Shoe Dog (12 page)

WHEN HE WASN'T
sending me new employees, Bowerman was sending me the results of his latest experiments. In 1966 he'd noticed that the Spring Up's outer sole melted like butter, whereas the midsole remained solid. So he'd urged Onitsuka to take Spring Up's midsole and fuse it with the Limber Up's outer sole, thus creating
the ultimate distance training shoe. Now, in 1967, Onitsuka sent us the prototype, and it was astonishing. With its luxurious cushioning and its sleek lines, it looked like the future.

Onitsuka asked what we thought it should be called. Bowerman liked “Aztec,” in homage to the 1968 Olympics, which were being held in Mexico City. I liked that, too. Fine, Onitsuka said. The Aztec was born.

And then Adidas threatened to sue. Adidas already had a new shoe named the “Azteca Gold,” a track spike they were planning to introduce at the same Olympics. No one had ever heard of it, but that didn't stop Adidas from kicking up a fuss.

Aggravated, I drove up the mountain to Bowerman's house to talk it all over. We sat on the wide porch, looking down at the river. It sparkled that day like a silver shoelace. He took off his ball cap, put it on again, rubbed his face. “Who was that guy who kicked the shit out of the Aztecs?” he asked. “Cortez,” I said. He grunted. “Okay. Let's call it the Cortez.”

I WAS DEVELOPING
an unhealthy contempt for Adidas. Or maybe it was healthy. That one German company had dominated the shoe market for a couple of decades, and they possessed all the arrogance of unchallenged dominance. Of course it's possible that they weren't arrogant at all, that to motivate myself I needed to see them as a monster. In any event, I despised them. I was tired of looking up every day and seeing them far, far ahead. I couldn't bear the thought that it was my fate to do so forever.

The situation put me in mind of Jim Grelle. In high school, Grelle—pronounced
Grella
, or sometimes
Gorilla
—had been the fastest runner in Oregon, and I had been the second-fastest, which meant four years of staring at Grelle's back. Then Grelle and I both went to the University of Oregon, where his tyranny over me continued. By the time I graduated I hoped never again to see Grelle's
back. Years later, when Grelle won the 1,500 in Moscow's Lenin Stadium, I was wearing an army uniform, sitting on a couch in the day room at Fort Lewis. I pumped my fist at the screen, proud of my fellow Oregonian, but I also died a little at the memory of the many times he'd bested me. Now I began to see Adidas as a second Grelle. Chasing them, being legally checked by them, irritated me to no end. It also drove me. Hard.

Once again, in my quixotic effort to overtake a superior opponent, I had Bowerman as my coach. Once again he was doing everything he could to put me in position to win. I often drew on the memory of his old prerace pep talks, especially when we were up against our blood rivals Oregon State. I would replay Bowerman's epic speeches, hear him telling us that Oregon State wasn't just any opponent. Beating
USC
and Cal was important, he said, but beating Oregon State was (pause)
different
. Nearly sixty years later it gives me chills to recall his words, his tone. No one could get your blood going like Bowerman, though he never raised his voice. He knew how to speak in subliminal italics, to slyly insert exclamation marks, like hot keys against the flesh.

For extra inspiration I'd sometimes think back to the first time I saw Bowerman walking around the locker room and handing out new shoes. When he came to me, I wasn't even sure I'd made the team. I was a freshman, still unproven, still developing. But he shoved a new pair of spikes straight into my chest. “Knight,” he said. That was all. Just my name. Not a syllable more. I looked down at the shoes. They were Oregon green, with yellow stripes, the most breathtaking things I'd ever seen. I cradled them, and later I carried them back to my room and put them gingerly on the top shelf of my bookcase. I remember that I trained my gooseneck desk lamp on them.

They were Adidas, of course.

By the tail end of 1967 Bowerman was inspiring many people besides me. That book he'd been talking about, that silly book about
jogging, was done, and out in bookstores. A slight one hundred pages,
Jogging
preached the gospel of physical exercise to a nation that had seldom heard that sermon before, a nation that was collectively lolling on the couch, and somehow the book caught fire. It sold a million copies, sparked a movement, changed the very meaning of the word “running.” Before long, thanks to Bowerman and his book, running was no longer just for weirdos. It was no longer a cult. It was almost—cool?

I was happy for him, but also for Blue Ribbon. His bestseller would surely generate publicity and bump our sales. Then I sat down and read the thing. My stomach dropped. In his discussion of proper equipment, Bowerman gave some commonsense advice, followed by some confounding recommendations. Discussing shin splints, or “buck shins,” he said the right shoes were important, but almost any shoes would work. “Probably the shoes you wear for gardening, or working around the house, will do just fine.”

What?

As for workout clothes, Bowerman told readers that proper clothing “may help the spirit,” but added that people shouldn't get hung up on
brands
.

Maybe he thought this was true for the casual jogger, as opposed to the trained athlete, but by God did he need to say so in print? When we were fighting to establish
a brand
? More to the point, what did this mean about his true opinion of Blue Ribbon—and me? Any shoe would do? If that were true, why in the world were we bothering to sell Tigers? Why were we jackassing around?

Here I was, chasing Adidas, but in a way I was still chasing Bowerman, seeking his approval, and as always it seemed highly unlikely in late 1967 that I'd ever catch either one.

THANKS LARGELY TO
Bowerman's Cortez, we closed the year in a blaze, meeting our expectation of revenue: eighty-four thousand
dollars. I almost looked forward to my next trip to First National. Finally Wallace would back off, loosen the purse strings. Maybe he'd even concede the value of growth.

In the meantime Blue Ribbon had outgrown my apartment. Maybe it's more accurate to say that it had taken over. The place was now the equal of Johnson's bachelor pad. All it needed was a violet light and a baby octopus. I couldn't put it off any longer, I needed a proper office space, so I rented a large room on the east side of town.

It wasn't much. A plain old workspace with a high ceiling and high windows, several of which were broken or stuck open, meaning the room was a constant, brisk fifty degrees. Right next door was a raucous tavern, the Pink Bucket, and every day at 4:00 p.m., promptly, the jukebox would kick in. The walls were so thin, you could hear the first record drop and feel every thumping note thereafter.

You could almost hear people striking matches, lighting cigarettes, clinking glasses. Cheers.
Salud
. Mud in your eye.

But the rent was cheap. Fifty bucks a month.

When I took Woodell to see it, he allowed it had a certain charm. Woodell needed to like it, because I was transferring him from the Eugene store to this office. He'd shown tremendous skills at the store, a flair for organizing, along with boundless energy, but I could use him better in what I would be calling “the home office.” Sure enough, on Day One he came up with a solution to the stuck windows. He brought in one of his old javelins to hook the window latches and push them shut.

We couldn't afford to fix the broken glass in the other windows, so on really cold days we just wore sweaters.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the room I erected a plywood wall, thereby creating warehouse space in the back and retail-office space up front. I was no handyman, and the floor was badly warped, so the wall wasn't close to straight or even. From ten feet away it appeared to undulate. Woodell and I decided that was kind of groovy.

At an office thrift store we bought three battered desks, one for me, one for Woodell, one for “the next person stupid enough to work for us.” I also built a corkboard wall, to which I pinned different Tiger models, borrowing some of Johnson's décor ideas in Santa Monica. In a far corner I set up a small sitting area for customers to try on shoes.

One day, at five minutes before 6:00 p.m., a high school kid wandered in. Need some running shoes, he said timidly. Woodell and I looked at each other, looked at the clock. We were beat, but we needed every sale. We talked to the kid about his instep, his stride, his life, and gave him several pairs to try on. He took his time lacing them up, walking around the room, and each pair he declared “not quite right.” At 7:00 p.m. he said he'd have to go home and “think about it.” He left, and Woodell and I sat amid the mounds of empty boxes and scattered shoes. I looked at him. He looked at me. This is how we're going to build a shoe company?

AS I GRADUALLY
moved my inventory out of my apartment, into my new office, the thought crossed my mind that it might make more sense to give up the apartment altogether, just move into the office, since I'd basically be living there anyway. When I wasn't at Price Waterhouse, making the rent, I'd be at Blue Ribbon, and vice versa. I could shower at the gym.

But I told myself that living in your office is the act of a crazy person.

And then I got a letter from Johnson saying he was living in his new office.

He'd chosen to locate our East Coast office in Wellesley, a tony suburb of Boston. Of course he included a hand-drawn map, and a sketch, and more information than I'd ever need about the history and topography and weather patterns of Wellesley. Also, he told me how he'd come to choose it.

At first he'd considered Long Island, New York. Upon his arrival there he'd rendezvoused with the high school kid who'd alerted him to the Marlboro Man's secret machinations. The kid drove Johnson all over, and Johnson saw enough of Long Island to know that this place wasn't his bag. He left the high school kid, headed north on I-95, and when he hit Wellesley, it just spoke to him. He saw people running along quaint country roads, many of them women, many of them Ali MacGraw look-alikes. Ali MacGraw was Johnson's type. He remembered that Ali MacGraw had attended Wellesley College.

Then he learned, or remembered, that the Boston Marathon route ran right through the town. Sold.

He riffled through his card catalog and found the address of a local customer, another high school track star. He drove to the kid's house, knocked at the door, unannounced. The kid wasn't there, but his parents said Johnson was more than welcome to come in and wait. When the kid got home he found his shoe salesman sitting at the dining room table eating dinner with the whole family. The next day, after they went for a run, Johnson got from the kid a list of names—local coaches, potential customers, likely contacts—and a list of what neighborhoods he might like. Within days he'd found and rented a little house behind a funeral parlor. Claiming it in the name of Blue Ribbon, he also made it his home. He wanted me to go halfsies on the two-hundred-dollar rent.

In a
PS
he said I should buy him furniture also.

I didn't answer.

1968

I
was putting in six days a week at Price Waterhouse, spending early mornings and late nights and all weekends and vacations at Blue Ribbon. No friends, no exercise, no social life—and wholly content. My life was out of balance, sure, but I didn't care. In fact, I wanted even more imbalance. Or a different kind of imbalance.

I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to Blue Ribbon. I'd never been a multitasker, and I didn't see any reason to start now. I wanted to be present, always. I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered. If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play. I wanted to quit Price Waterhouse. Not that I hated it; it just wasn't me.

I wanted what everyone wants. To be me, full-time.

But it wasn't possible. Blue Ribbon simply couldn't support me. Though the company was on track to double sales for a fifth straight year, it still couldn't justify a salary for its cofounder. So I decided to compromise, find a different day job, one that would pay my bills but require fewer hours, leaving me more time for my passion.

The only job I could think of that fit this criterion was teaching. I applied to Portland State University, and got a job as an assistant professor, at seven hundred dollars a month.

I should have been delighted to quit Price Waterhouse, but I'd learned a lot there, and I was sad about leaving Hayes. No more
after-­work cocktails, I told him. No more Walla Walla. “I'm going to focus on my shoe thing,” I said. Hayes frowned, grumbled something about missing me, or admiring me.

I asked what he was going to do. He said he was going to ride it out at Price Waterhouse. Lose fifty pounds, make partner, that was his plan. I wished him luck.

As part of my formal severing, I had to go in and talk to the boss, a senior partner with the Dickensian name of Curly Leclerc. He was polite, even-handed, smooth, playing a one-act drama he'd played a hundred times—the exit interview. He asked what I was going to do instead of working for one of the finest accounting firms in the world. I said that I'd started my own business and was hoping it might take off, and in the meantime I was going to teach accounting.

He stared. I'd gone off script. Way off. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”

Lastly, the really difficult exit interview. I told my father. He, too, stared. Bad enough I was still jackassing around with shoes, he said, but now . . .
this
. Teaching wasn't respectable. Teaching at Portland State was downright disrespectable. “What am I going to tell my friends?” he asked.

THE UNIVERSITY ASSIGNED
me four accounting classes, including Accounting 101. I spent a few hours prepping, reviewing basic concepts, and as fall arrived the balance of my life shifted just as I'd planned. I still didn't have all the time I wanted or needed for Blue Ribbon, but I had more. I was following a path that felt like my path, and though I wasn't sure where it would lead, I was ready to find out.

So I was beaming with hope on that first day of the semester, in early September 1967. My students, however, were not. Slowly they filed into the classroom, each one radiating boredom and hostility. For the next hour they were to be confined in this stifling cage, force-fed some of the driest concepts ever devised, and I was to
blame, which made me the target of their resentment. They eyed me, frowned. A few scowled.

I empathized. But I wasn't going to let them rattle me. Standing at the lectern in my black suit and skinny gray tie, I remained calm, for the most part. I was always somewhat restless, somewhat twitchy, and in those days I had several nervous tics—like wrapping rubber bands around my wrist and playing with them, snapping them against my skin. I might have snapped them extra fast, extra hard, as I saw the students slump into the room like prisoners on a chain gang.

Suddenly, sweeping lightly into the classroom and taking a seat in the front row was a striking young woman. She had long golden hair that brushed her shoulders, and matching golden hoop earrings that also brushed her shoulders. I looked at her, and she looked at me. Bright blue eyes set off by dramatic black eyeliner.

I thought of Cleopatra. I thought of Julie Christie. I thought: Jeez, Julie Christie's kid sister has just enrolled in my accounting class.

I wondered how old she was. She couldn't yet be twenty, I guessed, snapping my rubber bands against my wrist, snapping, snapping, and staring, then pretending not to stare. She was hard to look away from. And hard to figure. So young, and yet so worldly. Those earrings—­they were strictly hippie, and yet that eye makeup was
très
chic. Who
was
this girl? And how was I going to concentrate on teaching with her in the front row?

I called roll. I can still remember the names. “Mr. Trujillo?”

“Here.”

“Mr. Peterson?”

“Here.”

“Mr. Jameson?”

“Here.”

“Miss Parks?”

“Here,” said Julie Christie's kid sister, softly.

I looked up, gave a half smile. She gave a half smile. I penciled a shaky check next to her full name: Penelope Parks. Penelope, like the faithful wife of world-traveling Odysseus.

Present and accounted for.

I DECIDED TO
employ the Socratic method. I was emulating the Oregon and Stanford professors whose classes I'd enjoyed most, I guess. And I was still under the spell of all things Greek, still enchanted by my day at the Acropolis. But maybe, by asking questions rather than lecturing, I was also trying to deflect attention from myself, force students to participate. Especially certain pretty students.

“Okay, class,” I said, “you buy three virtually identical widgets for one dollar, two dollars, and three dollars, respectively. You sell one for five dollars. What's the
cost
of that sold widget? And what's the gross profit on the sale?”

Several hands went up. None, alas, was Miss Parks's. She was looking down. Shier than the professor, apparently. I was forced to call on Mr. Trujillo, and then Mr. Peterson.

“Okay,” I said. “Now, Mr. Trujillo recorded his inventory on a
FIFO
basis and made a gross profit of four dollars. Mr. Peterson used
LIFO
and had a gross profit of two dollars. So . . . who has the better business?”

A spirited discussion followed, involving nearly everybody but Miss Parks. I looked at her. And looked. She didn't speak. She didn't look up. Maybe she wasn't shy, I thought. Maybe she just wasn't very bright. How sad if she'd have to drop the class. Or if I'd have to flunk her.

Early on, I drummed into my students the primary principle of all accounting: Assets equal liabilities plus equity. This foundational equation, I said, must always, always be in balance. Accounting is problem-solving, I said, and most problems boil down to some imbalance in this equation. To solve, therefore, get it balanced. I felt a
little hypocritical saying this, since my company had an out-of-whack liabilities-to-equity ratio of ninety to ten. More than once I winced to think what Wallace would say if he could sit in on one of my classes.

My students apparently weren't any more capable than I of balancing this equation. Their homework papers were dreadful. That is, with the exception of Miss Parks! She aced the first assignment. With the next and the next she established herself as the top student in the class. And she didn't just get every answer right. Her penmanship was exquisite. Like Japanese calligraphy. A girl that looked like that—
and
whip smart?

She went on to record the highest grade in the class on the midterm. I don't know who was happier, Miss Parks or Mr. Knight.

Not long after I handed back the tests she lingered at my desk, asking if she could have a word. Of course, I said, reaching for my wrist rubber bands, giving them a series of vehement snaps. She asked if I might consider being her adviser. I was taken back. “Oh,” I said. “Oh. I'd be honored.”

Then I blurted: “How would
you . . .
like . . . a job?”

“A what?”

“I've got this little shoe company . . . uh . . . on the side. And it needs some bookkeeping help.”

She was holding her textbooks against her chest. She adjusted them and fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh,” she said. “Oh. Well. Okay. That sounds . . . fun.”

I offered to pay her two dollars an hour. She nodded. Deal.

DAYS LATER SHE
arrived at the office. Woodell and I gave her the third desk. She sat, placed her palms on the desktop, looked around the room. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

Woodell handed her a list of things—typing, bookkeeping, scheduling, stocking, filing invoices—and told her to pick one or two each day and have at it.

But she didn't pick. She did them all. Quickly, and with ease. Inside a week neither Woodell nor I could remember how we'd ever gotten along without her.

It wasn't just the quality of Miss Parks's work that we found so valuable. It was the blithe spirit in which she did it. From Day One, she was all in. She grasped what we were trying to do, what we were trying to build here. She felt that Blue Ribbon was unique, that it might become something special, and she wanted to do what she could to help. Which proved to be a lot.

She had a remarkable way with people, especially the sales reps we were continuing to hire. Whenever they came into the office, Miss Parks would size them up, fast, and either charm them or put them in their place, depending on what was called for. Though shy, she could be wry, funny, and the sales reps—that is, the ones she liked—often left laughing, looking back over their shoulders, wondering what just hit them.

The impact of Miss Parks was most apparent in Woodell. He was going through a bad time just then. His body was fighting the wheelchair, resisting its life imprisonment. He was plagued by bedsores and other maladies related to sitting motionless, and often he'd be out sick for weeks at a time. But when he was in the office, when he was sitting alongside Miss Parks, she brought the color back to his cheeks. She had a healing effect on him, and seeing this had a bewitching effect on me.

Most days I surprised myself, offering eagerly to run across the street to get lunch for Miss Parks and Woodell. This was the kind of thing we might have asked Miss Parks to do, but day after day I volunteered. Was it chivalry? Devilry? What was happening to me? I didn't recognize myself.

And yet some things never change. My head was so full of debits and credits, and shoes, shoes, shoes, that I rarely got the lunch orders right. Miss Parks never complained. Nor did Woodell. Invariably I'd hand each of them a brown paper bag and they'd exchange a
knowing glance. “Can't wait to see what I'm eating for lunch today,” Woodell would mutter. Miss Parks would put a hand over her mouth, concealing a smile.

Miss Parks saw my bewitchment, I think. There were several long looks between us, several meaningfully awkward pauses. I recall one burst of particularly nervous laughter, one portentous silence. I remember one long moment of eye contact that kept me awake that night.

Then it happened. On a cold afternoon in late November, when Miss Parks wasn't in the office, I was walking toward the back of the office and noticed her desk drawer open. I stopped to close it and inside I saw . . . a stack of checks? All her paychecks—uncashed.

This wasn't a job to her. This was something else. And so ­perhaps . . . was I? Maybe?

Maybe.

(Later, I learned Woodell was doing the same thing.)

That Thanksgiving a record cold spell hit Portland. The breeze coming through the holes in the office windows was now a fierce arctic wind. At times the gusts were so strong, papers flew from the desktops, shoelaces on the samples fluttered. The office was intolerable, but we couldn't afford to fix the windows, and we couldn't shut down. So Woodell and I moved to my apartment, and Miss Parks joined us there each afternoon.

One day, after Woodell had gone home, neither Miss Parks nor I said much. At quitting time I walked her out to the elevator. I pressed the down button. We both smiled tensely. I pressed down again. We both stared at the light above the elevator doors. I cleared my throat. “Miss Parks,” I said. “Would you like to, uhh . . . maybe go out on Friday night?”

Those Cleopatra eyes. They doubled in size. “Me?”

“I don't see anyone else here,” I said.

Ping. The elevator doors slid open.

“Oh,” she said, looking down at her feet. “Well. Okay. Okay.” She
hurried onto the elevator, and as the doors closed she never lifted her gaze from her shoes.

I TOOK HER
to the Oregon Zoo. I don't know why. I guess I thought walking around and gazing at animals would be a low-key way of getting to know each other. Also, Burmese pythons, Nigerian goats, African crocodiles, they would give me ample opportunities to impress her with tales of my travels. I felt the need to brag about seeing the pyramids, the Temple of Nike. I also told her about falling ill in Calcutta. I'd never described that scary moment, in detail, to anyone. I didn't know why I was telling Miss Parks, except that Calcutta had been one of the loneliest moments of my life, and I felt very unlonely just then.

I confessed that Blue Ribbon was tenuous. The whole thing might go bust any day, but I still couldn't see myself doing anything else. My little shoe company was a living, breathing thing, I said, which I'd created from nothing. I'd breathed it into life, nurtured it through illness, brought it back several times from the dead, and now I wanted, needed, to see it stand on its own feet and go out into the world. “Does that make sense?” I said.

Mm-hm, she said.

We strolled past the lions and tigers. I told her that I flat-out didn't want to work for someone else. I wanted to build something that was my own, something I could point to and say: I
made
that. It was the only way I saw to make life meaningful.