A long dark night of the soles (2024)

They kept a respectful distance from the store, trying not to look obvious. Trying not to look too anxious.

They fooled no one.

Mall management, in an effort to avoid a tussle that marred last year's midnight release of the Air Jordan 11 Space Jams, had set up ropes and instructed people not to start lining up outside the store before 11 p.m., when the mall typically closes.

A blatant ploy to gin up sales, yes. But for the people waiting for a chance to wait some more without any guarantee of success, it was the hunt that mattered.

The last time Air Jordan Retro 11 Cool Greys were reissued was 2001. The window to get a new pair was 24 hours.

Competition was fierce because of the Cool Greys' wide appeal. Serious collectors were less likely to covet them, said Duk-Ki Yu, owner of Major, a designer sneaker boutique in Georgetown. Because of the wider interest, however, Yu scaled back his planned midnight release to only kids' sizes because he didn't want to see fists flying on his doorstep.

The day before, the store had received about 100 phone inquiries, some of them quite belligerent, from people inquiring about the number of Cool Greys that would be available. Die-hard collectors, by contrast, "are more polite," Yu said.

Most of the people lined up at the Wheaton Foot Locker were a fairly orderly bunch.

The ones who gave themselves a four-hour lead time stood around in hopes of getting as close to the store as possible. Security was wise to them, though, and kept shooing them away. Take a walk, they said.

Juanita Guerrero, 32, of Beltsville, who had come to snag a pair of size 91 / 2 Cool Greys for her 13-year-old son, returned after a brief jaunt and spied a man in a baseball cap reading a newspaper in front of the store. Even though Guerrero, a nurse, was a rookie at queuing for designer sneaks, she could tell that the guy was not there to catch up on current events.

"You look kinda sneaky," she said. He turned out to be another parent, willing to endure a few indignities for the sake of securing a killer Christmas gift for one of his sons: a pair of Air Jordan Retro 11s to wear on the first day of high school. Guerrero borrowed the sports section to use as a ruse to stay put.

Milling around nearby were Kelvin Rodriguez, 22, and his brother Christian, 16, of Silver Spring. The brothers are experienced sneakerheads who have done whatever it takes to get their hands on some Jordans. They've slept in the kiddie play area of malls and hidden in photo booths.

"I been through it all. You have to be clever," said Kelvin Rodriguez, who started collecting Jordans in the seventh grade. He is up to 42 pairs. When he gets a new set home, he takes them out of the box and licks the sole, because, as he explained, "that's the last time they're going to be that fresh."

Rushing the ropes

At 10 minutes to 10 p.m., anarchy briefly threatened when a Foot Locker employee announced that people could start to line up. The static clusters of loiterers suddenly burst apart as people rushed the ropes.

Things quickly settled down in Darwinian fashion. The first 80 were guaranteed shoes, provided the size they wanted was available. Everyone else was out of luck.

Being first doesn't always guarantee you will be at the front. Carlos Franco, 18, of Germantown was part of a loose posse of guys who were among the very first to arrive, but because others were slightly faster, ended up farther back in line.

He understands there is no honor among sneaker geeks. Last year, while waiting to buy Air Jordans at Lake Forest Mall in Gaithersburg, Franco saw a man wipe out as everyone around him rushed to get their shoes.

"I kept running," he said, as his friends cracked up around him. "If it was any other day, I would've helped him."

Franco also declined to divulge publicly where he stores his sneakers. "It's top-secret," he said.

"Nobody here is going to break in," said Jorge Galvan, 19, of Clarksburg. He prefers to keep his shoes, especially ones with clear soles, such as the Cool Greys, in Ziploc bags that he then vacuums the air out of to keep the soles from yellowing.

Larry Brownlee, 22 of Bowie said he's heard of people who use Saran wrap. He is less meticulous when it comes to storage but no less ardent in his collecting. He's been hitting sneaker releases such as this one five times a year for five years.

"This is business," Brownlee said. "You know people who collect porcelain dolls and take them serious? That's how we treat our shoes."

First to buy

On this night, the person who beat Brownlee to the very front of the line was a 22-year-old from Landover named Antoine Brown.

"My mother tells me I'm crazy every day," Brown said. Long ago, she stopped giving him a ride home from his sneaker escapades because they are usually in the wee hours.

"I should be spending my money on a car," Brown mused.

He's unemployed at present, having just ended a job working at a law firm. He can afford the shoes as well as his other obsession - collecting Polo shirts - because he has money saved up. He can't say how many pairs of shoes he has - he stopped counting years ago. He said his stash covers a wall of his room and is about eight or nine boxes high.

Just after midnight, a Foot Locker employee raised the storefront gate to let Brown and the Rodriguez brothers in. When Brown emerged, he pulled the shoes out of the box in order to sneak a peak. He raised one shoe up in the air and a "Woo!" erupted from the crowd still working its way through the ropes.

He usually waits a few months before wearing them, and then for only a couple of hours at a time, lest the leather get scuffed or the suede gets dirty.

So are they really worth spending hours in line for and paying $185 for?

Yes, Brown said, because they never fail to get people's attention.

"I always get comments," he said. "People say, 'Why are they so new?' and 'How much do you want for them?' "