Micah Jennings

1.11.05 Tuesday [new shoes]

This morning I realized I needed new shoes. I was sitting there eating cereal, wandering about the room with my eyes as people do. I looked over by the door and there they were—a pair of worn out, frayed sneakers. The Nike swoosh had long-since peeled itself from the fabric, leaving behind a patch of light grey, like the tan lines of a sunburned tourist. And the rubber soles had separated from the toes of the shoes, so that now they looked like the mouths of a couple scruffy puppets. I’d never taken the time to notice it before, and suddenly realized how pathetic it was, so I decided to buy some new ones, even if I am saving money.

I poked around the apartment for a while looking for Ben or Aaron’s sneakers but was unable to find them. So, with no options left, I got online and went to Urban Freeflow. I hadn’t been to the site in ages, ever since I started criticizing the British newbies for buying into the philosophies that Jump London pushed. I did a little search for “shoes” and came up with a rather helpful section listing some of the recommended choices. It seemed that a lot of people liked the Pumas, so with that information I headed to Athlete’s Foot and began shopping. A couple of hours later, I had bought myself a pair of Puma Cells, and decided to try them out downtown.

I hadn’t done parkour for the sake of parkour in ages, and I’ll admit: it felt pretty good. Just me and the concrete, and no alarms, dogs, or police to worry about. It was a nice place to train, too. In one area I leapt from one railing to another at least eight feet down. I was surprised at how my instincts for these precisions had remained in tact. As I stood there, balancing easily on the metal handrail, I began thinking about other possible maneuvers amongst the given terrain. I ran back up the wall and over the initial railing and decided to try something new. I hopped up onto the rail and focused carefully on the lower rail far below. Then, with a carefully-executed dive, I somersaulted in the air and THUNK-landed precisely on the lower rail! A flip-to-precision!

I couldn’t believe I’d pulled it off, and raced back up the wall to try it again, but with a twist. This time, I ran up to the top rail and flipped OVER it, precisioning on the one below. For the next half hour I combined other techniques, navigating in my own unique style. When I finally emerged from the training session, I was taken aback as I realized that my acrobatics had drawn quite a crowd. Then someone stepped forward.

“Whoa, are you doing that free-jump stuff? I saw it on TV!” exclaimed a scraggly-haired preteen.
”Sure,” I said.
“Can you teach me how to do that stuff?”

But before I could tell him no, a police officer squeezed through the crowd and pushed the kid aside. As soon as I saw the badge, I bolted off. I could hear him fumbling with his walkie-talkie and calling for backup as I scampered up a wall and leapt over a few on-lookers, summoning gasps from the crowd.

“Stop, now!” he screamed after me, as if the words would persuade me to ignore all the evidence that I could easily escape. At the next block I found a fire escape and took the rest of the route home by rooftop.

-M.J.

posted by Mr. Linty @ 2:20 PM