I had this close friend I ran with every day. We trained on a track behind our school, and one day while doing laps he told me incredible news. Adidas had just created these futuristic sneakers called Adidas Torsion.
They’d studied the world’s best runners and figured out the problem with every sneaker on the market—they didn’t bend enough in the middle of your foot. Regular soles were one solid piece, and Adidas realized splitting the sole in two would make their running shoes way more comfortable than anything else out there. A sole split in two? I didn’t get it.
A month later I saw them in a magazine. They’d mixed different shades of blue, but the main color was this bright, brilliant light blue with Adidas’ signature stripes in yellow. I looked at the sole and finally got it. One piece with about an inch gap running down the middle. Genius. The price? Not even listed. Had to be crazy expensive. I cut out the ad, stuck it on the wall next to my bed, and read it again.
“I want, I can.” They were right.
At school I’d go on about how incredible these shoes were. Since I didn’t have much actual info, I made up the rest. “I saw it in this documentary on TV!” I’d tell them. “They showed the lab with runners wearing oxygen masks, going full speed. This machine controlled everything by computer, then they analyzed it all in slow motion. You guys didn’t see it?” All ripped straight from Rocky IV, obviously. To make them even more out of reach, I’d say “don’t even dream about getting them—so expensive and exclusive they’d only go to famous runners first, and maybe if there were leftovers they’d sell a few in specialty stores”. Elite only.
Then one day my running buddy showed up wearing them. His dad had gone to Amsterdam and bought them there. In class he kept staring down at them, grinning in trance, and when we went out to recess he was taking these massive strides. “Look, they make me jump higher!” he said, bouncing off like a kangaroo. I just stood there, confused as hell. How’d he already have them? Weren’t they supposed to be crazy expensive? But his dad wasn’t poor.
We never knew where the money came from—everyone at school figured drug dealer or something. Guy never worked, had a speedboat for waterskiing, a solid gold Rolex worth a fortunne, satellite TV years before anyone else, and a beach house. But since he was generous as hell and invited me on the boat every summer—mobster or not, who cared?
Everyone stopped to check out my friend’s sneakers. Made sense—they were revolutionary. People would ask where he got them, or shout from across the street, “Yo, those kicks are sick!” giving thumbs up. When we’d head to the cafeteria I’d get nervous about him getting them dirty. The floor was disgusting, and any scuff would leave some oily stain impossible to clean. I’d walk ahead with my tray like his bodyguard, clearing a path so nobody would step on them.
Every two weeks my dad would visit. In the car I told him all about the sneakers—my friend had them, his dad brought them from Amsterdam, everyone at school was talking about them, he had to see them. He didn’t give a shit.
Soon after, someone told me they’d gone on sale at the big shopping centre. Already? I took the train to check. Got there, searched the shelves, and there they were. They looked beautiful under those lights. But they cost a fortune—12,000 pesetas, more than double the most expensive sneakers I’d ever owned. Knowing my dad, who’s the type who would pay for an ice cream and remind you about it for life, forget it.
I wasn’t the only one who wanted them. Once I stayed over at my cousins’ place. They were so poor they didn’t even have a roof, and the house was in the worst neighborhood in the outskirts of Málaga. They said it was under construction, but I don’t know—looked like it’d been that way forever. We went to sleep staring at the stars, and what did my cousin have on the wall next to his bed? “I want, I can.” The Adidas Torsion poster. Every poor kid’s dream, apparently.
After months of wanting them and losing all hope, the most unexpected thing happened. My mom was sick of me going to school in trashed sneakers, so one weekend when my dad visited she made me wear my old running shoes.. Not like I had options. I had two pairs. White running shoes—well, used to be white, now grey and floppy from too much washing. And these hideous black Frankenstein loafers. My mom usually made me wear the Frankenstein loafers when my dad came, but this time she insisted on the old sneakers. When my dad saw them he lost it. I was embarrasing him and this was extortion. How dared she do this, forcing his hand. Why couldn’t she buy new shoes herself? It was obvious she was manipulating him but she could not buy the shoes I wanted in a million years. But at the end of the day it was him who sent us to that rich kids’ school.
He asked if I actually went to school in those. “They’re the only ones I have!” I said. What else would I wear? He got uncomfortable. He knew the principal, the teachers, and since a narcissist cares most about reputation, we went to the store where they were on sale, and he finally bought them.
When my friend saw me wearing them he lit up. We had the same sneakers! Same model, same color, identical. We were already like brothers, but this was different. Now we were shoe mates. Walking to the sports center we’d move in perfect sync. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. Man, I was pumped to train that day. On the track I tested the kangaroo bounce. Not a huge difference, but yeah, they did make me jump slightly higher.
Showing up at school every morning in those sneakers was an event. Before, my sister and I would beg my mom to drop us off a block away—we were mortified at the thought of anyone seeing us get out of her car. Everyone else rolled up in brand new luxury cars while ours was a white Seat 127. But with the Adidas Torsion ZX 8000 on my feet I didn’t care anymore. I’d step out feeling like Robocop. The law has arrived, losers! And it worked—damn did those shoes give me prestige. Even my cousin saw me one day and said, “What the hell are you doing with those?” But it didn’t last.
We didn’t have a washing machine at home, so my mom would haul our dirty clothes to the hotel where she worked. She’d stuff everything into a bedsheet, throw it over her back, and lug it through the entire housing development, down the street to her car. Drive to the hotel, unload it, carry it to the ground floor where this nice woman would wash it for free in the hotel machines. But they couldn’t dry it, so they’d hand it back damp. My mom would shove it back in the bedsheet—now weighing ten times more—drive home, park, haul the soaking laundry down the street, through the entire development to the apartment where she’d hang everything on the terrace. What a sacrifice. One day my Adidas shoes got dirty. My mom threw them in the bedsheet and took them to the hotel.
Next day she brought everything back. I looked for my sneakers—horror. Only one. I tore through the damp clothes. Nothing. Had she even taken both? I checked my closet, my mom’s shoes, the bathroom—nothing. Could she have dropped one? I ran to the terrace, the garden, combed the entire development—nothing. Where had she parked yesterday? I begged her to remember. Crucial. She said she always came home exhausted, parked somewhere different every night. I started searching. Car by car, front of our development, behind it, across from the restaurants, under every vehicle, in every dumpster. Why! Why me! Why couldn’t it have been someone else? It was my mom’s fault for not buying a washing machine—I’d told her a thousand times. But no, it my dad’s fault too. If he gave more than scraps each month, she could’ve bought one ages ago. What a cheapskate. Hope a curse finds him. But really, my fault—I should’ve washed them by hand, in a bucket. I’d thought about it, almost told my mom to hand-wash them, but didn’t. My punishment for not doing it myself. Does God hate me?
Most humiliating part? Going back to my old sneakers. The grey floppy ones with a hole in the toe. God, I hated them now. Why hadn’t those gotten lost?
At school they noticed right away. “Where are your kicks?” “Washing them,” I’d say. So sad going back to my poor kid shoes. I lost all desire to run, to train. Just wanted to be alone, never see anyone again. “I want, I can”—what a bullshit ad. Never again would I buy anything from Adidas. Scammers.
Autumn came, and the rain came. Heavy rain. Streets turned into rivers, people couldn’t get to school, sewers erupted like geysers. Total chaos. And it wouldn’t stop. It rained so much people started getting worried. On TV they said they were breaking all records—hadn’t rained like this since 1920.
Two weeks later it stopped. Sun came out, dried everything. Streets were caked in mud, branches and garbage bags. Took weeks to clean up. I kept walking to school in my grey sneakers a few more weeks.
Then one day, coming home from school, my mom goes, “Look what I found,” and hands me the lost sneaker. What? I grabbed it, couldn’t believe it. My friend! My old lost friend was back! Poor thing was covered in mud, half deformed, like it’d been crushed under a rock for ages. “I parked and found it!” my mom said. Where? “In a bush by the car—it’s a miracle! We should write Adidas a letter,” she said. I looked them over—dirty as hell, but nothing broken. My mom said if she washed them they’d be like new. She threw them in the bedsheet with the dirty clothes and took them to the hotel. I spent that night praying they wouldn’t get lost.
She brought them back spotless. I put them on immediately. But they weren’t the same color. Obviously—they’d been soaking in torrential rain and baking in the sun for weeks, totally faded. The two shoes now didn’t match. I wasn’t going to school like that. Too embarrassing, and I couldn’t tell my friends the story or they’d know how poor I was. But it was either the mismatched Adidas Torsions or the grey floppy ones.
At school I walked around wondering if people would notice the different shades. Nope. They saw them and the prestige came flooding back. Started worshipping me again, let me back into the rich kids’ club.
That same day my friend and I went to train. He was happy to see me wearing the sneakers again, but said he had something to show me. Opened his running backpack and pulled out new sneakers. White, silver and golden accents, gorgeous. Asics Tigers—the lightest sneakers in the whole damm world. His dad had gone to Amsterdam and brought them for him.
