 14 years of my life. I don't encourage anyone to take a trip there. Unless, of course, living in a cardboard box is your thing, in which case, Radnor is the place for you.
We packed up all of our stuff, which was surprisingly a lot, and moved to New York City. Needless to say, it was a huge change for our family of five. There were people everywhere! In the street, in the parks, crowed around the stores. For the first time in my entire life, I could trip in front of somebody and not have to avoid them for the next month, in fear of being laughed at. In fact, I would probably never see that person again! It was beautiful.
In addition to the mass of people, every single one of them was dressed like a model, all looking dapper in their latest trends and expensive brands. Needless to say, us homely folk from Ohio felt really out of place in our small town shabby hand me downs. As a "Welcome to the Big Apple" treat, my mom took me and the devil twins out to each pick out a more suitable outfit for the higher standards of New Yorkers, while my father went to meet the mover guys at our new apartment on the outskirts of Manhattan. While most people referred to the neighborhood as the Upper East Side, this tiny place was nothing but "upper". But, it was something. And, I'd be going to a big, rich school. According to my mom it was good for future opportunities or something like that. Basically, she wanted me to meet some rich snobs, and climb the social latter. She seemed to be blind to the fact that her son was an absolute nobody. That, or she didn't seem to care.
Unfortunately, as my mother and I found out, not only were the expectations higher for style in New York, but the prices were too. Instead of the giant departments store that I had seen on TV, and hoped to go to, I found myself in a tiny thrift store in Harlem.
The shop smelled musty and old, like what I'd picture an old man's house would smell like. Clothing was piled wherever there was extra floor space, and boxes covered the rest. The whole place was brightly lit, and pop music from the 80s played quietly in the background. A woman sat reading behind the fingerprint smudged glass jewelry counter, and jumped when she heard us come in through the squeaky door.
"Whoa, there!" She exclaimed, placing one hand on her enormous chest. "You scared me shitless!" The woman then noticed the Devils, then only six years old, and covered her mouth. "Damn, I'm sorry. I didn't see them there, miss." She said, addressing Mom. "Shit! I said it again! Damn! Sorry! I'll just stop." She kept her hand over her mouth, as if she was too scared to open it, in fear of more profanities were to spill out.
My mom giggled, and reassured her that everything was fine. I was a little shocked. My first New Yorker, and this is what I get. I had only heard someone swear once in my entire life, Morgan Hamilton back in seventh grade, and I myself had never once uttered one. That would change, of course.
"What can I do to help you?" The woman said, raising an eyebrow as Laura, one of the Devil Twins, grabbed a boot off of a nearby rack and proceeded to smack her brother with it. He shrieked, and grabbed her ponytail.
"Laura! Jasper! Stop it, both of you!" My mother halfheartedly shouted. The woman shot her a knowing look.
"How about I help you find something for these two...angels." She offered. My mother smiled gratefully at the woman.
"That would be wonderful." She said. She turned to me. "Shawn, go pick something out for yourself, okay? Nothing inappropriate." I rolled my eyes. Right. Like I could manage to find something inappropriate on a shirt. I picked up a shirt off of a nearby rack, and was almost blinded by a giant busty woman, wearing nothing but a tiny pair of underwear, eating a lollipop.
"Oh." I thought to myself. "Nevermind, then." It took me a million years, as it turned out, a lot of the shirts in the store were that way, but I managed to find a normal collared shirt and a new pair of jeans. Most boys would have been completely lost in a store, but having to pick out my own clothing for the last six years of my life, as my mom was just always busy with the Devils, I had gotten pretty good at it. I showed my mother my clothing, and she smiled.
"Perfect. Go pick out something else. For yourself. Something that you'd usually not get." She said, wrestling to get Jasper into a polo shirt. "It'll be my treat." My mind wandered back to the busty lady shirt, but I quickly shook that image away. That was probably not what she had in mind.
I searched the store, but found nothing. Unless I wanted some vinyls from some bands that I'd never even heard of, or some old lady's fake pearl necklace, there wasn't really much in the store for me. I walked over to my mother, who was paying for our new clothing.
"Find anything?" She asked.
"Nah." I shrugged. "Not really."
"How about those? You need some new shoes, right?" I looked to where she was pointing. On a nearby rack, sat a pair of brand new, fire engine red Chuck Taylors. Now, I'm not going to say that there was some voice in the back of my head whispering: These are the ones. But I could have sworn there was angels singing for a few seconds in my brain as I gazed upon them.
I walked over and immediately put them on, feeling as if I was worth a million bucks. My mother laughed, probably at the stupid face I was most likely making.
"How much for the shoes?" The woman behind the counter waved her wallet away.
"It's on the house." She said. "It's the least I can do after teaching those two some cool new vocabulary words." My mom smiled, and thanked the woman. Just then the squeaky door opened again. The woman's eyes brightened, and she yelled out to the person who just walked in.
"Thorne! How's my girl!?" She bellowed. The girl swiveled, her long blonde braid swinging out from under her black hoodie.
"Fabulous, as always!" The girl said, grinning. "Just here to check out the newest shipment of vinyls!" She walked to the back wall, which was lined with them. "Have any Blink-182? My friend just got me into them."
"Hold on a second. Just finishing up with this lovely customer!"
"You actually have somebody else here?" The girl walked back up to the front, her lip stuck out in a fake pout. "I thought I was your only customer, Melanie!"
"Shh!" Melanie said, handing Mom our bags. "They don't have to know that!"The girl looked at me, as if noticing me for the first time.
"Nice shoes." She said, before walking back over the the vinyl wall. Even to this day, I can't figure out whether she was being sarcastic or not.
"Thanks." I said to the back of her head, before walking out of the store behind Mom.
That was the first miracle that the shoes sent me.
YOU ARE READING
The Shoebox Paradox
Teen Fiction"This story is about those tattered red Chucks. That's right, a whole book based off of one pair of shoes. A very special pair of shoes." "How exactly are those shoes so special? I guess it isn't exactly the shoes themselves that are so interesting...
