Nick's Shoe Service

Unless it was a rainy day, I spent most of gym class on the bleachers faking a cramp, in the nurse’s office faking an undetectable illness, or hiding in the bathroom writing stall-door poetry about some girl I hated and the list of Los Baños High School faculty members she had performed fellatio on––anything to avoid playing sports. On rainy days, we were all forced to stay in the gym and play the only game I was good at. Dodgeball. I had trained for this game my whole life, dodging bullies or anything my mother could get her hands on: chanclas, toys, staplers. Frying pans.      

Ditching Gym class was a lot easier in middle school, when I had managed to steal a whole packet of hall passes during sexual education week. While the class watched videos about unprotected sex and babies, I snuck into Mr. Paul Enos’s desk. Learning how to sign his signature was easy. He used basic cursive and signed his name, P. Enos. 

Jorge and I met on the bleachers on one of the few days I decided to show up to gym class during my sophomore year of high school. He was not avoiding sports like me. Quite the contrary. He had been banished to the bleachers to cool off after getting into it with another boy. 

Jorge was short, like me, light-skinned, with tight curly light brown hair that afro’d between haircuts. His eyes were golden-brown, and maybe even pretty had they not protruded so far out of his head. The boys in school teased him about everything. Some days it would be his oversized tattered clothes or his thick Mexican accent. Other days they’d call him “frog.” “Dude, don’t look at his face!” one boy would set up the joke. Another would deliver the punchline: “His eyes will shoot out at you!” Most days they’d push him around and ask him what it was like to have sex with his own mother. 

I hated that.

Once we started hanging out, I realized he was annoying. He always found an opportunity to pinch my nipple or stick his saliva-wet finger in my ear on our walks home from school. He’d give me Indian burns and kick at my legs while I walked to try and trip me. The usual boy, stuff I suppose. The worst was having to pretend I enjoyed his dad’s Playboy magazines he’d bring to school. “Man, look at those chichís! They’re huge!” he’d point out. “Oh yeah, man. So large,” I’d say, unsure of the appropriate response. I wanted to say, “Ew gross, why are her nipples so big?” but didn’t. 

For the most part, he was nice, and I tolerated all the boy stuff because he served as a bodyguard on my walks home after school. Despite all the teasing he got, the other boys wouldn’t mess with him unless they were in a group, and if that were to happen, he would serve as the perfect distraction while I ran for my life. Unfortunately for Jorge, it wasn’t long before the boys in school went from calling him a “frog” to “fag”––a curse placed on any boy who would talk to me.

“Look at Frog and his new boyfriend! You guys gonna go have butt sex?” I didn’t mind being called gay or fag; I had grown accustomed to it. But Jorge hated it. And I hated being accused of having butt sex with him. Not because there was anything wrong with butt sex, but if I was going to be accused of having butt sex with anyone, I’d like it to be someone attractive. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, or Mr. P. Enos.

During our summer break in 1997, Jorge asked me over to work out in his garage. He had invited me to his house many times before, but I always made excuses why I couldn't go. I didn't like how Jorge's father treated him. It made me uncomfortable. Like the boys at school, his father called him ugly and pushed him around. His mother was kind, though. She was soft-spoken and timid. It made me sad to watch how mean they both were to her.

When I arrived, Jorge was already working out. He called me over to the bench press and asked me to lay down so he could spot me. I put my backpack down, walked over to the torn plastic cushion, ignored the discomfort of the cheap bench digging into my back, and gripped the Olympic bar that had a total of twenty pounds on it. He told me to wait a minute, and then, in a Phoebe Cates exiting the pool moment, took off his oversized shirt, slowly exposing his perfectly sculpted six-pack. Garage light shaded his tiny light brown hairs glistening over his abs. And then his tightly formed pectoral muscles. I felt my face warming up, then the blood rushing from my head downward. I quickly got up and grabbed my bag.

“What?” he asked. 

“Oh! Nothing, bro” I said, to butch it up. I hoped he didn’t notice my voice crack or the erection I was trying to conceal with my bag. I was still looking at the V-shape formation on his hips that pointed down toward the outline of what appeared to be a very large penis. “I got a cramp!” I announced and began digging through my backpack. “I need to get the water bottle out of my bag.” 

“A cramp? But we haven’t even started yet.”

“I think I got it from running over here from home. You can work out though, I’ll just rub it out––I mean! Wait it out.” 

I stayed away the rest of that summer.

We rarely saw each other once our junior year started. We didn’t share any classes, and by the second semester, because of my recent purchase of six-inch platform boots and trendy thrift wardrobe, combined with my unique raving skills, I had become somewhat popular with the girls who gave me rides home from school. We’d often drive past him as he walked home, and I always wanted to ask if we could stop and pick him up, but I had a new reputation to uphold, so I never did. 

The Friday before Spring break, Jorge asked if I wanted to walk home with him after school. It was unusually hot out, and I figured he’d be taking his shirt off, so I thought, “What the hell, why not?” He suggested we walk the long way home through Pacheco Park. All the school fights, which the students treated like social events, happened at Pacheco Park and I didn’t particularly enjoy walking through it. Challengers would slip a note in your locker or pass one to you in class, informing you of the date and time of the events, usually after school or during lunch. The news would spread quickly among the students, and everyone who was no one would show up. Although I always managed to get away with not showing up, I kept a shoebox full of invitations I had received over the years where I was the guest of honor. I avoided the park, invite or no, but because I was with Jorge I felt less apprehensive. He had developed a reputation for being a ruthless fighter. Crazy was the term most used. 

“Dude, you need to hook me up with your friend Isabel,” he mentioned, halfway through the park. We stopped so he could tie his shoe. “She has big chichis. Her tits are huge.” He stood up and took his shirt off. I looked away.

“Chichis? You’re so gross,” I scoffed, trying not to stare at the individual beads of sweat slowly running down the curves of his ripped stomach. 

“You’re so gross,” he mocked. “Why gross?” His voice had an edge I knew enough to back away from.

“I mean, I dunno. They’re just sacks,” I said, regretting the words as they came out of my mouth. Since I had started hanging out with girls, I didn’t have to speak “boy” anymore. I was out of practice. 

“What do you mean, sacks?” he exclaimed. I wasn’t sure why he was getting so angry, but then I noticed a group of boys sitting on a park bench not too far away from us. I looked back at Jorge. His brows were furrowed now and his jaw clenched. Red patches had begun to form on his chest and face. He glared at me. 

“Ha ha!” I shouted, nervous and suspicious of the group of boys in the distance. “Just kidding!” 

“It’s true then. Eres un pinche maricon. You are a fucking fag,” Jorge shouted, as if trying to get the boys’ attention. He took a step back with his right leg.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I had seen Rocky three times. I knew full well what was about to happen and, at that moment, realized why he had suggested walking through Pacheco Park in the first place. 

“You’re why everyone thinks I’m a fucking fag,” he snarled. His eyes began to water. I looked past Jorge at the boys, who were watching intensely.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. They’re not gonna stop teasing you. They’re just using you,” I said.

“Just like you do?” he asserted. 

He was right. Maybe I deserved to get my ass beat. I took advantage of him as a bodyguard and a shield. I used him for someone to talk to when I needed an audience, and, from the neck down, as something fun to look at. But I never treated him like a friend. 

"Te voy a partir la madre maricon. I’m gonna kick your fucking ass, faggot,” he declared, retracting his right arm and fisted hand. 

I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable. Would he beat me up alone, or would those other boys jump me too, I wondered. I clenched my eyelids, releasing a tear that ran down my cheek.

“Estas llorando? Are you fucking crying, you pussy?” he yelled. “Fight me!” 

“No,” I said calmly, accepting my fate. “Just do it.” 

I figured getting my ass beat by Jorge couldn’t be all that different from being spanked as a child, whipped with belts and shoe soles, or dodging anything thrown my way––all I had to do was multiply that by ten, I thought. This’ll be fine. 

“Fucking fight me!” he demanded again.

“I’m not. I don’t know how,” I cried, and shut my eyes even tighter. I wanted him to hurry and get it over with. I wasn’t afraid of Jorge or the severe beating he and or his new friends would most likely inflict on me. I was worried about the shaming I would get once I got home with a bloody lip and black eye or two. 

“Fuck you, maricon!” Jorge shouted, and then I heard a thud and a grunt, followed by an immediate roar of laughter. 

I opened my eyes, and he was on the ground. He must have swung, missed, and fallen. I looked toward the park bench, and the boys were coming my way. With my platform shoe, I kicked Jorge in the face as hard as I could and ran toward downtown.

***

Downtown Los Baños was a six-block area of locally owned businesses, boutiques, bars, and run-down studio apartments. After dark, the retail shops would close, and the quaint little area would light up with local night-lifers: migrant field and factory workers, farmers who came out after working twelve-hour shifts that probably paid $4.25 an hour––the minimum wage in 1993—truckers and bikers with their gangs, and male sex workers posing as women. 

The male sex workers, or as people called them at the time, cross-dressing hookers, loitered in front of Los Baños oldest tavern, Jessie’s bar, shouting, “Hola Papi!” to intoxicated truck drivers in town for the night, conveniently unaware that they were about to have their dicks sucked in the back alley by a thin pretty Mexican boy in a Spirit Halloween wig and a Fashion Bug leopard-print tube top worn as a mini skirt. 

Downtown’s residential spaces were occupied by low-income families, meth addicts, and their dealers. According to Veronica, a friend who lived there, the whole place was run by drug-dealing slumlords. Los Baños Junior High was the only middle school in town, and fortunately for me, only a few blocks away from colorful downtown L.B. and the hip middle school hang out: Nick’s Shoe Service.

I was thirteen, and not allowed to go anywhere near downtown L.B. alone. On the days my mom dropped me off at school early, I’d wait until her car was out of sight before rushing over to Nick’s Shoe Service. Going to Nick’s to buy penny candies was a middle school tradition that I had been waiting to participate in since the fifth grade. Nick was roughly two hundred and seven years old, so the tradition must have been going on for a long time. He sold Double Bubble gum and Tootsie Rolls for a penny, Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for a nickel, and larger candy bars for seventy-five cents. 

Jars and clear plastic containers of red licorice and assorted Jolly Ranchers brightened the countertops Nick stood behind. The cash register and old shoes sat next to the display of larger candy bars. A bell announced customers, and Nick would greet everyone with a welcoming smile while watching out for the random kids he suspected of stealing or planning to steal candy. He knew who we were. 

“What are you hookers doing?” I asked Liz, Katrina, and Veronica who were standing in front of Nick’s. They ignored me, so I flicked the back of Liz’s hair. 

“God, you’re so annoying!” Liz yelled. 

“Yeah, well, your bangs are way too high,” I countered. “You whores getting candy?” I asked, trying to spark up a conversation. 

Katrina smiled and approached me with a crafty look on her face.

Katrina and Liz were sisters and Katrina was the prettier one of the two. She was tall and skinny, with long, beautiful light brown hair. A bit of a snob but occasionally nice to me. Liz, although she had a beautiful body, had a large nose, thin lips, tiny teeth, and bangs she Aqua Netted as high as she could. Liz was the nicer of the two. 

“You’re going to go in there and steal some candy for me while I distract him,” Katrina announced, bosom-buddying her arm around my shoulder.

“What? No, I’m not!” I said unconfidently. “I’m not stealing from Willy fucking Wonka. That’s messed up. And what are you gonna distract him with? Your flat chest?”

“Nick’s Willy Wonka,” Veronica giggled quietly, then said under her breath, “Nick’s willy,” and chuckled again. Veronica was a tiny light-skinned Mexican with beautiful green eyes who rarely spoke, but when she did, whatever came out of her mouth was hilarious. Out of the three hyenas, she was my favorite.  

“But I don’t have any money, and I’m hella hungry!” Katrina whined. 

“We have lunch money today,” Liz reminded Katrina. 

“No, that’s for lunch!” Katrina yelled, rolled her eyes, then looked sharply back at me, squeezing me tighter into her side. All of us were being raised by single mothers and didn’t have much money to bargain with. But Katrina had something more worthwhile to offer me. “You can hang out with us at lunch for a whole week if you get me a Snickers Bar.” 

I didn’t have any friends, so I tagged along with the three hyenas whenever I could find them on campus. Tagging along, I learned as early as the first grade, was how I kept from getting beat up. In the seventh grade, I realized I was less likely to get picked on if I hung out with a group of girls. I was shorter than everyone else in my class, so the girls instinctively protected me from the boys, and since hormones had begun racing, the boys tried everything they could to not anger any of the girls. Glenda Galindo, on the other, had it backward. She was a large Brienne of Tarth-sized girl whose idea of letting you know she had a crush on you was to kick you in the balls and stuff your four foot eleven inch body into your locker multiple times a week. I hated her.

Instead of stealing, I thought about offering to pay for Katrina’s candy, but I only got five dollars a week as an allowance. and was saving up my lunch money to go see Mrs. Doubtfire the weekend before Thanksgiving break. But a whole week of hanging out with the hyenas for protection was worth considering. Especially since I had recently been made a target for losing the first game of flag football by kicking the ball toward the goal posts from the 40-yard line after I had, miraculously, caught it. Unfortunately, the instruction to “Run, you faggot!” did not tell me what to do with the football once I caught it. So much for going unnoticed in the eighth grade. 

“I can hang out with you for a whole week?” I asked. “And you won’t hide from me?”  

“Yup,” she assured, probably crossing her fingers behind her back.

I looked into the shop window and watched Nick cheerfully place a fistful of candy into a small brown paper bag for a kid. My stomach began to feel sick. 

I wasn’t a stranger to stealing. The summer my father passed away, before starting the sixth grade, my neighborhood friends taught me how to steal treasure trolls from the general store. The trolls were always piled in a wire bin on a shelf. The trick was to grab the one you wanted with one hand, keeping it in the bin, and then with the other hand, you would raise a less desirable troll as if examining its quality to distract the eye of whoever was watching you behind cameras that probably didn’t exist. Then, while distracting, you used the tip of your fingers to slip the desired troll up your long-sleeve sweatshirt, fuzzy hair first. By the end of the summer, I was a pro, graduating from swiping the tiny trolls that fit on the end of a pencil to the large ones with the plastic-colored diamond on the belly that could grant you wishes. 

I had never stolen from someone I knew, though. Even though the longest conversation I’d ever had with Nick was about what color Jolly Ranchers I wanted and if I needed a bag, he still felt like a friend. On the other hand, taking the candy bar meant a week of not having to hide and still being able to afford popcorn with no butter at the movies. 

“I’ll go in first. Stay here and count to thirty, then go in after me,” I ordered confidently, trying to mask the guilt I was feeling. “Make sure you give me at least thirty seconds, though. Greet him as soon as you walk in and distract him.”

“I’ll distract him!” Katrina demanded.

“With what?” Veronica asked.

“Not with those mosquito bites you call tits, I hope.” I said.

“Do it with that fat ass of yours,” Veronica added. We all laughed, and I entered the store. 

“Hi Nick!” I shouted, as usual.  

“Hello, my friend” he greeted, “How can...”

“Hi, Nick!” the hyenas chuckled as they followed right behind me. That was not thirty seconds, I thought. 

“Hello, ladies,” he replied in his unrecognizable accent. I was used to Mexican accents, but his accent sounded nicer. As they chatted him up, I walked over to the big candy bars on the counter, my back blocking Nick’s view of me sliding the Snickers bar into my sleeve. 

“Excuse me, Nick, how much is this bubble gum?” I asked, to seem less conspicuous. 

“Five cents! But for you, young man? Twenty-five cents,” he chuckled. “Solo scherzando! I’m joking. One penny my friend!” 

His warmth made me feel even more sick. I handed him the penny. He looked at my sleeve and then at me. He wasn’t smiling anymore. I paused, certain that he knew, but unsure of what to do next. “Will that be all?” he asked, as usual.

“Yes sir,” I said with a smile to disguise the obvious fear and shame on my face, then thanked him and hurried out the door. The hyenas followed. I rushed down the block before a crossing guard stopped me.

“Oh my God, wait up!” Katrina yelled. The attendant signaled for me to cross, but I waited for the hyenas to catch up.

“Here’s your stupid candy,” I said, handing Katrina her Snickers bar. 

That week, unable to find the girls during lunch break, I ate alone in the bathroom stall––as usual. 

***

Running across the street from the park, I looked back and noticed Jorge and the boys weren’t far behind. A few minutes ago, I was ready to submit to my fate, but as soon as I saw the chance to avoid getting beat up, I took it. Only two blocks from the park, in my six-inch platform boots, I started to lose momentum. I thought about running into the police station downtown, but that was too far. Jorge and his new posy would surely catch me before I made it. I thought about running into the Junior high, but school was out and the campus was gated. I was a dead man. Two blocks farther, now cramping at the side, I reached downtown and turned left onto the main street. 

“Se fue a la izquierda! He turned left!” I heard a boy yell. I ducked into the first shop I could.

“Hello, my friend,” a familiar voice said from behind me. It was Nick. I hadn’t been in Nick’s Shoe Service for a few years, and something about his voice made me feel like I could relax. I would be safe here, at least for a few minutes. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, hi,” I said, holding my side and trying to catch my breath. “Is it okay if I stay for a few minutes? I’ll buy something.” 

“Sure. Are those boys chasing you?” he asked as they ran past the shop on the opposite side of the street. 

“Yeah.”

“And you ran? In those shoes?” he laughed. 

“Huh? Oh,” I giggled and looked down at my shoes. “I guess I did. They were going to jump me, and I kicked one of them in the face.”

“In those shoes?” he laughed again. “I haven’t seen shoes like that in a long time. Can I see them?”

“They’re actually ankle boots,” I said, unzipping the side to take one off and show him. “I got them in San Francisco a few months ago,” I said and handed him the boot.

“Impressionante. Impressive. This is good leather,” he informed me. “They need to be cleaned, and the sole needs work. I can fix them for you,” he said after giving them what looked like a thorough examination.

“Oh no, that’s okay,” I said. “I wear them every day. They’re getting all messed up.”

“Then let me fix them. I don’t see shoes like this anymore,” Nick chuckled. “Won’t take long. And you might want to stay a little longer,” he said, gesturing toward the storefront window with a head nod. Jorge and the boys were outside looking in. 

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I sighed. “Thank you, Nick.” He smiled and took my boots.

The shop was dark and smelled of leather and aged wood, reminiscent of an antique shop. On the walls hung old tools and pictures of local kids who had dropped off their class photos for Nick, who cheerfully displayed them. 

Distracted by the bullies hovering around the front door, I didn’t pay much attention to Nick as he cobbled my shoes. I’d like to say that I sat and listened as Nick shared wise stories of his youth. Stories of being born in Italy and immigrating to America when he was seven. Disembarking from the USS America at Ellis Island with his mother and younger brother in 1920. I’d like to say we talked about the long train ride across the country to Los Baños, where his father was waiting. What it must have felt like seeing his father after such a long journey. What he could’ve shared with me about missing your father. Going so long, too long, without seeing him. But these were facts I would learn of later, after Nick’s passing. We never had those moments. Instead, I sat silently, occasionally looking over and exchanging smiles.  

“Okay, my friend, you are all done!” he announced. The boys had been gone for a while now. I thanked him. A familiar surge of guilt surged through me. It had only been a few years since I had stolen from him, but his kindness made those years feel sharp and short.

“I can pay you. How much?” I asked, searching the pockets of my thrifted bell-bottom slacks.  

“Don’t worry. Go home!” Nick said cheerfully. “The boys are gone now.” 

I wondered if he remembered me from that day, when I was the kid who stole from him. I like to think he did and decided to help me anyway. 

When he turned his back to me, I put what was left of my fifteen or sixteen dollars in tips from the night before, waiting tables at Pizza Hut, on the counter next to the jar of assorted Jolly Ranchers and rushed out the door. 

That was the last time I saw Nick. I never went back to Nick’s Shoe Service. Not in person anyway, but I’ve thought of that moment often. He wasn’t trying to fix or save us. He was just being kind in a world where kindness, as Alecia Moore so gracefully put it, is an act of rebellion. Kindness was all he had to give. Nick’s Shoe Service, to some kids, was just a candy store. But for the rest of us, when there weren’t many things to be happy about, was a place that added a tiny bit of joy to our small pile of happy.

“I don't care about your politics; I care about your kids. I care about decency and humanity and kindness. Kindness today is an act of rebellion.” Pink.