Jimmy Cohn, bless his heart

What are your two favorite things to wear?

As I handed the garlic bread across the table to my brother Doug, Mom spoke.

“Honey,” she said as she twirled her spaghetti on her fork. “School starts in two weeks. I want to take you to Cobblers tomorrow.”

I groaned. The annual skirmish had begun.

Eighth grade is a tough time for anybody, but throw in glasses and dumb shoes and it puts a giant target on your back.

I was “pigeon toed”…my feet turned inward slightly… and had to wear corrective shoes. Cobblers was the only place in town and I think if you tried to assemble the lamest assortment of merchandise possible, you couldn’t do better than the guy at Cobblers.

So while all the other kids at school were wearing high-top Keds, I was clumping around in dusty brown leather oxfords. My self-esteem plummeted.

Besides the shoes, I needed glasses; and Pop, with his Great Depression mentality, bought me the most inexpensive kind they sold, a sturdy black plastic horn-rimmed style. Besides, he reasoned, those “hippy wire-frame kind” would get busted the first time I played football with the neighborhood kids. He was probably right about that, but the question of two pair was out of the question.

Rounding out the trifecta of dorkiness was my height; I had not yet hit my growth spurt and was 2-3” shorter than most of my buddies. I made Milhouse from The Simpsons look like 007.

So that night at dinner, I decided to fight back. My opening salvo was all about appearances; I looked nerdy. When this got me nowhere, I switched tactics; none of the girls liked me. This also fell on unsympathetic ears. I considered my options as I poured some water.

I remembered Pop’s stories of him being shrimpy as well and getting into scuffles until he grew. I shifted to him. “Look,” I said. “The other guys are always picking on me. Sometimes I get in fights.”

Mom immediately started talking about calling the principal, but Pop held up a restraining hand. He looked at me as he dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin; I could feel the wheels churning.

“OK,” he finally said. “Your feet look pretty good. I think you’ve had corrective shoes long enough. How about I take you shopping?”

Across the table, Doug looked at me with approval. Well played, little brother. Well played.

The next day was a cloudless south Florida Saturday and it turned into a father-son bonding experience. We went to the dinky Boca airport where he talked shop with a few buddies. We went by the Intracoastal boat docks where people were fishing and fiddling around with their boats. We got burgers and shakes. Finally, we went to the big mall in Pompano Beach to look for shoes.

A sales guy in the shoe store approached, smiling, his fingers steepled. “Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly. “How may I help you?”

I looked at Pop; he nodded; you tell him.

I explained that I wanted some cool shoes and we followed him through the kid section as he opened boxes and showed us a variety of styles. None of them really caught my eye.

Finally, he opened a box and pulled the tissue paper away. “This is more of a boot style,” he said. They were naugahyde, ankle high, with zippers on the side and heels about an inch high. I tried them on and thought they looked really cool; plus the heels gave me a little more height.

Pop looked at the price tag and I thought for sure it was gonna be a deal breaker; but to my amazement he told the guy we’d take them. He smiled at me; it was a Hallmark moment.

Back home, Doug was lounging on his bed under his big Easy Rider poster. I showed him my boots. He looked them over, tried the zippers, felt the heels. “Cool,” he simply said. If my adviser gave them the thumbs up, they passed the test.

I couldn’t wait until school on Monday.

For a few days, I strutted around Boca Middle school like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Without my stupid clodhoppers, and an inch taller, I was on top of the world. I think confidence makes you more attractive and I actually talked to a few girls who smiled and talked back.

Thursday afternoon, I was sitting in band class, in the trumpet row. 15 kids stretched out to my right and about as many to my left. Although the seats were in a slight semi-circle, you could see up and down pretty well.

We took a break as Mr. Batton worked with the flute section on a difficult part. I crossed my legs, my foot on my knee. About 10 people away, Jimmy Cohn snorted. “Hey everybody,” he said loudly. Even the clarinet section in the row ahead of us turned. “Look at Darryl. Nice pimp boots,” he said.

My face felt hot as everybody looked and laughed. Jimmy was a popular kid and the unofficial arbiter of what was cool and what was not. If he said they were pimp boots, pimp boots they were.

The next day, I snuck out for the bus right after breakfast wearing sneakers. This went on for a few days until Mom noticed. I made an excuse and a quick exit. However, she did not forget. That night at dinner, she looked at me as we ate our Chung King chow mein. It came in a can and was slimy; I hated it. “How come you weren’t wearing your boots today?” she asked. “I thought you liked them.”

Doug would have handled it better; he was much more adept than me in doing end runs around Mom and Pop. He knew Pop hated his bell bottoms and psychedelic shirts, so he stashed them in the woods by the bus stop the night before in a plastic bag. He left the house under the approving eye of Pop, wearing dumb clothes, then simply changed in the woods. He had all kinds of techniques like that; I should have known better.

So instead of saying they hurt my feet, or I had a blister, or they made my ankles itch, I unthinkingly told the truth.

“Jimmy Cohn said they looked like pimp boots,” I said as I picked up a forkful of the hated Chung King chow mein.

There was a silence; I looked up. Across the table, Doug was silently shaking his head; and Mom and Pop were looking at each other with incredulity.

“What?” Mom asked. “Pimp boots?”

“Yeah.” I ate a few crunchy noodles that came in a plastic bag as part of the Chung King kit.

To my left, Pop had a little coughing fit; he must have been swallowing. He finished, then glared at me.

“Pimp boots!” he almost shouted. “Oh for heaven’s sake! Do you remember how much those damn things cost?”

I kept my head down as Mom and Pop engaged in an indignant parental discussion about potential options. Calling Mrs. Cohn. Calling the principal. Calling Mr. Batton. Seeing if we could exchange them. Stupid kid was woven throughout their discussion as though I wasn’t sitting in between them.

It was finally decided that I was gonna wear the damn pimp boots and tell Jimmy Cohn to mind his own business. Yeah, that’ll work.

For the rest of that year, I adopted the Doug method and the pimp boots were simply swapped out for my sneakers at the bus stop.

Over the summer, I grew almost two inches and I talked Mom into letting me get contacts. And of course the pimp boots didn’t fit anymore so during that year’s back-to-school shopping trip to K-Mart, I wordlessly dumped a pair of Keds into the cart.

I looked at Mom and though she didn’t want to, she grinned. “Pimp boots,” she said. She couldn’t hold back. “Jimmy Cohn,” she laughed. “Jimmy Cohn pimp boots.” We cracked up in the shoe aisle until tears came.

So these days, I usually wear Levi’s and vans. But not naugahyde boots with zippers and heels.

And never brown oxfords 😉

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