“Can we go to your room?” she said.
They lay on his bed. He kissed the tears away from her eyes, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth. Her hand reached behind and he heard a zip; her dress slipped down to her knees and then to the floor.
Alex started getting scared.
“I want to make love to you,” she said.
Really scared.
“But I want it to be safe,” she said. “Do you have ... anything?”
Alex could see his underwear draw from where he was lying. In fact, he could probably reach it. Still, it seemed a long way from where he was at.
He shook his head. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do it now.” He kissed her cheek. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
CHAPTER 28
360 Flip
The next week Alex got a parcel from Sydney containing a letter, photos, a contract and a catalogue.
The photos were a sequence shot of him kick-flipping it down 9 in Maroochydore. The letter said that the photos would run in a national skateboarding magazine to introduce him as the newest member of the Zen team, as long as he signed the contract. The contract offered free decks and clothes for a year, and the catalogue had pictures of all the gear he could choose from. He took out his pen and signed it then and there. It was his best autograph yet.
To say that Alex was stoked would be like saying that Tony Hawk can pull a few moves on a skateboard. Alex showed Chief, Sharon and Sam and called up Jimmy and Becky.
Jumping on his worn-out board (though not for much longer) he cruised to the skatepark. Casey was having a rare go on the street section, pulling smith grinds and half cab shove-its on the quarter pipe. And to think he only skated street for fun.
Alex told him the good news and Casey slapped him on the back.
“Welcome to the team, mate. How does it feel to be a sponsored skater?”
“No different,” said Alex. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Good. It doesn’t matter whether you skate for product, money or fun. You should do it because you love it, else that board will be whisked from under your feet.”
Casey had some good news about Possum. He had been AWOL since Alexander Headlands but had recently turned up at a skate comp in Sydney like nothing had happened. He was sober, so Mike let him skate for Zen, and he won the street section like it was a roll in the park. Apparently his girlfriend had given him an ultimatum, saying he could see his daughter but only if he stopped drinking. Possum chose his daughter.
For some reason Alex couldn’t miss a trick. It was like his feet had magnets. He nailed a k-grind to fakie on the quarter pipe and a frontside flip off one of the boxes. It was time to give it another shot. Alex looked out onto the streets of Beeton and called it. “Three sixty flip!”
Picking up speed down the ramp he sized up the funbox in the middle of the park. He tucked his back foot into the toe side of the board and popped it hard when he got near the top. The board flipped and turned, his legs attempting to juggle ply two metres above the ground. The board returned to his feet like a boomerang, still a metre in the air with nothing for him to do but smile and fly.
It had been a year of contrasts. Becky and Claire. Truth and lies. Love and lust. Life was no longer black or white, the water neither deep nor shallow. But somehow, he was okay. He was better than okay, and life was more than something to fear. It was a possibility.
His feet landed over the bolts and the board powered down the slope with Alex standing on top of it. If there was a God He invented skateboarding. If there was a heaven it felt like this.
Alex looked over to Casey who gave him a clenched fist and a yell. Beside Casey was a girl. Alex wondered what she was doing here.
“Steve told me to come,” said Kim Lim.
“Where is he?” asked Alex.
“In Juvenile Detention. He’ll be there at least a year, he reckons.”
“What does he want?” said Casey.
“He wants to say sorry,” said Kim, “even though he did nothing wrong.”
“How do you make that out?” said Casey.
“He was teaching them a lesson. Skateshops are part of an industry designed to keep a couple of people rich and rip off the rest. They get decks made in a sweatshop for a few bucks, stick on the name of a sponsored pro like you ...”
And me, thought Alex.
“... to suck kids in, and sell them for a huge profit. Someone’s got to show them it’s wrong.”
“All stealing does is teach shops to put up their prices to make up for lost profits,” said Casey. He flicked up the board with his foot and caught it. “Listen, I respect where you’re coming from. I’ve talked to people all over the world on what skateboarding is about, what the industry should do. But what you’re doing is chucking stones from the outside. Trying to instigate change through hate. It doesn’t work. It’s the difference between Bin Laden and Gandhi. Someone who wants power over others rather than someone who gives power to others.”
They had a long discussion. Casey had read heaps of books and Kim had a sharp mind, even if it was a long way left of centre. Alex couldn’t understand everything they talked about but was happy to listen. In the end they found they agreed on more than they disagreed on, and agreed to disagree on the rest.
“We should talk politics more often,” Casey said to Kim. “Everybody should have their minds open to new possibilities, especially skaters. And next time I wanna see you in action. I’ve heard you rip.”
She blushed. “I can’t 360 flip like Alex.”
“Is Steve allowed visitors?” Casey asked.
“Only on Saturdays. He didn’t think you’d want to ...” She hopped on her board. “You know, he made me come today. He didn’t give a stuff about anyone else, but he made me promise to say sorry to you.
“He can say it himself on Saturday.”
After Kim left, Alex reminded Casey about what he’d said in the car on the way up the coast: that it was harder for someone to change than it was to land a 900.
“It doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” said Casey, looking up at the vert. “Not at all.”
CHAPTER 29
RE Presentation
“Claire and I agree that boys and girls want the same thing when it comes to relationships.”
Billy Johnstone whispered something to Zane Beard and they chuckled.
“They want someone to love them and make them feel good. Sometimes the two agendas ...’’
“Genders!” whispered Claire.
“... I mean genders, have different approaches. But that’s what makes life interesting. I’ve learnt this year that nothing good comes easy. But I reckon that trying to understand each other, trying to love one another, is worth it.”
Alex took a breath, was thankful that another oral presentation was over, and sat down. They got a clap and a few whistles and Claire looked over and gave him a smile. She’d done a great job preparing for the talk — maybe because she’d had more time than usual. She’d been single for almost a month, something that hadn’t occurred since Year 4. Everybody was waiting for her to go back to her old self but it hadn’t happened. Not yet, anyway.
All this talk about relationships made Alex think of Becky. She had made up with her dad. Well, sort of. They decided it would be better if she was coached by a tennis pro rather than by Alf. They still practised together and he came to watch her play, and Becky said he hadn’t made one negative or embarrassing comment since that day. Though this could be because Becky had won all her matches.
Alf had also agreed to give her more freedom. Now, he and the dog stayed home when Becky and Alex walked to the station after dinner. Alf even let them see a movie with Jimmy and Sarah, though he dropped Becky off and picked her up afterwards.
As for Alex’s virginity, well, he still had it. For one thing Becky had changed her tune. She said she wanted to be sure she was ready, rather than have sex for the wrong reasons. And she said that when she offered herself to Alex that day,
it was because she needed to feel loved, not because she felt love.
Alex wasn’t overly disappointed. In fact, it made his life a lot less complicated. If there were more sessions like the one at his house he wasn’t sure how long he could hold out. Saying no to semi-naked girls wasn’t one of his strengths.
“Boys and girls are totally different. Boys think about sex all the time, girls only sometimes. Though when girls go out with me they think about sex a lot. That’s because I’m a porn star.”
It was Billy Johnstone. He was presenting with Linda Staccone, who had dumped him not long after the retreat. A couple of kids giggled, though not as many as when Billy called himself a porn star last year, and even fewer than when he did it in Year 8.
Some people never change, thought Alex.
But some people do.
First published 2003 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
www.uqp.com.au
© Pat Flynn
www.patlfynnwriter.com
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
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Sponsored by the Queensland Office of Arts and Cultural Development
Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Flynn, Pat
Alex Jackson: Closing Out
For young adults.
1. Skateboarders – Fiction.
2. Boy-girl relationships – Fiction
I. Title.
A823.4
ISBN 9780702233531 (pbk)
ISBN 9780702256783 (pdf)
ISBN 9780702256790 (epub)
ISBN 9780702256806 (kindle)
Alex Jackson: Closing Out Page 9
