Toxic Soles

Today was the day--because yesterday was the smell.
I noticed it creeping up while getting ready for my Friday night shift--jeans on (washed Monday), yellow halter (dry cleaned last week), hair washed (everyday, people, everyday).

What was the source, I asked myself?

I then looked down after having slipped my black sketchers on and noticed that the seam had split around the right arc of my smallest toes (aka "Backpack" & "Dagger" ... almost like Cloak & Dagger, but much more inspired because they belong to me). I suspect that I smelled the ugliness of the shoes in that moment because when the seams had finally slipped after over a year of constant wear-and-tear, something toxic emanated from their fabric. The months of sin and vice stored in the shoes ... no wonder the smell was unbearable. They were bar shoes. They traipsed over a nightly playground of sin. They certainly had a lot to say.

I was embarrassed to go to work at this point, but they are my most comfortable pair of shoes and when you are standing on your feet for eight hours at time, running back and forth behind a bar liked a caged lion, comfort is most important. When you are working, you hardly smell smell because everyone else around you smells like beer and perfume and bad, bad Red Bull breath. The corner of the bar positioned away from the DJ booth smells the worst--almost like old vomit and toxicity. I have never seen anyone throw up in that corner, but the bulk of Moonshine's "heavy users" linger here ...talking shit, doing dozens of Jagerbombs at a time and telling me I look nice in a skirt. I am talking about "heavy users" in terms of attendance but they are also heavy users of a nightlife that my shoes have come to call home. They find it comforting as toxic as the air may be.

I caught the second full-force whiff of them while using the bathroom at work. Maybe it was because I was away from everybody and every bad, bar scent that I noticed their smell, or maybe it was because they were again in their element. Bathrooms are some of the most vice-laden places in the city. Stalls are reserved for clandestine meetings between girls, boys, drugs and cheating. Sometimes, they are reserved for sex. Sometimes they just smell.

My shoes certainly dug it, but I was appalled. I wanted everyone to stay away from me until I could unleash my dogs. But after a few more shots of tequila and a couple of cigarettes to close out the night, I didn't notice anymore and I suspect my colleagues didn't either. I suspect my manager didn't. He asked me to help him pick out "free gift" from a catalogue one of our liquor reps. gave him. It was 3:18 in the morning. I suggested either the stone-top grill, a really hawt set of orange luggage (my favorite color) or the Euro down comforter. In the end, he decided on the down comforter. I was hoping he would get some sleep.

I promised myself I would get new shoes today and had forgotten about it until 1:00 in the afternoon. My shoes were outside my apartment door. In the end, I succeeded, scoring a black pair of streamlined Converses with a small, non-intrusive pink star on each side. The shop was located down Clybourn Avenue. My black Sketchers are now staring at me from the side of the kitchen trash bin, where I've moved them for a visitation period of sorts. I have not decided on their fate--somehow, I don't think simply throwing them away will ever fully eradicate the smell.