Michael: Michael

by Phillip Gwynne

  ‘Hey, Mike. How many laps did you do this morning?’ he said.

  Fadi was always fascinated by the number of laps I churned out, probably because he wasn’t a great swimmer himself. He was an amazing rugby player, though.

  ‘Three k’s,’ I said.

  ‘Awesome! We don’t even run that far when I do rugby training.’

  ‘Yeah, but you guys spend a lot of time smashing into each other.’

  ‘My favourite part,’ said Fadi, smiling.

  We walked together for a while, not saying anything, but as we were about to go into class, a question popped into my head.

  I remembered the promise I’d just made myself, but I couldn’t help blurting, ‘Have you seen that guy bombing the Hill on one of those downhill boards?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Fadi.

  ‘He must be mad, right?’ I said.

  ‘Really mad! Have you ever stood at the top of that hill and looked down?’

  I nodded, though I hadn’t actually.

  ‘I would never have the guts to do that,’ said Fadi.

  Wow! Fadi was the toughest kid in our school, and he’d just admitted that he wouldn’t have the guts to skate down the Hill.

  ‘What about you, Mike,’ he said. ‘Reckon you could do it?’

  ‘No way,’ I said.

  The siren went then, and we hurried towards our classroom, but as I sat down at my desk I wondered why I had been so quick to agree with Fadi. Maybe, just maybe, I had whatever it takes to skate down the Hill. I wanted to find out.

  As usual, Dad was waiting in the car for me after school.

  ‘Hi son,’ he said through the open window. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘It was okay, I guess,’ I said, tossing my bag into the back seat.

  Behind me the kids were piling onto the bus, pushing and shoving, yelling at each other. I used to be part of all that before Dad started driving me everywhere.

  At the time I was sort of glad – catching the bus was such a drag after all that training. But right then I just didn’t feel like getting in the car with Dad again, talking about swimming again.

  ‘Hey Dad, would you mind if I caught the bus home today?’ I said.

  ‘Really, the bus?’ he said.

  He had the same hurt look on his face as this morning, when Mr Olympic Relay Medal had made fun of our Commodore.

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  But the smile returned to its usual position on his face and he said, ‘Okay, then. I’ll have some banana cake ready for you when you get home.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said.

  I hurried over to the bus and paid the fare. As I walked up the aisle, Fadi and another big kid – I think he was Samoan, too – were sharing a seat, their shoulders squashed together. Earphones in, they both had their eyes closed, nodding their heads to music. I don’t think Fadi even knew I was on the bus.

  The only empty seat was right at the back and had chocolate milk spilled all over it. Now, I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to be on the bus. I looked for my dad’s car, but it had already gone.

  I did my best to wipe the milk off, and sat down as the bus lurched off.

  The girl in the next seat – she looked like she was about twelve – turned around and said, ‘You’re that swimmer, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said.

  ‘You have to do a lot of training, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  She thought about this for a while, chewing on her bottom lip, and then she said, ‘Doesn’t it ever get boring?’

  I’d been asked the question many times, and I’d always said something like, ‘No, not at all, I love training.’

  But right then, all the training, all the early mornings, the endless laps, came crashing down on me.

  I looked at the girl and said, ‘Yeah, it gets boring, really really boring.’

  ‘Then why do you do it?’ she said.

  A few answers appeared in my head: because I want to swim for my country one day; because, like Coach says, discipline is a good thing; because I want to make my parents happy. But I didn’t use any of them. Instead I said, ‘Actually, I’m not sure.’

  Right then the shopping centre came into view, boasting the usual shops like Target and David Jones and Woolworths. But, squeezed amongst them, was a much smaller shop that was called ‘Extreme Surf and Skate’.

  When we pulled up at the stop, I found myself getting out of my seat, getting out of the bus, and joining the other kids heading towards the shops.

  I thought about going into Woolies. I thought about going into Target. I even thought about going into David Jones.

  But who was I kidding? I made straight for Extreme Surf and Skate.

  It was empty, except for the shop assistant, a guy who was about twenty and had a cool skater look about him: hair that was untidy but in a tidy sort of way, a shirt two sizes too big, torn-up baggy jeans slung low.

  ‘Hey dude, how you doing?’ he said, when he saw me.

  ‘I’m good,’ I said. ‘I’m just looking around.’

  ‘Sure, go ahead,’ he said.

  First, I checked out the surfboards, though I’m not a surfer. Then the boogie boards, though I’m not a boogie boarder. Then the board shorts, though I’m not a board shorter. Then the sunglasses, though I’m not a sunglasser.

  Basically, I checked out a whole lot of stuff I had absolutely no interest in.

  Until there was only one thing I hadn’t checked out . . . the skateboards, the downhill skateboards.

  ‘You interested in a deck?’ said the assistant, appearing at my side.

  ‘Sort of,’ I said.

  ‘So you’ve skated downhill before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even short boards?’

  ‘No.’

  I was feeling more and more useless.

  ‘Actually, that can be an advantage,’ he said. ‘If you’ve spent years tooling around on a short board, it can take a while to adjust to the longer ones.’

  ‘It can?’ I said.

  ‘Dammed right it can. Anyway, my name’s Gabe,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  I shook Gabe’s hand, and said, ‘My name’s Mike.’

  ‘Okay, Mike. Look, for a beginner there’s really only one option,’ he said, pointing to a board. ‘This Sector Nine Downhill Division board is the perfect board for a grommet. With these trucks and bushings it won’t be too twitchy. Plus you can run this thing into a gutter ten times over and it won’t break.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said, which was probably more like a ‘Wow, I really know nothing’ than a ‘Wow, that’s a great board’.

  Gabe took the board from the rack.

  ‘Here, have a feel,’ he said, handing it to me.

  The deck gleamed, one of the wheels spun slowly . . .

  I guess I had a choice then: not take the board, get out of the shop, catch the next bus home, and forget this skating thing. Or . . . I took the board.

  ‘It doesn’t weigh much,’ I said.

  ‘It’s tough, though,’ said Gabe. ‘Ten plies of Canadian maple with a layer of fibreglass on the top and bottom to reduce the torsional flex.’

  I turned it around a few times in my hands, pretending to know what I was doing.

  Then Gabe said, ‘Why don’t you take it for a roll?’

  ‘Where?’ I said.

  ‘Right here,’ said Gabe. ‘Cruise around the shop.’

  ‘No, I don’t . . .’ I started, but Gabe wasn’t going to let me get any further.

  ‘Hey, Mike. Nobody’s judging you here. We all start somewhere, so why not right here?’

  Why not? I thought.

  Gabe placed the board on the floor.

  ‘So, here’s some basics to get you started,’ he said. ‘Which way is your natural stance?’

  ‘Uh, natural stance?’ I said.

  Gabe smiled. ‘Well, if you stand with your left foot forward you’re a regular rider. If you stand with your right
foot forward you’re a goofy rider.’

  Already I was slightly confused, but I took a chance and stood on the board with my left foot towards the front.

  ‘This feels weird,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should try it the other way.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Gabe.

  I stepped back on the board with my right foot towards the front and immediately felt more comfortable.

  ‘Definitely a goofy rider!’ said Gabe. ‘Okay, take your back foot off the board and use it to push yourself forward.’

  I did just that and managed to roll for about a metre before the board slipped out from under me. I landed with a thud, and the runaway board took out the legs of the sunglass rack. Sunglasses flew everywhere and I sat on my backside, already feeling discouraged.

  ‘No worries,’ said Gabe, noticing the look on my face. ‘That happens to everyone the first time. Give it another shot while I sort these sunnies out.’

  I gave it another go, and this time when I felt the board trying to slip out from underneath me, I centred my weight. Avoiding another embarrassing crash, I managed to roll from one end of the shop to the other.

  ‘Nice,’ said Gabe. ‘You have great natural balance. And you really haven’t skated before?’

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I’ve always been too busy swimming. My dad doesn’t approve of downhill skating.’

  ‘That stinks,’ said Gabe.

  I picked up the board and handed it back to him. ‘So how much are they?’ I found myself saying.

  He told me how much – thirty dollars more than I had. That’s it then, I thought. It’s time to get out of here, and to get home and do what I usually did: eat stuff and get ready for more swimming.

  ‘I’ll leave it,’ I said.

  ‘No worries, dude,’ said Gabe.

  I was halfway out of the door when Gabe’s voice caught up with me. ‘Yo Mike, if you don’t have enough dosh for the board I can do it for a bit less.’

  I stopped and turned around.

  ‘How much less?’

  ‘For a stoked young grommet like you, I reckon I can knock thirty bucks off.’

  Again I found myself saying something I didn’t really want to say, ‘I’ll take it.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Gabe.

  ‘I don’t have the cash on me,’ I said. ‘But I can come back on Saturday.’

  ‘Sweet,’ said Gabe, ‘I’ll be here then so that works fine.’

  As I waited for the next bus, I replayed the last hour or so of my life in fast forward a few times. Each time, however, it ended up at the same place: me saying I’d use all the money I had in the world to buy a skateboard!

  I was a swimmer, not a skater. And what would my parents say if I rocked up with a Sector Nine skateboard?

  Tomorrow I’d ring Gabe up and tell him that I’d changed my mind and didn’t want the board. But how was I going to stop thinking about skating? I had training the next morning. Maybe I could just swim the whole skating thing out of my head.

  ‘Rise and shine!’ I said, as I knelt by my parents’ bed. ‘Rise and shine!’

  Dad’s eyes opened slowly.

  ‘Michael?’ he said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Sure, Dad,’ I said. ‘But I thought we could get to training a bit earlier so I can do some extra laps.’

  ‘Earlier?’ he said.

  ‘That’s right, earlier.’

  ‘But the pool’s not open any earlier,’ said Dad.

  He had a point, a pretty good one.

  Mum’s eyes opened then. ‘Is everything okay, Michael?’

  ‘Sure, Mum,’ I said.

  ‘Give me a second,’ said Dad. ‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a nice early start this morning.’

  Dad was right, when we arrived at the pool, it wasn’t yet open.

  ‘Mike,’ he said, as we sat in the car.

  ‘Yes, Dad?’

  ‘You know that your mum and I . . . well . . . we never thought you’d be the wonderful swimmer that you are.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, thinking of how much I used to pester my parents to take me to the pool.

  ‘In fact, I used to hate the early mornings,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ I said, because I’d never heard my father complain once.

  Dad put his hand on my arm.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that it wouldn’t matter if you gave up swimming tomorrow. Mum and I have just been so happy to have been along for the ride.’

  ‘Who said anything about giving up?’ I said.

  ‘Nobody,’ said Dad. ‘I just meant it if you wanted to . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I said. ‘We’re still on track for those Tokyo Olympics in 2020!’

  Just then Coach pulled up in his car. We joined him as he made for the entrance.

  ‘You two are keen today,’ he said.

  When training started, I set out to prove just how keen I was.

  ‘Okay boys,’ said Coach to Bev and me. ‘A k at half pace.’

  I did the k at pretty much full pace.

  ‘What – gasp – are – gasp – you – gasp – up – gasp – to – gasp?’ said Bev, coming in quite a few seconds after me.

  ‘Nationals are getting closer, it’s time to amp it up,’ I said.

  ‘Five two hundreds at three-quarter pace,’ said Coach.

  I did the five two hundreds at full pace.

  ‘You – gasp– are – gasp – mad,’ said Bev, pulling in even more seconds after me, his face a crazy shade of red.

  I was hurting, too. Hurting like I’d never hurt at training, but I was determined to guts this out. Even when Coach said, ‘No need to bust a lung, Mike.’

  The last drill was ten fifty-metre sprints.

  I had absolutely nothing left in the tank, but I swam these like my life depended on it. When we’d finished, I hardly had the energy to drag myself out of the pool and into the change rooms.

  ‘What was that all about, Quinlan?’ said Bev, sitting slumped on the bench.

  ‘It’s called training, Jenkins,’ I said.

  ‘You trying to prove something, Quinlan?’ he said.

  ‘It’s called training, Jenkins,’ I said again.

  ‘That was some session, son,’ said Dad, as we got back into the car.

  ‘Yeah it was,’ I said. And I realised that I hadn’t thought of skating once.

  But, as we drove back home, as we crested the Hill, Dad said, ‘There’s that idiot skater, again!’

  Don’t look, I told myself.

  But I did.

  I looked, and I saw Skate Dude flying down the Hill, flying so fast it was like he was going to take off. And I had the same thought as the other day: he was having fun. And I wasn’t. But maybe I could change that.

  It was Saturday morning. I got out of bed, and put on jeans, a hoodie and runners. I grabbed my money out of its hiding place inside my old Xbox. I made my way downstairs, hoping that the parents were doing their usual Saturday morning supermarket shop.

  I was in luck, neither of them were home.

  As I closed the front door behind me, I hesitated: I wasn’t really allowed to go to the shopping centre by myself! But then I realised how crazy that was – I was thinking about skating down an enormous hill, and here I was stressing about going to a shopping centre on my own.

  I pretty much ran all the way there, so when I entered Extreme Surf and Skate I was still catching my breath.

  Gabe was standing in front of the skateboards talking to a group of four kids.

  I stood at the back of the shop, because I didn’t want to interrupt, but as soon as Gabe caught sight of me he said, ‘Mike, my man, I’ve been waiting for you to cruise by. You come to get your board?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  Gabe turned to the other kids and said, ‘Mike’s getting himself a Sector Nine Downhill Division.’

  ‘That thing is so sweet!’ the smallest of them said.

  ‘Yeah, that w-concave
is sick as!’ said another.

  They sure knew stuff, all that ‘sweet’ and ‘sick’, and I felt like a bit of a fake, like they were more deserving of this board than I was.

  But I handed Gabe my cash, and he handed me the Sector Nine Downhill Division.

  Just as I was about to leave he said, ‘Got yourself a good skid lid, Mike?’

  Oh no – I’d forgotten to bring my bicycle helmet!

  ‘It’s at my house,’ I said, but I was pretty sure that if I went home now Mum and Dad would be back from their shopping trip and I wouldn’t be able to go out again.

  Gabe looked at me for a while before he said, ‘Hang on a sec.’

  He went into a little room at the back of the shop and came out holding a helmet with Sector Nine stickers plastered all over it.

  ‘It’s yours,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘I’m not using it much now.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the helmet.

  ‘No worries,’ said Gabe. ‘But remember, Mike. You gotta cruise before you can shred.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and I headed out of Extreme Surf and Skate and towards the Hill.

  After two buses and a long walk, I was there. I was at the top of the Hill.

  I looked down, my heart bouncing around in my chest. I thought about how hard I’d hit the ground if I fell off. Hill? This thing was a mountain! One of the Himalayas got separated from its family. Mount Everest’s kid brother!

  Cars vroomed by. A pack of cyclists grunted their way up and over the crest. A huge truck grinded its way past.

  I was still looking down when I heard a voice from behind. ‘Yo!’

  Skate Dude was there. In his jeans. Sneakers. Gloves. Knee pads under jeans. Elbow guards. Carrying his helmet in his hand. Except Skate Dude wasn’t a dude. She was a girl. She was the girl from the bus.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m Skeeter. Nice board.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sweet, isn’t it? Sick as?’

  ‘Good deck to learn on,’ she said, her eyes moving to the helmet I was holding. ‘You buy it from Gabe?’

  ‘Yes, you know Gabe?’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘So he still skates?’

  ‘He used to, but then he ate it hard and called it quits,’ she said.

  ‘Ate it hard?’