Forty bucks and RuPaul pumps
By Kim Lachance
One of my sons wears high heels. And, so whip me, Dr. Laura, I let him. A lot. At least my boy’s lust for pumps (and emo eyeliner) comes in handy when, say, a herd of Jehovah’s Witnesses feel the urge to pinch a loaf of sanctimoniousness on my doorstep. Trust me: Nothing, maybe not even a flaming birthday cake with their names and ages frosted on it, repels Watchtower-waggers quite as effectively as dispatching an adorable, three-foot-tall white RuPaul to answer the door in his mama’s Frederick’s of Hollywood hooker heels. In fact, my little Louboutin did me the favor just last month.
Which brings me to a similar tran-tastic “experience” yesterday at Henry’s Shoe Experience in Downey, when what looked like a pair of white nursing shoes perched on five fugly inches of wicker stool inspired my pre-k crossdresser to go public with his Alexis Arquette act. The worst part? The bastardized-for-Glow’s-sake Nurse Mates were designed by Jennifer Lopez. And I had such high hopes that the boy wouldn’t inherit my hobunky taste. Perhaps J. Lo fake-synth-sang it best in a pop flop you never heard: “Ten million men couldn’t walk a mile in these shoes. Honey, these pumps are too big to fill.” Is that so? At a measly size six, what does Jell-O know about “big” feet? She’s got nothin’ on a sasquatch like me, a galumphing size 10-and-thensome.
Those hard-to-cram-a-fit Hammertime feet of mine are the two reasons I braved the gangland barrios of the Downey-Pico Rivera line to check out Henry’s, a humble roadside shoe shop that sells Rodeo Drive caliber kicks for Santee Alley chump change (unfortunately without a trace of the bodega bacon-hugged hot dogs Santee is famous for).
But I’m not the only one willing to make the trek: I pulled into the littered strip mall parking lot and was surprised to see a prissy O.C. trophy wife-type lumber out of Henry’s graffitied storefront with an unmarked grocery bag swollen with stiletto spikes in her French-manicured grip. She cracked a shit-eating grin in my direction (pop goes the BOTOX®, and the BOTOX® goes pop!) and tore off in her Mercedes, presumably back to the clueless White Flight from whence she came. Greedy shoe vulture! I peeked through Henry’s scissor-gated, black-tinted security windows (ghetto fabulous, mang) and steeled my wallet for lockdown.
My nerves were for naught – Henry’s interior is mercifully the opposite of its exterior, clean, organized, easy to navigate (by size, of course) and untouched by taggers. The oaky scent of tanned calfskin (along with sneaker rubber), not the expected reek of Payless pleather, fills the drab bargain basement rectangle. Exposed fluorescent ceiling tubes beam brightly on the neatly aligned rows of last season’s Calvin Kleins, Franco Sartos, Kenneth Coles, Mark Fishers, Arturo Chiangs, Katherine Venezianos, Steve Maddens, and Jessica Simpsons (which one of these bimbettes is not like the others?). By and large (sizes up to 11) an excellent selection of trendy and, more importantly, not counterfeit, designer labels, including strappy sling backs, skinny and chunky high heels, been-done ballet flats, all-the-rage jeweled flip-flops, every skater sneaker variation imaginable and, yes, unfortunately popular metallic gladiator shoes, possibly the worst summer footwear trend since blister-breeding Dr. Scholl’s wooden clogs. (Aw, fuck it. I bought a pair.)
Henry’s cute and conveniently bilingual abuelita helpers (to coldly call such sweet, doting old ladies “staff” just seems wrong) wouldn’t spill which of their spotless stock are factory rejects and which are department store samples/surplus. At these prices (diamond, check, I’ll explain in a sec) who cares if they’re from Quetta?!
Beatrice the manager does. She gave me the party line: Not a shoe in stock is a knockoff, and no pair is ever priced above $44. Seems too good to be true when everything in-store, including men’s and women’s shoes (but not kids’ because they don’t sell them), as well as a wall of name-brand purses, is an additional 20 percent off through the end of August. That’s about as Crazy Gideon as Henry’s gets, except for their peculiar take on the price tag. Don’t waste your time hunting for one. Just flip a shoe over and look in the grooves of her sole, where owner Henry Gandara’s odd duck pricing scheme is chicken scratched in gold permanent marker. Is this algebra, economics or L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics? See what I mean: √=$19.99; √√=$24; √√√=$28; *=$32;**=36; one diamond=$40; two diamonds=$44. (I’m a writer, gimme a break. I couldn’t find the symbol for a diamond.)
Back to those J. Lo fuck-me pumps I meanly refused to buy my son. They fetch $124 on amazon.com. At Henry’s, the same pair costs not one but two asterisks. That’s 36 bucks, in case you forgot, and I’m still not buying them. Instead, I made off with a pair of J-41 vegan crunchy granola casuals, rhinestone Roxy thongs and vamp heel Nine West T-straps. Not bad for a $40 experience.
Henry’s Shoe Experience, 9462 Telegraph Road, Downey, (562) 904-8134.
(Sorry, no www dot. They don’t have one yet.)
Published: 08/13/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
