the soles of gray folks

So Ebony calls me today.

"Dude," he says. "Me and my girlfriend were up north, and you were right! Everybody's wearin' those shoes you got!!"

"Crocs?"

"Yeah. Blue. Pink. Black like yours."

"Black people?"

"No, they was white." (Duh. This was the Northland we were talking about.)

Then he says, dead serious: "I think I'm gonna get me some."

Peels of laughter on both ends of the line. (Though Ebony wasn't laughing as hard as he was a couple of weeks ago when I told Antoine -- immediately after I was informed that my shoes were basically the result of a top-secret project to define Whiteness -- that "next year, everyone in the 'hood is gonna be wearing these. Black folks are always copying whites to act cool." He's still laughing about that one.)

Ebony says he's going to get two pair, one pink, one blue, and wear a different color on each foot.