by Jacob Scherer
So first of all, I should say that my friend Jim is kind of a perpetual liar.
Well, sort of. We didn’t really listen to him that much with confidence, cuz often he exaggerated things, or just misunderstood them, y’know? Like he would sometimes lie deliberately to mess with us, but most of the time he was just being an idiot.
Well anyway, we were relaxing in our dorm one day and he went out to get groceries. And when you’re in college, “groceries” are basically eggs, milk, bread, cereal, and ramen. That’s it. At least it was for us, unless when Rob asked for some steak or something. He could eat a whole cow in one sitting if he had the chance. Rob was on the powerlifting team, so he had to eat meat and stay fit, y’know?
But like I was saying, Jim was out getting food, but then we hear his car pull up outside and someone stomping up the stairs. So we figure there must have been some huge deal at the store and he had to rush back and tell us what he got. Instead, he just walks in with no goddamn food, and all he’s holding is 3 shoeboxes that look like they were shoved up someone’s ass and then run over with a tank. “Rob, Art, you are NOT gonna believe what I got my hands on.” He usually just calls me “Arthur,” he only shortens it when he’s really excited, so this was a bit weird for him to be excited over some stupid shoes.
He drops the boxes on the floor and opens one of them up, and he pulls out these bright purple converses that look like they were from the 70’s, or even older. The fabric was wearing away at the sides, the ends of the shoelaces were mangled and fraying, it was a pathetic excuse for a shoe. But the bottom of the show looked, well, new. In fact it looked like someone painted it with platinum or something, it was practically glowing. “Ok Jim, what’s up with this, huh? Did your dad lend you his old shoes?” Rob always poked fun at how Jim’s dad was a “Hand-me-down-er,” he hardly ever got anything that didn’t belong to his cousins or something.
“No, nonononono, man. This is some serious stuff I’m holding here. The guy I got ’em from was a retired scientist, he showed me his doctorate and everything, dude. These were an experiment in water resistance that were so effective, the wearer would be able to walk on goddamn water. He calls ’em “Jesus’ sandals.”
Now what the fuck was I supposed to say in response to this? “Jesus’ sandals?” Are you kidding me? How could this story seem any phonier? I looked over at Rob, who clearly was just as done with this crap as I was. He rubbed his forehead and said “Jim, I’m telling you, you need to stop buying weed from that guy down in Anaheim.” Jim probably wasn’t paying attention to him, so he just jumps up and throws one of the boxes to me and the other to Rob. “Guys, cmon, let’s go down to the beach, we GOTTA give these a try! We don’t have classes today, so why the hell not?” I stood there and stammered for a second, and I decided to give in. The least I could do was humor him, just so we can go for a dip. California was a hot place in the summer, I’ll tell ya.
So we hop in Rob’s Jeep and drive down to the beach by Newport; it was a little past noon by then, so it was pretty crowded in the main areas. We snuck into one of the closed off parts where it was more quiet. We laid around for a while and relaxed after all the excitement from befre. It was a beach, dude, you gotta take some time to enjoy it.
So now it was around 6, the sun was getting kinda low, and we decide to give these “Water-walking shoes” a go. I hadn’t even thought to ask how Jim could even get these, they were probably worth a fortune. But whatever, we put on the stupid shoes and go near the water. There was a little line of rocks that went up to a peak before you hit water, so we decided to run off of that. These shoes felt pretty damn uncomfortable, like a dog chewed them and then they used it to grow penicillin. Good thing I had my nice socks on, Rob just kept on his tiny socks he used with his running shoes, and I don’t even remember if Jim ever wore socks.
“Alrighty then, this is Captain Arthur speaking, here with my Co-pilot Jim and Flight Attendant Rob, we are ready for takeoff.” I was into theater, so I was a bit of a ham at times. Plus I liked to poke fun at Rob for working at McDonalds, it was just funny to me.
But now it was the big moment. We all took off, running towards that little strip. We hit the rocks, and kept up our pace as we were about to hit the water. I swear my heart skipped a beat in fear, cuz either the shoes actually worked, or I was in for a face full of jagged rocks.
So after time slowed down for like a millisecond, we made contact with the water.
And then we kept going. We just, kept running.
