Pretty soon, Mom left to go back on her shift.
* * *
Taye stood in the doorway to the hospital room, skateboard tucked under her arm. Natural black hair combed out and relaxed so that it came down in one giant swoop over her right eye. Beat-up Converse All Stars, cargo pants, and a tank top—she dressed like the older skaters. The seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds who would stop by the skate park when they wanted some hometown training between competitions, the ones who had their own skate parks just like they had their own sponsors and their own crews and their own invites to skating competitions.
The nurse turned and let out a startled “Oh, hello!”
“Hi, Taye,” CJ said in a sulky voice.
Taye leaned her board against the wall by the door, then came to CJ’s side. “I heard you ate it bad,” she said with a grin. “Heard it was epic.”
The way she said it, with all that pride in her voice, made CJ grin. “I was trying a 540 McTwist.”
Her eyebrows shot right up.
A voice by the door said, “You were trying a WHAT?!”
It was Haru. They rushed to CJ’s bedside, almost shoving Taye aside. “Are you crazy? A 540 McTwist?”
“They did say you went upside down,” Taye said.
CJ shrugged. “I dunno. I just…” Even without closing his eyes, he could see the vision—the same vision he got every time he let himself daydream. Him standing imperially at the top of the ramp with his board propped up on the lip, helmet loose on his head while fans held their phones up to watch his vert run at the Summer X Games. “CJ WALKER!” the announcer would boom over the crowd. Haru Murata. Taye Valentine. All of them with their names called before their events, all of them flying through the air or grinding along a rail, all of them looking way too cool as they effortlessly demolished the competition, Deadsy or Lostprophets playing in the background the whole time.
But everyone had grown quiet. Haru tapped Taye’s shoulder and jerked their head to the doorway where Mom stood. She didn’t have to open her mouth to let everyone know the party was over. They filed out with their heads bowed.
* * *
There was a TV in CJ’s hospital room, but whether it was on or off, he didn’t care. He’d gotten his phone back—cracked screen and all—and had his earbuds in. He’d had to go a whole day without it, but now balance was restored to the universe.
“Hi, I’m Tony Hawk, and welcome to Skate Support.” CJ was so engrossed in the YouTube video, he didn’t notice that the nurse had started unplugging things and messing with the bed. Mom stood by the door with his backpack, his board fitted into its slot between the straps.
“Let’s go, Ceej,” Mom said, snapping her fingers and waving CJ over to the changing area. “Get dressed.”
“That’s it? I can go?”
“Yes, they have to get your room ready for the next patient.”
Other hospital personnel streamed into the room and began spraying disinfectant over all the surfaces, then wiping them down while others removed the curtains and replaced them with new ones. They looked like a race car crew in a pit station, buzzing with activity. And all the while, everyone was wearing a blue surgical mask over their face.
* * *
Everywhere was closed. In the week since he’d gotten home from the hospital, the parks, the school (there was talk of sending everyone iPads, but who would pay for that?), the church (Mom watched virtual sermons in bed), even the Guitar Center they used to hang out at had all shut down.
“It’s the zombie apocalypse,” Haru said over FaceTime.
“The skate park too?” CJ asked. A part of him hoped it’d still be open, that there’d at least be that place he could sneak out to, where he could train, even with a broken arm. If he could make it out there, maybe it wouldn’t feel so much like his dream to one day compete at the X Games had been put on hold. But Haru shook their head.
“Look,” they said, then sent a series of photos of the place roped off with police tape. It looked like a crime scene. “Everyone has to wear masks, and everyone’s wiping down their tables and everything. The whole house smells like Clorox.”
“This sucks.” CJ needed to be outside. He’d been cooped up indoors all week with nothing to do. No Netflix or PS4, because Mom had reduced her per diem hours at the hospital and so was always home watching the news. And she couldn’t even tell him to check out books from the library and read because the library was closed too. “I almost wish it was the zombie apocalypse.”
* * *
CJ was buried under his blankets when his phone screen lit up. It was Taye.
He slid the green call icon, and her face popped up. She was wearing a helmet. And she was moving.
No, she was skating.
“Yo,” she said, breathless. She wore a face mask under her chin.
“Taye, what are you doing? I thought the stay-at-home orders…”
“I’ma be at your door in like two seconds.”
It had been two and a half weeks since he’d been in the same room as someone who wasn’t Mom.
CJ scrambled out of bed and almost tripped over a pile of clothes on his way out the room. He doubled back to put on his mask and the face shield Mom always insisted he wear, then came racing out just in time to see Taye at the open front door doing that “I’m on my best behavior” smile she was so good at.
“Is CJ in?” she asked Mom, even though she knew very well that CJ was standing right in the hallway by the living room.
Mom looked CJ’s way. “Right over there.” She went to the kitchen and came back out with her lunch bag and her purse. At the door, she stepped into her hospital sneakers. “CJ, you know the rules. There’s a curfew, and I don’t need to tell you twice what happens I hear you been out tryna get arrested. The skate park is closed, you hear me?”
“Yes, Mom,” CJ said from the hallway.
Mom nodded toward the fridge. “There’s a rotisserie chicken in there for when y’all get hungry. Be safe now. And remember, SIX FEET.” Then she was gone.
CJ let out a sigh. “What’s up? I thought we were supposed to be indoors.”
Taye went straight to the fridge and pulled out the chicken. She didn’t even get any napkins or paper towels before opening it and tearing off a drumstick. “I’m so hungry,” she said around a mouthful of cold chicken.
“What are you doing? I mean…what were you doing outside?” He made sure to keep his distance while she ate, squinting for any droplets he might see spraying from her mouth.
She swallowed a chunk of chicken CJ knew she hadn’t chewed enough. “Deliveries.”
“ ‘Deliveries’?”
She caught her breath, put her fist to her chest, then let out a soft burp. “Food bank downtown is doing food deliveries for folks that can’t get to the supermarket. You know, folks that lost their jobs and can’t buy their own groceries. Line’s always around the block, but they make sure there’s enough food to go out for people that put in requests early. That’s what I been doing. Racing all over town.”
CJ started to pluck at the chicken. “I can’t.”
“You can’t deliver food to people in need? Your mom’s not gonna be mad at you for literally being an angel. Besides, I already got Haru on board.”
“They’re gonna be there too?”
“We all need this, CJ. It’s not training, but we’re still getting some fresh air. Besides, you can’t be going wild with that arm.”
* * *
It was unreal following Taye around the city.
It wasn’t like when they used to follow the older skaters to an abandoned pool, where they’d all spend the day trying out the same tricks over and over again. And it wasn’t like in the skate park, where everything was arranged just right like in the video games. It wasn’t even like Taye had turned the whole city into a skate park. It was somet
hing else. Seeing Taye skate like this, flowing down hills, swerving around corners, leaping over barriers, just getting from point A to point B, holding a bag of groceries half the time, it wasn’t the type of thing made for cameras. It wasn’t the type of thing you could get a ton of views for on TikTok. It was just skating.
And it was beautiful.
Haru’s route often took them to a different part of the city than the neighborhoods CJ and Taye were sent to, but CJ was sure Haru felt the same thing CJ was starting to feel.
Always just a little bit behind Taye, he began to notice new things. He started perusing the ground for pebbles, seeing where the concrete was smooth and where it wasn’t. Downtown was closed and quiet, but the walls and alleys and park paths turned into a second world. A world behind the one he already knew. When the only sound he could hear was the roll of his wheels on the ground, it was like the world went HD. Backroads he could wind down, vacant lots he could languidly carve through—everything was brighter, sharper. Because, he realized, he had to pay attention to it. All the stuff he used to just breeze by, he now had to notice.
As the sun was setting one night, the two of them came down a park pathway that ended in a set of stairs. CJ swerved to a stop but Taye kept going without slowing down. He reached out a hand to stop her. She was heading straight for the stairwell. Best-case scenario: she’d bite it hard and lose the groceries she was carrying. Worst-case scenario: she’d wind up in the hospital. But before CJ could make a sound, there was the telltale clack of Taye’s board launching into the air and he watched as she soared over the stairwell, her shirt whipping about her, the bag of groceries perfectly balanced against her chest, then she LANDED and smoothly swerved around the corner out of sight.
CJ must’ve been standing there with his mouth wide open for a whole two minutes, because she came skating back and shouted his name. “CJ. CJ!”
He snapped out of it.
“Come on, we gotta drop these off.”
CJ considered the brown bag of groceries he’d pinned to his chest with his cast. Then he looked at that stairwell, suddenly the steepest stairwell he’d seen in his entire life. If anything, it looked like it was getting longer.
“CJ! Come on!”
He gulped. There was no way he was making that jump. He started backing away. Shame burned in the pit of his stomach. He had no problem flying upside down on a quarter-pipe. How could a simple set of stairs have him literally shaking in his sneakers? He shook his head, then kicked up his board and held it in the crook of his free arm as he slowly made his way down to the street.
* * *
CJ felt the weight of his bed shift. A hand patted his head softly. He pulled the blankets back to find Mom sitting there, still in her scrubs. Her whole body smelled like cleaning products, though, and there were lines on her face from her mask straps.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He pulled the covers back over his head.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
She never talked like this, never in a voice this low or this soft. And she never asked how he was doing, not because she couldn’t guess or she didn’t already know. Not because her son was in any way ever a mystery to her. It was because she never needed to.
“Come on, CJ. Taye called. She’s worried. And Haru says that you haven’t talked to them in over a week.”
Even if CJ wanted to talk to his mom, he didn’t know where to start. How could he tell her that his hopes for spending the summer training were dashed? How could he tell her that he was starting to think he wasn’t even that good to begin with? That a staircase had scared him like nothing had before? A simple asphalt staircase. Watching Taye fly over it was like watching your friend suddenly sprout wings. One moment, she was right next to you and you were keeping pace, then suddenly she was up at a level you’d never reach, leaving you behind. How could he explain to his mom that what he wanted more than anything—to hear his name cheered at a skate competition—was never going to happen all because of a wipeout and a stupid pandemic?
“I know it’s a tough time right now,” she said with a sigh. “Things are changing very fast. Things are getting canceled, things are shutting down. Nobody really knows what’s happening. And…and it’s getting pretty scary at work.”
At that, CJ looked up and saw his mom doing her best to keep a happy face on. “Is it…is it dangerous?”
For a second, Mom didn’t say anything. Then she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s dangerous. But I’m safe. The hospital is doing everything it can to make sure we’re safe. And there are a lot of brave people there right now saving lives.” She rubbed his back. “Taye and Haru told me you were helping them out over at the food bank.”
CJ nodded. “Do you get scared?” he asked.
“Of course I do.” She laughed. “I should be asking you that question, all those skateboarding tricks you’re always doing.” A pause. “Well, do you?”
He sat up in bed and nodded.
“If you’re scared, then why do you do it?”
He shrugged, ready to not answer, but then he started thinking about it. And he remembered.
He remembered the first time he stepped on a board—his own board. It was at the top of a slope, and he’d had no backup plan. He remembered pushing off. He remembered the instant acceleration. He remembered moving faster than he’d ever run. He remembered how he’d made the biggest of rookie mistakes. Instead of bending at the knees and spreading his arms wide, he’d locked his knees and stood up. The board rocked from side to side, left, then right. He remembered bailing right before the end of the slope and trying to run it out but then pitching forward and hitting the ground. Palms, chest, chin, his legs high up in the air behind him. Skidding until he got himself stuck under a car, jammed between the wheels and the curb. He remembered his legs poking out behind him, squirming, and thinking that he must’ve looked like a cartoon to Taye and Haru.
His first real wipeout. The first time he met a curb. The first time he noticed the steel edges—the coping—that would make it easier to grind on.
The first time he went that fast, he didn’t care whether or not other people were watching or chanting his name. All that mattered was the board beneath him and the city speeding by around him.
“I was flying,” he said to Mom when he came out of the memory. “And…” He looked at his hands, remembered how dirty and cut they were and how new it all felt. “Taye and Haru, they were there to pick me up after. I…I wasn’t alone. Even if I went skating by myself, I wasn’t alone. Not really.” The joy of moving that fast—for no one but yourself—it was impossible to describe. But the look in Mom’s eyes told CJ that, somehow, she understood.
She smirked and rubbed CJ’s knee.
“You’re not mad that I use my skateboard for deliveries?”
“Ain’t no way I’m letting you use the van.” She chuckled. “Ceej, it’s okay to be scared. School, the world, all of it. But sometimes the best way to get past that fear is to get past yourself. Be of service to others.” She winked. “Do a good deed and don’t get caught.”
CJ didn’t realize he was about to cry until he sniffled up a wad of snot. Mom brought him into a massive hug. It felt good. It felt like he was getting something out of his system. Because now he wanted nothing more than to be in motion again.
* * *
CJ waved at the last family on the block after he dropped off their groceries, then turned to go. Even though everyone was wearing masks, he now knew when someone was smiling. Skateboard tucked under his arm, he caught up to Haru and Taye, who were finishing their rounds a few houses down.
In one smooth motion, he dropped the board while running and stepped onto it. Soon all three of them were gliding around the corner of the block and out onto the main street.
They were done for the night and had clocked out at the food bank, so all that rem
ained was for them to split up and head home. There was a little time before curfew to skate on their own. To crash into walls while trying to figure out a wallride. To push up a hill, look down at your domain from its crest, then cut through the air like an arrow loosed from a bow, no cars on the road, no one yelling at you to watch out. To grind on a curb, board kissing the coping the only sound on the block.
CJ knew Taye and Haru did the same thing on their way home. It was how they stayed with each other, even without talking. So that when he finally got through the park to the top of the stairwell and the sun was setting and no one was there to watch him try what he was going to try, he knew he was not alone.
THE GENDER REVEAL
BY GEORGE M. JOHNSON
“Malcolm. You are gonna be late for the bus if you don’t get a move on!” yelled the voice from the other room.
“Five more minutes, Mommy. Please?” yelled back Malcolm.
“Okay! Five minutes, and then you gotta get out the door.”
Malcolm breathed a small sigh of relief and focused on putting a few more stitches in the outfit he had been working on over the last few days. Next to the sewing machine there was a sketch. A suit with a beautiful floral pattern sketched by Malcolm. A single button jacket with a Monk collar and tapered pants that stopped right at the ankle. It was stylish…but it wasn’t quite what he wanted. Malcolm looked at the sketch and shrugged, saying under his breath, “Close enough.”
As Malcolm pushed his foot down on the pedal, the sewing machine began stitching a seam along the pants line running smooth between his fingers. Malcolm was at his happiest when it was just him and his sewing machine, working on whatever newest creation he could come up with. But sometimes it felt like his designs were too much—too much for his friends, maybe, and definitely too much for his father, whom he adored. Hence the suit. (Even though it still had some of his signature flair.)
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