Poor Marvin, and these damn shoes of mine.

Poor Marvin, and these damn shoes of mine.


The more I think, the more I really believe that I was cursed at birth. Had to be, there is just no other way that I wasn’t. as ungrateful as it sounds, I luckily had the misfortune of having a couple of parents that had nothing but hate for one another. Unfortunately, all it did is put me in the middle of what I am sure were stupid kid games. For me to remember them all, I would have to be severely drunk and become severely depressed. That would force me to relive my sordid past. But on a lighter note, I really believe that there were all sorts of games being played at my expense. Let me revisit the buster brown shoe experiment.

Now there was one weekend where my pops took me shoe shopping. I was not all that excited, because its not like I ever brought any of the stuff he bought, home with me. Never anytime since I started getting that visitation crap. However, out of 3 pairs of shoes he got for me, he gave me the least favorite of hem all. I m no shoe freak or anything, but these shits were horrible. At that time I really hated the color brown. And these shoes were not only brown, but they had a hump in the front. I mean a real big assed hump in the front on the top. They looked like something that a kid with a club foot would wear.

When I wore them, I felt like I was Frankenstein or some character out of a science fiction horror romance murder novel. I mean, these shoes were so hideous, that I would have nightmare of me walking to school, and the shoes were following me, kicking me in the as while I walked to school. The hump made tem look like if I dropped food on the floor while eating, that the hump would open up, stick out a tongue and lap up the jettisoned food. These fucking shoes where like the plant, Audrey from that movie. Except, these were the “little shoes of horror.”

When I was told by the old man that I could bring these shoes home with me, I am pretty sure I said no thank you. Maybe I didn’t say anything at all for fear of getting another unexplained ass whooping. All the details are sketchy being that it was so long ago. But the hate for the kicks sill run rampant in my ever thinking mind. Before I became a parent, I didn’t know what baby daddy and momma drama was all about. But, right now, I am sure that moms complained that I had no shoes to wear, and that led to an argument, and that led to some sort of evil get back from my pops. Enter these fucking shoes.

So after the weekend, I go back home, and I showed my moms the shoes. She was happy I got them, because we didn’t have much at all in those days. The next morning, my mom picked out clothes she thought I should wear to school. Big fucking mistake that I allowed that. Because what she chose for me to wear were them shoes. Man listen, I cried like a little fat girl protesting the discontinuation of the easy bake oven.

The first day I went to school with those shoes, I did not hear the end of it. I was ridiculed like there was nothing else to do in the third grade. I mean, it isn’t like tit was an item that you could hide or flip inside out. These were shoes damnit! This was the time that I realized that a woman, when they see you will look at you a certain way. They look first at your face, and then make a b line to your shoes, and then let their eyes glide back up to your face, if the shoes were proper. In my case, I would not be dry humping Sharissa Blackwood with these shoes on. I had a better chance with flip flops on with gangrene toes, including fruit flies orbiting my feet.

I went a whole week wearing these shoes. When we went to gym, I would try to leave the shoes in my bag and rock my kangaroo sneakers back to class. My teacher, Mrs. Clark was not having it, she would direct me into the coatroom, and order me to put the shoes back on. She was my all time favorite teacher ever, but I surely will never forgive that fiasco.

I don’t know what the hell was wrong with us kids. We had an asphalt playground. The only tool for enjoyment as a kid was a sliding board. We barely used it. We used it for one game. The purpose of the game I don’t know. But it was fun for anyone that didn’t get hurt. We would play this game on the day I wear them fucking shoes. The game was simple. All we had to do was hold a kid at the bottom of the slide, and see if the kid could get away before the slider came down and knocked them the hell out. Crack had not yet reached the area, so there was no real excuse for this particular game. We always tried to play catch a girl get a girl, but the teachers aides were hip to that. I m guessing they were hip because when they were young, they were the humpee’s, thus never becoming more than a teachers’s aide, instead of a teacher.

So, it was my turn to get on the slide. There was a little Peruvian kid named Marvin. One of the few Spanish speaking kids in the school. He protested about being held at the bottom of the slide. And I was impressed with his English. “NO, NO NOOOOO”. He should haven’t been in the esl class. So, there they are holding him at the bottom, and here I come. Now, I was a little guy, so it were the shoes that catapulted me downward with a vicious force. So, there I go, just a sliding. I am sure it was quicker than I recall. In my mind it is slow motion now. So, I get to the bottom. Poor marvin had a look on his face of pure fear. We meet, or my shoes met his fingers. CRACKKKKKKK. Marvin fell down grabbing his hand, speaking the best Peruvian Spanish I ever heard. The teacher’s aide comes over to aide him.

Poor Marvin’s fingers were broke. And I was in trouble. Oh boy, was I in trouble. The next day Marvin came to school with his father with his fingers all bandaged the hell up. I thought it was fake. Besides, Marvin was Spanish speeding down the slide too. What an ass. And I am sitting there in the principal’s office while marvin’s pops goes on about how the family had a band, and that his son played the GeeTar. That is how he pronounced it. And he went on and on about how his son may never play the Geetar again. What the fuck? A family band of Peruvians? There is no damn music in Peru. “I don’t know how he can go on if he cannot play the GeeTar, the GeeTar is what his life is, what if he cannot play the Geetar again, then mi familia will never be the same, he tried to play the GeeTar lass night, and he cry because he no can play I aska him why he cry for, and he tell me that he can no longer bring joy in this country. Man, I was tired about this damn Geetar. I was wishing that while I was sliding down the slide, that I had a guitar in my hands so I could have whacked him with it, right after my shoes handled the take down. Of course the principal feeling a lawsuit coming on asks me what I had to say for myself. And I thought “Marvin played the guitar in the class play we had, it sounded like shit, maybe this is what god intended’. But all I could conjure up was a ‘I don’t know”. When you are a kid, “I don’t know” is always the way to go, even if you know. Its no surprise that I was going to be suspended for a couple days. For a little Peruvian geetar playing summabitch that couldn’t move out the way of my giant assed shoes. Well, his fingers were the fan., and these damn shoes were the shit that hit it. The dad looked at my shoes and said “AYE DIOS MIO” and snickered. That bastard. If you ask me, Marvin came out on top. He didn’t have to do school work for weeks. And I was relegated to stay my ass in the lunchroom after we ate. And you know the fuck what? Marvin’s ass was bought an ice cream sandwich by the aide that helped his ass when got hurt. And he was using the “GeetTar hand” to hold it. If I saw him today, I’d throw a sliding board at his ass this time. Fucking Geetars.