Brittney, the Tapgirl Princess

The students in Brittney's computer class were favorably impressed by the three pairs of boots and their steel-bottomed accessories that paraded into class that Wednesday afternoon. After all, most of the girls and now a few of the boys at Forest Glen had started to wear metal taps on their shoes too. So these horseshoed and sole-tapped western and harness boots were simply the leading edge of the fad that most of them were enjoying being part of themselves.

Still, maybe a third of the girls at that point had not yet put taps on their shoes. Some of the girls wanted to but they were still under their parents' thumbs—parents who, for one reason or another, didn't want their precious Emily to make the clicky sounds with their walk that the other girls were having so much fun making. A lot of the others were simply too shy to want to draw attention to themselves. Social development proceeds at different rates in different people, and some of the girls were just into reading books or doing artwork or writing poetry more than they were into having an active social life. Then there were the senior girls. By and large, the 12th grade girls didn't pay much attention to taps—they were already scouting marines and cute college guys, and they had other means of drawing attention to themselves, especially the ones who could pass for 18 and make some money having photos and videos taken of themselves sucking cum out of guys' dicks.

But included among the non-tap-wearing minority of girls, there were a few who weren't shy, whose parents didn't manage their lives, and who weren't into having sex in front of a camera. These were the goths—20 to 30 angry young girls who were into black clothes, dark makeup, and heavy platform boots with thick rubber soles. You might think this group would be into taps too—after all, heavy metal rock and steel chains are part of the goth scene—but the one thing that most described these girls was hostility. They didn't like the happy-go-lucky persona that Brittney and her friends had. They thought of life as way too serious for joy-riding in cars. And maybe most importantly, several of these girls—one Caroline Tooley in particular—were quite jealous of Brittney's constantly being the center of attention.

At the end of 7th period that Wednesday, Brittney started to walk out of class, excited to be able to show off her new double-horseshoed harness boots to all her friends. Caroline was still sitting in front of her computer, right at the back of the class. Just as Brittney passed by, Caroline did what can only be described as a stupid, adolescent boys' trick—she stuck her platform-sole-booted foot right in front of Brittney's path, causing Brittney to trip over her leg, and fall ignominiously to the floor, backpack flying, horseshoe taps scraping along the floor and feet, boots, and taps flailing wildly in the air. But no sooner had Brittney hit the floor than she was up on her feet, hands lunging for Caroline, who at that point was trying to pretend that nothing had happened. Brittney grabbed Caroline with both hands, pulled her out of her chair and threw her to the floor. Then, realizing that she had some powerful new tools at her disposal—her steel-plated boots—Brittney raised her left leg and gave Caroline a quick kick with the steel toe-bumper now conveniently attached to her boot. Then she stomped down on Caroline's thigh with the full force of her double-horseshoed heel. It took several of Brittney's friends, grabbing from behind, to pull her off of Caroline and start to calm the two girls down. Brittney and Caroline separated, each one glaring hatefully at the other.

Needless to say, the cat-fight between Brittney and Caroline was the talk of the school that afternoon and into the next day. Everyone had lots of ideas for Brittney on how to get back at Caroline, but Brittney had decided on her own plan. She had one other class period with Caroline—her 2nd period physical fitness class. For that class, everyone had to change into shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. Brittney decided that was just what she needed—access to Caroline's goth uniform—her boots in particular. Of course, she'd have a very difficult time getting close enough to Caroline's open locker without her being seen. But that's what friends are for, right?

That night Brittney was on the phone almost all evening.

"Hey, Molly," Brittney whispered into her phone. "Isn't your locker right next to Caroline Tooley's? …. Good. I need you to do something for me…. I'll get you anything you want from Reed's…makeup, hair color, anything, if you can do this favor for me…. This is what I want you to do…."

"Hey, Jess," called out Brittney after dialing Barbi's friend. "Will you have your car at school tomorrow?… Yeah, I know you have a math test 2nd period, but could you let me have the keys for just 30 minutes?… Yeah, so?… I know that…. I can't get my license for another 18 months, but I've driven a car lots of times before…. A stick? Yeah, I can, I've driven a stick… Shit! That is so not friendly!… Barbi? O.k., shit, I'll call her myself."

In the morning, Brittney got ready for school extra carefully. She showered and took a long time brushing her hair so it would look extra nice. She applied her makeup with great concentration. Then she thought about what to wear. It was getting too warm for jeans and they couldn't wear shorts at school until May 15th—and anyway she wanted to look at least 16 that day in case a cop happened by. She settled on a blue skirt, white blouse, and her knee-length black leather boots with large but lady-like-sounding #6 metal heel taps. She skipped breakfast, but after she drinking most of a cup of coffee, she smoked a cigarette in her room (thank God for air fresheners) and then one more as she clicked her way off to school.

As 2nd period started, she went to meet her friend Barbi who was waiting for her by the entrance to the girl's locker room, where Barbi had just finished her gym class.

"Hey Brit. Hurry. I've got to meet Jess before the math test. She was going to hide her notes in the 2nd floor bathroom, and she said she'd show me where she was going to put them. Here are the keys," said Barbi. "My parents will KILL me if you mess up. I mean you're only 14. Even Jess wouldn't let you drive her car."

"No worries, Barbi. I've driven lots of times. Jess was just flipped out because I'm still learning to drive a stick."

"Good luck, sweetie!" shouted Barbi as she raced away to meet her friend.

Once inside the locker room, Brittney's next goal was to discretely hide away until Molly could find her and deliver her the "booty." She'd agreed to meet Molly in the 2nd stall in the bathroom. She went inside the stall and waited. Seconds passed, then minutes. Girls came tapping in to use the bathroom, chattered together and left to get into their gym outfits. But no Molly.

Finally, a knock on the stall door. Brittney rushed to open it. There, staring her in the face was…not Molly but an angry-looking Caroline, holding up her heavy black rubber-soled platform boots for Britney to see.

"Hey, Brat-knee. Your little slave Mollydolly said you wanted to borrow these. I know what you have in mind, you slutface. Go fuckyourself."

Caroline raised one of her boots towards Brittney in a threatening way. Brittney was totally scared. There she was, squeezed into a toilet stall with her backside right in front of the open toilet seat, facing an angry goth of a girl who she'd just stomped on with her steel heel plate the afternoon before.

"Hold off, Caroline." Brittney tried to stall for time until perhaps someone would walk in. But that was getting unlikely since from the sounds she could hear, nearly all of the girls were already in the fitness room. She realized she needed to try a whole new tack.

"Yeah, I wanted to take your boots in to the shoe repair to have taps put on them. But it's not what you think. It's not to get back at you…. Actually, I think the goth look is cool, and you really do look awesome in your black pants and shirt and shoes. And I love that purple dye in your hair."

Caroline didn't say anything, so Brittney kept going.

"It's just that I think that the goth look would be even better if you had really monster-sized steel horseshoe taps on your boots. I could never have just come right out and said that to you cuz you'd probably just have laughed at me. But you've got me in a corner—literally—and I've got no choice but to be straight with you! Honest, I think you'd love having taps on your boots if you'd just give it a try."

Caroline took all this in, and surprisingly in an open kind of way. She recalled yesterday afternoon's altercation and how Brittney used her steel-toed and steel-heeled boots with dramatic (and painful) effect. "You know, I might just like having all that steel on my boots. I could bust you 10 times better next time," she said. "So what do you want to do, Brat-knee?"

"Well, how 'bout this? You don't really want to go in to the gym now anyway, do you? Why don't we both go over to Sam's Shoe Repair and you and Sam can talk it out? He's a really cool guy, and once you hear it from him about how cool it is having metal taps on, I think you'll go for them. And if you decide not to have them on your boots, well, we'll have had a fun time away from class anyway. Besides, I've got a car and it won't take us any time at all to get over there and back."

"You've got a car? No shit? Are you 16? You're just a freshman aren't you? Did you have to repeat some grades?"

"Well," replied Brittney. "Actually I've got the keys for Barbi Barnett's parents' car. She loaned them to me. And, no, I never repeated a grade. I'm 14 but my parents let me drive." The last statement wasn't quite true since her parents never even knew that she'd taken her mom's car twice and drove it to the mall with her friends, or that several boys she'd gone out with had let her drive their cars on occasion.

"Hmmm," thought Caroline aloud. "Well, shit, I never thought I'd agree to this…and I may not let you do that anyway, but, o.k., I'll go over there with you to check out these taps you're so hot on."

So, the two girls, enemies less than 24 hours earlier, walked together out of the bathroom and out of the gym, Brittney in her dressy outfit and chunky heel boots, Caroline still dressed in her gym uniform and carrying her black goth boots. In two minutes, they were onto the parking lot and Brittney had spotted Barbi's parents old Ford sedan.

"You want me to drive," asked Caroline? "At least I have a learner's."

"No," replied Brittney. "I borrowed the keys; I'd better drive." Umm, you want a cigarette?"

"Sure," said Caroline. "Thanks," and she took one from the open pack of Marlboro Lights that Brittney offered her. The two girls lit their cigarettes, and Brittney started the car. Off they went, the 1/2 mile into the center of town and then over to Sam's Shoe Repair.

"Hey, you made it without running into anything!" Caroline commented only half-joking, when they'd reached the little parking lot down the block from the shoe repair. Brittney did manage to drive the car there in one piece (at least she didn't have to try to parallel park!), but it was pretty clear she was not very experienced behind the wheel. Caroline added, "When we're done at the shoe shop, I think I'll walk back to school."

Brittney thought to herself, "Fuck off, you bitch." But she realized that she'd better not make Caroline angry at her since this was her only way to get taps on her shoes, now that she'd blown her original plan. "Damn that Molly," she thought. "Why did she let Caroline catch her grabbing her shoes? Or did she even try to take them?" Anyway, that was spilled milk. She had a mission to accomplish right here and now.

As the girls reached Sam's shop, they each took one last drag on their cigarette before putting it out on the sidewalk in front of the shop. Caroline noticed that Brittney stomped hers out noisily with the metal-tapped heel of her boot rather than squishing it with the sole. That looked tough, she thought.

They walked inside and the door closed behind them. Sam came out to greet them.

"Brittney, you're back so soon?" Sam asked. "Wasn't it just yesterday I put those horseshoe taps on your harness boots. Is anything wrong with them?"

"No,they're fine, Sam. We're here because I'm trying to convince Caroline to put some on her own boots." Sam smiled at Caroline and gave her a quick once-over. Caroline stared back without so much as a hint of a smile.

As Brittney started talking to Sam again about why they were here, all of a sudden Caroline had a sinking feeling. She thought, "What the fuck am I doing here? Why did I ever agree to come here with that stupid 9th grader, Brat-knee?" Suddenly, Caroline did a 180-degree turn and started to rush towards the door.

But she wasn't fast enough. From behind the counter, Sam pushed a button, and the door automatically locked. Caroline didn't notice what had happened; she just saw that she was having trouble turning the door handle. At the same time, Brittney turned and lunged for her.

"Stop, Caroline!" Brittney called out. "Remember, you said you'd let Sam talk to you about wearing taps."

"Ladies," shouted Sam. "Calm down! What is the matter here?"

Caroline turned towards Sam and started talking non-stop. "This is her big idea. I just came along to humor her. She and I don't really get along. In fact we had a big fight yesterday." And then came the coup d'grace: "She and her taps are just so preppy!"

Caroline turned towards Brittney and continued. "You and your friends think you're such hot stuff. You make all that noise walking around in those taps, and all the kids look at you and that makes you think everyone wants to be like you. Well some of us don't want to be like you at all! We think the world's fucked up and you preppies are just a part of it."

Brittney didn't understand. "Preppy?" she replied. "You call the horseshoe taps on those harness boots and on Barbi's cowboy boots 'preppy'? Preppy's like being all sweet and nice with the teachers and doing all your homework and stuff. We're not like that!"

Then she thought about all the girls who were like that—girls who were social like herself, but who weren't rebellious in any way—and thought to herself, "gee, that's right, the preppy girls are also wearing taps on their shoes." Then she said to Caroline: "Well, maybe some girls who wear taps are preppy, but not me and my friends."

Caroline had one more retort. "Well, you're preppy because all your boots are brand new. Look at the boots you have on." She pointed at Brittney's knee-high leather fashion boots. "They must have cost $200!"

Suddenly, Brittney understood. "Caroline's anger must have come from thinking other kids look down on her because she doesn't have the money to buy fancy clothes and electronic gear like we do," Brittney thought to herself. So the goth style was really about rejecting a popularity contest that they couldn't win. Now it made more sense.

Meanwhile, Sam was taking this in and he vaguely understood what was going on. He thought this was a good time to change the subject.

"Pardon me for interrupting," he said, "but maybe I should tell you something about how taps got started among teenagers 50 years ago. Can I tell you about that?"

Brittney said, excitedly, "Sure, Sam, I'd like to know." Sam looked at Caroline. She shrugged her shoulders, which suggested that she had very little enthusiasm for this topic but she would go along anyway.

"Well," he began. "When our army guys got back from World War II, they brought back their boots and boots from the German soldiers they'd beaten. A lot of the boots—especially the ones from Britain and Germany—had steel horseshoe taps on them and big metal toe plates. Soon, American shoe repair shops started getting requests for horseshoe taps, so a couple of companies that had made smaller taps during the war that people put on their shoes for economizing on shoe leather started making the larger horseshoe taps too. By the 1950's, the idea of wearing horseshoe taps had been taken up by angry teenage boys all over the country—they were called 'juvenile delinquents' back then—you've heard of them?"

The girls nodded.

"Those boys didn't like school. They didn't feel respected by their teachers or by other students. And they had a lot of emotions built up inside of them that were trying to get out. By putting these huge steel plates on their boots, they could make a lot of noise, get some respect from other kids, and get out their anger and hostility at the same time. Not only did they become top stuff among teenagers, but their styles—like duck-tail haircuts, black leather jackets, and t-shirts with cigarette packs stuffed under the sleeves—became copied by all kinds of teenagers, from tough-guy wannabees all the way, eventually, to the preppies. And trying to be like their boyfriends, the delinquents' girlfriends started putting taps on their shoes too, and then other girls copied them just like with the boys. So by the 1960's all kinds of kids were putting metal taps on their shoes—horseshoes, half-moon taps, anything that made noise. But it was the angry kids who started it and who got the most out of it."

After Sam stopped for a moment both girls were silent. Then Brittney spoke up. "See, Caroline. Taps were really invented by goths! Except that they didn't know they were goths!"

Caroline thought for a moment more. Then she spoke up directly to Sam. "Maybe Brat-knee's right. Maybe I would like to have taps on my boots. I already told her they'd be helpful to me for kicking her harder next time we fight." (She gave Brittney a sideways glance.) "Can you put taps on these platform boots?"

"Sure can," Sam replied. "Any kind of taps you want."

Caroline thought about how much money this would set her back. She had only $5 on her. "What kind can you put on for $5?"

"Don't you worry about the cost, miss," said Sam. "I won't charge you a thing. Just show me where you want the taps and what size."

"Well," said Caroline, "if they won't cost me anything, then I'd like to have on the same kinds of taps that you put on Brittney's boots—the ones she was wearing yesterday when she paraded into computer class all full of herself."

Brittney explained to Sam: "Those were the harness boots you put on yesterday—the ones with double horseshoes, toe bumpers, and three side taps on each side."

"Sounds fine," said Caroline. "I can't wait for our next fight!" she continued, although this time with a little smile on her face and twinkle in her eye. She was warming up to taps, and to Brittney.

While Sam went to the back of his shop to work on Caroline's boots, Caroline sat down and untied her gym sneakers so she'd be ready to wear her platform boots as soon as Sam had put the taps on. Brittney sat down next to her, but decided to keep quiet so she wouldn't mess this up. The two girls listened while Sam hammered in the taps into the soles and heels—a sound that was now quite familiar to Brittney but a new one to Caroline.

Pretty soon Sam came out and showed off his work. He pointed to the double horseshoe taps. "On Brittney's I took out a couple of the nails to make the taps louder. But with these rubber heels, you don't need that. They will be plenty loud just like they are. Also, I just put on a single side tap on each side of the sole—he pointed to the size 4 half-moon taps—for the same reason. I can put on more there any time you want, but I think you'll like them this way."

Caroline took her boots over to the sofa, and took a second look at the taps. "Hey, what are these?" she asked Brittney, pointing to the toe taps that bent around showing a 1/2 inch of metal along the front edge of the platform sole.

"Oh, those are toe-bumpers," Brittney said. "Sam put them on my harness boots yesterday, too."

"The bumper looks cool!" said Caroline, starting to lace up her boots. "I like how the metal comes around to the top." She stomped her heels down on the floor and the double horseshoe taps made a very metallic sound, different than what she heard when Brittney walked in her hollow-heeled dress boots with smaller half-moon taps. The volume of sound they made made her jump a bit.

She turned to Sam. "If I decide I don't like the horseshoes, can I bring them back and get you to take them off?"

"Of course," said Sam. "I can take them off any time you want, and then if you change your mind again, I can put them on again. Anything you want. Come over any time. Bring any of your other shoes or boots, and I'll put taps on them too. No charge, ever, for you, honey!" Sam really loved it when these high school sweeties came into his store to put taps on their shoes. He frankly didn't mind doing this, and whatever the taps cost him was certainly worth it to him.

So the two girls walked out of the shop and back to Barbi's parents' car, both of them clickety-clicking with every step (though Caroline's sounds were much louder). Caroline's attitudes towards taps and towards Brittney were changing rapidly. She totally forget her plan to walk back to school because of Brittney's driving. She was intent on listening to her taps on the sidewalk and imagining how they would fit into her goth world. Soon she'd learn that they fit in quite well. Within two weeks, every other goth girl at school would have horseshoe taps on her boots and their noise-making would dwarf the sounds made by Brittney and her "preppy" and "not-so-preppy" friends.

The differences between Brittney and her friends and Caroline and hers soon started to recede. Both groups of girls had similarly disdainful attitudes towards school; both groups liked to cut class, smoke, and get stoned and drunk; both groups overdid their makeup and hair, at least by adult standards; and both groups made the noisiest sounds they could while walking around— especially at school and in any public place where they could see and be seen. Taps had made these former enemies come together—they were now all part of the same teen scene.