Skate Freak

by Lesley Choyce

  We followed him down a hallway, and I could tell being in the police station made my father nervous. Me too. I guess we’d both watched too many cop shows on TV. The hallways seemed really dirty.

  “Nice place you have here,” my father said, trying to lighten things up.

  The man laughed. “Janitor quit this week. Chief can’t seem to get his act together to hire someone.”

  He stopped and opened a door. Inside were about twenty bikes and a big pile of skateboards—must have been almost fifty. “Probably in there somewhere,” he said to me.

  Now, me and my board go way back. We were soul mates. I walked forward and grabbed the trucks, picked the board up in an instant. I felt the universe lock back into place. I could have grabbed any board there. I could have taken a really expensive board. But I didn’t. I wanted my board back.

  “Kids,” the man said to my father. “I got one of my own. He’s fifteen. Plays video games nonstop. Can’t figure him out.”

  “I know what you mean,” said my dad.

  I was smiling from ear to ear. Both men shook their heads and laughed.

  In the hallway, my dad asked the guy, “So, are you looking for a new janitor?”

  “Bet your ass we are, why?”

  “Can I apply for the job?”

  “Can you start tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “We’ll have to run a criminal check on you this week though. Is that okay?”

  “No problem.”

  Outside, in the cool morning air, the world seemed a little brighter. The funky smell of the brewery wasn’t present, and I thought I could smell the sweet salt air of the sea.

  My father took me out for breakfast, and we both ate like pigs. Which was very cool.

  “I always wanted to be a janitor,” he said, after we’d shoveled eggs, home fries and bacon down. He was joking, but it was a good joke. Then he smiled at me like the father I knew when I was little. Back when things were great.

  chapter four

  The next day, I heard my father get up early again to go to his job at the police station. I lay there looking at the cracks in the ceiling when it clicked. Sunday morning. The skate park would be empty.

  I shot out of bed and gathered yesterday’s clothes, dressed and grabbed my board. I kissed my board, I was so pumped.

  The skate park was beautiful. The air was cool, and there was no wind. The sun was low in the sky, and everything looked green and fresh. The smell of wet concrete was awesome. I thought I was alone. Then I heard the sound. Someone was in the bowl.

  When I saw her, my heart stopped.

  SLG came up out of the bowl and popped ever so slightly into the air, tagged her board with her hand, indy-style, and landed gracefully back down onto the arched wall of the bowl, making hardly a sound. She was alone.

  She went up the other side and did it again. As gravity tugged her back to earth, her ponytail swished up in the air in a way that paralyzed me.

  And then she leaped off her board, kicking it up into the air. She stood there staring at me. The frozen boy.

  And then she skated over to the half-pipe and continued her run.

  I rolled ever so cautiously up to the bowl she had just vacated. I dropped, went halfway up the slope and just kind of rolled around for a bit, afraid to try any tricks with her nearby.

  I was trying to get up the nerve to skate beside her, to introduce myself. But as I finally made my first real attempt on the lip, there she was. Right there, looking at me. I tried to ollie over onto the flat, but I lost my board and it tumbled below. And so did I.

  Ouch.

  She looked down at me without sympathy.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. She didn’t sound thrilled to see me.

  “Trying to avoid the crowds,” I answered, attempting to stand up and recover what was left of my dignity.

  “I liked having the place all to myself,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I got tired of all the agro guys during the week. Just not worth it.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  She stared some more.

  “You want me to leave?” I asked, fully on my feet now. I grabbed my board and walked up the sloped side toward her.

  “I dunno yet.”

  “That’s cool.” when it came to conversations with girls, I was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  “Got a name?”

  “Quinn Dorfman. Dorf for short.”

  She laughed. “I’d change that if I were you. Sounds too much like Dork.”

  “I’m used to it. I don’t mind.”

  “I’m Jasmine,” she said.

  “You’re kidding,” was my brilliant reply.

  “Jazz, for short. You go to Random, right?”

  “Yeah, I saw you too. You keep your board in your locker.” I made a serious effort to take my foot out of my mouth.

  “And you like to stare. I noticed.”

  “Sorry. I just thought...” I was going to say she was cute or pretty or beautiful, but I stopped myself. “I just thought you had a really hot board. Homegrown, right?”

  “Yeah. It was a present. My grandmother bought it for me.”

  “Your grandmother skates?”

  “My grandmother is dead now. And she didn’t skate. But she understood that some things are important.”

  “Sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “About your grammie being dead.”

  “How’d you know I called her Grammie?”

  “I didn’t. That’s what I called my grandmother. She’s dead too.”

  “Sorry.”

  “S’okay. Wanna skate? Before the place gets crowded?”

  “Sure.”

  And it’s just about then that a guy likes to show his stuff. He likes to show off. It was rather predictable, but I couldn’t help it. I ripped. And so did she. We had the place to ourselves for another forty-five minutes. The only problem was that she was as good as me. Maybe better. And she knew it.

  Then we were invaded by a rat pack of younger kids. Dweebs and dweebites on little bikes and scooters and a couple of skateboarders with runny noses.

  The scab eventually fell off my forehead, and my lip wasn’t as puffy anymore. I still had bruises on the backs of my legs, but they didn’t hurt that much. Ever since I met Jasmine, I started to feel a little better about school despite...well, despite everything else.

  As I walked by her locker, I stopped and said hi to her.

  “You’re still stalking me?” she asked. But she was smiling.

  I blushed immediately. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Just kidding,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  “How come you have rocks in your locker?” I asked.

  “Because I like rocks. I collect them. I’m going to be a geologist.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s cool.” A geologist? SLG wanted to be a geologist?

  She held out an amazing purple crystal. “This one is amethyst.”

  I held it in my hands and was dazzled by it.

  “And this one is an agate.” She showed me another rock, this one polished with an incredible design inside it. “My favorites are the geodes though,” she said and lifted out another one.

  “It’s hollow.”

  “That’s the cool part. On the outside, it looks like a dull, boring rock, but inside it’s like a magical kingdom.”

  The hollow cavern inside the rock had a thousand little crystals. “I know where some really cool rocks are,” I blurted out, trying to keep up my end of the conversation.

  “You do?”

  I handed her back the amethyst. “Well, they’re not like this, but they are amazing. Really amazing.”

  “Can you take me there some time?”

  “For sure. It’s by the sea. The town where I grew up. This place is a very special place.”

  “What are they?”

  “Huh?”

  “The rocks. What kin
d of rocks?”

  “Um. Granite, I think. They say that the rocks are hundreds of millions of years old.”

  Jasmine laughed again. “Of course. Most rocks are really old. And they all have stories to tell if you can read them.”

  “You read rocks?”

  “Yes,” she said as the bell rang, and she put her rocks back into her locker.

  “You must be really smart,” I said.

  “I am. I’m really smart.”

  I guess my face must have given away what I was thinking: How could a really smart girl ever be interested in a not-so-smart skate freak?

  “Hey, it’s not like an incurable disease or anything,” she said. “I gotta get to chemistry. See ya.”

  I wandered off to English class, feeling confused but happy. She said she’d go with me to Willis Harbor. To the Ledges. I’d ask my dad to drive. No. Better yet, we’d take the bus. I wouldn’t even tell her what the rocks had to do with skateboarding. It would be a surprise. It would be golden.

  The only thing I was good at in school was daydreaming. I couldn’t concentrate in class. I had a hard time sitting still. My mind wandered. I pictured Jasmine and me on the rocks at Willis Harbor. I could see it so clearly. But I was beginning to worry that once she realized who I really was, she’d lose interest.

  chapter five

  My mother had not called for over two weeks. No e-mail, no phone call. Nothing. I tried calling her cell phone a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. When I asked my dad about it, he said, “Let’s not talk about it.” And then he started to talk about it.

  “Things haven’t been all that great between your mother and me for a while now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “Your mother’s a good person. I think I disappointed her.”

  “I think I did too.”

  “Not you, Quinn. Me. I lost the job.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Well, I took it kind of hard. Seemed like I’d worked at that damn fish plant all those years, and I guess I figured I’d work there until I retired.”

  “But you have a job now.”

  “Well, now is a little late, isn’t it?” You could tell he was mad at himself.

  I wanted to say something to make him feel better. I wanted to help somehow, but I didn’t know what to say.

  He took a deep breath and changed the subject. “How’s school?” he asked for the millionth time in my life. Why do parents keep asking that question?

  “School’s great,” I lied. “I love it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, at least there’s a girl there.”

  “You have a girlfriend?” He was smiling now.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Jasmine.”

  “Her name is Jasmine?” He looked puzzled.

  “Jazz for short.”

  “Oh.” The name indicated a girl from a completely different world than the one my father knew. But I thought I’d distract him from his own worries if I told him more.

  “She skates. And she’s smart.”

  “Wow.” And that was the end of the best father and son talk we’d had in a long, long while.

  My mother must have sensed this, because she called later that night. It was midnight our time. My father answered, and I opened my bedroom door so I could hear his end of the conversation.

  It lasted about twenty minutes and seemed pretty serious. When he hung up, I went down to talk to him.

  “Why didn’t you call me? I wanted to talk to her.”

  “She said she couldn’t talk to you without crying, and she didn’t want that. Your mother misses you. She told me to tell you that.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s still training. But she’s already working part-time. Some kind of bulldozer. Can you picture your mother driving a bulldozer?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Is she homesick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you tell her about your job?”

  He hung his head. “No. I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer. He looked sad and defeated. It was like an infectious disease. I felt sad and defeated too. I felt like my mother had rejected me. Me and my dad were just a couple of losers in a crummy apartment. I hadn’t noticed the paint before now. It was the color of vomit.

  The next day, sad had given way to mad. I was mad at my mother for moving away. But I could see things from her point of view. I was also mad at the world. Sometimes you just get really angry about the way things are going. That was me.

  I got called on in math class. I forget what the question was, but my answer was the usual: “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not even going to try?” Mr. Carmichael asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You’re not going to get very far in life with that attitude,” he lectured.

  I wanted to say something mean. But I didn’t. I sucked it up.

  I had no intention of letting Jasmine see me like this, and I was avoiding her for once instead of trying to run into her. By noon I was fed up with school and split. There was really only one place I wanted to go—back to Willis Harbor. But I didn’t have money for the bus.

  Instead, I cruised down to the skate park. It was crowded with kids from nearby schools, but I didn’t care. I dropped into the bowl and elbowed my way around the little kids for a bit. Then I went over to the half-pipe and pushed for as much air as I could get. Each trip up the curve was followed by a serious drop as I connected with the wall halfway down the slope.

  The other kids must have seen the look on my face. They got out of my way.

  I was still mad, but skating helped.

  Just when I thought I had the half-pipe to myself, that creep on the mountain bike, Hodge, arrived. This time he was wearing sunglasses. Before I understood what was happening, he was shadowing my every move—on his bike.

  The guy was good. Real good. I didn’t think you could even do this stuff on a bike. But Hodge could. I didn’t slack off, but I had to be careful. Each time I’d slide down, he was there alongside me. But as soon as we hit the top and got air, he seemed to be able to hang there a freaking second longer so that I had to watch as he came down behind me.

  He was on my case, for sure. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, but I could tell this wasn’t just playtime for him. I remembered what it felt like when he’d brought his wheel down on the backs of my legs. He hadn’t been fooling around then. He was hoping to do some damage.

  I should have taken the hint and split. The other kids had seen me making these excellent power moves. I’d made my mark. Time to move on.

  But each time I tried to make my exit, the bike guy was in my path. He dogged my every move. Then, finally, as we both shot for the top lip, he picked up speed and launched himself even higher than before. I jammed my board on the top lip, hung for a split second and then dropped ahead of the bike. What I hadn’t counted on was Hodge coming down over top of me.

  He didn’t land on me. He went over me. He sailed over me and landed in front of me.

  One thing that bikes can do better than skateboards is stop with control. I guess that’s because they have brakes.

  As Hodge landed on the flat at the bottom of the half-pipe, he skidded sideways with the brakes on. And planted himself there like a wall.

  It all happened in an instant. Maybe if I had been watching from the sidelines, it all would have seemed innocent enough. Or it might have looked like my fault.

  I did a full-metal body slam into Hodge and his bike. Hodge had braced himself and stuck his knee out. The knee connected first—right into my crotch. Then I spilled forward onto him and his bike, knocking him over.

  More pain. Crotch. Elbow. Right foot twisted under the bike.

  Hodge’s sunglasses had not ev
en been knocked off, but he removed them as I peeled myself off him and his bike. My skateboard had kept on going up the other side on its own. It now came back down and smashed into the bike. I reached for it as I tried to stand, one hand holding onto my groin. The pain was starting to subside.

  Kids were laughing.

  Hodge looked at his bike first, then at me. He wasn’t laughing.

  “You never hear of right of way?”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said.

  “Whose fault was it then?” Hodge countered.

  Stupid game, I thought. I’m not going there. “Nobody’s fault,” I said. “Stuff happens.”

  I turned to limp away. And then he said that word again.

  “Yo, Freak. Wait.”

  chapter six

  I turned around. Hodge had his shades back on. He was sitting cross-legged on the concrete, smiling. I walked back to him.

  “Quinn Dorfman is the name,” I said.

  “I’m William Hodge. William. Not Bill.”

  “So. Bill,” I said, “you seem to be on my case. Is there a reason?”

  “No reason.” He flipped his shades up so he could look me in the eyes. “I just wanted to see what you’re made of.”

  “And?”

  “A-one skate freak. You don’t back down.”

  “Back down from what?”

  “A challenge. I like that.” William Hodge had that kind of smile that told you he always felt in control. It was the kind of smile you’d never trust. We had an audience, of course, but they were on the sidelines. “And you’re good. You game for the next level?”

  “Next level of what?”

  “What I do on two wheels, you do with four.”

  I looked puzzled, I’m sure. I mean, I couldn’t exactly skateboard on grass or go as fast as a kid on a bike. But I was curious.

  “Come on, Quinn. It’s just a friendly challenge. I’ve done it a hundred times. I’ve just never found a skater willing to try it.”

  “Where do we do this challenge?”

  “At my house.”

  “You got a half-pipe?”

  “Nope. You’ll see.”

  I was still skeptical. “What kind of surface?”

  “Asphalt shingles. It’s a piece of cake.”