My first job was at a shoe store in the mall.

I know, you’re probably picturing that grimy little place next to a Hot Topic, reeking of polyurethane and pre-teen sweat. But I swear it wasn’t like that. Well, not exactly. The store I worked in was called Sole Dimensions – which, yes, sounds like either a bad sneaker pun or a wellness cult – and it catered to the slightly more stylish crowd. We carried Adidas Gazelles, Airwalks, some of the more obscure Nike models, and the ever-elusive black-on-black Cortez. This was the mid-‘90s, after all. Back when mall culture still meant something. Before it all got replaced with vape shops and cell phone repair kiosks.

I was sixteen. Fresh license. Minimum wage. A laminated name tag with a star drawn on it in Sharpie because management said I had “initiative.” Mostly what I had was a talent for folding tissue paper, organizing inventory, and pretending to care about arch support.

This was Orange County, which meant the clientele were generally a blend of Botox moms, protein-powder dads, and teenagers who thought they were auditioning for Clueless. The word “mallrat” wasn’t derogatory, it was a lifestyle. I wasn’t cool enough to be one, but I could sell them shoes while pretending I was. I mastered the nod, the half-smirk, the “Oh yeah, those are super clean” approval when someone tried on the newest Jordans. It was part performance art, part social camouflage.

Then, one day, the cult showed up.

I didn’t know they were a cult at the time. Obviously. At the time, they were just two awkward middle-aged guys in matching grey sweat suits. Not Adidas tracksuits or Juicy Couture, mind you – plain, bleak, off-brand athletic gear that looked like it had been designed by someone who thought cotton was a sin.

They entered the store like two synchronized swimmers who’d taken a vow of celibacy and never learned to smile. Pale, gaunt, wide-eyed in a way that made you wonder if they blinked. Both of them had buzzed heads – bald, not shaved exactly, but the same eerie uniformity as their clothes. They carried a folded sheet of paper like it was a holy relic.

They didn’t browse. They didn’t ask what was “fresh” or “dropping.” They walked straight up to the counter and laid down the list. I still remember how it felt – crisply creased and typed, as if to say, “We are not here to play.”

Forty pairs of the same black-and-white Nike Decades. Same model, different sizes. All men’s. The guy handing me the list didn’t even blink. He just said, “We need to place a special order.”

I tried to act unfazed, like we got massive bulk orders all the time, but I was sixteen and my experience in dealing with weirdos was limited to the guy who always asked to smell the insoles on the display models. So I blinked. A lot.

I checked our inventory. We didn’t have them all in stock – of course not, we were a mall shoe store, not a warehouse. I offered to place an order. He nodded once and said, “That will be acceptable.” Like he was approving a missile strike. The other guy, identical, I swear, stood silently beside him, arms folded, eyes scanning the store like we might be hiding heresy under the kids’ size Vans.

It was only after they left that I turned to my co-worker Dave, who wore his backward cap like a badge of honor and treated every customer like a potential character witness for his future rap career, and said, “That was weird, right?”

He just shrugged. “Hey man, maybe it’s for a basketball team.”

A bald, middle-aged basketball team that all wears the same model of outdated running shoes. Right.

A few days later, they returned to pick up the order. This time, it was one of the same guys and another new-but-still-identical man, like they’d been generated by the same suburban replicator. They paid in cash, neatly counted bills, exact change, no hesitation. I boxed up the shoes, all forty of them, and they loaded them into a plain white van with no windows. And that was that.

And then the news broke.

A week later – a week – forty-one people were found dead in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. All dressed identically. All with the same haircut. All wearing the same shoes. My shoes. The shoes I ordered. The shoes I boxed and handed over like it was just another Tuesday.

Heaven’s Gate. That was the name of the group. A UFO cult that believed the Hale-Bopp comet was a sign of salvation. They thought they were going to ascend to the “Next Level” via alien spacecraft, which required them to shed their “Earthly containers.” Which is a polite way of saying they ate pudding laced with barbiturates, put plastic bags over their heads, and laid down to die.

All forty-one of them. Lined up in bunk beds. Purple shrouds over their faces. Black pants, grey tops. And sticking out from under the sheets like a visual punchline, those black-and-white Nike Decades.

My Decades.

At first, I thought it was a coincidence. Surely other stores carried the same model. They would have sold them all over California. Maybe they just looked like the ones we sold.

But then the photos came out. The news clips. The eerie stills from the coroners’ footage, blurred for TV but unmistakable in their staging. The shoes were identical. Same black mesh. Same white swoosh. Same white soles.

And I knew. I just knew. I sold shoes to a death cult.

My initial reaction wasn’t horror. Not shock. It was something closer to disbelief. Of course this happened. Of course they bought them from me. I had started to accept, in some dim, background way, that I was cursed or, at the very least, gravitationally bound to tragedy.

And yet, this one was different. Because unlike the other events – the plane crashes, the earthquakes, the floods – this one had my fingerprints on it. I interacted with these people. I looked into their eyes. I gave them customer service. I might’ve even said, “Have a great day!” as they walked out the door to plan their exit from this mortal plane.

There’s a kind of nausea that doesn’t come from your stomach. The kind that starts behind your eyes and radiates outward, like a migraine made of guilt and absurdity. That’s what I felt as I watched the coverage. And then the names came out.

Marshall Applewhite. The leader. The man with the wide, glassy eyes and the eerie, sing-song voice. The guy who made videos explaining their mission like it was a multi-level marketing scheme from beyond the stars. He was the reason they all cashed out their bank accounts and ate poisoned pudding in a rental mansion.

I’d watched a couple of the videos on TV and later, in the early days of the internet, found more. There he was, bald and smiling, explaining how Earth was about to be “recycled,” and how only those willing to evolve would survive.

Evolve. In matching Nikes.

There’s a grim irony to it all. In trying to escape conformity, they leaned into it so hard that they became the ultimate uniform. They went from obscure seekers to a punchline in pop culture history.

Every few years, someone writes a retrospective. Every Halloween for a decade, someone wore the outfit as a costume. The shoes became a collector’s item. Nike discontinued them almost immediately and years later, a pair sold online for over six grand. Some hypebeast website even did a whole article about “The Cult Sneaker You’ll Never Own.”

No mention of the sixteen-year-old kid who took the order.

That part didn’t make it into the legend.

For a long time, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to be associated with it. It felt like a joke that was too dark even for me. But eventually, the absurdity outweighed the dread. I mean, really, how many people can say they were the unintentional quartermaster of a mass suicide?

And yet, I still think about those guys. The way they spoke in slow, clipped sentences. The way they never made eye contact unless absolutely necessary. The precision of their order, like the shoes were sacred objects. And the calm. They were so calm. No excitement, no anxiety. Just peace.

I’ve spent the last few decades trying to figure out what that meant. Were they brainwashed? Or had they really found something I hadn’t? Were they just afraid of death and wrapped that fear in a nice alien-shaped bow?

Or was it simpler than that?

Maybe it was just loneliness. A group of people so desperate to matter that they’d rather evaporate than fade into obscurity. If that’s the case, I get it. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.

All I know is, those shoes are still out there somewhere. Sitting in closets. Resold on eBay. Forgotten in boxes in attics. Black and white Nikes with a little bit of history stitched into the seams.

And somewhere, in some thrift store, I hope there’s a kid who finds a pair, tries them on, and has no idea that they once walked someone to the gates of Heaven.