Читать книгу FLUEVOG - John Fluevog - Страница 51

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And I used to come to work dressed up in this three-

piece tweed suit with knickers and buckled shoes.

I was, like, hot stuff, right? But I was never a flake.

I was honest, I was hard-working and I was reliable.

Peter needed that kind of stability.

When I started doing this, I knew what people were

thinking and I knew how to tickle them. I wasn’t all

that smart in school, but I had more street smarts

than most people. Emotional intelligence or whatever

you call it. And I always understood women. I had

a strong sense of my feminine side. And strangely,

I ended up in this business where I make women

feel happy. Makes sense, right?

Our shoes were expensive—we’d sell knee-high

lace-up patent leather boots in five colours for men.

It was my ego that got

me. It took me out and

she took me out.

We started selling platforms. I had people flying

up from LA to buy my shoes. I was the man, selling

$270 boots for men. I suspect now that all my

customers were doing something illegal. Gambling.

Smuggling. Selling drugs. We talk about drugs in

the neighbourhood now, but back then it really was

the Wild West. Everyone was doing pot, hash, LSD,

mushrooms, angel dust, you name it, but nobody

knew what it would do to you. A lot of people went

to jail and a lot of people died. We romanticize it

now, but people forget: the ’60s and ’70s had their

dark side, too.

Still, it was an exciting and fun time, with endless

possibility.

Then one day, about six months after we opened,

a woman named Kecia Nyman walked into the store.

She was tall and blond and beautiful with big smoke-

blue eyes. It took me a day to start dating her and

three months to marry her. Over five years of craziness

followed. It was my ego that got me. It took me out

and she took me out.

Kecia was an international model with hundreds of

magazine covers to her name, a superstar of the 1960s.

Peter and John attend a hippie church

and hire the street kids who attend

services to make belts, bags and clogs

in their Gastown store.

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