“Do You Smell Tobacco?”

It was the mid-1980s, I was in seventh grade, and I was starting to pay a little more attention to fashion.

I said “a little” more. I was quite content wearing off-brand JAMS shorts (look ’em up), surfer-style threads like Ocean Pacific (I lived in Alabama; I had never seen the Pacific Ocean), and any T-shirt with something goofy on it.

But I was mindful of the social status that came with certain clothes brands. I liked Nike shoes. I finally got a Members Only jacket. Levi’s were the jeans. Even Coca-Cola polos were having a cultural moment. And speaking of Polo, that was the premier cologne for boys my age. The green bottle, gold top, and gold-colored polo player on the front epitomized cool.

There was another brand of shoe that caught my attention because I kept seeing my classmates wearing them.

Dexter.

These brown, soft leather loafers were a sartorial step up from sneakers. My schoolmates were wearing them with shorts, with jeans, and with khaki pants. And in a trend I met with considerable skepticism, they were wearing their Dexters without socks.

I had tried wearing shoes without socks before. My feet would sweat, and by the end of the day, they and my shoes stank. Hard pass. I thought it was gross.

For my family, these shoes were a bit expensive, so I had no illusions of going to the mall and picking up a pair. Instead, Dexters became my top present request. Brown, soft leather loafers. I knew they were costly, so I didn’t ask for anything else. I just really wanted a pair of those shoes.

When the next holiday came around, I found myself staring at a shoebox-shaped gift. Inside the box was a pair of leather loafers.

Okay — they weren’t Dexters. They looked like Dexters; they were the same general style of shoe. They weren’t brown; they were blue-gray. They weren’t soft; the faux leather was pretty firm. These shoes were not going to develop creases across the toe section.

So, they weren’t Dexters, but I was happy to have them. My parents were attentive and deliberate about making sure my siblings and I had some cool stuff that we wanted.

I decided to wear my new shoes to school as soon as possible, and I knew I wasn’t going to wear them with shorts. I wanted to wear them with pants, and I had a pair of jeans that were up to the task. I likely wore one of my Coca-Cola polos to complete the ensemble. My conundrum was what to do about the socks.

I didn’t like wearing shoes without socks. The cool kids were wearing their Dexters without socks.

On “new shoe day,” I went against my better instincts. I wore my shoes without socks.

In Alabama, it almost doesn’t matter what time of year it is. Humidity is ever-present. Even in winter we get warm, humid days, and it can get oppressively hot and humid in the early spring.

Humidity makes you sweat. I will sweat in a frigid meat locker, so if I’m outside even for a few minutes, I start soaking through my clothes.

I walked to school during my seventh grade year. And on this particular morning, I walked again. Wearing jeans. Carrying a backpack. Carrying a trumpet case. Wearing faux leather shoes. No socks.

I sweat like the dickens. That was routine. What was not routine was the smell I noticed coming from the floor once I got into my first class of the day.

The faux leather faux Dexters did not breathe. My feet were sweating in a pair of saunas, and a scent with hints of pleather, rubber, feet, and funk was emanating from them. Any nearby empath would have been overwhelmed by the odor and my sense of panic.

My only plan was to cool down, stop sweating, and hope the smell went away. Taking off my shoes wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t be allowed to wander around school barefooted. I also had no spare pair of shoes. And now that I think about it, I don’t know why I didn’t bring a pair of socks just in case.

By the time I made it to afternoon math class, by hopes had been dashed. My feet stunk, and if I sat still long enough — like at my desk for 50 minutes — I wasn’t the only one who could smell them.

A very kind eighth grade boy sat behind me, and we always chatted. At some point during class, he leaned forward and asked, “Do you smell tobacco? Something smells like tobacco.”

I don’t recall my reply exactly, but it was along the lines of “yeah, I don’t know what that is.”

But I did know what it was. It was a lie. A tobacco-smelling, faux Dexter, sockless lie.

I recall walking home that day and feeling a sense of relief as soon as I stepped into my yard. My hours-long nightmare was over. I swore I would never wear those shoes again without socks. And, I don’t think I ever wore them back to school. Instead, they became a pair of my non-school dress-up shoes.

There is a coda to this story. I eventually owned several pairs of Dexters, and they became my go-to shoes in high school and college. They were comfortable, they could be casual or dressy, and I loved wearing them.

With socks, of course.