Going in Circles

by Pamela Ribon

  My brain can’t compute what I’m watching. It still looks like madness on the track. The game seems to be over just as quickly as it started. A wheeled stampede.

  “So when the whistle blows again, then it’s over?”

  “Yeah. That’s called a jam, one round. Sixty seconds.”

  “What happens if the other Jammer gets all the way around?”

  “Then she starts scoring, too. That’s why the Lead Jammer should call it off before the other one makes a point.”

  I watch another jam. This time I notice the Blockers begin bumping into each other once the whistle is blown, knocking into each other’s arms and thighs. One girl skids out, landing on her knee pads. But she jumps back to her skates so quickly it’s like she’s got rubber in her kneecaps.

  A Jammer takes the lead. The girls watching from the center of the track are cheering, shouting at her to skate faster, skate harder, as she rounds the track alone. Within seconds she’s breaking through the pack, angling herself between other girls, sliding through. A teammate reaches back, grabs her by the hand, and yanks her forward, shooting her past two other skaters.

  “That’s called a whip,” Francesca tells me, pointing.

  Once the Jammer gets through the pack, she pounds her hips with both fists. The whistle is blown.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Francesca pats her pelvis. “That’s how you call off the jam.”

  I cannot believe how hard these girls are skating, how fast they can go, and how brutal this sport it. In the next jam I see a girl slide pretty much on her face, narrowly missing getting her fingers run over. Another girl rams right into the wooden barricade. She bounces off, turns in a circle, and keeps skating. At one point two girls slam into each other and both fall down. Another girl quickly approaches from behind. Right when I’m about to shield myself from witnessing the pileup, the skater jumps over them and keeps going. Nothing seems to faze them.

  These women are all different shapes and sizes, and they move like they were born with roller skates attached to their feet. You’d think they were in tennis shoes, the way they can maneuver themselves around. If I put on a pair of Rollerblades I look like an astronaut stumbling through an unknown gravitational pull.

  “Do they get paid for this?” I ask. “Like, is this a job?”

  Francesca just laughs.

  The skaters take a break and move to the center of the track to start stretching. They take off their helmets, and I’m taken aback by the long hair that flows from their heads. After all that brutality, that aggression, their femininity makes them seem like superheroes.

  Francesca turns to me, beaming. “What do you think?”

  My heart is racing, and trying to imagine Francesca doing this makes me a bit nauseated. But, if I have to be completely honest, it looks like a lot of fun. Part of me wishes I were brave enough to try something like that, to be the kind of woman who could just strap on some skates, climb onto the track, and take off. It must feel pretty great to be able to go that fast, to slam into someone and not worry about the consequences. To be an athlete. To be strong and confident and fit. I get winded from climbing the stairs to my apartment.

  “I don’t know what to think,” I tell her.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

  “It looks incredibly dangerous.”

  “Oh, it is. When I first started, I broke my collarbone.” She points at her left clavicle, her tiny fingers sticking out from underneath her wrist guard. “That sucked.”

  “No, it sucks to lose your keys. You broke your collarbone.”

  “It got better. But I lost two months of practice. It took forever to get back in shape.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “About a year.” She looks up, thinks. “Yeah, I can’t believe it, but it’s almost been a year. Wow, that went fast. I hope to get drafted to an official Hot Wheels team this year.”

  “And this is why you always look like someone just beat you up.”

  “Um-hmm. Because someone did.” She points at a girl climbing off the track. “Usually, it’s that one. She’s a beast.” I notice the girl’s T-shirt. On the front it says HOT WHEELS DERBY DEVIL. The back has her name: KILLERIFIC.

  “And you don’t get paid for this?” I ask again. “At all?”

  Francesca shakes her head, smiling. “In fact, it costs a whole lot of money to do this.”

  “Well, you’re insane.”

  “And you’re next. Come play with me. Meet me here after work and I’ll put you in some skates.”

  I take a step back. “No way.” Even if there’s a small part of me that’s curious, I couldn’t possibly show up and do this. I’d look ridiculous. They’d send me home, laughing and pointing. “I don’t even know if I remember how to skate.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s the rookie class. They call it Training Wheels.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You have to do it. It’s the new rule.”

  “What rule?” I ask. “Kill Yourself?”

  “No.” I watch a bead of sweat roll from her forehead to her chin as she breaks into a wide smile. “Do Something That Scares You.”

  A swell of laughter comes from the skaters as they chat with each other over their sport bottles.

  “I think I’m better off trying to quit the Internet,” I tell her.

  “You’ll never do that. But this you can do.”

  “I don’t have knee pads. Or a helmet. I’ve never needed a helmet. In fact, I kind of don’t want to ever need a helmet in my life.”

  She’s grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat. “All you have to bring is a mouth guard. And I seem to recall you’ve got one of those. Don’tcha, Charlie?”

  “Damn.”

  A girl calls from the track. “Pastor, get the fuck over here!”

  Francesca jumps. “That’s me.”

  “What’d she call you?”

  But Francesca doesn’t answer me. “Coming!” she shouts toward the track, as she hustles into her helmet and skates away. Over her shoulder she shouts back at me, “Tomorrow night! It’s a rule!”

  I’m gonna get killed.

  18.

  I haven’t been on roller skates since I was ten years old. This time, instead of a side ponytail and cute little terrycloth shorts, I’m wearing two sports bras, an old T-shirt, and shorts that come to my knees. I wanted to look tough, like a girl who wasn’t as scared as I am to be inside this warehouse, but I think I look like I’m ready to paint the garage.

  Francesca skates over to where I’m sitting on a bench. Her giant black helmet makes her look like a carpenter ant. “You look great,” she says. “Does everything fit okay?”

  I feel like I’m wearing an exoskeleton. “The elbow pads aren’t too annoying, but the wrist guards you gave me smell like they were pulled off a corpse.”

  “You’re so hard-core. I love it. Ready?”

  “I don’t think I can get up.”

  She holds out a hand and helps me get to an incredibly tenuous standing position.

  “Thanks, Francesca.”

  “No, I’m not Francesca,” she says, shaking a finger at me. “Not here. Nobody knows who Francesca is.”

  “What?”

  She rolls her eyes. “We have derby names.” She points out the other girls putting on their gear. “She’s Bang-Up. She’s Spank DaMonkey. That one’s Sandra Day O’Killer.”

  “Wow.”

  “Shut up,” Francesca says as she bumps into me with her shoulder. My skates roll out from under me and I immediately fall to the floor, smacking the concrete. A sharp pain shoots up my forearm.

  “Yikes,” Francesca says, helping me up. “Are you okay? That had to have hurt.”

  “It did.”

  As she helps me back to my feet, she instructs, “Try not to use your hands to break your fall. Fall toward your knee pads or your hips, where you have extra padding.”

  “You mean fall on my fat ass, not my
skinny hands.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why didn’t you laugh when I fell? That’s not like you.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to quit yet.”

  There’s the sound of wheels on the track picking up behind me as I watch the remaining few girls strap into gear. They look like action movie heroines prepping to battle fierce alien enemies.

  I shake my head. “Derby names, huh?”

  “Mock it now, but you’ve only got three months to come up with your own. And you’d better like it, because your real identity? It’s gone.”

  I have to admit there’s something intriguing about the concept of losing my real identity, about becoming someone else entirely. I could disappear under this helmet and just beat the crap out of people, become some kind of bruiser, a brawler. A take-no-shit, hot-shot lady. But it’s absurd to think of myself that way. I’m sure I’ll go home crying the second one of these women so much as gives me a glare.

  “So, who are you, then?” I ask. “What’s your derby name?”

  She spins on her heels, revealing the back of her baby blue T-shirt. In hot-pink letters it reads, BLOWIN’ PAST’ER. I have to say it out loud before I get the double entendre.

  “Lord,” I say.

  She winks. “Exactly.”

  A voice booms through the warehouse. “Okay, Training Wheels, get on the track! Now! Now! Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Francesca looks genuinely frightened as she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Trashy was teaching today.”

  “Trashy?”

  “Trashcan Punch. She’s kind of brutal.”

  “Brutal how?”

  “Come on.” Francesca skates away, hustling to the stairs that lead to the track. I grab my water bottle and follow, surprised at how quickly I’ve remembered how to skate. I thank ten-year-old me for all those endless loops around my neighborhood.

  Climbing onto the track, I accidentally drop my water bottle. Before I can catch it, it goes rolling down the slope, straight to the center where it’s flat.

  I try to stand up, but immediately my feet slip out from under me and I fall. I don’t know how to stand at an angle, and these rental skates they’ve got me in are missing toe stops. I try to stand, holding on to the railing, but I slip again. There’s a line of women waiting to get on the track right where I’m standing in front of the steps, so I pull up onto my knees and slowly crawl over to my water bottle, real smoothlike.

  The bottle is resting at the skate of a very tall woman. I guess it’s possible that she’s not all that tall. It could just be the effect of roller skates and a helmet on anybody who is standing directly above your head. But this muscular redhead is glaring at me with one eyebrow cocked and a grin smeared across her face like she’s a giant who’s just discovered the lost little villager soon to become her afternoon snack.

  “You’re the Super-Wheelie, right?” she asks. “Pastor’s friend?” Her voice is low and sarcastic, like I amuse her no end simply by being here. I instantly feel a shaky combination of fear and humility. I want to apologize for entering what is clearly her lair.

  “I’m with Pastor,” I tell her, adding, “but I don’t know what a Super-Wheelie is.”

  “It means you’re new. Fresh Meat.” She rubs her hands together gleefully. “We love fresh meat.”

  I can tell she’s kidding, but she’s not completely kidding, yet she’s still kind of kidding while letting me know that she’s about to be directly responsible for the kicking of my ass. My stomach feels like a swirling bathtub drain, emptying right down into my thighs, which have gone numb.

  It takes a few seconds of pure determination, but I pull myself up and put out my hand.

  “Charlotte.”

  She takes my fingertips between her thumb and forefinger and wiggles them, amused that I thought a handshake was somehow possible while wearing wrist guards. “I’m Trashcan Punch. Call me Trash. You ready, Super-Wheelie?” she asks.

  “Of course,” I lie.

  “Good,” she says, and then turns to the rest of the group. Her voice turns into a guttural growl. “Okay, Wheelies! Get on the track! Everybody on the track!”

  Wait, that’s it? Now I’m just doing this? What is this that I’m doing? How do I skate? How do I stop? What am I going to do?

  I stumble-step over toward the track, my heart racing. I didn’t tell anyone that this is new for me. Did Francesca? Does anybody here know that I’ve never done this before? Should I tell them, just so they know not to hurt me?

  I feel a pull on the back of my T-shirt. I turn around to see Francesca, her grinning mouth puffed up from her mouth guard.

  “You’re going to be fine,” she says, all muffled. She takes out her mouth guard before dropping her hand onto my shoulder. “Think of this as a skating lesson. But listen. Don’t touch anyone, especially if you’re falling. Don’t grab onto anybody. Keep your mouth guard in your mouth all the time. But most importantly, if you fall, get right back up or roll to the flat part of the track and then get the fuck out of the way.”

  The cursing must be a part of the mind-set that comes with the level of insanity required to play this game.

  Trash is now wearing a headset microphone. “Ladies! You have thirty seconds to get on the track, or I’m making everybody do thirty minutes of squats! Don’t test me!”

  “Have fun,” Francesca says, and then totally abandons me.

  I jam my mouth guard in between my teeth. I stand at the part of the track where it’s flat the longest, before it curves around. Thirty or so women are skating along the track, some quickly, some at a more leisurely pace. A few seem to be going through drills, zigzagging up and down the slope of the track, racing each other. I watch one girl turn around in front of me and continue skating backward along the track just as quickly as she was skating forward, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.

  Some of the girls are leaning forward as they skate, their hands clasped behind their backs. They look so serene, so peaceful. If I hadn’t already seen what it looks like when an actual game is being played, I would think I was about to engage in some easy-breezy couples skate.

  I was terrible at Double Dutch. I never knew when to jump in between the two swinging ropes in order to get to the center. I’d stand there rocking back and forth on my feet for an eternity, until some other girl would coach me, screaming, “Now! Now! Now!” Even then the ropes would hit me straight in the neck half the time.

  I’ve got that Double Dutch feeling as I’m watching these women barreling toward me while I’m supposed to jump up on that track. When do I go?

  “Get on the track!” shouts Trash. “This means you, Super-Wheelie! If you don’t get up there, everybody else has to come down and do squats, and then everyone will hate you. Do you want everyone to hate you?”

  I shake my head, feeling my helmet rattle. It feels like it’s trying to jostle my brain into reality: Get out of here while you still have all of your limbs!

  Trash yells at me like Godzilla finding speech: “Go! Now! Now! Now!”

  I jump in with my eyes slammed shut, just like I did playing Double Dutch.

  I’m on the track, pushing my feet, skating in what feels like the world’s most important race. I wobble around the curve, trying to find the right way to position my weight at this angle. Girls are shooting past me. From either side, they call out: “Inside!” “Outside!” I try very hard to stay right in the center, right where I won’t be in anybody’s way.

  “Behind you, sweetheart!”

  “Watch your arms!”

  My elbows are winged up near my ears, like I’m trying to figure out the chicken dance. As I drop my arms, I feel someone grab me gently by my hips, and she eases me to the right. It is surreal to have someone controlling my direction from behind, like I’m a toy car.

  “Inside,” she says, as she blows past me at a speed I cannot comprehend. Is she wearing special skates? And how can she be so fearless?

  I l
ook down at my skates and immediately start to pitch forward. My hands fly out in front of me. I’m terrified that when I go down everybody is going to fall on top of me and this is absolutely the last few seconds of my life because I can’t control what is happening and I’m falling I’m falling I’m falling.

  Wham.

  I’m still alive, but I’m still on the track. And all I can hear are skates are coming closer. I open my eyes and see—

  skates are coming at my face.

  This is where my brain disconnects from my body. In order to prepare for what will surely be intense pain and extreme physical trauma, I feel my mind detach from my nerves, float far away, and examine things like there’s all the time in the world.

  “Get up, get up, get up!” Someone shouts as she passes me, lifting a foot that barely clears my head.

  And all I can think is: Yes, I would love to. But see, skates are coming at my face. I am terrified.

  “Get up or get off the track!”

  Don’t you understand, skater girls? Skates are coming at my face. My face, where my teeth are. Where my eyes live. I never really thought about how many very important things are on my face.

  “Get up!”

  My nose is on my face. I need my nose.

  “Help me get this girl up.”

  I feel myself getting lifted under the arms and spun around until I’m facing the right direction. I try to thank whoever it is, but I’m still confused, disoriented. I take a single step forward, and it’s like I’ve forgotten that I’m on skates. My legs splay in two different directions and I fall to my ass, hard. It hurts so much that I fall onto my back, trying to catch my breath, my head resting on the track. I’m pissed off and disoriented. Have I even technically skated yet?

  I hear skates coming at me again, and then . . . I hear nothing. But what I see is a girl jumping over my head, the bottoms of her skates a touchable distance from my face. I hear the slam of wood next to my ear, followed by the cheers of onlookers.

  Now I can hear Trash on the overhead speakers. “Super-Wheelie, you must get up! Get up before you hurt somebody!”