A Pair Of Shitkickers

Shit-Kickers

Nobody knew what started it, but people started wearing cowboy boots to school. A new person just about every week could be heard clomping and making high fives. The word shit-kickers was used to describe them. One could imagine the many fights these shit-kicker bearers would either win or lose, delivering painful kicks to the head or falling over one’s self for poor balance. But nobody who wore shit-kickers ever got in a fight that year anyways.
You could hear them clomping around, then stopping by somebody’s locker and talking to them, then clomping off to go somewhere else. They wore their blue denim jeans over them and were actually balanced kind of gracefully.
Then some women started wearing them and it became ridiculous. They’d wear them with miniskirts or over top of their jeans. One couldn’t tell exactly who his or her was, their shit-kickers synonymous with the status quo there at high school.
There was Bobby, who was in tenth grade, and constantly thought of purchasing a pair of shit-kickers. Everyone was doing it and he rambled over a litany of thoughts, none of them very cool. Among them were: is this going to get me in trouble, and what exactly was the quality of person that wore shit-kickers and was he in some other pseudo geeky group in high school that by principle alone forbid him to wear shit-kickers, and if he was in a shit-kicker bearing group would he score chicks with this?
It was true, he looked good in jeans, but he could imagine the clomping, here and there, and then some odd social exchange, and clomping on. How would he adjust the very fine nature of his being and attitude in concomitance with the shit-kickers? Would he have to change wholesomely or did he need to adjust some very vestigial part of his general demeanor?
There were a pair at a used goods place that were selling for $40.00. They were leather, of course, and had a little arabesque of different colored shapes and engravings. He ran to the ATM and withdrew some money. The person at the cash rang them in and told him to have a nice day.
“Certainly,” Bobby said.
He tried them on in his bedroom, lifting up his jeans and sliding the cowboy boots on over top of his socks, then sliding the jeans over the cowboy boots. He stood up and felt three inches taller. There was a mirror there that he looked in and with a smile realized this was going to be a hit.
But his bedroom was carpeted so he walked into the kitchen and the linoleum floor. He heard a distinct clomp and realized right away he was now a part of the shit-kicker gang. A smile crept up to his face from eons and affixed itself on his face. Yes sir, he thought, now I’m an official shit-kicker.
Before opening the door to school he knew inside this was going to be great. He heard the clomp on the floor and felt somewhat aroused. This was good. The clomping soon became a rhythm and he smiled at his friends, holding his hand up for high fives.
Bobby Mitchell has got the shit-kickers. Read ‘em and weep, bastards.
Sitting in class was agonizing. There was so much he wanted to do, like a snake all curled up in a basket. The moments between that distinct rhythm were excruciating. It seemed he was only really free when he was in the hall and walking, clomping like a man that really knew himself.
Necessarily he squirmed in his seat and found the right posture. He sat with his legs open wide, slightly slouched as if there was a major burden in his crotch. People saw him and probably thought to themselves like little mice, “This is going to be Bobby Mitchell’s undoing.”
He was aware of that and somehow the din of his boots in the hallways reassured himself that all was right. He counted on the high fives for support and often said, “Don’t leave me hanging.”
When school was done he felt as if he were the lone wolf, some guy, a stray bottle in society, who was so cool it was to do him harm. He found himself scowling often, aware of the injustice in this world. But people saw him and they were always happy to see him. He realized how elitist the shit-kicker wearing people were and he felt quite the Jew.
His Mom implored him to stop wearing those stupid boots. “You’re going to get in trouble. People will think you’re someone else. You’ve got to get real.”
“I know, Mom,” he said soporifically. “But I believe I’m safe, nonetheless. There are people who will look out for me.”
“Nonsense. If you wear those boots to school tomorrow I’m going to talk to your principal.”
“Mom? Noh. This is part of growing up, come on.”
“And how are you going to drive your car, did you think of that you imbecile? How are you going to pick up your sister from dance class if you’re wearing those stupid boots?”
“I’ll wear my runners,” he said.
“Wear your runners everyday. That’s the last word.”
“Alright, Ma. I will.”
So he wore his runners the next day and people didn’t notice him. He was like a rabbit in the woods, bounding from one place to another. His shit-kicker buddies looked at him, smiling with furrowed brows, “Dude? Where’s your boots?”
“Ah. It’s complicated,”
“Did your mother take away your boots?”
“No. It’s far deeper.”
“Maybe you should use bird sounds to let us know when you’re coming,” one said and they all laughed.
“I’m not a goddamned bird. I just needed to let those shit-kickers rest. They were too much for me. I felt like Billy the Kid,” he said. “You know, like, knock knock knocking on heaven’s door.”
At that they were all a bit shocked. “That’s touching, Bobby. But why the boots, man? Why would you give up the boots?”
“It was their time. That time has come. Now they are gone.”
“You should write a song about your pretty little boots.”
“Fuck you. The boots are dead.”
Everybody noticed in school that day the sneakers that sounded like doves and velour. The teachers taught and occasionally people would look to each other and chat something Bobby couldn’t hear and it only made him angrier. “I don’t need no stinking boots to be heard.”
All day people would miss his high fives and he had to shout at certain people so they could hear him. Everybody in school noticed the missing clomp of a certain somebody at school.
In homeroom, as always, every morning, there played Queen’s We Are The Champions. It described something ephemeral like war and art and madness. The ones that wanted to rock you were the ones against the two who had heard the sound and changed. Still the monotony was enough to drive one mad. The music droned, “and we’ll keep on fighting, till the end.”
The aura in the gymnasium where they played the same damned song before every sporting event was rife with hatred and derision. When certain things happened at school everybody took it with a grain a salt and certain wisdom. It was always somebody who was just on the edge, who did not know his or her fate.
But the song came on and everyone’s emotions were diluted since the school had finished crying tears. People were exclusive and sometimes they hugged each other. Sometimes it was sad.
This time, in homeroom, the song played and Bobby was very upset about his boots and wondered in high school terms what the loss of his boots actually meant. Was he a wimp beyond proportions? Could he just let his mother tell him what to do? The song, Mother, from Pink Floyd played in his mind and he was once again jettisoned to the past.
With regards to the wall, why did they have to build it so high?
He thought to himself and secretly fumed. The fight was in his mind, and he had to give the boots one more fair shot. He would store them in his locker at night and by day he would travel from home to school in his sneakers. The true test for these shit-kickers was whether or not he was free, as a human being, to wear these shit-kickers with a clear conscience.
So the next day he put his cowboy boots in his pack sack along with his books and marched to school in his sneakers.
The hall was silent and deathly quiet. He removed his sneakers and put them on the top shelf of his locker. Then he withdrew the boots and put them on, lifting his jeans up high and sliding them on over his socks, then pulling his jeans down over his boots and began to walk.
The first clomp brought him great satisfaction, and the next clomp brought him inner security. Once again he was Bobby Mitchell, in shit-kickers, ready for anything.
There were smiles and high fives and people said things like Bobby’s back in business, and damn that damned handsome man. He was all smiles and in class assumed his erstwhile position.
Somehow the school seemed happier, seemed relieved of a certain burden and he knew this and walked like to the beat of an ancient tune, gathering melody and sounding like a high, shrill whine that people reacted to innately, like the sound of a beautiful friend, free of make-up, walking the halls with pride.
He followed the same pattern day by day and on the last day of school for that week he forgot to put his shit-kickers back in the locker. He walked inside and his mother heard him right away. “Bobby! What did I tell you about those damned boots!”
Bobby instantly realized his mistake. “Holy crow, Mom. They just jumped on my feet. I didn’t even hear myself walking. Holy fucking crow,” he said, punishing himself for not putting those shit-kickers back in the locker.
“Put them in the garbage right away. That’s it. That’s final.”
Bobby blushed as he took them off slowly while sitting on the stair. “Sorry, Mom,” and inside, to himself, he said, “I’m sorry, too, Bobby. You’re just not a shit-kicker kind of guy.”
He put the cowboy boots in the garbage, took an instant snapshot of the boots in the garbage, and went to his room to unload his books. He thought to himself, finally, “Shit-kickers are not for suburban boys. And not for me.”