It was nearly midnight on a Friday on Ybor City’s famed 7th Avenue, and you could barely set one foot in front of the other without stomping on the back of a club goer’s stiletto heel. Crowds decked out in barely-there spandex dresses and glitter encrusted Ed Hardy t-shirts braved the summer heat and record breaking humidity to pour into clubs like Prana and Empire. A line nearly half the length of a football field was at a standstill outside of Club Honeypot. You could smell the cheap liquor and Axe body spray in the air. A group of drunken sorority girls decked in matching “Finally 21!” shirts cackled as they entered Habib Hookah lounge; smoke and incense poured into the air. My friend Drew and I were en route to Coyote Ugly, a bar known for cheap whiskey shots and girls dancing on bars. Always a good place to start the night. We held hands as we maneuvered through the thick crowd of twenty-somethings.

  I spotted a young man dressed in a concert t shirt and jeans headed toward us, almost running. He was probably around 25, but his face looked innocent, almost child like. I couldn’t tell from what direction he had come; all I noticed was the huge smile on his face. He greeted us like he was greeting old friends he hadn’t seen in years. “Guys! How’s your night going?,” he exclaimed, as he stopped in front of us, leaning in close. My friend and I were both polite, yet confused as to how we knew the guy.

  The unnamed man flirtatiously raised an eyebrow as he glanced up and down Drew’s body, stopping at his feet. I laughed at the nervous look on my friend’s face, not familiar with being ogled. “Hey man,” said the stranger, “what kinda shoes are those? They’re nice.” Drew, confused even further because he was simply wearing old sneakers replied, “Um, just Nikes.” Quicker than I’d ever seen anyone move before, the man dropped to his knees and balanced his weight on his palms as he squatted in front of my friend. He was clearly not phased by the sticky, grimy, possibly urine soaked pavement of 7th Avenue. Exhibiting unusual strength for such a skinny, petite guy, the man lifted one of Drew’s Nikes. He stuck his tongue out and slowly, almost sensually licked the entire length of the shoe from bottom to top, as if it were a pool of water and he’d been lost in the desert for weeks. Never before had I seen a 250 pound man look as terrified as my friend did. Shocked, I looked down at the strange man’s glistening, spit smeared smile. He looked satisfied, but seemed to be debating going for seconds on that Nike. Instead, he bolted up, and speed walked away from us, probably off to shock some more unsuspecting Ybor City patrons. My friend had been yet another victim of The Tampa Bay Shoe Licker.

  Little is known of The Tampa Bay Shoe Licker. Though he operates a Facebook fan page, it’s still very hard to track down his name, let alone details about his life. Though several HCC Ybor students describe similar experiences as mine with the Shoe Licker, HCC Security has never heard of him. The Shoe Licker has nearly a thousand fans on his Facebook page, which seems to make a joke of his hobby. One status update, for example states “Nikes are red. Converses are blue. All I want for Valentines is to lick a shoe.” But it seems to me that, for the Shoe Licker, licking is more than a silly hobby. It’s a way of life.