SNEAKERS
a short story
by Angus Brownfield
***
Published By
Copyright © 2014 by Angus Brownfield
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Sneakers
You won’t find me on the CIA organization chart. I’m just an Associate Economic Analyst, a grunt, not an executive, and there are many many of us. We work in rented offices scattered around the District and suburban Virginia. A small army of us, most slightly geeky, in the main introverted, not given to office gossip or horse play. That’s part self-selection and part Agency preference. They vet us pretty well.
That the analysts in my particular unit have jobs is based on the assumption that China is waging economic war against the United States and will do so with increasing vigor over the coming decades. So I and others of my background and grade analyze what China makes and what they do with it. I can tell you, for example, how many units of the toilet paper manufactured in Guangzhou Province end up on store shelves in Hong Kong. I can tell you how much a papaya grown in China’s tropical southwest cost a housewife in Singapore last week and how that price is related to the typhoon that struck the China coast three weeks past.
I also know some less mundane facts, like how many AKS-762s (that’s the Chinese version of the AK-47) were shipped to Syria last year. The answer is: not as many as you might think. Cheaper AK-47 clones are manufactured in Bulgaria and Romania.
But gross tallies are a mere starting point. I am looking at trends. I am looking at sudden fluctuations in price and whether a drop in price, for instance, is the result of central government intervention via a subsidy or direct buying. The goal may be to corner resources or take over markets. Some trends mystify for months and then, when a seemingly unrelated event is observed, makes perfect (what those in my unit call) Chinese Logic.
Other units are looking at China’s use of natural resources and her agriculture, health care and population dynamics. And infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Within my unit’s purview are strategic goods. China keeps the stats on big ticket military manufacturing, such as fighter planes and surface to air missiles, well hidden. Our sources of intel on them are many and varied—and highly classified.
But strategy has many guises. A flood of cheap computer keyboards or speakers may mean an attempt to plant listening devices in foreign cities. What if one in a hundred keyboards made by Shanghai Electronic Group had a built-in transmitter, sending keystrokes to a nearby listening post in the heart of Washington? (Don’t worry, the gang from Counterespionage makes sure we’re not using any of those.)
For things like automobiles, I have shipping news, newspapers, radio traffic, satellite pictures, stock listings on the Shanghai and Shenzen Stock Exchanges, analyses by companies dealing in international stocks and on and on.
Of course I’m not without help in my task: my desk alone is manned twenty-four hours a day, year round. With vacations, week-ends and sick leave, it takes five of us to do so. If you were to have a time-lapse webcam running at my desk (there actually is a webcam: we, the watchers, are being watched) I would be the one in the wheelchair. On the back of my chair is a green frog logo with the words, “Property of Kermit O’Doyle” Not that I’m afraid of the chair getting pinched. I’m not out of it that much, being a paraplegic.
Did I twang your heartstrings? Listen, I have a parking space a hop, skip and a jump from our building’s back door while my bipedal colleagues park a mile away and have to take a shuttle bus. You’re one minute late you can’t make it up by hustling your buns, because the bus has left and the next one is coming after ten minutes of frustration. I get to break for lunch a couple of minutes early, allowing me to join the head of the cafeteria chow line, with the other crips.
You might also notice, studying the spy cam shot of me, that lately I am sporting a pair of the most beautiful high-top sneakers exported by Jinjiang Sanlong Trade Co. Hang your head if you’re wearing Air Jordans or Air Zooms. My Chinese sneakers would put either to shame. Think Gucci, think Prada and you get a better idea. The kicker is, they cost me all of twenty-nine-ninety-five. A deal? A special price for economic analysts? Nope; that is the going price at Macy’s, REI and Modell’s. You can guess what the wholesale price is. And you don’t need to guess to know they are flying off the shelf.
Naturally I am interested in why these nifty high-tops are flooding the market. The upswing is like the flood of cheap Chinese steel rebar a few years back. The strategy there was, you put a couple of US steel fabricators out of business, you will slow down any wartime surge in manufacturing capacity.
Nobody’s going to win a war with sneakers; sneakers aren’t steel, they’re, naturally, athletic gear, but they’re also part of a uniform, a badge of inclusion in a sub-culture, a status symbol, they are in the same league as cutaway coats and bumbershoots—different century, different class, same idea. A would-be hip-hopper ain’t well dressed if he ain’t got them shoes.
American sportswear companies cannot compete in price with the new Chinese shoes without selling theirs at a huge loss. Their response has been three-pronged: appeal to patriotism (“buy American”), suggest the Chinese shoe is inferior (Look for the “100% satisfaction guaranteed” on every pair of American sneakers sold), stress variety (the Chinese shoes come in one style and two colors, black and Chinese red).
ҩ ҩ ҩ ҩ ҩ
My supervisor called me into his office after the third news cycle in which Chinese sneakers were a lead story in world news segments. Murphy—that’s his given name, though he isn’t Irish—said, “What gives, Kerm? What the pluperfect hell is going on? Can you hear them starting to bellow in the Eurosphere?”
I shook my head. “It makes no sense. Three major brands in the US have their shoes made in China. Jinjiang has got to be pissing off a whole bunch of the folks who supply our top three. And the only way they can be surviving is if there’s a hefty subsidy involved. So far we’ve got no hint of where the subsidy’s coming from.” I was betting on the Ministry of Commerce, but they don’t have a budget that would support this large a venture. Could it be the military . . . but why?
“You’re my top man, Kerm. I want you to lay off everything else (except the Deputy’s pet project) and come up with an answer. Can you do that? Tell Jimbo and Duncan and Miss Keller I need to see them as they come off break. They’ll just have to take up the slack.”
As I turned my chair and headed for the door he said, “God, get me some answers like yesterday. The folks over in Arlington are gonna be on my ass any minute. Can you do that, Kerm?”
I wanted to say, “I will if you’ll quit calling me Kerm.” I hate that nickname. Everyone in the bull pen calls me Doyle. The guys on our wheelchair basketball team call me “O” and sometimes “Big O.” Zero is my jersey number. O makes me feel good. I shoot better when they’re yelling, “Sink it, O!” at me.
On the way back to her cube, Miss Keller (who prefers being called Margie) said, “Did you buy the
sneaks for Mr. Dyring (Murphy’s surname)?”
“No.”
“He’s got a pair just like yours, only they’re red. What self-respecting boss wears red sneakers?”
Murphy Dyring was not the only person in the office who bought the low cost Chinese sneakers. These shoes, by the way, are branded Snow Dove, which no one calls them. Around our shop they’re referred to as Chinkers and on the basketball court they’re known as “Air Jongs.” Our team, the Wheelin’ Dealers, decided we’d spurge and all wear black Air Jongs.
So I’m wearing them, and I’m watching the imports surge upwards until they’re outselling the next three most popular brands combined. Pass any playground in any major metro area, the guys in pickup games (shirts and skins alike) are wearing Snow Doves. It’s a genuine phenomenon.
ҩ ҩ ҩ ҩ ҩ
Two weeks after Murphy begged me to come up with an explanation (I couldn’t, although I pulled out all the stops) the day shift of our unit was told to report to Conference Room C at ten o’clock. This is highly unusual, having all of us off the floor at once. Not that we’re like air traffic controllers or life guards, but it’s still